UN Spat With Morocco:
International Community Shifts On “Self Determination”
Saeed Naqvi
Morocco, Algeria, Western Sahara would not be of the highest saliency
in South Block had Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi not indulged in some high wire
diplomacy involving all three.
The issue has popped up again because the Royal Palace in Rabat and UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have locked horns over Western Sahara, where a
movement for self determination has for decades been led by a Left inclined
group called Polisario. The Secretary General is now endorsing a “referendum”
for Western Sahara, something that Morocco was able to thwart with US support
for over 40 years. That the US aversion for “self determination” in the
disputed territory is weakening should be a matter of some interest in New
Delhi.
Spanish dictator, General Franco’s death in 1975 caused two claimants,
Morocco and the Polisario Liberation movement, to make a bid for what had thus
far been Spanish Sahara.
After Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Euro communism
in Italy and France, the cold war was going badly for the US. So, Washington
dug its heels in support of Rabat’s claims. Algeria, a staunch ally of Moscow,
allowed the Polisario to set up its headquarters in Tindouf, Southern Algeria.
When Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister, his Foreign Secretary, Ramesh
Bhandari, promptly escorted him to Moscow in May 1985 to meet the new Soviet
leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. To restore balance, Rajiv was off to Washington,
within a fortnight of the Moscow visit, to remain in President Ronald Reagan’s
favour.
On the way he stopped over at Algiers to meet President Chadli Bendjedid
who enlisted the young prime minister’s support for the Liberation movement he
so aggressively backed.
Polisario delegations were promptly invited into his chambers in
Algiers. Decision to recognize the Saharwi Arab Republic was more or less taken
but an announcement would be made only after the delegates returned home.
That no Indian had ever set eyes on the “Republic” New Delhi had so abruptly
set its heart on, gave this reporter an opportunity to fill in the gap. Tindouf
was a sprawling city in tents, neatly arranged along streets and boulevards in
the midst of handsome sand dunes. Military, police, civil administration and Health
Services had all been trained and supervised by Cubans.
Little wonder Washington would not budge from its stout support for Rabat.
UN Special Representatives for Western Sahara were such favourites of the
Washington establishment as Sahibzada Yaqoub Khan, former Pakistan Foreign
Minister.
Chastened by an audience with Reagan, when the delegation returned
home, an anxious Bhandari called the ambassador in Algiers, K.V. Rajan and
asked him to hold his horses on the Polisario recognition issue. There had been
a change of heart.
The ambassador threw up his hands. Bendjedid had already kissed him on
both his cheeks with fulsome Arab affection for his effective diplomacy. Meanwhile
the Polisario had lost no time in renting suitable property for an embassy.
To recognize and de recognize an entity in a matter of weeks or months
would have been awkward. But His Majesty Mohammad V was hopping mad in Rabat.
Former Foreign Secretary, M.K. Rasgotra, who knew the King, was dispatched as
special envoy to mollify the Rabat palace. A mollified King would also placate
the Reagan White House where Ambassador K. Shankar Bajpai had exceptional
access.
By way of a brief digression, the Reagan-Bajpai combination was to cause
an even more dramatic policy reversal after Rajiv Gandhi, in some haste, asked
Foreign Minister Bali Ram Bhagat to lead a delegation of foreign ministers from
four non aligned nations, who were holding a session in New Delhi, to Tripoli
to commiserate with Muammar Qadaffi whose baby daughter had been killed in the US
bombardment of Tripoli and Benghazi in April, 1986. It all seemed in order. But
by the time Bhagat returned, the Prime Minister had been persuaded by Bajpai’s cohorts
to correct his course. Bali Ram Bhagat was summarily sacked.
Let me, after this digression, revert to the saga of Western Sahara. What
was to be done with the Polisari embassy? MEA had little time for it. Since its
budgets were meagre, even the professional embassy free-loaders steered clear.
Embassies in the Soviet camp remained steadfastly supportive. But once the
Soviet Union collapsed in 1990-91, the Polisario embassy was orphaned. It was
left to Jaswant Singh, External Affairs Minister for the BJP led government, to
wind up their shop in 2000.
New Delhi generally gets goosebumps at terms like “self determination”,
but so long as the US was determinedly opposed to the Polisario, there were no
apparent risks.
In recent years the US has reset its global compasses. In his latest
interview with the Atlantic magazine President Obama has talked of American
inability to be everywhere. This is the background to Ban Ki-moon’s change of
stance on the disputed territory.
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