LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Western Sahara Conflict: Parties
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The conflict in Western Sahara has led to serious human rights violations. Thousands of Sahrawis live in the refugee camps in Algeria, the freedom of expression is limited and use of torture is being reported. The Rafto Foundation and Amnesty group at the University of Bergen arranges a seminar with a focus on the conflict and the human rights situation in Western Sahara on February 13 in Bergen. The 2002 Rafto Prize winner Sidi Mohammed Daddach will participate at the seminar. Photo: Sidi Mohammed Daddach, Berserk Productions
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Western Sahara is experiencing a long, drawn-out diplomatic war of attrition. Indeed, the peace process has significantly deteriorated in the past two years. Negotiations, or even the admitted existence of some kind of first-track initiative, would constitute a breakthrough at this point. Neither side has been willing to talk, even under the most non-committal and secretive situation. The fundamental attitudes of the parties reflect Foucault's inversion of Clausewitz: both still see politics as war by other means.
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Although Moroccan troops remain in Western Sahara, military conflict is not high. In the past, the POLISARIO launched military attacks first against the Spanish, then against Moroccan/Mauritanian coalition forces and then against the Moroccan army. Rabat suffered hundreds of casualties in a battle at the Guelta Zemmur outpost in 1981. In retaliation, the Moroccan government erected berms (defensive walls), made of sand and rock and buffered by mines and barbed wire, around the northern part of the territory. These barriers eventually covered four-fifths of the Western Sahara and largely curtailed the POLISARIO's military and diplomatic activities. Moroccan armed forces guarded the territory from behind these walls, as guerrilla activities continued sporadically for the next decade.
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Disagreements over the census initiated a new period in the Western Sahara conflict in which confrontation was no longer on the battlefield but around negotiating tables. The role of the military became defensive, as the new ‘fighters’ returning to the camps with victories were the network of Saharawi diplomats, bureaucrats and politicians. In this respect, during the 1990s, the (strategic) tension that had always existed between the structure of the Frente Polisario, as a movement, and that of the Saharawi Republic, as an institutional structure, seems to have been partially resolved in favour of the latter, although in fact it is almost impossible to trace a clear dividing line between the two. The situation of ‘neither peace nor war’ that began with the ceasefire contributed to a normalisation of life in the camps. It facilitated the relaxation of the social codes imposed during the previous years (allowing, for example, some degree of ‘tribal revival’) and the strengthening of the political and administrative structures of the Saharawi state that had been set up during the previous decade under very different circumstances.
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In 1997 and 1999 respectively, the Canadian Lawyers Association for International Human Rights [53] performed two investigative missions to Western Sahara, the first focused on the Tindouf refugee camps, and the second on conditions in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. The conclusion of the Tindouf mission states that "the refugee camps in Algeria are highly organized and provide more than just the most basic needs to their inhabitants" and that "It appears that a significant effort is being made to ensure that the population is well-educated and that they participate in the governance of the camps.[54]
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SYDNEY S. ASSOR, Chairman, Surrey Three Faiths Forum, began by addressing a comment made by a previous petitioner on microcredit, to which he said the people of Western Sahara did not benefit from such a facility. Next, he asked for Algeria to open its refugee camps to observers, and, finally, on a comment regarding Morocco's "medieval Government" -- he reminded those present that elections had been held there three weeks ago, resulting in three opposition parties sharing power.
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