More for the Moor

[picture: it's not the size that matters, it's what you do with it]

The Moor Next Door has put up an essay on the concept of Greater Morocco, which has obvious relevance to Western Sahara, but which has also been a huge influence on the foreign policies -- and even internal policies -- of Mauritania and Algeria. Have not had time read it yet, but Nouri is a sharp guy, and I expect it to be very interesting.

Essay is here, literature list here.

Dressing up the dead

Let's just say it: the UN secretary-general's personal envoy for Western Sahara, Peter van Walsum, looks set to go down in history as the worst UN mediator in the history of the conflict. Not that anyone else has been particularly successful, given that the conflict remains unsolved after 33 years. But van Walsum isn't only failing in his mission: while on the post, he has overseen the systematic dismantling of the framework so carefully constructed by the UN over these decades, on which the ceasefire is hinged. The UN's role and power of initative has deteriorated to virtually none at all, and the peace process itself has been emptied of all content. This should be of concern to both Morocco and Polisario (and Algeria), and to all those who do not wish to see the conflict spin out of UN hands.

[picture: peter van walsum]

If we look back a bit, the UN as an organization had real influence after the 1991 ceasefire, when the whole battle moved into Minurso and the referendum process. Sure, there were all sorts of pressures from the big powers (read US and France) and neither the secretary-general nor Minurso could accomplish much without their approval. But at least the debate took place inside the UN framework, on UN terms, and it was the UN that acted as referee. Erik Jensen's memoir of his years in Minurso is dull stuff for anyone not seriously interested in the issue, but the short summary is this: Morocco and Polisario both behaved like paranoid schizophrenics, obstructing every step of the peace plan, and at least one of them had foreign backing to do it; but despite slow progress, there was progress, and we did get them to make actual deals.

Now, this is no longer the case. The Manhasset negotiations are a joke, not taken seriously by anyone involved. All important developments take place outside of the UN, in bilateral relations between Morocco and France, Morocco and the USA, Algeria and the USA, etcetera; and perhaps on playing fields such as the EU and the African Union. These decisions are then reflected in the compromises crafted in the Security Council, which will occasionally lean to and fro, but invariably tend to support the continued stalemate. The UN's only remaining tools for independent action are (1.) Minurso and (2.) whatever negotiation initiatives the secretary-general and his envoy decide to come up with. Minurso, of course, is not very relevant anymore: it has been stripped of all tasks except that of apolitical ceasefire watchdog. As for creative diplomacy, there's the secretary-general's reports, but they contain absolutely nothing of value. And then there's van Walsum's periodic forays into the region, and his own reports: his chance to make a difference. But how does he use those precious opportunities? Let's hear it from the man himself:

Chahid El Hafed (Refugee Camps), 09/02/2008 (SPS) The personal envoy of the UN secretary-general for the Sahara, Mr. Peter Van Walsum, declared on Saturday in the Saharawi refugee camps, after a meeting with the president of the [Sahrawi] republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, that the "positions of the parties are still very far apart" and that he has "no new plan to exit from this stalemate". [He] added that "it is not meaningful to propose something which will necessarily be rejected by one of the parties"...

That's it, that's all. That's his plan. The parties do not agree, and there's zero likelihood they ever will -- and yet we must not confront either one outright, in the hope of to forcing a change in its position.

There you have it: the quiet admission that the UN has surrendered all influence over the process. The key year was 2006, when the recently appointed van Walsum suggested that the UN should "take a step back" from the process, thereby implicitly dropping 15+ years of painstakingly negotiated agreements, and Annan agreed to recommend this to the Security Council. It has voluntarily reduced its own (already limited) role to waiting for an intervention by the USA or France, or perhaps some drastic political cataclysm in Morocco or Algeria. This can't even be properly qualified as sham peace process, because there's no hidden agenda to it -- there's simply no agenda at all, except to stave off war, keep the Minurso op rolling and the pointless reports and resolutions flowing. Like some strange cult, where only the rituals remain and no one is quite sure why they're doing these complicated ceremonial dances, except they have a vague sensation that the heavens will come crashing down if they don't.

Alright, very colorful -- but what can he do, you may ask? Not a whole lot, for sure. The balance of power is what it is, and there will be no sudden breakthroughs whatever he decides to write in his reports or say to the media. But there are at least some things that he could do, and would do, if he was serious about this mission, and if the UN as a whole was serious about it.

