Everything about Spanish Sahara totally explained
Spanish Sahara was the name used for the modern territory of
Western Sahara when it was ruled as a
territory by
Spain between 1884 and 1975.
Colonization
In 1884, Spain was awarded the coastal area of present-day Western Sahara at the
Berlin Conference, and began establishing trading posts and a military presence. In the summer of
1886, under the sponsorship of the Spanish Society of Commercial Geography (
Sociedad Española de Geografía Comercial),
Julio Cervera Baviera,
Felipe Rizzo (1823-1908), and
Francisco Quiroga (1853-1894) traversed the colony of
Rio de Oro, where they made
topographical and astronomical observations in a land whose features were barely known at the time to geographers. It is considered the first scientific expedition in that part of the
Sahara.
The borders of the area were not clearly defined until treaties between Spain and
France in the early 20th century. Spanish Sahara was then created from the Spanish territories of
Río de Oro and
Saguia el-Hamra in 1924. It wasn't part of, and administered separately from, the areas known as
Spanish Morocco.
Entering the territory in
1884, Spain was immediately challenged by stiff resistance from the
indigenous Sahrawi tribes. A 1904
rebellion led by the powerful
Smara-based
marabout,
shaykh Ma al-Aynayn, was put down by France in 1910, but it was followed by a wave of uprisings under Ma al-Aynayn’s sons, grandsons and other political leaders.
Modern history
Because of this, Spain proved unable to extend control to the interior parts of the country until 1934. At its accession to independence in 1956, Morocco laid claim on Spanish Sahara as part of its pre-colonial territory, and in 1957, the
Moroccan Army of Liberation nearly expelled the Spanish from the country in the
Ifni War. The Spanish were only able to re-establish control with the assistance of the French by 1958, and embarked on a harsh
strategy of retaliation towards the countryside, forcibly settling many of the previously
nomadic
bedouins of Spanish Sahara and speeding up
urbanization, while many others were forced into exile to Morocco proper. In the same year, Spain returned the provinces of Tarfaya and Tantan to Morocco.
In the 1960s, Morocco continued to claim Spanish Sahara and succeeded in getting it to be listed on the list of territories to be decolonized. In 1969, Spain returned to Morocco the region of Ifni, that served as the seat of the Spanish administration of Spanish Sahara.
In 1967, the Spanish
colonization was further challenged by a peaceful protest movement, the
Harakat Tahrir, which demanded the end of occupation. After its violent suppression in the 1970
Zemla Intifada, Sahrawi
nationalism reverted to its militant origins, with the 1973 formation of the
Polisario Front. The Front’s
guerrilla army grew rapidly, and Spain had lost effective control over most of the countryside in early 1975. An attempt at sapping the strength of Polisario by creating a modern political rival to it, the
Partido de Unión Nacional Saharaui (PUNS), met with little success.
Spain proceeded to co-opt tribal leaders by setting up the
Djema’a, a political institution (very) loosely based on traditional Sahrawi tribal leaderships. The Djema’a members were hand-picked by the authorities, but given privileges in return for rubber-stamping Madrid’s decisions.
Immediately before the death of the aging Spanish
dictator,
Francisco Franco, in the winter of 1975, however, Spain was confronted with an intensive campaign of territorial demands from
Morocco, and to a lesser extent
Mauritania, culminating in the
Green March. Spain then withdrew its forces and settlers from the territory, after negotiating a
tripartite agreement with Morocco and Mauritania in 1975, by which both took control of the region. Mauritania later surrendered its claim after fighting an unsuccessful war against the Polisario. Morocco engaged in a war with the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, although a cease-fire came into effect in 1991, and the territory remains under dispute.
Present status
The
United Nations considers the former Spanish Sahara a non-
decolonized territory, with Spain as the formal administrative power. UN peace efforts have aimed at the organization of a
referendum on independence among the Sahrawi population, but this hasn't yet taken place. The
African Union and at least
44 governments consider the territory a sovereign, albeit occupied, state under the
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), with an exile government backed by the
Polisario Front.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Spanish Sahara'.
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