A-Infos (en) Spaine, Regeneration: 50 Years of the Green March: A History of Resistance from the Sahara By REGLIB (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Always Remember Western Sahara ---- Located next to the Canary Islands 
archipelago, just 160 km between Fuerteventura and El Aaiún-its 
capital-Western Sahara is a divided territory. On one side, it has been 
occupied by the Moroccan regime since 1975; on the other, it is occupied 
by troops of the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army (SPLA), affiliated 
with the Polisario Front and loyal to the Sahrawi Arab Democratic 
Republic (SADR), who in some areas have to contend with zones surrounded 
by high walls and extensive minefields.

The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), with a flag identical to 
that of Palestine except for a red star and crescent added to its 
central white stripe, is one of those worlds that remains foreign to us 
due to its condemnation to the exile of oblivion. Unfortunately, the 
similarity in their flags is not the only common element between the 
SADR and Palestine. Both countries have suffered and continue to suffer 
the imperialist colonialism of their respective neighbors. While Israel 
seeks to build its imperial project-Greater Israel-by invading and 
assimilating Palestine and other territories in the Middle East, Morocco 
seeks to do the same-Greater Morocco-with the Sahara and other 
territories in the Maghreb. This is done while confronting the interests 
of neighboring countries (Algeria, Mauritania, Mali) and maintaining a 
belligerent stance against any threat it considers contrary to the 
representation of a national identity imposed by the Moroccan monarchy . 
In both contexts, the defense of the nation-state involves an offensive 
strategy of belligerent irredentism in which the European Union 
ultimately profits handsomely. In the Moroccan case, this also involves 
financing, with the approval of the Spanish state, a dictatorial regime 
that controls its southernmost border, conveniently ignoring the 
humanitarian disaster caused by its actions until the situation becomes 
untenable .  4

Both Israel and Morocco seek to impose their dominance by force of arms, 
in both cases condemning the neighboring people to apartheid. In both 
cases, these ambitions are met with armed resistance. In both cases, the 
conflict has dragged on for decades. In both cases, there is a reality 
rooted in the humanitarian disaster suffered by a people native to their 
land, in contrast to the exacerbated and exclusionary nationalism of 
their neighbor. The fronts are different, but the anti-colonial struggle 
is the same. All of this has led us to write these lines today, to 
understand the resistance of the Sahrawi people, to defend the cause of 
their self-determination. However, we should ask ourselves: how did we 
arrive at this situation?

The end of Spanish colonialism in the Sahara and the beginning of the 
Green March

Set against the backdrop of the final days of the Francoist 
dictatorship, the events of the Green March unfolded in the regime's 
dying embers. Taking advantage of the dictator's weakened state in his 
last days, the Alawite monarchy, under the leadership of Hassan 
II-father of the current Mohammed VI-seized the opportunity presented by 
the uncertainty gripping the Spanish state to launch its expansionist 
project. While these plans began to take shape in late October 1975, it 
was on November 3rd that some 350,000 participants in the Green March 
awaited orders from Rabat. These were mostly poor peasants recruited 
from all provinces of the kingdom and transported by ten trains daily to 
Marrakech. From there, they were taken first to Agadir and then to 
Tarfaya in 7,813 trucks . It was on this same day that talks took place 
between Morocco and Spain, making the situation inevitable. The Alawite 
monarchy will not hesitate to use the Moroccan people for its own benefit.

On November 6, amidst the chaos and with negotiations proving fruitless, 
the Green March began. Repressive forces loyal to Morocco, often 
disguised as farmers, advanced relentlessly, waving Moroccan and 
American flags, carrying portraits of Hassan II, and copies of the 
Quran. The demonstrators soon reached the border with Western Sahara, 
storming the already abandoned Tah border post. From there, the march 
penetrated 10 kilometers into Sahrawi territory. An agreement had been 
reached that they would remain there for only two days before 
withdrawing, but this did not happen. Columns of soldiers, vehicles with 
machine guns, and Moroccan armored vehicles had infiltrated the convoys 
of trucks, seemingly advancing toward the area where the Spanish 
defenses had retreated. Faced with a disastrous UN intervention 
incapable of enforcing Western Sahara's sovereignty, and with the Franco 
regime more concerned with the dictator's health than with the survival 
of its colonial ambitions, Morocco had no choice but to double down. The 
very next day, 100,000 troops had crossed the border, opening a new 
front to the east.