One very simple move would be to openly address the deteriorating human rights situation: recommend openly that Minurso be granted the mandate to station observer teams for human rights in both the refugee camps and the Moroccan-controlled territories. If one or both of the parties decides to refuse this, let them carry the blame; if it is stopped in the Security Council (by France), then let them carry the blame, and keep trying.

Another thing is to recommend some other form of arbitration. Why not recommend that the issue be put back before the International Court? Since both parties claim to have support of the Court's last verdict, in 1975, they should be glad to see that happen; if it turns out they're afraid of a final verdict, let them try to explain that in public.

A third way of putting pressure on the parties would be to challenge their own narratives, by simply taking them up on their own propaganda. For example: recommend the Security Council to order a headcount of all Western Saharans, whether in Tindouf or in the Moroccan-controlled territories or abroad, and make the results public. Or simply ask for the Minurso voter lists to be made public, so everyone can see what way the referendum was going. Or ask for an open corridor between the refugee camps and the Moroccan-held territories, with guaranteed right of return to both sides. Or ask the Security Council to order internationally reviewed opinion polls on all sides of the berm, to see what Sahrawis really want. Or start distributing blame for the slow progress of the confidence-building measures: be frank about who is obstructing what, to shame them into action. The possibilities are limitless, and they all seem to require only one simple thing -- being open and honest about what's going on, and talking creatively about how to find solutions instead of waiting for them to occur deus ex machina.

Hey, now, you might be saying: this is fantasy. There's no way that some of those proposals could pass Security Council scrutiny, and no way that they could even be in his reports. Van Walsum isn't interested in sticking his neck out, he's a 74-year old man just passing time in a comfortable sunset post until he decides to retire; to actually try to crack the Sahara stalemate simply isn't in his job description. And you would be right.

Peter Van Walsum's job is not to mediate, and not to make a difference, and not even to preserve the influence of the UN -- his job is simply to be in the job. It is to issue a report every now and then, to poke and pull the peace process, kick its legs, to make it move a little, twitch a little, so people won't notice that it's been dead for years already, and so they will think that things are still safely in the caring hands of the United Nations.

But Peter, it's starting to smell.

UN SC resolution, as expected. [updated]

Full text here. No news, so no comment.

[picture: john bolton, pointing fingers]

UPDATE: No, still no comment. But do read the Inner City Press, because there you'll find not only videos from the press conferences, but also an interesting excerpt from John Bolton's new book, where he apparently devotes some three pages to Western Sahara. In it, he attacks the Bush administration's new stance as anti-, or at least un-democratic, and blames it on the dastardly Mr. Kenilworth. (The article's author, Matthew Russell Lee, is also a name that turns up just about everywhere: it was he who wrote about the corruption scandal that tainted a certain Philippe Elghouayel.)

Much ado about nothing

Below is an interesting, unusually good though not flawless, report on the upcoming Security Council resolution, scheduled for October 31. Not much new, it seems, but the very fact that the Council nations are set to repeat their last battle is interesting. The US, France and the UK line up against -- well, basically the Third World, headed by South Africa, possibly including Russia, and with China on the sidelines. The big prize: some pointless marginal wording, with no legal meaning.

[picture: guys, would you hurry up, please?]

West, nonaligned states disagree over Sahara plans

Fri 26 Oct 2007, 19:01 GMT By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Western and non-aligned countries disagreed on Friday over rival plans for Western Sahara as the U.N. Security Council sought to spur Morocco and the territory's independence movement to negotiate seriously.

Morocco, which annexed the former Spanish colony of 260,000 people after Madrid's troops pulled out in 1975, has offered it autonomy but the Polisario Front movement is calling for a referendum with full independence as one option.

Well, Polisario and every single approved and signed peace plan, plus the latest Security Council-sponsored peace initiative (the Baker Plan), plus the entire mandate for the UN's peace-keeping mission -- but yes, Polisario. Carry on.

As the Security Council began discussions on renewing the mandate of U.N. peacekeepers in phosphate-rich Sahara, South Africa protested that a U.S. draft resolution openly favored Rabat's proposals over those of Algeria-based Polisario. A copy of the draft obtained by Reuters welcomes the "serious and credible Moroccan efforts to move the process forward" but merely "takes note of" Polisario's proposal.

