The Puzzle of Nonviolence in Western Sahara

ABSTRACT

Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that has been controlled by Morocco since 1975, has seen virtually no violent resistance by the indigenous Sahrawi people since the conclusion of a 1975–1991 war between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front. That lack of political violence is puzzling in light of several factors, including broad support for independence, socio-economic disparities between Moroccan and Sahrawi inhabitants and Morocco’s repression of Sahrawi culture, resistance, and expressions of pro-independence sentiment. This article examines the absence of violence and draws lessons from Western Sahara: why some populations resort to violent resistance and others do not, and how best to frame and to study politically charged subjects such as insurgency, terrorism, and sovereignty. In addition to advancing theories of nonviolence, this article makes a methodological contribution to the study of resistance movements and improves our understanding of the conflict through fieldwork that included approximately 60 interviews with Sahrawi activists conducted in Morocco and Western Sahara. Western Sahara is difficult to study for a number of reasons, including its remoteness, relative international obscurity, and Moroccan suppression of dissenting research.

KEYWORDS:

• Nonviolence
• Sahrawi
• Western Sahara
• Polisario
• resistance

Funding

Fieldwork for this article was made possible by Borders in Globalization: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Grant 859-2012-1022.

Notes

1. Janos Besenyo, Western Sahara (Pecs, Hungary: Publikon, 2009), 48.

2. Stephen Zunes and Jacob Mundy, Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2010), xxix.

3. Jacob Mundy, “Moroccan Settlers in Western Sahara: Colonists or Fifth Column?” Arab World Geographer 15, no. 2 (2012): 95–126.

4. Jacob Mundy and Maria Stephan, “A Battlefield Transformed: From Guerilla Resistance to Mass Nonviolent Struggle in Western Sahara,” Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 8, no. 3 (2006).

5. Jacob Mundy, “Western Sahara’s 48 Hours of Rage.” Middle East Report 40, no. 4 No. 257 (Winter 2010): 2–5.

6. Stephen Zunes, “Upsurge in Repression Challenges Nonviolent Resistance in Western Sahara.” Huffington Post 17 (November 2010). Accessed 10 March 2015.

7. Western Sahara: A “Spy” Guide (Washington, DC: International Business Publications, 2013), 37.

8. Zunes and Mundy. Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution, 93.

9. Ibid., 92–93.

10. Human Rights Watch, “Human Rights in Western Sahara and in the Tindouf Refugee Camps.” December 19, 2008.

11. Zunes and Mundy, Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution, 192.

12. Ibid., 193.

13. Philip Naylor, North Africa, Revised Edition: A History from Antiquity to the Present (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), 161.

14. Ibid., 239.

15. Zunes and Mundy, Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution, 5.

16. Ibid., 5.

17. Ibid., 23.

18. Marcellos Di Cintio, Walls: Travels along the Barricades (Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 2012), 20.

19. Zunes and Mundy, Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution, 143.

20. Interview (Skype) with John Thorne, 21 May 2014.

21. Comité de Defensa del Derecho de Autodeterminacion del Pueblo del Sahara Occidental (CODAPSO). “Camp of Gdeim Izik: The Reasons, the Facts, and the Consequences,” 2011.

22. Samia Errazzouki, “Sahrawi Realities: The Remembrance of Gdeim Izik,” Jadaliyya 12 (August 2014). http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/18881/sahrawi-realities_the-remembrance-of-gdeim-izik-(p (accessed 10 March 2015).

23. Jacob Mundy, “Western Sahara’s 48 Hours of Rage,” Middle East Report 40, no. 4 No. 257 (Winter 2010): 2–5.

24. Naomi Dann, “Nonviolent Resistance in Western Sahara,” Peace Review 26, no. 1 (2014): 46–53.

25. Wendy Pearlman, Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 2.

26. Zunes and Mundy, Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution, 140.

27. Pearlman, Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement, 9.

28. “The Phosphate Exports.” Western Sahara Resource Watch, 29 July 2007 (accessed 10 March 2015).

29. Stephen Zunes and Jacob Mundy, Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution, 114.

Additional information

Funding

Fieldwork for this article was made possible by Borders in Globalization: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Grant 859-2012-1022.