If you thought that colonialism was over, think twice. In March 2022, Socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez acknowledged the legitimacy of Morocco’s 2007 proposal to annex Western Sahara as an autonomous region in a letter addressed to the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI. This unprecedented move vividly shows how colonialism, migration, and foreign policy remain intertwined at the expense of human rights.
WESTERN SAHARA: ONE OF THE LAST TERRITORIES PENDING DECOLONISATION
According to the United Nations, Western Sahara is one of the 17 Non-Self-Governing Territories in the world. Spain relinquished its power over the colony of Western Sahara in 1976 and conceded the territory to Morocco and Mauritania. These two countries then entered into war over the land. At the same time, the Sahrawi Polisario Front declared the Sahrawi Democratic Republic and also engaged in the fight with the help of Algeria. Mauritania withdrew from the conflict in 1979, and the Polisario Front and Morocco agreed to a ceasefire in 1991, then broken in 2020. The ultimate goal of the ceasefire was to conduct a self-determination referendum under a United Nations Mission (MINURSO), a position that Spain once supported and that Morocco rejected.
However, the promise of such a referendum never came to term, and Western Sahara continues under the yoke of colonialism. Although Spain denies any responsibility to the Sahrawi people, the United Nations claims that it retains such responsibility. The reason is that the decolonisation of a territory does not happen by the cession of sovereignty to other countries, but rather by a self-determination referendum or a cession of the administration to the UN according to international law [in Spanish]. Meanwhile, Morocco acts as the controlling power over the conquered Western Sahara territory. The Northern African country has built a 1,600-mile wall and exploits Western Sahara’s rich fishing waters and phosphate mines. Most Sahrawi people are stateless because they are not granted Spanish or Moroccan citizenship, and between 90,000 and 165,000 live in refugee camps in Algeria, where they have been for decades. Their struggle for self-determination and a different future is even more complicated in light of Sánchez’s decision.
THE SPANISH TURN: COLONIALISM AND MIGRATION
Spain reaffirmed its recognition of the Moroccan plan to annex Western Sahara as an autonomous province as “the most serious, realistic, and credible to solve this conflict [between Morocco and Western Sahara]” in a joint declaration [in Spanish] after an official visit in April 2022. The statement focuses on migration and economic issues, and it does not mention the Sahrawi people or the Polisario Front once. Spain’s “relaunch of the relationship” with Morocco comes at the expense of the rights of the Sahrawi people, migrants, and asylum seekers.
On the one hand, Sahrawi people have the right to self-determination. Rather than seeking the long-promised self-determination referendum, Spain favours the annexation of the territory to Morocco. In exchange, it seeks that Morocco avoids territorial expansion to the Spanish enclaves in Africa of Ceuta and Melilla and its territorial waters according to the declaration. This movement intensely relies on a colonial mindset by which some countries decide which territories belong to whom without the population of those territories having a say. With this decision, Spain claims to protect its own territory by accepting the annexation of a territory whose population’s will is completely ignored. The historical (and even current, depending on the approach) metropolis’s interests effectively take precedence over the original peoples’ rights, denying any rights over their territory to the Sahrawi people.
On the other hand, asylum seekers have the right to seek asylum under article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Refugee Convention, and migrants should have the right to move through secure and legal pathways. Spain deported a former Algerian army member and activist who feared for his life [in Spanish] to Algeria to appease the country’s fury with Spain’s decision to endorse Morocco’s plans over Western Sahara. Rather than opening legal pathways to grant secure and safe migration routes, Spain opts to strengthen its migration cooperation with Morocco (article 8 of the joint declaration). This narrative has become a synonym for externalising its border to Morocco if we consider previous statements.
With help from the European Union, Spain relies on Morocco to deter migrants, incarcerate them, and ultimately deport them [in Spanish], often from the occupied Western Sahara territory. But Morocco has frequently leveraged this power and weaponised migration in moments of diplomatic tension with Spain. It did precisely this in 2021 in retaliation for the Spanish reception of Polisario’s leader Brahim Ghali for Covid-19 treatment. Reinforcement of migration cooperation might mean more violations of migrants' and asylum seekers' rights, more violence against migrants (including Moroccans themselves, Black migrants, women, and unaccompanied minors), and more deaths.
Thus, in pursuit of its foreign policy interests (which still are uncertain in this case), Spain relies on a colonial mindset and exercises its “necro-biopower” over the Sahrawi people and migrants—i.e., its power to decide who is permitted to live in dignity (or not) and who dies. [1]
THE FUTURE OF THE SAHRAWI PEOPLE
Undoubtedly, the decision of one of the historical actors involved in the Sahrawi struggle for self-determination undermines the international support for a referendum for the decolonisation of Western Sahara. However, as the Polisario Front stated [Spanish], it would not deter them from aspiring to what international law recognises. Despite the hostility, Sahrawi people will continue raising their voices and thriving in the camps, divided by the wall, amid repression, or in exile, as activists Sultana Jaya and Ghalia Djimi [in Spanish] do.
Now, more than ever, the international community should be on the side of defending the sovereignty of territories that were not decolonised or whose sovereignty is under attack, such as Ukraine under the Russian invasion. Decisions embedded in colonial mindsets that ignore international law and the rights of peoples should not be accepted. As Sahrawi journalist Ebbaba Hameida puts it, “the lives that seek the path of their dreams under a starry desert sky” are at stake [in Spanish]. Let’s listen to and walk with them.
[1] Bento, B. (2018). Necrobiopoder: quem pode habitar o Estado-nação? Cadernos pagu, 53, pp. 1-16.
Originally from Spain, Jesús is pursuing a Master's in Migration Studies at the University of San Francisco. He has experience in research and advocacy on human rights and migration, especially on comparative border externalization policies.