If this is accurate, it is interesting and a bit puzzling that they won't push for a more meaningful change in the text. The Secretary-General just recently interpreted exactly this sort of wording (which was already there in the last resolution) as meaning that both plans must necessarily be discussed, however unequally they are described. That they would still spend their efforts fighting for exactly the same kind of for-show-endorsement seems more psychological warfare than actual politics. Why would the US involve itself in such petty battles, when it presumably can throw some weight around in the Council to effect real changes?

What this effectively leads to, is that South Africa and other fans of international law are spurred to fight a risk-free battle: either they manage to change the text after the US went public about it, inflicting some notable credibility loss on Morocco's great-power allies, or they don't, in which case nothing at all changes. If anyone can explain the logic to me, the comment section is all yours.

Both plans were submitted in April to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, prompting the Security Council to call on the two sides to hold talks. Two rounds were held near New York in June and August, with little progress.

"Unfortunately there's still a desperate attempt by some of the countries that support Morocco to try and make it sound like the Moroccan proposal is the answer," South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo told reporters.

"We have made it very clear that ... we want the parties to negotiate based on the two plans that were presented," he added, describing favoring the Moroccan plan as a "waste of time" that jeopardized the negotiations.

Morocco's main allies on the council are the United States and France, but Kumalo said a majority of the 15 council members called for balance in the resolution.

Western countries argue, however, that Morocco has moved from demanding that Sahara be fully integrated into its territory to agreeing to wide-ranging autonomy, while Polisario has continued to insist on an independence option.

"We have to recognize that the fact that the Moroccans came forward with this plan -- it was a new plan whereas the Polisario plan was basically their old plan -- in a sense that injected at least a momentum," one Western diplomat said.

Much-needed momentum, too, after Morocco torpedoed two successive Security Council-sponsored peace plans, wasting 16 years of the UN's efforts ... but that's for another story, apparently.

WALL OF SAND

No country recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, where a 1,500-km (940-mile) wall of sand separates Moroccan and Polisario forces.

While France is a long-standing ally of Morocco, the United States has taken Rabat's side more recently. Analysts say it wants the Sahara dispute resolved soon to aid its fight against Islamic militancy in North Africa and believes the autonomy plan offers the best solution.

Not to mention that a couple of hundred million dollars of Moroccan lobbying efforts in Washington have succeeded in completely turning the tables on Polisario, which still doesn't enjoy any serious Algerian backing where it matters -- on Capitol Hill. Right now, Morocco is pocketing an ever-increasing number of Congress members simply because there is no countervailing force: no big money to challenge them (despite the Algerian oil jackpot), and no media scrutiny whatever position they take.

And nothing wrong with that. It is how the game is played, and Morocco is simply a better player than Algeria, while Polisario are way to small & poor to compete on their own.

The council's resolution is expected to renew the mandate of some 200 U.N. military observers in the desert territory, when it expires on Wednesday, for another six months.

It is also expected to call on Morocco and the Polisario to make fresh efforts to resolve their dispute through "substantive negotiations."

A recent report by Ban said the talks so far had been disappointing, with each side sticking to "rigid positions." "It cannot really be maintained that the parties have entered into negotiations," it said.

Ban's report said each side should accept that it could at least discuss the other's proposal without that implying that it was abandoning its own.

Again, this last suggestion is the only new element since April, when the plans were presented and the resolution adopted. Not much, but that's what they're pinning their hopes on, or claiming to pin their hopes on. Absent the public optimism, at least one side is perfectly happy with having this drag on until the end of time; the other side is equally content with having the talks continue until they see who succeeds the chimp in charge in the White House, and will decide on further action then.

No date or venue has been announced for the next round of talks. Diplomats said Polisario had agreed to a proposal by U.N. mediator Peter van Walsum for the second week in November but that Morocco wanted to wait until its new government, unveiled on Oct. 15, was endorsed by parliament. They said late November or early December now looked more likely.

I thought they had agreed on Geneva? Apparently not.

With friends like these...

French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen recently visited Morocco, and was interviewed in La Gazette du Maroc. On the topic of Western Sahara, his support for the Moroccan government's position comes unexpectedly close to ... Polisario's position:

Regarding the conflict in Western Sahara, he said that he "understands" the Moroccan proposal for autonomy, because "I was myself in favor of a French Algeria". "I always had the hope that the young Muslims of Algeria would be the spokesmen of the French flag in the Arab and Muslim world", he underlined.

