Why does western Sahara exist?
What even goes on here, what us the politics and will it ever become independent?
What even goes on here, what us the politics and will it ever become independent?
I mean, it barely exists
It’s got a pretty mysterious high point as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/HighsoftheWorld/s/G7odvW6KKR
Thanks for that Skeletons on the Zahara rec! Planning on checking it out.
The only correct answer.
It doesn't really exist. Morocco annexed it in 1975, there was a low intensity war until 1991. Morocco has administered it for many decades now. Algeria funds thePolisario Front
This is one of those situations where international observers say that a country ought to exist or that Morocco has to hold a referendum, but nobody but Algeria is actually willing to take concrete action to make that a reality.
To add to that, the official position of the UN and most of the world is that it is a colony under Moroccan occupation and a self-determination referendum must be held. Morocco has been colonizing the area with Moroccans to alter the demographics so the referendum becomes impossible in the future.
The Polisario Front leads theSahrawi Republic
And the reason Morocco (and Spain before) wants it is because it has a fucking lot ofphosphates
I was waiting for that last point! There had to be a reason
You’re leaving out also that the Moroccans built a nearly 2000 mile long wall down the middle of the desert with towers, trenches, army bases, fortifications and minefields. You’ll NEVER guess what country helped them design it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan_Western_Sahara_Wall?wprov=sfti1#
Also that the coast there is critical to a proposed gas pipeline running from Nigeria to Europe. It would create economic opportunities in Africa and reduce dependence on Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Saharan_gas_pipeline?wprov=sfti1
Naturally, that means the America/European and yes, Israeli bloc is firmly in the “Morocco can do what it wants in Western Sahara” camp while Russia, Algeria, and the usual suspects are stoking Sahrawi nationalism and arming the insurgents. Russia itself isn’t really helping much since they are, let’s call it, “busy” right now. Iran is right there though, as well as other Russian allies like Venezuela.
Like the underdogs in <cough> “other” conflicts I could mention, the Sahrawi have no chance of winning short of discovering sandworms to breach the berm with and those backing them and providing weapons don’t have their best interests in mind, they just want to harangue their geopolitical foes and advance their own foreign policy goals.
Europe’s energy needs aren’t as urgent as they were for a while and the pipeline has other problems both political and engineering wise, so this is kind of a second or third tier proxy war at this point.
Of course all of this gets absolutely zero coverage in the Western press to the point where posts like this ask about it.
South Korea helped build the wall
Weird for Algeria to be involved, they share such a tiny scrap of a border. How does Mauritania feel about this?
Initially Mauritania also occupied a part of Western Sahara. But after a few years Mauritania decided to get out of the clusterfuck and leave it all to Morocco.
Algeria kind of hates Morocco and that’s putting it lightly. Not talking about the people but the government. This is more about being anti Morocco than pro the Polisario.
It was a colony of Spain, back then it was calledSpanish Sahara
And Kind of Morocco was having problems, so to unite the people, he spoke about how that place was historically theirs. And etc.
This is like the main things, then a ton of things started happening, king send like thousands of Moroccans to Sahara, Spain agreed to go, it changed name to western Sahara, they then wanted to split the place with Mauritania.
Many other things happened, but U.S started supporting Morocco because it was one of the first countries to recognize it, they used a genius strategy with which they basically got more than 50 of Sahara. Algeria supports Saharans and etc.
The US and Morocco have historically been pretty close (because Morocco was the first stage to recognize the US), but US only started supporting Morocco’s claim on Western Sahara because Morocco was an early signatory to theAbraham Accords
Algeria was also the first « place » to be at war with the US, beside the British after the independence
Why does Algeria support them
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Algeria and Morocco have issues on border alignment in the desert and on the coast itself.
It was originally a Spanish colony. Both Morocco and Mauritania claimed it. Once the Spanish left, Morocco moved in.
Really nice video summary by Cogito on the topic
Western Sahara
According to the statistics, it exists because <Information unavailable>
Dahkla is one of the places that farms octopus to send to Spain for food. It looks depressingly poor. Like if barren wasteland were a country. It looks like one of those countries that is disputed because nobody wants to claim ownership but evidently Morocco wants it for resource extraction. Look at google earth street view of that place.
Actually, tried to give a look at google maps of ‘Bu Craa’ just from the picture in OP just out of curiosity. This is near-ish it. Cultural centre. But its half blacked out.
Im not at all familiar with the area, is that an equivalent of blurring a house? Or some random reason its all blacked out?
Google blacked that out for some reason. Apple maps shows what it is. I watched a news show about where the octopus comes from and a journalist traveled there with a camera. The Moroccan military is there and they are strict with their rules. They found the journalist at a village in Dhakla and basically deported them from the country for filming the fishing village. I wonder if the park is part of a government facility, not sure why else google would black it out. The top part looks like a sports field
After the Spanish left, Mauritania tried to grab part of it with Morocco, but backed out after Sahrawi resistance.
https://youtu.be/-T2ha4a_AuE?si=d1ZY_v00fcLvJn1j
This is a good video on the subject (I didn't fact check any of the info but I can't imagine much is false)
Millions of years ago, Pangea started to break up…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Western_Sahara
Because the people there think they should rule themselves instead of be used as a means of resource extraction for Spain/Morrocco.
Edit: Simon whistler has a video on it if you really wunna know. Because of course he does.
Love his stuff.
Because algeria support it. Algeria doesnt like Morocco and with western Shara they can weaken Morocco and have access to the Atlantic Ocean. The other un members while having diplomatic gesture doesnt realy care enough to actually aid them. Of course this is ironic since algeria also has an independence group of kybles where they accuse of france and israel supporting it. Also mali accuses algeria supporting the azwad independence movement. The entire thing is a mess
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Western_Sahara#Colonial_era_(1884–1975)
The islands in the top left are the Canary Islands
It's still legally Spanish territory, but we're a country with no shame and respect for ourselves.
Western Sahara initially was controlled by Spain. Then in 1975, when the health of Spain dictator (Franco) deteriorated and there was talk about who is going to become next Spain leader, Morocco took advantage by sending their people to cross the border and settled at Western Sahara (The Green March).
Because Spain was distracted by their own internal problem, Spain decided to just abandon Western Sahara. Meanwhile, some local Western Saharans who wanted their own independent nation, decided to proclaim the founding of Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). They also had Polisario as their armed resistance group.
2. Personally, I can't see Western Sahara become independent soon, because most Western Sahara territory is now under Morocco control. And recently, more and more sovereign nations who initially recognized SADR now freeze their relationship with SADR. If someday the relation between Algeria and Morocco improved, SADR government in exile will be forced to relocate somewhere else with no direct land access to Western Sahara, and their influence will be weakened even further.
It has a huge fertilizer production that amounts to 8% of the Moroocan PIB.
That said there is an ethnic clense in the area against saharuis the rightfull imhabitants of the land