50 Years of Western Sahara's Occupation: Sahrawi Voices on Morocco & The Ongoing Struggle

Can you pinpoint one of Africa’s last remaining colonies on the map? It is located in the very west of North Africa, hugging the Atlantic with Mauritania to its south and Morocco to its north: Western Sahara. 

This November marks 50 years since Morocco invaded Western Sahara. A people made invisible by the world, the Sahrawis have been fighting for their inalienable right to self-determination for half a century.

“Our fight should be the fight of everybody who believes in the power of people standing together against oppression and occupation,” Sahrawi women’s rights and climate activist Najla Mohamed-Lamin tells OkayAfrica. “The Sahrawi struggle is the struggle of Palestinians, Sudanese, and Congolese.”

A classic case of colonialism

In the wake of decolonization across the continent, Spain was pressured to give up its colony, then called the Spanish Sahara. Instead of consulting the indigenous people of the land, Spain arranged with Morocco and Mauritania to take over in the Madrid Accords, a tripartite agreement that excluded the Sahrawis. 

On November 6, 1975, Morocco’s King Hassan II gave 350,000 unarmed civilians permission to cross the border into Western Sahara, to claim what they believed was historically part of their kingdom. Known as The Green March, this event was a mass movement of settlers, and forced Spain to abandon the territory even earlier. 

The Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement, Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro, better known as the Frente Polisario, had been fighting to expel Spain since 1973. Amidst Morocco and Mauritania’s advances, the Frente Polisario proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic on February 27, 1976, and waged a guerrilla war against the new occupiers.

During this conflict, tens of thousands of Sahrawis were displaced, fleeing Morocco’s systematic bombing with chemical weapons. The majority have since been living in refugee camps in Algeria. 

Mohamed-Lamin was born and raised in Smara camp, where she runs her own education and climate program for women and children. “Resistance has defined my entire life,” she says. “When you are born in a refugee camp, you come to life in a struggle. Resistance is an instinct and an obligation.”

With the support of Algeria, the Frente Polisario fought off Mauritania and challenged Morocco until the two agreed to a ceasefire in 1991. The UN mandated Morocco to hold a referendum, and Sahrawis rejoiced in anticipation of returning to their homeland. 

50 years on, the referendum is still pending, and Morocco controls over two-thirds of Western Sahara’s territory. 

An unfair autonomy plan - who’s really protected by international law? 

Even though The Green March was condemned by the international community at the time, clearly recognizing the occupation of Western Sahara as an act of colonial violence, the narrative has since turned. 

Morocco has successfully utilized diplomacy and fiscal power to maneuver its way out of political isolation. In 2007, it drafted an autonomy plan based on the assumption that Western Sahara is part of Morocco. This plan is disputed not only by the Sahrawis, but also by the UN, the World Court, the African Union, and a broad consensus of international legal opinion. Still, the UN Security Council endorsed a slightly modified version of this plan on October 31.

“We see this as a corruption of the international community and a threat to humanity,” says Mohamed-Lamin. “When those countries give themselves the agency to rob a whole nation of their fundamental human right — the right to self-determination — what are you reflecting to other regimes of the world? If one regime can manipulate international law, anybody can do it.”

At the same time, Mohamed-Lamin stresses that the Sahrawis need international law as much as the rest of the world, if there is ever to be an international order of accountability and democracy. 

“We are angry, because some other nations, who don’t even know who we are and have never met us, decide on our name without consulting us,” she continues. “But seeing that the international community could not stop the genocide in Gaza, Sudan, and what’s happening in Ukraine, we are not too shocked. We are just one of those examples.”

International solidarity and responsibility, Morocco has invested in the tourism sector and secured agreements with international partners. Due to the disputed political status of the territory, travelers are advised to verify the destination of their travel, and consumers are encouraged to confirm the origin of products labeled as being from Morocco to ensure they are not sourced from Western Sahara.

“I want tourists to try to travel to Western Sahara at the end of their vacation,” Sahrawi human rights defender, journalist, and curator Asria Mohameb Taleb tells OkayAfrica. “There, they will notice the differences, and it is more likely they will be expelled. Morocco doesn't allow journalists, activists, artists, students, or even UN experts to enter the territory.”

Why try to enter a closed territory? Taleb gives three reasons: “To break the silence on the territory and show the Moroccan occupation that you are watching them. To show the Saharawis activists and human rights defenders in the occupied territories that they are not alone. And to send a signal to your own government that this is a territory they should pay attention to.”

Western governments choose to ignore the obvious signs in favor of trade and migration agreements, or to invest in renewable energy projects. Mohamed-Lamin warns of the “green plunder” of resources like phosphates, fisheries, and critical minerals.

“The Sahrawis are paying the price for stability and privileges in Europe,” she says. “We’re paying for Spanish beaches to be free of illegal migrants and drugs from Morocco. We’re paying for their access to cherry tomatoes and fish. If Western governments speak up, Morocco uses these economic interests to punish them.” 

“Saharawis have the law as their card, and Morocco has REAL politics,” says Taleb.

A new dawn in Morocco?

Moroccan youth are protesting against their own government and for Palestine. Is there a chance they will begin seeing the parallels of occupation happening in their own region? Might they be able to look beyond indoctrination and propaganda and realize that their own liberation is inextricably linked to the liberation of Western Sahara? 

“I do not think the demonstrations in Morocco will have any direct influence on the issue of Western Sahara,” says Taleb. “I have only one thing to say to the Gen Z in Morocco: they and the Saharawis have a common enemy, which is the Moroccan state. They are unemployed because their government spends so much money to uphold the occupation. The protesters should never let the state use this resolution’s fake victory to distract them from the fair demands for a better life.”

“This conflict is not over, and it will not be over until the Sahrawi people are granted their fundamental human right to self-determination,” says Mohamed-Lamin. “If we sacrificed 50 years to solve this conflict, we can and will give more. We will use every possible means of resistance, and it will outlive all colonizers’, fascists’, and white supremacists’ visions of North Africa.”