Le Pen, of course, started his career in French fascism as a military intelligence officer (and, it seems, torturer) during the Algerian war of independence, after which he never really got over the loss of France's, eh... southern provinces. While I'm sure political support is always appreciated, I can understand why MAP hasn't put this one up on their front page.

The court has spoken

By pure chance, on reading Sahara Views' post on the International Court's 1975 verdict on Western Sahara (oh, can you guess which way he's leaning?), I noticed that the ICJ has quietly posted all of its material on the web. Until recently, there was just the summary, but now they've made available all the hundreds and hundreds of pages of statements to the court -- and with a brand new, sexy website design too. As a fullblown Western Sahara nerd, I get all sweaty and shiny-eyed.

However, in the unlikely case that you, dear reader, don't fully share my passion for dusty old pdf documents, the important part is quoted below. The powers that be may have decided to do it like West Irian, but there's still reason to read the verdict again, if you're ever in doubt about where international law comes down on all this:

In its Advisory Opinion which the General Assembly of the United Nations had requested on two questions concerning Western Sahara, the Court,

With regard to Question I, "Was Western Sahara (Rio de Oro and Sakiet El Hamra) at the time of colonization by Spain a territory belonging to no one (terra nullius)?",

- decided by 13 votes to 3 to comply with the request for an advisory opinion;

- was unanimously of opinion that Western Sahara (Rio de Oro and Sakiet El Hamra) at the time of colonization by Spain was not a territory belonging to no one (terra nullius).

With regard to Question II, "What were the legal ties between this territory and the Kingdom of Morocco and the Mauritanian entity?", the Court

- decided by 14 votes to 2 to comply with the request for an advisory opinion;

- was of opinion, by 14 votes to 2, that there were legal ties between this territory and the Kingdom of Morocco of the kinds indicated in the penultimate paragraph of the Advisory Opinion;

- was of opinion, by 15 votes to 1, that there were legal ties between this territory and the Mauritanian entity of the kinds indicated in the penultimate paragraph of the Advisory Opinion.

The penultimate paragraph of the Advisory Opinion was to the effect that:

The materials and information presented to the Court show the existence, at the time of Spanish colonization, of legal ties of allegiance between the Sultan of Morocco and some of the tribes living in the territory of Western Sahara. They equally show the existence of rights, including some rights relating to the land, which constituted legal ties between the Mauritanian entity, as understood by the Court, and the territory of Western Sahara. On the other hand, the Court's conclusion is that the materials and information presented to it do not establish any tie of territorial sovereignty between the territory of Western Sahara and the Kingdom of Morocco or the Mauritanian entity. Thus the Court has not found legal ties of such a nature as might affect the application of General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) in the decolonization of Western Sahara and, in particular, of the principle of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory.

* * *

SPS Watch: long after we gave up hope, they finally returned. SPS English is no longer AWOL.

Soon to come: negotiations about negotiations.

Yes, Abdelkader Taleb Oumar says so, and he should know, because after all, he's the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic's prime minister.

According to Taleb Oumar, a UN mission will tour the region on 15-20 May, preparing the ground for direct negotiations between Polisario and Morocco. In a Polisario statement from early May, the Front "reiterates its readiness" to conduct such talks, but is very clear about how they must happen: under direct UN supervision, and bilaterally between Morocco and Polisario.

They're not saying it outright, but they're fearing -- for good reason -- that Morocco, having achieved the shelving of the Baker Plan, will now restart its stalling measures. A first step could be by trying to introduce the CORCAS, or some similar coterie of puppet Sahrawis, as Polisario's counterpart in the negotiations, thereby both emptying them of all meaning (since CORCAS cannot make policy) and refusing Polisario its UN-sanctioned status as a party to a bilateral conflict. Polisario of course refuses to let Morocco redefine the Western Sahara question as a "conflict between Sahrawis" -- a sort of ethnic minority issue -- and is determined to have the negotiations done properly as part of UN decolonization procedures.

This has happened before. With little or no notice, Moroccan negotiators have been replaced with powerless tribal frontmen (the "palace Sahrawis") virtually every time negotiations were set up, and there's a good chance Morocco will try it again: they aren't interested in the negotiations, as long as Polisario aren't ready to surrender and accept the autonomy proposal. Morocco's main interest was to get Baker out of the picture, and thus relieve itself of all legal pressure; then, let the process stall and decay again, all the while pouring more settlers into the territory.

However, 16 more years of foot-dragging is not exactly in Washington's interest: the US wants the issue settled for good, and may well decide to pressure Morocco to sit straight and behave at the negotiating table. We'll find out, sooner or later.


