The Polisario Front and the winds it sowed
Many of those who formed its core – comrades in arms, youth and ideals – are now its harshest critics. They are privileged witnesses to how a project that was born for liberation has paradoxically led to perpetual exile and war, placing the Sahrawi people in limbo on the brink of the abyss.
Fifty years after taking up arms against Spain with the promise of independence and dignity, the Polisario finds itself exhausted at a terminal crossroads. Historical attrition, strategic errors, authoritarian drift and internal divisions have ultimately eroded its credibility and the viability of its independence project.
The recent resolution promoted by the United States in the Security Council at the end of October—which advocates a political solution based on autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty—has effectively buried the old dream of a ‘Platonic republic’ in Western Sahara.
The bitter irony is that this formula is too similar to the proposal that Spain put on the table in the last days of Franco's regime and that the Polisario rejected and blew up in an act of arrogance that precipitated Spain's departure and the signing of the Madrid agreements with Morocco in 1975.
The Polisario's response, an act of childish short-sightedness, had catastrophic consequences: it confused intransigence with honour and chose to intensify kidnappings and guerrilla warfare without gauging the international context. Thus, with their own hands, they dug the foundations of a reality that today the international community – and a large part of the Sahrawi people – perceive as a historical error of monumental proportions.
Dazzled by Gaddafi's revolutionary rhetoric and, above all, by his petrodollars, those young founders—poor and fascinated by the romanticism of Third World guerrilla warfare—abandoned an initial project marked by ambiguity: it was never clear whether they aspired to independence from the former Spanish colony or to integration into Morocco, as their first banners in 1972 suggested. Due to their immaturity and inexperience, they allowed themselves to be seduced into establishing a franchise of the Libyan Jamahiriya in Western Sahara, without realising that such an experiment was, in the eyes of the West, equivalent to a pro-Soviet enclave in the middle of the Atlantic. The Sahrawis paid for this recklessness with blood, exile and half a century of uncertainty.
From ‘liberation’ to limbo
The founding nucleus of the Polisario Front emerged in the impoverished town of Tan-Tan, in southern Morocco, with few tribal links to the population of the Sahara. Most of its early leaders, educated only in Arabic and with limited training, viewed the traditional Sahrawi elite and the young people educated under Spanish administration, who had enjoyed a significantly higher standard of living and expectations, with suspicion from the outset.
Instead of integrating the Spanish-speaking human capital—which was better educated and more socially structured—the Polisario chose to marginalise it as part of a “social engineering” strategy aimed at fragmenting the internal fabric. By replacing a shared identity with tribal primacy, social cohesion was deliberately weakened and political control facilitated. The manoeuvre was simple: send the most skilled into ‘diplomatic exile’, while key political and military positions were concentrated in the Tan-Tan circle, where personal affinity and power calculations shaped an endogamous and hermetic leadership.
What began as a liberation movement became an opaque power structure, closer to a sect than a modern political project, leaving the Sahrawi people trapped in a limbo with no way out.
In the Tindouf camps, the leadership attempted to impose a Maoist utopia alien to Sahrawi culture. It even went so far as to recommend not practising Ramadan fasting in the name of a misunderstood ‘progress’. Traditional notables — including former members of the Spanish Parliament — were humiliated by being relegated to menial tasks. Nomadic families were confined to refugee camps, subjected to strange rules and practices.
Interference in daily life reached grotesque levels: even what was cooked in homes was decided. The family unit was fragmented by imposing labels such as ‘revolutionaries’ and ‘reactionaries’, 'patriots' and ‘traitors’. That seed of hatred took deep root and still contaminates relations between relatives today. Women were organised into uniformed committees, with assigned tasks and choirs prepared to applaud the leaders of the ‘revolution’ in Korean style. This superficial order concealed an oppressive machinery of control, typical of an Orwellian regime, installed in the middle of the Algerian hamada.
In the shadow of this system, hundreds of Sahrawis were torn from their tents or military units on charges as ridiculous as they were unfounded. Rachid's secret prison became the epicentre of repression: extrajudicial executions, medieval torture, programmed starvation and systematic humiliation left an indelible scar on the collective memory.
The cynicism reached obscene extremes: while innocent people were accused of collaborating with the enemy, many leaders had their own parents in the Moroccan army and moved their families to the territory to benefit, without blushing, from the aid of this 'enemy'.
Moral collapse
Since then, the deterioration has been unstoppable. Thousands of people—including historic leaders and legendary commanders—have abandoned the movement, seeking refuge in Morocco. After the 1991 ceasefire, many families embarked on a silent exodus to Mauritania, Europe or Spain. The Polisario has gradually been drained of its most valuable human capital.
Sectarianism, abuses of power and immobility have reduced social support to historic lows. A growing number of Sahrawis now openly question the viability of an independence project hijacked by an ageing and inept leadership. While keeping the masses in extreme conditions in Tindouf, the movement's elite sent their families to Europe, far from exile and war. Paradoxically, those who used anti-Spanish rhetoric to marginalise the original population ended up competing to settle in Spain in order to educate and mould their ‘prolific’ offspring in the ‘colonial culture’.
For many Sahrawis, Morocco is no longer the 'mythical' enemy, but a lesser evil, an opportunity or simply a guarantee of stability in the face of the chaos of a revolutionary movement that has long since run out of revolution, roadmap and future.
It is up to the Sahrawis of the territory, the main victims of this long journey, to draw conclusions and regain the prominence that was denied them for decades. Instead of continuing to be extras or ‘useful idiots’ for the interests of others, they should take control of their destiny and move towards an honourable solution that guarantees them stability and prosperity in their own land.
The Sahrawi ‘Feast of the Goat’
Ironically, the organisation that promised to liberate the Sahrawi people ended up being their worst curse. By sacrificing social norms, individual freedom and common sense in the name of an absolute cause, administered by tribal and gang loyalties, the Polisario sowed the winds it is now reaping: isolation, discredit and a dying political project.
Half a century later, the balance sheet is bleak. A significant portion of the Sahrawis regret having been dragged by the Tan-Tan gang into an adventure marked by ambition and improvisation. And more than a few experience bitter relief — but relief nonetheless — upon realising that the ‘platonic’ republic never materialised. Had it done so, it might have degenerated into an African version of The Feast of the Goat, giving rise to a tyranny fuelled by tribal rivalries, repression and, probably, civil war.
Time and history will eventually put everyone in their place: those who sought realistic solutions and the Polisario leaders, clinging to an impossible project that has only produced sacrifice and pain. Until then, one bitter certainty remains: a cause that promised dignity ended up devoured by its own winds, leaving a people exhausted and fractured, forced to reinvent their future without those who swore to lift them up and ended up sinking them.
Hach Ahmed, first secretary of the Sahrawi Movement for Peace (MSP)