Morocco's Royal Institute for Strategic Studies publishes a White Paper on the Sahara, which questions Spain, France and Algeria

Morocco's Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES), headed by the prestigious academic and senior Moroccan state official Mohamed Tawfiq Mouline, has just published a White Paper on the Moroccan Sahara, which can be seen as an invitation to the main international actors involved in the dispute over the former Spanish colony to engage in a serious and in-depth debate on the issue. 

The White Paper details in depth 'the dismantling of the Hirifian Empire by the colonial powers', in reference to France and Spain, during the 19th and 20th centuries; powers that, on the other hand, 'recognised in different ways in their bilateral treaties and agreements with Morocco, the sovereignty of the Hirifian Empire over the Sahara'. 

In a sober, scholarly and detailed style, this IRES work on the Sahara reviews the relations of the different tribes with the Sultan of Morocco, embodied in the act of the Be'ia, which is considered the most complete form of Islamic jurisprudence as far as the attributes of their sovereignty are concerned. "Founded in 789 by Sultan Mulay Idris I, Morocco is one of the oldest internationally constituted states. Although it has evolved significantly', the White Paper notes that 'Morocco has maintained its political and institutional foundations, such as its monarchical character and its adherence to the rules of Muslim public law, particularly with regard to the exercise of power'.  

The detailed work includes a study of the current situation in the "Moroccan Sahara", formerly "Spanish Sahara" and later "Western Sahara", both in the territory itself, with its spectacular economic, commercial, technological, social and cultural developments, and in the refugee camps in Tindouf, under Algerian control and responsibility. Contrast the multiple development of the Sahara promoted by the Moroccan state, with the deteriorating social and health conditions of the tens of thousands of Saharawis held by the Polisario Front militias who, under the strict tutelage of the Algerian government, represent a factor of growing instability in the entire Sahel-Saharan region, the document argues.  

Faced with the Algerian regime's systematic rejection of the 'outstretched hand' offered by King Mohammed VI, thus preventing the development of the Maghreb as a regional entity, the White Paper points to the need to re-establish relations between Morocco and Algeria as soon as possible, the real crux of the problem, for the benefit of all the populations of North Africa.  

Aided by the publication of unpublished maps of the Hirafi Empire dating from the colonial period, the IRES document recalls that since the 11th century, when the Almohad dynasty that emerged in the Sahara reigned, this emporium of trade routes has constituted the central axis of the Moroccan state as an engine of political transitions, an economic corridor between the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa, and a space for encounters and exchanges through which Morocco spread Islam on the African continent.  

"Since the end of the French Protectorate in 1956, Morocco has not ceased to demand the total decolonisation of the whole territory and in particular the Sahara, a region of 266,000 square kilometres, located between Tarfaya in the north and Cabo Blanco in the south, amputated from the Jerifian Empire by Spanish colonisation between 1884 and 1975, when Spain withdrew". 

The persistence of the conflict, considered artificial by the IRES, has given rise to the process set in motion by the United Nations at Morocco's request for a peaceful solution. King Mohammed VI has offered as a fair and amicable way forward an advanced regionalisation that will allow local populations to take the levers for their development and progress into their own hands; a proposal accepted by many countries and by the main powers, including Spain.