Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XXIV, North Africa

374. Telegram From the Embassy in Morocco to the Department of State¹

2223.

Rabat, March 30, 1981, 1215Z

SUBJECT

• The Saharan War: A New Phase in Prospect?

Ref:

• (A) Rabat 2023²
• (B) Rabat 2057³
• (C) Paris 9021.⁴

1. S—Entire text.

2. Summary: The Sahara conflict seems about to enter a new and more worrisome phase, marked by a wider area for military confrontation and possibly the use of more sophisticated weaponry. Escalation would not only foster the fragmentation of the weakest contestant but would harm U.S. interests in the region. We urge countervailing U.S. initiatives and suggest several. End summary.

3. As Department will be aware, the nasty Saharan conflict in northwest Africa appears to be poised on the threshold of a new phase. If its history and current indications are any guide, it seems likely to expand both geographically and become more classical in terms of the weapons involved.

4. Where for the last 2-1/2 years this desert war involved essentially hit-and-run scrimmaging between Moroccan regulars and handfuls of Polisario guerrillas in a northern portion of the ex-Spanish Sahara, these hostilities have meanwhile expanded territorially to involve southern Morocco proper and the Tiris el-Gharbia. Other powers—Libya as well as Algeria—are now more broadly involved. The conflict now seems ready to transform classical Mauritania’s northern regions into a new “live” front.

5. Where the Polisario once relied essentially on mobility and small arms, they now feature the use of heavy artillery including rockets and advanced anti-aircraft missiles. The Moroccans have increasingly transferred more equipment from the north until roughly 80 percent of their military strength is now concentrated in the south. The Algerians/Libyans (B) are busily arming Mauritania.

6. It is not the purpose of this message to try to assign responsibility for this trend to which all of the parties have to some degree contributed. It may, however, be helpful, as we ponder what these developments may mean for the United States, to spotlight some essential aspects of the war’s dynamic.

7. On the Moroccan side there is a politically determinative deepseated consensus that Algeria, since Moroccan assistance during its war for independence, has betrayed Morocco.⁵ Moreover, there is also the sentiment that the colonial powers, principally Spain and France have wronged Morocco: its territories were occupied only to be returned in the post-war era to the King’s legitimate sovereignty grudgingly, under pressure and in bits and pieces. France is also blamed for creating a related latent territorial conflict between Morocco and Algeria by assignment [of] former Moroccan territories to the jurisdiction of the French residency in Algiers. Paris thus ultimately created today’s Algeria (consolidated by Ben Bella’s betrayal after Ferhat Abbas’⁶ fall and sanctified by the OAU in its post-colonial frontiers) at Morocco’s expense. The Moroccans, then, see themselves in the Western Sahara as reclaiming their own, having already paid a heavy political and territorial price in ‘73 at Ifrane⁷ in agreeing to relinquish “their” Algerian lands.

8. We defer to our colleagues in Algiers for any discussion of the basic reasons which have moved both the Boumédiène and the Bendjedid governments to allow a rebellious third country political movement to use Algerian territory to attack a neighbor and to support the Polisario in its endeavors with everything necessary for the conduct of “its” hostilities. Clearly, one reason will be Algeria’s response to the Moroccan perception, i.e., its interest in a Morocco so weakened and otherwise occupied further west that it will not reopen the latent territorial issue with Algeria (Rabat never ratified the Ifrane Accord, charging Algerian non-compliance with some of its terms) referred to above.

9. Morocco’s annexation of the Tiris el-Gharbia,⁸ finally, has brought Rabat’s self-proclaimed sovereignty up against the traditional borders of Mauritania, a weak and artificial state also created by the former colonial power, in which the Polisario seems about to play the role of the Palestinians in Lebanon. All the ingredients for Mauritania’s fragmentation now exist as eloquently described by our colleagues in Nouakchott.

