Khadija Magardie
WHO IS … SALIM OULDSALEK?
In the week President Thabo Mbeki limbered up for his State of the Nation address, he found time to meet an emissary from one of Africa’s more arcane conflicts.
Salim Ouldsalek, foreign minister of the would-be Saharawi Arab Republic, is in South Africa to revive the long-standing ties between his political movement, the Polisario Front, and the African National Congress.
He wants to secure support for a peaceful resolution to the “David and Goliath” conflict that has ravaged this remote corner of North Africa for decades. On the one side is Morocco, one of the region’s more powerful military players, which says that the Western Sahara is historically part of its territory. On the other is Ouldsalek’s Polisario Front, a guerrilla movement that has been fighting the Moroccan presence since the Spanish colonial withdrawal in 1976.
After endless negotiations, ceasefires and delays, it is high noon for the Western Sahara, and by extension, for the organisation charged with bringing an end to the fighting, the United Nations.
The UN General Assembly has promised a referendum on the issue of self- determination from as early as 1966, which never materialised.
But now, the revitalised UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (Minurso), has laid the cards on the table.
Pending the finalisation of the voter verification process, the Saharawi are set to go to the polls as early as July. But Morocco has thrown a spanner in the works, and is demanding that an additional 130E000 Moroccan citizens, more than the entire Saharawi population, be included on the voters’ roll. If the Moroccans’ demands are met, the Polisario Front has threatened to resume the armed struggle, nearly 10 years after the ceasefire.
Ouldsalek met with Mbeki this week to get South Africa to put pressure on Morocco to back down. South Africa, as a member of the Organisation of African Unity, recognises the status of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, but has not established full diplomatic relations. In his New Year speech, Mbeki made special mention of the need to “free” the Western Sahara.
The Polisario Front was a strong supporter of the then exiled ANC, but Morocco had ties with the apartheid regime, particularly with regard to arms sales.
Ouldsalek fondly recalls his first meeting with former ANC president Oliver Tambo, whom he received personally during Tambo’s first visit to Saharawi territory in 1979.
The Polisario is counting on the historic ties between the liberation movements to further align regional powers like South Africa to the Saharawi cause.
In his meeting with Ouldsalek, Mbeki said that he understood the frustrations of the Saharawi people which the delays and postponements have caused, and pledged South Africa’s support for a peaceful solution.
The Polisario, or Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro, started as a vanguard group to take up the cudgels of armed struggle on behalf of the Saharawi people, and has since become a mass movement with significant international support.
To many minds, the Sahara desert is hardly land worth fighting for. Ouldsalek admits that the stereotype of a wasteland with nothing but palm trees and camels is commonly used to describe the land he and his people, the Saharawi, call home. But the Sahara, as Morocco’s tenacity in maintaining its grip has proven, is much more than a desert.
The region is one of the richest in North Africa. The phosphate deposits, which Morocco has been exploiting for years, are estimated at around 1,7-billion tonnes, among the highest in the world. The fishing grounds off the coast of the Western Sahara are said to be the richest in the world. In a deal with the European Union in 1995, Morocco sold fishing rights to some 477 mainly Spanish vessels to use the waters in return for over $650-million (about R3,9- billion).
But for the people of the Saharawi, enjoying the wealth of their country seems like a dream. Although the Polisario Front has liberated nearly 40% of the territory, the Moroccan presence has meant that few Saharawi know of life outside the many refugee camps situated on the Algerian border. Thousands of Saharawi, fleeing the fighting, live in makeshift refugee camps. Although highly developed and well-administered, the camps bear testimony to the suffering of the Saharawi people. Prior to the ceasefire they suffered countless bombings by Moroccan planes, which the Red Cross confirmed were using napalm.
BUT DESPITE THE ODDS BEING STACKED AGAINST THEM, THE SAHARAWI, SAYS OULDSALEK, WILL FIGHT FOR WHAT IS THEIRS: “YOU CAN NEVER WIN BY KISSING THE HAND OF THE KING.”