Saharawi ambassador Mohamed Beissat leaves South Africa in a few days to take up his country’s most important diplomatic post in Algiers.
In his four years in the country he has experienced the high of preparing for the ceremony clinching full diplomatic relations between the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and South Africa and the low of yet another broken promise from the government.
The file he will leave for his successor contains written undertakings from Nelson Mandela and Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to formally recognise the country occupied by Morocco since 1975.
Pressure from the United States and France has caused the South African government to delay keeping its promise to avoid complicating United Nations settlement efforts. Events have reduced South Africa’s importance in this process.
France and the US are at loggerheads over what to do now that Morocco has finally confessed that it will not go along with any process that might end its illegal occupation of the territory.
”My four years here have been a very great experience watching the inspirational transition of South Africa,” said Beissat in an interview this week.
”This has happened in a way that I hope will also happen in my country. The [African National Congress] has shown that a liberation movement can transform itself into a sound democratic movement with strong organisations running a healthy economy and democracy.
”This is an example to the Polisario Front,” said Beissat of the organisation he has served since going into exile in 1975 leaving behind his parents, whom he never saw again.
”We greatly admire the example President Thabo Mbeki is giving as a second generation leader of African liberation moving from ideological rhetoric to a workable plan.
”Mbeki has said several times how he supports the Saharawi cause, which is not surprising, given our joint history of struggle.
”The East Timorese people showed last year that there is still right and wrong in the world and justice will eventually triumph,” Beissat said.
”Power balances may force governments to behave in certain ways at certain times, but justice will eventually prevail. We Saharawis believe that the right time and the right circumstances will come for us as they did for the Timorese and the South Africans.”
In fact, the significant South African support for the Saharawi came from components of the government — the ANC, Parliament and the tripartite alliance — rather than the government itself.
Dlamini-Zuma lost patience two years ago with Moroccan delaying tactics and took steps to keep the recognition promise made by Mandela in 1994. Under heavy pressure from Paris and Washington, Mbeki himself took charge of the decision on exactly when to recognise the SADR.
The matter came to a head in the UN Security Council this week where France and the US have clashed over the Western Sahara.
Both have previously protected Morocco from sanction for its prolonged defiance of the world organisation. They are persuaded by Morocco that being forced to quit Western Sahara will cause a chain effect that will destroy the kingdom of Mohamed VI.
The situation is reminiscent of the protection these powers gave to apartheid South Africa over its occupation of Namibia. But while the Western powers were able to use the UN umbrella to prise South African fingers from the Namibian reins, it has become increasingly clear that Morocco shows no intention of quitting.
The Saharawi government successfully called the Moroccan bluff this month by agreeing to negotiate on the basis of a settlement plan devised by former US secretary of state James Baker.
The plan would give the Saharawis even less power in the five-year interim period before a referendum than apartheid-era Bantustans.
The Saharawi move has been welcomed by the Security Council, which has been bogged down on this issue for more than nine years.
Morocco, however, has been forced to admit that, despite repeated undertakings, it never intended to submit its illegal rule to a referendum.
While France is prepared to protect the king, the US cannot allow Moroccan bad faith to wreck the Baker plan.
There is not much wriggle room for Morocco. The Baker plan is now in its third incarnation, having accommodated Moroccan concerns that have now been revealed as pretexts for continued defiance of the UN.
France has been seeking to ”soften” the US resolution to the Security Council that must renew its mandate for the UN peacekeeping force in Western Sahara, so that Morocco is not forced to act against its will. This has only served to harden US determination to get the Saharawi settlement process moving.
This split between the powers changes the options for Mbeki on whether or not to recognise the SADR. His decision carries less weight now that the African Union presidency has been handed to Mozambique.
But South Africa’s moral weight would still make it very sweet for the new Saharawi ambassador to be able to raise his flag at his embassy just across the road from the French mission.