10. First French security guaranties, the GIRM’s withdrawal from the conflict and its follow-on posture of neutrality assured Mauritania a degree of protection from external shocks and internal political imbalances. The withdrawal of that protection, the ascendancy of GIRM’s pro-Algerian/Polisario Requibat wing and Algiers (as well as Tripoli’s) apparent eagerness to try to exploit new opportunities which this affords, seem from here the principal operative elements of the new situation which now confronts the parties. These elements appear to us more significant than Morocco’s role—whatever that turns out finally to have been—in the failed March 16 coup in Nouakchott, because whatever Morocco’s miscalculations, Rabat’s initiatives look to us essentially reactive. Morocco, in short, appears to have perceived (or perhaps misperceived the extent) Mauritania’s slide towards the embrace of its enemies, Algeria and Libya, and may have moved to stop this evolution in its tracks. However that may be, a domestically polarizing Mauritania used by the key belligerents to exploit perceived advantages (Algeria, Libya) or to preempt (Morocco) virtually guarantees the growth of the conflict in the region.

11. What to do? If the players are left to their own devices, the war’s expansion/escalation seems very likely further to damage inter alia our bilateral and regional interests. Whether Mauritania as now constituted will remain viable in such circumstances is anybody’s guess. From here, its Chadianization seems rather more probable (cf Paris 9021).⁹ The OAU Wiseman option also becomes more difficult of execution and Morocco, our friend, becomes more deeply enmeshed in a war that it can ill afford over a cause it will not and cannot abandon. Given this unpleasant outlook we would urge the Department to consider countervailing measures. These might include some form of demilitarization or guaranteed respect by all the parties of Mauritania’s northern frontier; a new “neutral” Western (if France remains unavailing) commitment to the GIRM for protection against Polisario incursions, thus supporting that government’s loudly-proclaimed desire to keep the Polisario out; encouragement to the OAU to get on with its Wiseman option by taking the actions recently suggested in DAS Draper’s March 25 congressional testimony;¹⁰ a US effort to engage Algeria and Morocco directly in active dialogue on ways to limit and eventually to end these hostilities. (Dept’s 77983 was received and welcomed after this was drafted.)¹¹

Sebastian

1. Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D810148–0903. Secret; Priority. Sent for information Priority to Algiers, Dakar, Nouakchott, and Paris. Sent for information to Madrid and USUN.
2. See footnote 3, Document 3.
3. In telegram 2057 from Rabat, March 23, the Embassy reported receiving information concerning the deployment of Moroccan troops to Agadir, which “suggests that direct original planning link between coup attempt and movement of this force unlikely.” (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D810137–0942)
4. In telegram 9021 from Paris, March 26, the Embassy reported that a member of the French Foreign Ministry “was concerned about the future of Mauritania after the coup attempt.” The Embassy continued: “the speed with which Algeria provided military assistance, among other factors, led him to believe that the GIRM and the Algerians were expecting something.” The official also speculated: “It is possible that Mauritania may soon slip decisively away from its avowed policy of neutrality” in the Western Sahara. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D810143–1090)
5. See Document 140.
6. Reference is to Ferhat Abbas, who was the first President of Algeria’s constitutional assembly following independence. Ahmed Ben Bella, Algeria’s first President, subsequently expelled Abbas from the Front de Libération Nationale, Algeria’s ruling party, and placed him under house arrest from 1964 until 1965.
7. The date is in error. Morocco and Algeria signed an agreement in 1972 demarcating a common boundary. See Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, vol. E–9, Documents on North Africa, 1973–1976, Part 1, Document 87. Negotiations began at Ifrane in 1969 after the two nations signed the Treaty of Fraternity, Good Neighborliness, and Cooperation.
8. Reference is to Morocco’s 1978 annexation of the Tiris al-Gharbia (Gharbiyya) region of the Western Sahara, which had been annexed by Mauritania in 1975 after Spanish forces left the area. Mauritania withdrew from the region after three years of Polisario guerrilla activities. For more on Mauritania’s decision to withdraw, see Foreign Relations, 1977–1980, vol. XVII, Part 3, North Africa, Documents 234–236.
9. See footnote 4 above.
10. Draper’s testimony, based upon the issues discussed in Document 373, is in telegram 76358 to multiple posts, March 26. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D810142–0536)
11. Printed as Document 4.