Non-violence, self-determination, and the mighty Sahrawi: Is the future of Western Sahara indeed decided?

By Marselha Gonçalves Margerin

As 2026 progresses, protracted conflicts reignite, and we reckon with the world around us, it’s paramount to revisit different methods and attempts in the fight for freedom and self-determination. With conversations about Palestinian self-determination and the plight of Ukrainians at the forefront, the world still knows little about the Sahrawi people’s struggle for self-determination.
 
In the year I was born, 1975, the Franco regime abandoned its North African colony and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared that neither the Kingdom of Morocco nor Mauritania had a claim to the territory. In response, the Moroccan King led the invasion of the resource-rich territory to its south previously under Spanish rule. With the ICJ ruling that the territory should still be decolonized and a referendum should take place, decades of war and UN-brokered negotiations have been going on and off. 
 
Aminatou Haidar, the Sahrawi Gandhi
Seventeen years ago, on Thanksgiving day, I hastily flew to a remote, volcanic, paradisiac Spanish island about 80 miles off the North African Coast, less than 5 hours from the Moroccan capital. It wasn’t on any exotic vacation, but rather to support a Sahrawi non-violent human rights activist who had been detained and expelled to Spanish territory against her will. Her response to the illegal, politically charged deportation - a hunger strike to protest the situation. 
 
For almost a month, I witnessed the experience of a lifetime: the courage and altruism of a veiled North African woman and her power to mobilize support all over Europe and even the United States. Putting her health at stake, she resisted her arbitrary deportation and fought so she could return to her homeland, the Western Sahara, and continue to defy Moroccan occupation in situ. 
 
That November, I had been collaborating with the human rights defender Aminatou Haidar for a year since she received the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. She had been recognized for her nonviolent struggles promoting the self-determination of Western Sahara, and her Sahrawi People. Despite surviving detention, torture, and living under constant surveillance in the hands of Moroccan authorities, Aminatou believed the best way to call on Morocco to fulfil its responsibilities under international law and allow a long overdue referendum to happen, was through non-violent methods. 
 
On November 13, 2009, after receiving another award in the United States for her civil courage, and completing a round of high-level advocacy meetings, she returned to El-Aaiun, the capital of occupied Western Sahara. As she feared, Aminatou was detained, her passport confiscated, and after hours of interrogation, she was put on a plane back to the Canary Islands against her will. Arriving in Lanzarote, after several hours of refusing to disembark the airplane, the airport authorities convinced her to deplane, making her believe she could return to her homeland. 
 
After a couple of days, she realized the ruse, and as the days passed, it became clear the Spanish and Moroccan authorities were in connivance to keep her out of Western Sahara.  Aminatou decided the only way she could fight was with the only weapon she had -  her own body. She started a hunger strike.
 
If you are in the States, when you hear about non-violence, you probably think of MLK and Mahatma Gandhi and their actions during the civil rights and Free India movements, respectively. People tend to think of nonviolent action as peaceful. Whereas nonviolent actions are non-bellicose civil disobedience, they are far from peaceful actions as they aim at disrupting the status quo, with a very personal weapon - one's own body.
 

Disruptions & Political Implications
After accumulating two US Awards two years in a role, Aminatou's profile in the United States had been raised, and the decades-long forgotten conflict was regaining some attention at the UN and halls of Congress. After years of ignoring the ICJ decision, and detracting from UN resolutions to hold a vote on the future of the occupied territory, the Moroccan Kingdom didn’t appreciate the distraction to its plans this woman was creating. She was too high profile to detain, torture, or to disappear with, so they got their Spanish allies, to do their bid for them.
 
With increased coverage in the United States political scene, as the days passed, the situation caused an uproar in Spain by a boisterous solidarity movement. Camping all day on the main lounge of the small island airport, surrounded by supporters that would arrive every day, Aminatou’s hunger strike became a nuisance to the Spanish government, who had more concerns with the upcoming elections than the authoritarian regime in Morocco ever did. 
 
With escalating pressure, the governments of France, and the United States mediated her return on humanitarian grounds with the Moroccan Kingdom. After more than a month on hunger strike, Aminatou was finally allowed to return home to the occupied Western Sahara. As she went back, whereas Moroccan repression continued to those challenging Moroccan occupation of the territory, the international profile of the issue increased in the U.S. 
 
In the following years, the award-winning documentary “Africa’s Last Colony,” produced and promoted by the Spanish Actor Javier Bardem helped raise the issue’s profile. Bardem and Aminatou advocated for the referendum at the UN and, in the Halls of Congress. For the first time the US Ambassador to the UN at the time, Susan Rice, presented motions to support a human rights mandate to the obsolete UN mission that was created to support a referendum that Morocco never allowed to happen. 
 
Is this the end of the line?
After decades of diplomatic efforts, the legality of the self-determination claim was brushed aside by the self-interest of the powers-to-be. After decades of dodging the UN-sponsored referendum based on eligibility to vote, Morocco has been able to deflect it, and eventually convince its powerful allies that its proposed autonomy plan should be considered the only viable solution to the territory.  
 
Without a large Sahrawi constituency in the U.S., the faithful but small solidarity movement is not a competition for the ultra-powerful political support Morocco can draw in the West. Like other self-determination movements, the Sahrawi territory became a bargaining chip between Morocco and its powerful allies. 
 
In a huge blow to the Sahrawi people's non-violent resistance and its representatives after decades of diplomatic efforts, in 2020, in exchange for Morocco recognizing Israel in the cadre of the Abraham Accords, the U.S. government recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the entire territory of Western Sahara. 
 
With continued reliance on Morocco as the stopgap barrier from African migration to Spain, and contrary to popular support, in 2022, it was the turn of the Spanish government to support  Morocco’s “autonomy plan, which would preclude a popular vote. This led to over seventeen countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, and several African countries, that previously recognized the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic to ignore international law once again. 
 
As France loses its influence in its former colonies in the Sahel, in July 2024, in blunt defiance of international law, the French president “gifts” the Moroccan King, with its recognition of the “ Moroccan identity” and sovereignty over Western Sahara. Not only contradicting the UN legal framework and resolutions but in absolute spite of the Sahrawi people’s identity. 
 
With the US, Spain, and France, purporting to support the values of liberty, democracy, and the rule of law, turning their back on the UN referendum process copping out to Moroccan pressure, the minoritized majority of UN members should expedite an overdue reform of the UN Security Council with a more balanced interest that reflects the current world dynamics, and that truly respect UN rulings and mandates.
 
Some believe Western Sahara’s conflict was over once France recognized Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara. On the other hand, regional forces such as Algeria, and South Africa, have already broken commercial and diplomatic ties with Spain and France, and just recently the European Court of Justice ruled that occupied Western Shara is not part of EU-Morocco commercial agreements. 
 
Either living under harsh conditions in the Sahara desert, or under Moroccan occupation, for the past 50 years, I would dare to say the mighty Sahrawi is far from, giving up on its own identity, or accepting a forced-fed autonomy plan that disregards their legitimate right to their territory, and dictates “the present and future of Western Sahara lie within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty.’
 
Join the non-violent fight today!