Among the often-overlooked of the many sordid legacies of the late Henry Kissinger was his critical role in enabling Morocco’s invasion and occupation of the nation of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony remains largely under a brutal Moroccan occupation to this day.
Morocco’s occupation, like Israel’s, has been backed by the United States through military aid and protection from international censure in the U.N. Security Council. Unlike the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, however—where the Biden Administration has at least given lip service to the idea of a two-state solution—the United States is the only other country besides Israel that formally recognizes Morocco’s illegal annexation. This stance defies a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions and a landmark World Court decision calling for self-determination.
Kmusser, CC BY-SA 2.5
Western Sahara.
Western Sahara is a sparsely-populated territory about the size of Colorado, located on the Atlantic coast in northwestern Africa, just south of Morocco. Traditionally inhabited by nomadic Arab tribes, collectively known as Sahrawis and famous for their long history of resistance to outside domination, the territory was occupied by Spain from the late 1800s through the mid-1970s, well over a decade after most African countries had achieved their freedom from European colonialism.
The nationalist Polisario Front launched an armed independence struggle against Spain in 1973, and Madrid eventually promised the people of what was then still known as the Spanish Sahara a referendum on the fate of the territory by the end of 1975. Expansionist claims by Morocco and Mauritania were brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court ruled in October 1975 that—despite pledges of fealty to the Moroccan sultan back in the nineteenth century by some tribal leaders bordering the territory and the close ethnic ties between some Sahrawi and Mauritanian tribes—the right of self-determination was paramount.
A special visiting mission from the United Nations went to the territory that same month and concluded that the vast majority of Sahrawis supported independence, not integration with Morocco or Mauritania.
Despite the ICJ ruling that the people of Western Sahara had the right to self-determination, Kissinger told President Gerald Ford and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, in an apparent effort to get the Administration to oppose self-determination, that “the [World Court] gave an opinion which said sovereignty had been decided between Morocco and Mauritania. That basically is what [Moroccan King] Hassan wanted.”
Meanwhile, the Moroccan monarchy, without any apparent objections from Washington, started mobilizing its forces for a possible invasion of the Spanish Sahara.
Kissinger was clearly alarmed at the prospects of an independent Western Sahara state, telling the Spaniards that—despite the Polisario’s lack of Soviet support, non aligned foreign policy, and a rejection of Marxist-Leninism—“the United States will not allow another Angola on the East flank of the Atlantic Ocean.”
Carl Albert Center, CC BY-SA 4.0
King Juan Carlos of Spain shaking hands with Henry Kissinger June 6, 1976.
Another concern, coming soon after Portugal’s sharp turn to the left following the overthrow of the Caetano dictatorship the year before, was that the Spaniards would need to be able to concentrate on possible domestic turmoil following the passing of Generalissimo Francisco Franco—the longtime fascist dictator then on his death bed—rather than on a conflict in North Africa.
During the growing crisis that October, Kissinger dispatched the deputy CIA director, General Vernon Walters, as his special envoy to Madrid. Walters had been a friend of King Hassan since the general’s days as an intelligence agent in Vichy-controlled North Africa. Kissinger had Walters try to convince the Spanish government of the need to acquiesce to Moroccan territorial demands. Walters also tried to tie Spain’s cooperation on Western Sahara with the renewal of the lease for U.S. air and naval bases on generous terms and with Spain’s request for $1.5 billion in new U.S. weapons.
Within two months of the signing of the Madrid accords, a five-year U.S.-Spanish treaty was signed that included agreements favorable to Spain. Walters, who has spoken quite candidly about other secret missions in which he was involved, such as arranging Kissinger’s secret trips to China in 1971 and setting up the Paris peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam in 1968, has kept silent on his role here, saying, “It would look like the King of Morocco and the King of Spain are pawns of the U.S., and that wouldn’t be in anybody’s interest.”
On November 6, using a civilian march of 350,000 Moroccans which crossed a few hundred meters into the Spanish territory as a feint, Moroccan armed forces poured into Western Sahara, driving most Polisario fighters and nearly one-third of the country’s population into Algeria, where they have lived in Polisario-run refugee camps ever since. Most of the remaining population has lived under repressive Moroccan control. Freedom House has rated the occupied Western Sahara as having the least political freedom of any country in the world, excluding only Syria.
“Secretary Kissinger, intentionally or otherwise, may have given Hassan what the latter took to be a green light during a conversation in the summer of 1975.”—Ambassador Richard Parker
There is some evidence to suggest that Kissinger’s support for a Moroccan takeover of the phosphate-rich Spanish Sahara may have preceded the crisis that fall by several months. Richard Parker, who served as U.S. ambassador in neighboring Algeria at the time of the Moroccan invasion, acknowledges that “Secretary Kissinger, intentionally or otherwise, may have given Hassan what the latter took to be a green light during a conversation in the summer of 1975.”
Subsequently, under both Republican and Democratic Administrations, the United States has continued to provide arms and other assistance to the Moroccan occupation in the face of both armed and nonviolent resistance by the Sahrawis. As with Israel and Palestine, the United States claimed it supported a “peace process” while effectively blocking the occupying power from feeling any consequences for its refusal to compromise.
In his final weeks in office, former President Donald Trump formally recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the occupied country, including the roughly 25 percent of Western Sahara still under the control of the Polisario. While even Kissinger recognized the dangerous precedent of formally recognizing a country expanding its territory by force, the Biden Administration has rejected both international and bipartisan domestic calls to reverse Trump’s decision.
Despite claiming to continue to support the moribund United Nations-sponsored peace process, the United States is effectively agreeing with the Moroccan monarchy that independence should not be an option for the Sahrawis, who embrace a distinct history, dialect, and culture.
The Moroccan regime—emboldened by U.S. recognition—insists that independence is completely off the table and is at most willing to offer a limited degree of “autonomy” under Moroccan rule.
The Moroccan regime—emboldened by U.S. recognition—insists that independence is completely off the table.
The traditional excuses the U.S. government has used for its refusal to demand an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories or recognize the State of Palestine (as 138 other countries have done) has been because there is no unified Palestinian leadership, that some of the Palestinian factions refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist, that some of those groups have engaged in terrorism, and that none of them are democratic.
But in the case of Western Sahara, there is unified leadership under the Polisario. They have never questioned Morocco’s right to exist, never engaged in terrorism, and are relatively democratic—allowing for open dissent and for free and fair elections in areas under their control. This not only raises questions as to why the United States remains opposed to the Western Saharans’ right to self-determination, but whether they would continue to oppose an end of the Israeli occupation even if the Palestinians did unify under a moderate, nonviolent, democratic leadership that recognized Israel.
The rhetoric of the Biden Administration regarding the importance of democracy, human rights, and a rules-based international order is a welcome contrast from the brutal realpolitik of the Kissinger era. In practice, however, Biden appears quite willing to continue supporting one of Kissinger’s most shameful legacies.