The year 2025 will be decisive for the Sahara

The first secretary of the Sahrawi Movement for Peace, Hach Ahmed, analysed the conditions of the Sahrawi people and the crucial moment in which we find ourselves for a definitive solution on the programme ‘De cara al mundo’ on Onda Madrid. He also considered a possible third negotiation by the United Nations. 

Mr Ahmed, why do you in the Saharawi Movement for Peace (MSP) consider that the year 2025 could be decisive for the definitive solution to the Sahara problem? Could Trump be a key factor in addition to everything that is happening?  

Yes, indeed. We are approaching a crossroads where common sense and good sense are increasingly prevailing, at least as far as the Saharawis are concerned. The time has come to break out of this loop that we see in the UN-sponsored political process, which has been going on for 30 years to resolve this problem peacefully. 

Time is passing and part of the Sahrawi population is still waiting and subsisting in dire conditions in exile in the Algerian region of Tindouf.  

Should violence be avoided, as has happened recently? 

It has been proven that the military route is impossible and leads to nothing but useless bloodshed.  

Last week, several young Sahrawis and several others lost their lives following the intervention of a Moroccan drone after the shelling of Mahbes, north-eastern Western Sahara. The day before in a similar action there were other casualties, including a childhood friend, Mohamed Ali, who left several children orphaned. And so it has been almost every day since 2020 when the Polisario Front irresponsibly decided to renounce the ceasefire decreed in 1991 by the UN. I find it incomprehensible, as I told Mr De Mistura in a letter, that with the presence of the blue helmets and a UN ceasefire in force, these deplorable events continue to take place. 

The MSP's proposal for an agreement with Morocco can be insisted upon. 

Given that a military solution is out of the question and that the political process led by the United Nations has not been able to progress as envisaged 30 years ago, it is logical to open another door and give a chance to the MSP's proposal for a compromise solution announced at the Dakar Conference in October 2023.   We believe that our approach, which advocates a solution without winners and losers and therefore a political agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco, is not only viable, but the only one at this stage that can open a stage of tranquillity and prosperity for the Saharawis and peace and stability for the region as a whole. 

There have been important developments in the Sahara in recent weeks. 

The timing is appropriate because of the confluence of a number of events such as the latest meeting of the United Nations Security Council and the report of the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura. Incidentally, I take this opportunity to welcome and welcome on behalf of the MSP the adoption of Security Council Resolution 2756 extending MINURSO's mandate for six months and encouraging the Special Envoy to continue his efforts as facilitator. 

In the course of these discussions in New York, it became clear that the Sahara issue is at a complex crossroads, a situation which, in particular, calls on the Saharawis to reflect calmly and responsibly and to strive to find a way out of the tunnel. 

In this reflection, what options do the Saharawis have other than autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty? 

After fifty years of suffering and waiting, our options as Saharawis are few: to continue chasing mirages in exile in Tindouf dreaming of impossible military victories, which is tantamount to a journey towards collective suicide; or to take the path of common sense by opting for the possible political solution proposed by the MSP. 

Autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is supported by the world's major countries, with the culmination of French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Rabat. 

Of course, the influence of countries and powers such as France, whose president on his recent visit to Rabat made clear his position in favour of Morocco's 2007 autonomy proposal, in addition to that of another no less influential country, Spain, and recently that of Germany and others, weighs heavily in this context. And, as if that were not enough, the accession to the US presidency of Donald Trump, whose position is well known. 

Are you optimistic? 

I would like to be optimistic and believe that perhaps this succession of events could be positive for those of us who are committed to a peaceful solution, a solution in which there are neither winners nor losers, which must be just, lasting and in accordance with international law, as all the UN resolutions state and as these same powers recognise.

I have a feeling that 2025 will be a decisive and, who knows, perhaps miraculous year. 

And, Mr Ahmed, it is the reality of a broad autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, as the King of Morocco says, which is the real world and the legal world, because, as long as the United Nations does not recognise this reality, there may be cases that negatively affect the Saharawis living in Dakhla, in Laayoune or in Guelmim, that the Court of Justice of the European Union may annul trade agreements, in short, issues that also negatively affect the interests of the Saharawis. 

Experience has shown that the world of reality is what ultimately prevails. Until now we have been operating in the world of fantasy and international bodies as the magic wand of basic legality.  

In the end it has been proven that reality is stubborn and that is what we have to accept and assimilate in order not to waste time and energy on impossible projects. These conclusions and lessons are what led us to opt for the compromise formula, believing that the autonomy proposal presented by Morocco in 2007 could be a starting point in the search for a settlement. 

Many relevant countries are committed to this path. 

We must explore this path. This approach is what has led to increasing confidence in our project among the Saharawis.  

That is the right path, the path of the possible solution, in which, of course, Morocco's high interests are taken into account and there is great scope for the Saharawis to find the conditions to run their own affairs through a special status and their own entity with sufficient competences, resources and institutions. 

Right now, Mr Ahmed, the conditions are in place for the United Nations to make a third attempt at the negotiating table. We will see what Algeria says, what the Polisario says, but the Sahrawi Peace Movement should also be recognised by the United Nations. It should be able to sit at the negotiating table in order to reach the definitive solution that reality demands, as you have rightly said, a broad autonomy for the Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty.  

For the tripod to be able to stand, it needs that third leg, and that is the Sahrawi Movement for Peace, because of its realistic positions, its common sense, its pragmatism, and that is the element that is missing for this political process to move forward. 

The Polisario Front is not the only representative of the Saharawis. 

It is clear that fifty years after its founding in the Cold War era, the Polisario has suffered a great deal of wear and tear.  

Much has rained and many winds have blown since then. The Berlin Wall fell, the Arab Spring came and went. It is reasonable that the Saharawis should seek, integrate and accept to be represented by other political forces and stop believing in the ‘sole and legitimate representative’ embodied by the single party.  

A solution is urgently needed.  

It is very interesting to recall that despite the substantial support Morocco has obtained for its autonomy proposal, the need for a just, lasting political solution in accordance with international law continues to be insisted upon, and this is the margin in which we want to move and ensure that the solution is indeed acceptable to the Saharawis and that, above all, it has international law as a reference point through solid guarantees. 

This is the purpose of the Movement. We hope that in the next stage our proposal will be taken into account as the third way and that we will have the space we deserve in the political process and in the new format that must be implemented in order to break the deadlock.