[Talk-es] Attached OSM type map of how the Spanish territorial waters of CEUTA - MELILLA and the rest should be drawn - Adjunto mapa tipo OSM de como deben dibujarse las aguas territoriales españolas de CEUTA - MELILLA y resto

[Philippe Verdy]

The problem of Wesern Sahara is that its status at the United Nations has
been left undefined, when Spain abandoned it when it was a colony, without
organizing the transition with their inhabitants to choose their future. So
Morocco claimed it (along with Mauritania, that abandoned its claim after
seeing that it could have troubles with Algeria, and seeing that it could
not sustain the military forces that only Morocco could sustain, leaving
all powers to Morocco).
At the United Nations, this is still a land to decolonize by Spain, but
Spain does not want to invest more in this area. It just chose to pass an
informal agreement with Morocco (in the hope that Spanish claims on Melilla
and Ceuta would be respected). Morocco's claims on Western Sahara was based
on an historic claim when Morocco was still not united and had several
powers, that were united later. This is debatable, because most parts of
Westerne Sahara were never in control of the older (smaller) current rules
of the Moroccan kingdom. Before independance of Morroco, that brought its
unification, it was a trust of France, which had a peace agreement with
Spain since long, and the Moroccan kingdom did not violate the
agremeent between France and Spain there. The Morrocan claim on Westerne
Sahara was an later extension for political reasons to give strenght to the
new of the fully independant Morroco. As well France did not want to be
involved there (avoiding new conflicts with Algeria) and did not defend the
old agreement with Spain.
But it's a fact that Western Saharan were never involved in the process to
choose their own future: they were not involved in the independance of
Morroco, but they had more relations with Mauritania, Mali and Algeria.
Their own local political system was largely based on oral traditions and
peaceful trades with various nomadic people in this area, and not ruled
forally by any former kingdom, just nomadic chiefferies. The exceptions
being in a few harbours that evolved to cities now invaded by Morrocan
troups (based on the illegal agreement between Spain and Morroco, not
ratified formally and without any instrument to the United Nations, where
it was never a country since the creation of the united Nations or the
former Society of Nations that preceded it, where Morocco did not
participate).
It's an area without formal right. Just a defacto situation with
conflicting political claims, where no voice was given to Western Saharan
inhabitants (even if legally they should still have a Spanish citizenship
and rights to be represented locally).
It's difficult to state any legitimate right without involving the
inhabitants, but now most of them are refugies living in surrounding
countries, where they have more local right than inside Morocco. It's a
common problem for many minoroties living in anouther countries without
their own locals represented in legal institutions. May be Morocco could
have become a federation of states, but the new independant Morocco wanted
to adopt a centralized system. And both Morocco and Algeria (the two major
players involded now) cannot decide themselves, and instead insist on
consolidating their own countries, where they legitimetely think that they
have no other choices to satisfy their majority population (even if they
have minorities, some of them represented inequally, but others not at
all). Morocco has started to recognize the rights of Berbers (Algeria too).
But Peul peoples are left behind, And only Arabs are well represented (and
by using the religious language of Islam as the only legal language, even
if Arabs were themselves former invaders of the region (after Greeks,
Romans, and later the newer European regimes, when there was still no
international right anywhere in the world...).

Moroccan claims are inherited from old rights before the creation of
international order (not effective before the end of the 19th century).
Time has passed. We cannot reinvent rules based only on historical people
that lived there. We have to live with present people, even if we share
multiple values of the past with multiple cultures and many migrations.
Those that made the history are not those that ruled what would be our
present (of course, present peoples were never represented, but today, it
is only these present people that can decide on their current life and
prepare the life of their descendants, without necessarily taking all
decisions for them: any successor can decide differently, they have new
problems to solve collectively, and they should not inherit of the past
conflicts: it's our current colllective responsibiltiy to give peace to our
children and later descendants, and not transfer them the cost of past
conflicts; and there's only one way to solve it: all people living today
need to be represented and should have the right to organize themselves and
be respected by recognizing their organizations instead of fighting them
using old laws and brutal forces).
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