The Last Colony of Africa

Absztrakt

In 1974 Spanish Sahara was a colony ready to hold a referendum in order to let people’s right to self-determination be expressed; in 1975 a United Nations Mission and an advisory opinion of International Court reaffirmed this right, but a war broke out. In 1991 the UN managed to establish the order and instituted the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (in French: Mission des Nations Unies pour l’Organisation d’un Référendum au Sahara Occidental - MINURSO). A Settlement Plan which included the organization for a referendum leading to the independence of Western Sahara or its annexation to the Kingdom of Morocco was accepted by both the parties. Nowadays, with no referendum held the tension is growing. From the point of view of international law Morocco is an occupying power, with precise duties and no rights on the natural resources of the country that it is occupying, nevertheless Morocco acts as if the integration of Western Sahara with its own national territories was absolutely lawful. No state in the world has recognized Morocco’s presence in Western Sahara as a licit fact, but many countries signed economic and commercial treaties with Rabat. These treaties involve the Sahrawis’ natural resources, but not this people’s interests which should be paramount.