Memories of an experience of the Green March
Memories that remain fresh in my historical memory from when I was still a rebellious young student at the Alonso de Villa Cisneros Secondary School, having just turned sixteen. My prominent participation as a student leader in a demonstration organised against the Spanish colonial presence during the visit of the United Nations Visiting Mission in May 1975, made up of Ivory Coast, Iran and Cuba, in front of the Catholic church ‘Nuestra Señora del Carmen’ in the Plaza de España.
These were difficult times of great political upheaval, uncertainty, political infantilism and revolutionary fervour against colonialism and imperialism.
From the city of Marrakesh, King Hassan II, known for his political ability to turn crises into victories, delivered a historic speech in October 1975, broadcast live on Moroccan radio and television, addressed to the Moroccan people and the whole world, announcing the organisation of the Green March shortly after the verdict of the International Court of Justice in The Hague was announced. As a leader of great wisdom, an expert theologian in Islamic sciences and Koranic law, and possessing a deep knowledge and mastery of international law and its main regulatory and governing mechanisms, he gave a masterful and positive interpretation of the final outcome of the ruling in favour of the Moroccan thesis, while clearly explaining the legal act of loyalty of the Sahrawi tribes to the sultans of the Kingdom of Morocco since ancient times as a legal instrument confirming Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in order to continue legally claiming Morocco's territorial integrity as a firm and irreversible decision.
On 6 November 1975, the official departure of the Green March began from Marrakesh to Agadir, before continuing on the planned route towards the border. Tens of thousands of Moroccan volunteers, with the Holy Quran in their hands and chanting the slogan ‘God, Country, King’, headed for the border to recover the Sahara in a civil and peaceful manner.
It was the most outstanding news story of the time. It was a real bombshell, widely reported in the world press, especially in the main Spanish newspapers, with different headlines and images of the participants with the national flag and the portrait of the King on the front pages of all the newspapers of the time.
Spain sent a letter of protest to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Austrian Kurt Waldheim, through its permanent ambassador to the United Nations, Jaime Piniés, who, in statements made years later, said that he had no knowledge of secret negotiations taking place between Madrid and Rabat during his tenure as head of Spain's diplomatic mission in New York.
Prince Juan Carlos, after his lightning visit to the city of Laayoune on 2 November to reassure Spanish troops on high alert and ready to repel any violation of the border, assumed the Spanish head of state as King of the Kingdom of Spain weeks before the death of General Franco on 20 November, and sent his representatives to negotiate secretly with Rabat, with the approval and mediation of the United States, to establish the terms of Spain's withdrawal from the Sahara.
The prevailing political circumstances in Spain at the time did not allow for a declaration of war on Morocco. Franco's serious illness, reported daily to the Spanish people in an official medical report, opened a waiting period for Spain's entry into a period of political transition after forty years of Franco's rule since the end of the Spanish Civil War.
On 14 November 1975, the Tripartite Agreement between Spain, Morocco and Mauritania was signed in Madrid, the main clause of which states: ‘Spain, as the governing power of the Sahara territory, transfers the administration to Morocco and Mauritania on a temporary basis until the indigenous population of the territory decides its fate in a popular consultation’.
Shortly afterwards, Spain officially declared its definitive withdrawal from the Sahara, announcing the start of Operation Golondrina to evacuate its civilian and military personnel. And on 26 February 1976, it ended its colonial presence, thus interrupting the process of decolonisation of the Sahara territory that had begun belatedly after a hundred years of colonisation.
On that day, in an official ceremony marking the withdrawal and transfer of power, the Spanish flag was lowered and the Moroccan national flag was raised in the city of Laayoune.
I personally hold a child's passport with travel charges as the last Spanish document issued by the Government of the Sahara, made in Dakhla, formerly Villa Cisneros, during the Spanish colonial era, one day before the withdrawal on 25 February 1976, and signed by the government delegate of the Southern Region to transfer me to the city of Laayoune to continue my studies at the Laayoune Institute under the responsibility and management of the Spanish Cultural Mission chaired by my excellent Canarian language and literature teacher during my second stage of Basic General Education (EGB) in Dakhla.
