US proposes a new approach to the Sahara crisis

According to the online newspaper, it should involve the four main protagonists (Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and the Polisario Front), and a small group of countries directly involved in the conflict, namely Spain, France, Britain, Russia and the United States. 

Is this an appropriate framework for resolving the half-century-old conflict between the Moroccan government and the Polisario movement over the sovereignty of the former Spanish African colony? The question merits reflection and debate.  

The crisis in the former Spanish provinces (when Spain withdrew from the Sahara it signed an agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco and the Republic of Mauritania to which it transferred the administration of the territory pending a referendum of the population, an agreement that was deposited in the UN register) has become entrenched.  

The UN has not been able to resolve the dispute; no fewer than seven Secretaries General have been forced to throw in the towel. The main protagonists have held numerous meetings, bilateral Polisario-Moroccan and general meetings between the four parties, and have disagreed on almost all points of contention: census, status of refugees, role of the Polisario Front, cessation of armed confrontation, institutional architecture of the region... The Polisario Front, backed by Algeria, clings to a referendum on self-determination originally planned by the UN but which has been shelved de facto for 20 years, while the Kingdom of Mohammed VI has proposed the solution of autonomy for the territory within the Moroccan sovereign framework, with an internal status for the administrative and governmental structures elected by the local population still to be elucidated. 

The proposal made by Joe Biden's Democratic administration, if confirmed, would be the best international guarantee for the implementation of the agreements that "the four parties concerned" could reach.  

Morocco has no confidence that Algeria will respect the possible roadmap adopted by the conference, nor that the Polisario Front will agree to lay down its arms and integrate into the autonomous region in the form agreed, and that it is only a tactic to continue the armed struggle for independence within the disputed territory.   

For its part, Algeria and its Sahrawi side do not trust Morocco to respect the rights and freedoms of the population of the territory in the event of the establishment of regional autonomy. Nor does the Polisario Front look favourably on being caught in the crossfire and being an ace up the sleeve of each of the two hegemonic powers in the Maghreb. 

As for Mauritania, it fears that the Sahrawi minority living in its sovereign territory will be used as a bargaining chip by the other three protagonists.

International guarantees would only be achieved if the third countries involved were to set themselves up as arbitrators and judges in the conflict. If the US, Russia, France, Britain and Spain limit themselves to the role of hosts, the mini-international conference will be another failure. But if this quintet of powers gets involved and imposes its control, the conditions can be met to definitively resolve the conflict and lay the foundations for a coordinated development of the Maghreb region.  

The involvement of the major powers, which in other scenarios are directly confrontational, could begin to shape a strategic balance in the Atlantic-Mediterranean and North African region, in the face of the "negotiation of the new global balances" that will result from the international geostrategic upheaval that is taking place.