The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) released a document concerning the Western Sahara and “Polisario Confidential” got a copy of it. Download document here.According to NATO experts, the historical support of Algeria to the Polisario Front is more of a strategy for regional power than an ideological embracement.
“An autonomous sahraoui state would be used by Algeria to stop the Moroccan ambitions”. Before its colonization by the Spanish in1884, the Sahara occidental “was under the sovereignty of the Sultan of Morocco”. When the kingdom of morocco acceded to independence in 1956, he immediately “reaffirmed his claims on this southern region”.
Algiers considers that “the issue of the Sahara conflict will determine either the supremacy of Algeria or the supremacy of Morocco in the Maghreb”. NATO stresses that the Polisario Frente is since its creation, influenced by the Marxist-Leninist ideology and is composed by a hard core of antiroyalist’s militants. The role of Algeria in the conflict is, always according to the same source, absolutely fundamental. Since the Eighties, the Sahara conflict helps the Algerian diplomacy in its crusade against Morocco. Considering the referendum, NATO estimates that the UN suspended its organization because of “risks of instability which it would involve” and of divergences about the sahraouis entitled to vote.
This document, compiled within a report on the matter of security in the Mediterranean region, has all its significance with the recent developments in the area and the increase of insecurity, especially in the Sahel gray zone. The recent cancellation of the Paris-Dakar Rally as well as the installation of Al-Qaida back bases in the Sahel, constitute elements of importance discrediting the Polisario “demands” for independence and corroborate Morocco in its autonomy plan initiative.
