A forgotten dispute with a new aspect?
The diplomatic and practical impasse remains over the future of Western Sahara since the first post. To be fair I'd nearly forgotten the dispute between the inhabitants, a good number of whom are in exile in Algeria - mainly in a mini-state - and Morocco.
Then I noted this snippet in an al-Wasat piece of the recent attacks in Niger, admittedly from the jihadists:
Quote:
that the group of fighters involved jihadists from Sudan, Western Sahara, and Mali...
Link:http://thewasat.wordpress.com/2013/0...hifting-jihad/
Listening to an academic observer of the Sahel recently I recalled their reference to the ethnic affinity of the exiles in Algeria to the wider Tuareg community across the Sahel, with the declining appeal of the mini-state's Marxist-Leninist regime and numbers of the young turning to the jihadist cause. The implication being that the camps were a recruiting and recovery location for the fighters - whether jihadists or simply Tuaregs. One estimate for the camp's population is 200k.
The mini-state is formally the 'Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic' and the camps are around Tindouf and there has been a ceasefire since 1991. A very thin BBC profile:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14115273
One wonders how the Algerian state regards such activity, or does this provide a "safety valve"?
Added.
WaPo has a story on the wider Sahel as a recruiting ground, based on a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report 'Perilous Desert: Insecurity in the Sahara', with a chapter on the Western Sahara. For IT reasons WaPo would not load, so a spin-off Moroccan link:http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013...orists-expert/
Link to CEIP book, with scanty detail:http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/04...in-sahara/fzxv
In the desert: a war without prospect of victory
Tension is rising in the camps in Algeria, amongst the young:
Quote:
... young people in the camps wanted to go to war because they had seen how their parents lived “and they don’t want to live like them.
Joining a war without prospect of victory makes no sense but the perspective is different in the camps: the emotions play a bigger role there and refugees have lost faith in the international community. “Young people don’t want to bear more and, even if we don’t arrive until the end, at least we will teach something to Morocco,
Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/open-s...9s-last-colony
Whoops: UN staffers pull out of Western Sahara mission
Quote:
Dozens of United Nations international staffers pulled out of their Western Sahara mission on Sunday after Morocco demanded they leave because of Ban Ki-Moon’s remarks about the disputed territory....Rabat accused Ban earlier this month of no longer being neutral in the Western Sahara dispute....Morocco said he used the word “occupation” to describe its annexation of the region...
Link:http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News...-mission-.html
After a twenty-seven year ceasefire patience wears thin
An ICG report update, their first since June 2007, on this little reported conflict.
Link:https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-e...-refugee-camps