Perspectives on Western Sahara

Perspectives on Western Sahara PDF Author: Anouar Boukhars
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442226862
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
The ongoing conflict in Western Sahara is one of the more intractable legacies of European colonization in North Africa. Following the withdrawal of Spain, this territorial dispute escalated in 1975 into a war of independence between the Sahrawi people of the Polisario Front, who were backed by Algeria, and the states of Mauritania and Morocco. In 1976, the Polisario Front established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which was not admitted in the UN but won recognition by a few states. After multiple peace efforts, the conflict reemerged in 2005 as the “independence Intifada.” Today, the Polisario Front controls about 20% of Western Sahara. At the heart of the conflict lie geopolitical interests and incompatible claims aggravated by the use of military force and decades of mostly unproductive diplomatic maneuvers by international bodies and regional or foreign powers. This thorough, impartial survey brings together some of the best experts on the Sahara question to provide a broad-based analysis of the problem, from a range of perspectives. Featuring new research, the chapters examine the roots of the conflict, its dynamics, and potential solutions. This groundbreaking text also addresses questions of law, human rights, natural resources from an analytical point of view. Contributed by scholars from North Africa, Europe, and the U.S., it is an essential contribution to the literature of Middle East and African studies.

Perspectives on Western Sahara

Perspectives on Western Sahara PDF Author: Anouar Boukhars
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442226862
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

Get Book Here

Book Description
The ongoing conflict in Western Sahara is one of the more intractable legacies of European colonization in North Africa. Following the withdrawal of Spain, this territorial dispute escalated in 1975 into a war of independence between the Sahrawi people of the Polisario Front, who were backed by Algeria, and the states of Mauritania and Morocco. In 1976, the Polisario Front established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which was not admitted in the UN but won recognition by a few states. After multiple peace efforts, the conflict reemerged in 2005 as the “independence Intifada.” Today, the Polisario Front controls about 20% of Western Sahara. At the heart of the conflict lie geopolitical interests and incompatible claims aggravated by the use of military force and decades of mostly unproductive diplomatic maneuvers by international bodies and regional or foreign powers. This thorough, impartial survey brings together some of the best experts on the Sahara question to provide a broad-based analysis of the problem, from a range of perspectives. Featuring new research, the chapters examine the roots of the conflict, its dynamics, and potential solutions. This groundbreaking text also addresses questions of law, human rights, natural resources from an analytical point of view. Contributed by scholars from North Africa, Europe, and the U.S., it is an essential contribution to the literature of Middle East and African studies.

Western Sahara

Western Sahara PDF Author: Stephen Zunes
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 0815652585
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
The Western Sahara conflict has proven to be one of the most protracted and intractable struggles facing the international community. Pitting local nationalist determination against Moroccan territorial ambitions, the dispute is further complicated by regional tensions with Algeria and the geo-strategic concerns of major global players, including the United States, France, and the territory’s former colonial ruler, Spain. Since the early 1990s, the UN Security Council has failed to find a formula that will delicately balance these interests against Western Sahara’s long-denied right to a self-determination referendum as one of the last UN-recognized colonies. The widely-lauded first edition was the first book-length treatment of the issue in the previous two decades. Zunes and Mundy examined the origins, evolution, and resilience of the Western Sahara conflict, deploying a diverse array of sources and firsthand knowledge of the region gained from multiple research visits. Shifting geographical frames—local, regional, and international—provided for a robust analysis of the stakes involved. With the renewal of the armed conflict, continued diplomatic stalemate, growing waves of nonviolent resistance in the occupied territory, and the recent U.S. recognition of Morocco’s annexation, this new revised and expanded paperback edition brings us up-to-date on a long-forgotten conflict that is finally capturing the world’s attention.

War and Refugees

War and Refugees PDF Author: Richard I. Lawless
Publisher: Burns & Oates
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description


The Sultan's Communists

The Sultan's Communists PDF Author: Alma Rachel Heckman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 150361414X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
The Sultan's Communists uncovers the history of Jewish radical involvement in Morocco's national liberation project and examines how Moroccan Jews envisioned themselves participating as citizens in a newly-independent Morocco. Closely following the lives of five prominent Moroccan Jewish Communists (Léon René Sultan, Edmond Amran El Maleh, Abraham Serfaty, Simon Lévy, and Sion Assidon), Alma Rachel Heckman describes how Moroccan Communist Jews fit within the story of mass Jewish exodus from Morocco in the 1950s and '60s, and how they survived oppressive post-independence authoritarian rule under the Moroccan monarchy to ultimately become heroic emblems of state-sponsored Muslim-Jewish tolerance. The figures at the center of Heckman's narrative stood at the intersection of colonialism, Arab nationalism, and Zionism. Their stories unfolded in a country that, upon independence from France and Spain in 1956, allied itself with the United States (and, more quietly, Israel) during the Cold War, while attempting to claim a place for itself within the fraught politics of the post-independence Arab world. The Sultan's Communists contributes to the growing literature on Jews in the modern Middle East and provides a new history of twentieth-century Jewish Morocco.