SPS Watch: Follow-up from here. The Sahara Press Service, which is probably Front Polisario's single most important means of communication with the world, has as of the time of writing not updated its English section for 16 days. But then again, who needs efficient and timely PR directed at English-speaking countries these days. (To be continued...)

Why self-determination for W. Sahara?

A reader has commented on the post Elsewhere in the Sahara..., about the Algerian role in the Saharan/Sahel states, and specifically about its role in stopping the Touareg rebellion in Mali. As my answer grew long, I thought I'd just make it a main post, because the issue that she or he brings up is important. Why does the people of Western Sahara have the right to a self-determination referendum, if not all African peoples do?

Studentintheus writes:

I was at the point to write about the Touareg when you published this interesting post. I was amazed to know that Algeria don't want to hear any discussion about any form of independence or autonomy for the Touareg people. I was surprised because Algeria is the strongest supporter of Polisario worldwide and the Western Sahara issue is in the top priorities of The Algerian foreign policy. But try to discuss anything close to self-determination with the Algerian government and you will see how it will react. Algeria justfies its hosting and support to the Polisario Front by the fact that it is convinced of the Sahrawi people right for self-determination. So how it comes it opposes the slightest discussion about any kind of self determination for the Touareg people ? Any available explanation ?

Yes, there is an explanation.

The obvious reason is that would be bad for Algeria, with its oil down south and all. That might not convince you, or me, but it does count in Algeria. The government does, however, have a more appealing case than that, and a very strong one at that. But before I go into it, I noticed that you mention autonomy. This is another question. If Algeria so pleases, it can grant any form of autonomy to Touareg areas. That's an internal issue between government and people (or perhaps rephrased for an Algerian context, between this general and that).

Today in Algeria, the government doesn't allow for Touareg autonomy. In fact, it grants no autonomous status at all, to any part of its territory or people: like most in Africa, it's a centralized state. But then again, in the case of the Touareg, there is simply no demand for autonomy either, unlike what was the case in Mali. The Touareg have their grievances towards the central state like all Algerians (their tribal hierarchy was rather brutally disbanded by Boumédiène in the 70s, for example), but they haven't found an expression in separatism or nationalism, at least not to the point where this is actively advocated by any strong representatives of the Touareg. But there is a better example we can use. In Kabylie, the most restive Berber region in the country, there are some movements who do advocate autonomy. The most well-known is the MAK party, which, like their "regionalist" aspirations, arose after the "Black Spring" of 2001. If maltreatment and neglect of the Kabylie continues, that is certain to make the concept of self-rule more appealing, but for now, it seems (to me) that it is still pretty marginal. I'm not sure it's a bad idea though, and I think it's more bureaucratic and decideur resistance, as well as a fear on the part of Berbers to be branded separatists, than any expectation of ethnic domino effects that holds back discussion of it. You can compare all this to how Morocco is perfectly free to extend autonomy to any part of its territory, if it so pleases: the problem with the CORCAS plan is that Western Sahara isn't, at least not yet, a Moroccan territory.

Back to the question. Fortunately for the Algerian government, the Touareg and the Sahrawi situations are vastly different, not only in that there is no Touareg advocacy of independence in Algeria, but also in terms of international law and African decolonization practice.

The Western Sahara builds the whole case for its self-determination on inherited colonial borders. Between 1884 and 1975, whatever the prehistory, it was a separate territory with its own colonial master (Spain). And every single such colonial territory in Africa, except Western Sahara, has been granted independence: the last ones were Namibia in 1990 and Eritrea in 1993. (A belated Asian case, very similar to W. Sahara, was East Timor, which became independent only in 2002 after lengthy occupation by neigbouring Indonesia.)

To make matters even clearer, the UN has ruled that all colonial territories have the right to self-determination, in General Assembly resolution 1514, of 1960, which has since then become an established part of international law. Many of today's third-world countries in fact base their legal claim to existence on that resolution. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) looked into the Spanish Sahara case in 1975, on Moroccan demand, and came out unambigously in favor of applying 1514 on Western Sahara:

... the Court's conclusion is that the materials and information presented to it do not establish any tie of territorial sovereignty between the territory of Western Sahara and the Kingdom of Morocco or the Mauritanian entity. Thus the Court has not found legal ties of such a nature as might affect the application of General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) in the decolonization of Western Sahara and, in particular, of the principle of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory.

