Towards a solution to the conflict in Western Sahara

Marruecos dispuesto a hablar con los independentistas del interior si rompen con la tutela de Argelia

photo_camera PHOTO/REUTERS - Boudjdour refugee camp in Tindouf, southern Algeria

The digital publication le360.ma, very close to the Moroccan Royal Palace, has broken down a major psychological barrier, writing this week that "the separatists of the interior (referring to the territory of the Sahara, the former Spanish colony), can become official interlocutors" of the Moroccan power "if they break their ties with Algeria". The official publication does not set any other conditions, either that they should change their political positions, or that they should abandon their socio-economic claims or stop supporting Saharawi prisoners serving sentences in Moroccan prisons, or even that they should renounce maintaining links with the Polisario Front. The only condition that le360.ma talks about is that of getting rid of the tutelage of Algiers. 

This change in Morocco's position to engage in dialogue with the "separatists of the interior" could be very significant if taken advantage of by Saharawi currents that advocate unconditional dialogue between the Saharawis and the Moroccan government in order to settle the conflict in Western Sahara once and for all. Currents such as the now extinct CODESA, ASVDH and other organisations that defend civil society and democratic rights and freedoms that have emerged in the Sahara over the years and are generally headed by former political prisoners. 

It is no coincidence that the proposal put forward by the digital official coincides with the meeting that the Sahrawis in favour of the Sahrawi Movement for Peace, has just made in Dakhla (formerly Villa Cisneros) in preparation for the congress that the newly created training wants to make throughout this year. The preparatory meeting in Dakhla, chaired by Abdallahi Hadad, a member of the political committee of the MSP, was held in the presence of dozens of Saharawis, women, men and young people and without the Moroccan authorities preventing it. Saharawi sources consider themselves concerned by the "proposal" of le360.ma, which they attribute to the Royal Palace. From the MSP they announce that there will be other meetings prior to the training congress, which will take place in El Ayoun, Oued Nun, Mauritania and Europe. 

In a recent interview granted by the first secretary of the MSP, Hach Ahmed Bericalla, to Atalayar, the Saharawi leader declared himself to be in favour of unconditional negotiation, non-violence, dialogue and peace with the Rabat regime in order to seek a definitive solution to the conflict. 

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