Among the most decisive and influential factors in the history of Spain's premature withdrawal, the impact of the surprise of the Green March can be considered the most decisive, followed by General Franco's serious state of health the Polisario Front's categorical rejection of the Spanish offer in a letter written in demagogic language to integrate into peaceful political life and join the Party for the Sahrawi National Union (PUNS) chaired by Jalihena Uld Rachid, current president of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS) to negotiate and agree on a limited period of autonomy for the Sahara, the political concern to ensure the development of the political transition period in stable and secure conditions, without forgetting in our considerations the external factor represented by the constant pressure from the United States and France together with the Spanish Government to withdraw and hand over the territory of the Sahara to Morocco in their strategy of the Western alliance against the socialist bloc led by the USSR, which broke up and disappeared in the early 1990s due to the effect of Mikhail Gorbachev's new perestroika mentality.
From this point onwards, the saddest episode in the history of the Sahrawi people began: armed conflict, exodus, the death of loved ones, family dispersion, the outbreak of endemic diseases among children, and refuge in the most inhospitable desert of the Hamada of Tindouf in south-western Algeria in appalling and unacceptable inhuman conditions.
Over time, during the course of this cruel war, we began to discover the hidden truths of the misnamed ‘national liberation and independence project’ led by a group of young Moroccans of tribal origin from Western Sahara, natives of the city of Tan Tan, in southern Morocco, who had been marginalised and persecuted by the local authorities for their militancy and subversive activities in Moroccan left-wing parties, specifically in the Communist Party of Ali Yata of Tangier, as students at the University of Rabat in the early 1970s. The false national liberation project was not ours, nor was it for us, but rather served the geopolitical interests of third countries whose capitals, Algiers and Tripoli, regularly welcomed Polisario Front leaders to receive instructions and action plans to be followed with the ultimate goal of wearing down Morocco politically, economically and militarily in the context of historical confrontation and rivalry in order to neutralise its leadership at the regional, Arab and African levels. This was in addition to a score to settle since the 1963 Sand War between Morocco and Algeria over the territorial dispute in the Tindouf region, rich in iron ore and with significant gas and oil reserves, whose maximum profitability is only viable with access to the Atlantic Ocean from Western Sahara.
Throughout this endless process of silence and oblivion, which has amounted to fifty years of suffering, we have lived in the Tindouf refugee camps under constant destructive pressure due to the notable absence of any signs of authenticity, despotism in the exercise of office, false elections to choose legitimate representatives, unjustifiable merits and privileges, lack of autonomy and independence in fundamental decisions about our destiny, favouritism, misappropriation of humanitarian and solidarity aid and funds, human rights violations, etc.
The Sahrawis are more aware today than yesterday thanks to their experiences in very adverse socio-political and economic conditions. Local voices with legitimate representation within Morocco are beginning to emerge, calling for more active participation in the management, treatment and resolution of the Western Sahara conflict at the national and global levels. And Morocco is more determined than ever to grant autonomy with broad powers following the adoption by majority vote of Resolution 2797, approved on 31 October by the Security Council, which explicitly recognises the Moroccan autonomy proposal presented in 2007 as the most viable starting point for direct negotiations without conditions to resolve the conflict.
Work is currently underway to develop the legal framework for the Moroccan autonomy proposal with the legal assistance of friendly countries to guarantee the interests and rights of the local population in accordance with the basic principles of the United Nations Charter and the interpretation of the concept and meaning of the right to self-determination in its broadest dimension and scope in all areas under international law, based on models and experiences of advanced autonomous states and viable experiences such as the Basque Country and Catalonia in Spain; Scotland in Great Britain and New Caledonia under French administration as a non-autonomous territory pending decolonisation, which is in the process of being implemented and applied by February 2026.
Today, fifty years after the Green March, we are witnessing major socio-economic transformations and the implementation of major key projects in the Saharan provinces under the reign of Mohammed VI.
The diplomatic battle is in its final stages in favour of Morocco and its strategic allies, who recognise its sovereignty over the Sahara. It is also for the general good of the indigenous population of the territory, the main victims of this conflict and its negative consequences, to assume their responsibility in managing autonomy and being masters of their own destiny.
Sidi Machnane, graduate in International Relations, former member of the Sahrawi Commission for the Referendum, former member of the Polisario Front's Foreign Relations Committee, and former president of the Maroc Vert Foundation.