Under the threat of disbanding the Green March only if the Sahara was 
handed over, negotiations proceeded with Morocco holding a dominant 
position on the ground and the Franco regime handling the situation 
disastrously. While a number of international agreements were supposed 
to be respected, in reality these were merely empty promises, considered 
only superficially for public consumption. On substantive issues, 
Moroccan interests prevailed, with the government pledging to withdraw 
from the border if the Sahara was ceded to them. The agreements between 
Madrid and Rabat were signed outside the international community and 
with the implicit support of the United States for Morocco, following 
the guidelines set by Henry Kissinger within the international context 
of the Cold War.

In exchange for the Sahara, Hassan II offered the possibility of 
building Spanish military bases in the territory, trade agreements and 
phosphate mining, easier access to the region's fishing resources, 
protection of Spanish investments in the country, collaboration in 
industries and tourist resorts, and strategic alliances to control the 
Strait of Gibraltar and important parts of the Atlantic Ocean-all 
bilaterally and without consulting anyone. He maintained a double 
standard of legitimacy before the UN, while in reality, the decisions 
were being made behind closed doors.

On the 13th, it was decided that Spain would abandon its claims to the 
Sahara. The UN would then assume administration of the territory for a 
period of six months. During this time, it would create a temporary 
administration, under the authority of a High Commissioner, who would be 
assisted by a small group of officials. To maintain order, Spain would 
leave 10,000 legionnaires who would exchange their green caps for the 
blue helmets of the United Nations . In a prior trilateral meeting 
between Morocco, Mauritania, and Spain, it was announced that the latter 
would withdraw from the Sahara on February 28, 1976, establishing a 
temporary administration until then. The Sahrawi people's desire for 
self-determination was consistently rejected, although a referendum 
clause was eventually added, which was never held. The fate of Western 
Sahara was sealed, as it was written in the Madrid Accords between 
November 12 and 14 without the consent of its people.

The exodus of the Sahrawi population to Algeria began in February 1976, 
following Spain's definitive withdrawal from Western Sahara. Fighting 
between troops loyal to the Polisario Front and the Moroccan army 
continues to this day, as this occupation unfortunately persists. In 
1979, Mauritania withdrew from the conflict, relinquishing all its 
claims to Western Sahara, but Morocco has since taken advantage of the 
situation to expand its control over the region.

The Moroccan imperialist project

To understand the Moroccan state, we must first understand what the 
Makhzen means. The Makhzen is what we might define as the Moroccan "deep 
state," with the king and the monarchy at its apex, closely followed by 
the royal family, the country's top leaders, and the secret services. 
The high military command, the Moroccan diplomatic corps, and the upper 
echelons of the business oligarchy maintain this order intact. It is an 
organization whose structure and components are largely unknown, 
manifested only through the economic ostentation of its elites and their 
capacity to repress the people. There is no separation of powers typical 
of liberal democracies; the executive and legislative 
branches-government and parliament-are directly influenced by the orders 
issued by the Makhzen. The judiciary is influenced by Islamic law, 
effectively rendering the separation between God and State-personified 
in the figure of the king as the supreme religious and earthly 
representative, in both civil and military matters-nonexistent.

The Makhzen is a closed group with a rigid hierarchy, completely 
detached from, yet above, ordinary civil society. They value remaining 
inconspicuous and, at the same time, employ an unprecedented policy of 
repression against any opposition or dissenting movement that seeks to 
challenge their capacity for domination. Likewise, gaining the favor of 
the Makhzen can catapult anyone capable of attaining such privileges 
directly to stardom.