That settles it for Western Sahara: its people has a legal right to self-determination. This has been confirmed again and again by the UN Security Council, ever since, and even Morocco formally subscribes to this (even if it also holds that Western Sahara has already exercised its self-determination: back in 1975, by joyfully welcoming their Moroccan liberators).

Note however what the court said: it is not "Sahrawis" in general who have this right, it is "the peoples of the territory", thus restricting the claim to those Sahrawis who were deemed native to the territory. Sahrawi people and tribes whose main residence has traditionally been located safely within in, say, Mauritania, Mali or, most importantly today, Morocco, are thus not entitled to take part in this self-determination process, which is the self-determination of the territory, not of the (widely scattered) ethnic group. This is extremely imporant, because Morocco has settled tens of thousands of supposedly loyal (are they?) Sahrawis in the territory, in order to stack the voter rolls against independence. Most of them are uncontestably from within Moroccan territory in Western Sahara, where their tribes have lived for generations with little or no contact with today's Western Sahara except, occasionally, as traders. The Moroccan argument is that the vote should be widened to all Sahrawis (or Moors, i.e. Hassaniya-speaking nomads), regardless of origins or citizenships in other states, in order to take their nomadic habits in consideration. But the kingdom also signally fails to include the two million or so Mauritanians who would qualify under those rules, and who would by sheer numbers easily determine the vote. Why? Because they wouldn't necessarily vote in favor of Morocco.

Now, to the other people in question. What about the Touareg in Algeria?

Different case altogether. They were always under the same French colonial sovereignty as other Algerians, and the southern Algerian borders have never been in dispute. There has never been a separate Touareg country, colony or mandate that they could claim territorial self-determination for. So they would have to base any claims to self-rule solely on wanting independence and being ethnically distinct from their surroundings.

However, the African Union, previously OAU, has decided (like in §4b) that no-one is allowed to alter the colonial borders in Africa: uti possidetis, who has keeps. This has with time become the union's perhaps most sacred principle, and one of few to actually be respected by most of its members, since everybody agrees that if it could be safely ignored, that would open the gates of hell. It doesn't matter how badly drawn the borders are, because they're equally illogical all over, and almost every country in Africa is packed with secession-prone minorities, to the point that many doesn't have an ethnic majority at all. If one single border is unilaterally changed, or one single province is allowed to force independence, that would set a disastrous precedent for the entire continent. Or so the argument goes: it has been cynically exploited by many African leaders, but it is also, one must admit, true. Indeed, the only interstate wars in Africa about territorial sovereignty (as opposed to exact demarcation of fuzzily drawn borders) have been the Somali-Ethiopian Ogaden war in 1977-78, and the Moroccan attempts to annex parts of just-liberated Algeria, which led to the Sand war in 1963. Morocco is also the only African country not to be member of the union, precisely because the kingdom refuses to accept uti possidetis, and because the principle (and generous amounts of Algerian lobbying) has led to the Sahrawi republic's admission as a member state, in 1984.

What all this means is, more or less, that Touareg nationalists are chanceless. They fulfill none of the criteria that awarded colonial peoples self-determination rights -- to begin with, they aren't a "colonial people" at all, but one of many African peoples and tribes whose traditional lands have been cut up by European colonialists, and who will now have to find some way to deal with living under many different regimes. The Sahrawis, divided between Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Mali and other places, are in the same situation: it is the Western Saharan Sahrawis that has a special right of self-determination, through being the (only) original population of a non-decolonized territory. They are, legally, in the same position as Algerians or Moroccans were before their independence: they have a right to determine their future, and the UN still places Western Sahara on its list of self-governing countries. (Alone among major territories, with a smattering of tiny Pacific islands.)

But the Touareg do not have that right, and their ex-colonial territory is on no UN list -- since they they have no ex-colonial territory, and since they are a consequently a minority within a recognized independent state (or five). Their case is exactly like that of the Rif Berbers in Morocco, the Kabyles in Algeria, or the Wolof people in southern Mauritania. No-one would ever accept their secession, because that could spell the end of border legitimacy in the region. They'll have to set their sights on either some form of autonomous status inside their state, if they believe that will serve them (I'm not too sure), or, to demand what they very much are entitled to: equal consideration as full citizens of their state, democracy and respect for the human rights of all Algerians, Malians, Libyans and others in the countries where the Touareg live today.