US Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Nasser Bourita, the Moroccan foreign minister.
Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Nasser Bourita, the Moroccan foreign minister. At the meeting, Rubio reaffirmed the commitment of the Trump administration to negotiating “a mutually acceptable solution” for Western Sahara using the framework articulated in the Autonomy Proposal.
The political status of Western Sahara remains the subject of considerable debate. Prior to 2020, the US recognised Western Sahara as a dependent state or area of special sovereignty.
At the end of the first term, the Trump administration unexpectedly dropped that status function when it recognised the sovereignty of Morocco over the entirety of Western Sahara. But the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic continues to maintain diplomatic relations with other independent states, and the United Nations continues to regard Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory.
In the proclamation recognising the sovereignty of Morocco over Western Sahara, President Donald Trump expressed support for the Autonomy Proposal as “the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute over the Western Sahara territory”.
If adopted, the Autonomy Proposal would grant an autonomous region to the Sahawari people in exchange for a recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over it. But this will not be an easy proposal to implement. The Polisario Front, the national liberation movement for the Saharawi people, is opposed to the Autonomy Proposal.
During the meeting with Bourita, Rubio reportedly reaffirmed a commitment to the Moroccan government on behalf of the US government.
To fulfill that commitment, the US government now needs to facilitate progress toward the resolution of the conflict using the Autonomy Proposal. Some Republican members of Congress believe that the best way to achieve that outcome is for the US to officially designate the Polisario Front as a foreign terrorist organisation. They theorise that move would sideline the Polisario Front and its traditional state supporters (for example, Algeria and South Africa).
On 11 April, representative Joe Wilson announced that he would introduce legislation to designate the Polisario Front as a foreign terrorist organisation. That followed a recent meeting between the US acting under secretary of state for political affairs, Lisa Kenna, and the personal envoy of the secretary general for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura.
In his announcement, Wilson included the allegation that the Polisario Front was providing Iran and Russia with a platform to gain “a foothold in Africa” — thereby linking the Polisario Front to the “Axis of Aggression”.
Any designation of the Polisario Front as a foreign terrorist organisation would have serious implications for South Africa.
First, it could have a substantive effect on advocacy and fundraising for the Polisario Front and other Western Saharan groups in South Africa.
Zineb Riboua, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, says there will be “some actors — especially mainstream NGOs — [who] would likely step back to avoid legal exposure”. But there will probably be other actors “motivated by ideology or religious solidarity” that would “continue their support covertly”.
If the South African government does not support the enforcement of a future designation “internally”, Riboua predicts that this second group of “fringe actors may persist — but they will face greater isolation, increased monitoring, and serious financial risk”.
Second, it could have a negative effect on the South African economy.
According to Riboua, any designation could lead to increased international scrutiny of the South African banking system. She bases that assessment on the fact that there “are unconfirmed reports — mostly from media and limited intelligence sources — suggesting that certain individuals or NGOs in South Africa may have engaged in fundraising or advocacy” on behalf of the Polisario Front.
That increased international scrutiny would almost certainly be an unwelcome development for South African banks.
Riboua contends that increased international scrutiny could lead to financial transactions being “flagged more often by global compliance systems”, and that could expose South African banks “to reputational damage, derisking and even secondary sanctions”.
Third, it could affect the imposition of targeted sanctions (for example, Magnitsky sanctions) and/or the designation of South Africa as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Riboua warns that South Africans should expect the US government to take the enforcement of any designation of Polisario Front seriously.
In her eyes, there is already a risk that the South African government could be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism over a variety of concerns, including “weak enforcement of terror financing” and “FATF Financial Action Task Force] grey-listing”. And that risk would only increase if the South African government would be unwilling or unable to support the enforcement of a future designation of Polisario Front as a foreign terrorist organisation.
Since the US inauguration, the risk of a complete rupture in US-South Africa relations has been rising by the day. The potential designation of the Polisario Front as a foreign terrorist organisation therefore presents another wrinkle in an already strained relationship.
Michael Walsh is a non-resident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. The views expressed are his own.