The Western Sahara Conflict

The Western Sahara Conflict PDF Author: Pedro Pinto Leite
Publisher: Nordic Africa Inst
ISBN: 9789171065711
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 31

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Book Description
This book gives a comprehensive background to the long running conflict on the status of Western Sahara and particularly highlights the question of the territory’s natural resources, such as fish, oil and phosphates. The book analyzes why this territory, (mainly covered by desert and only sparsely populated), has since 1976 when the former colonial power Spain left the territory, engaged governments and people, both regionally and internationally, and the implications of its natural resources. The book includes: - a summary of the Western Saharan conflict, by Pedro Pinte Leite, specialist in international law in the Netherlands; - an up-to-date picture of the situation in Western Sahara with regard to natural resources, and the way in which exploitation is taking place, by Toby Shelley, a British journalist; - the UN’s legal opinion from 2002 on exploitation of the natural resources of a Non-Self-Governing Territory written by Hans Corell, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, the Legal Counsel. Two political views of the conflict are also included. Magnus Schöldtz and Pål Wrange from the Swedish Foreign Ministry elucidate the Swedish Foreign Policy on the Western Sahara Conflict. A statement by Karin Scheele, MEP and President of the Intergroup on Western Sahara in the European Parliament focuses on the economic interests of the parties involved in the conflict. These contributions together with an extended chronology, by Claes Olsson, over the different phases of the conflict form a useful information source for policy-makers, researchers, students and activists interested in or dealing with issues related to the Maghreb framework and in particular the Western Saharan conflict. Contributors include: Hans Corell, is Ambassador and a Former UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, the Legal Counsel Pedro Pinto Leite is a Portuguese international jurist based in Holland, secretary of the International Platform of Jurists for East Timor and coordinator of the Dutch section of the International Association of Jurists for Western Sahara. Claes Olsson has done further research after his degree in social sciences and is the author of several books and articles on the Western Saharan issue. Magnus Schöldtz, Deputy Director, Head of North Africa Section, Middle East and North Africa Department, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Stockholm. Pål Wrange is a principal legal advisor on public international law at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Stockholm. Toby Shelley is a journalist and writer. He is author of 'Endgame in the Western Sahara', published by Zed Books. He has visited the Western Sahara and the Sahrawi refugee camps on a number of occasions. Karin Scheele, Member of the European Parliament (MEP), is President of the Intergroup on Western Sahara in the European Parliament

Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization

Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization PDF Author: Raquel Ojeda Garcia
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781349950348
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
This book explores the traces of the passage of time on the protracted and intractable conflict of Western Sahara. The authors offer a multilevel analysis of recent developments from the global to the local scenes, including the collapse of the architecture of the UN-led conflict resolution process, the advent of the War on Terror to the the Sahara-Sahel area and the impact of the ‘Arab Spring’ and growing regional security instability. Special attention is devoted to changes in the Western Sahara territory annexed by Morocco and the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. Morocco has adapted its governance and public policies to profound socio-demographic transformations in the territory under its control and has attempted to obtain international recognition for this annexation by proposing an Autonomy Plan. The Polisario Front and Sahrawi nationalists have shifted their strategy and pushed the centre of gravity of the conflict back inwards by focusing on pro-independence activism inside the disputed territory.

Historical Dictionary of Morocco

Historical Dictionary of Morocco PDF Author: Aomar Boum
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442262974
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1003

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Book Description
A historical reference work on Morocco must take as its subject al-maghrib al-aqsa (the far west) as the Arabic scholars have generally referred to the approximate region of present-day Morocco, roughly the north-west corner of Africa but at times including much of the Iberian peninsula, because the modern nation-state is a relatively recent creation owing much to events in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. External influences on Morocco tend to come across the narrow straits of Gibraltar to the north, from the east along the Mediterranean litoral, or up from the Sahara. In each case, access is constrained by geography and continued control from outside the region has been difficult to manage over the long term. Although many of the dynasties that came to power in Morocco conquered much broader regions, history and topology have so conspired that there is still more coherence to an historical focus on al-maghrib al-aqsa than is the case for most modern nation-states. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Morocco contains a chronology, an introduction, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 600 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Morocco.

The United Nations and Western Sahara

The United Nations and Western Sahara PDF Author: Anna Theofilopoulou
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Western Sahara
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description


A History of Modern Morocco

A History of Modern Morocco PDF Author: Susan Gilson Miller
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521810701
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
A richly documented survey of modern Moroccan history that will enthral those searching for the background to present-day events in the region.

War and Insurgency in the Western Sahara

War and Insurgency in the Western Sahara PDF Author: Geoffrey Jensen
Publisher: Military Bookshop
ISBN: 9781782663928
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description
At a crucial crossroads between Africa and Europe, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and the "Arab World" and the West, Morocco has long had a special place in U.S. diplomacy and strategic planning. Since September 11, 2001, Morocco's importance to the United States has only increased, and the more recent uncertainties of the Arab Spring and Islamist extremism have further increased the value of the Moroccan-American alliance. Yet one of the pillars of the legitimacy of the Moroccan monarchy, its claim to the Western Sahara, remains a point of violent contention. Home to the largest functional military barrier in the world, the Western Sahara has a long history of colonial conquest and resistance, guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency, and evolving strategic thought, and its future may prove critical to U.S. interests in the region.