The Makhzen's reach extends both within and beyond the country's 
borders, with a vast network of informants and front organizations 
operating throughout what they consider their sphere of influence. Since 
1975, they have controlled the occupied territories of Western Sahara, 
excelling in the harassment and elimination of anyone linked to or 
sympathetic to the Sahrawi cause. Simultaneously, they support and 
protect the Moroccan colonial movement established in the Saharan 
territories under Rabat's command. Genocides such as the 1976 massacre 
of Um Draiga, the dismantling of Sahrawi refugee camps following the 
November 2010 protests, and the bombing of refugees fleeing to 
Algeria-the policy of terror manifested in massacres of civilians using 
napalm and white phosphorus-are the hallmarks of the Alawite monarchy.

With Morocco seeing the eastern Mediterranean, Erdogan's Turkey, and 
Netanyahu's Israel as examples of strong authoritarian regimes, it seeks 
to project this expansionism onto the western Mediterranean territories. 
Reading Allal El Fassi's 1956 theses, Morocco projects itself as an 
imperial reality based on expansionism and the claim to territories 
belonging to Mauritania, Western Sahara, Algeria, Mali, and the 
autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. The Greater Morocco project 
entails the direct subjugation of all neighboring peoples under its 
thumb. These theses, used as a tool to mobilize the Moroccan population 
with nationalist rhetoric, are based primarily on the persecution and 
extermination of the Sahrawi people, through the occupation of their 
lands and the elimination of all resistance.

The Makhzen's thirst for control is so great that it even benefits the 
European Union, which sees Morocco as the perfect guardian of its 
southernmost borders. The role of the cities of Ceuta and Melilla in all 
of this, along with the existence of a high, inhumane, and razor-sharp 
fence separating the Global North from the Global South, are part of a 
larger migration control scheme in which the Spanish State bows to 
orders dictated from Brussels.

The Sahara, for its part, in addition to being a strategic area for 
controlling access to the Atlantic from the Mediterranean, is also a 
land rich in resources such as phosphates, essential for agricultural 
fertilizer. It also has oil and natural gas deposits along its coast, 
along with some mineral deposits such as iron, copper, and uranium, 
fishing grounds adjacent to the territory, and enormous tourism 
potential that the Alawite monarchy is exploiting-offering a luxury 
resort project very similar to the one proposed by Trump in Gaza.

Oblivion, the worst enemy. Algeria, Tindouf and the camps

Western Sahara, a territory geographically located between Morocco to 
the north and Mauritania to the south, also shares a small northeastern 
border with Algeria. It is in Algeria that the government of the Sahrawi 
Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) is in exile, with a large part of the 
Sahrawi population residing in Tindouf, in refugee camps fleeing the 
Moroccan regime. Some 173,000 people live there, more than 80% of the 
indigenous population of Western Sahara.

Algeria, distinguished by its defense of self-determination as a 
fundamental geopolitical issue of its national identity-due to its 
historical role in the struggle for independence from France-is the main 
champion of the Sahrawi people's interests. Since both the Sahrawi Arab 
Democratic Republic (SADR) and Algeria have historically been guarantors 
of the liberation of peoples, this history of understanding and defense 
of their interests has endured to this day. The Greater Morocco project 
also clashes head-on with Algeria's national interests, and the Sahrawi 
people have found an important ally on the borders of this neighboring 
country. It is here that Tindouf is located, alongside the SADR 
government and the main institutions of the Polisario Front, with the 
city of Rabuni serving as its provisional capital.

The situation of the Sahrawi people in Tindouf is one of survival. 
Comprising five camps named after cities in Western Sahara-Bojador, 
Dakhla, El Aaiún, Auserd, and Smara-life in the camps, in the middle of 
the stony desert, is harsh. Unstable weather, with occasional heavy 
rains, extreme temperatures, and unpredictable winds, prevents the 
development of stable agriculture. All of this means that the Sahrawi 
people in the camps live in a state of refugee status. Living among 
prefabricated houses and buildings made of local materials, the Sahrawi 
people subsist, awaiting the victories of the Polisario Front in Western 
Sahara, where they hold several liberated territories, and hoping that 
the international situation will offer them a solution.

International agencies-primarily, though not exclusively, linked to the 
UN-offer scholarships and aid to encourage people to leave, even 
temporarily, such a hostile situation. In Spain, the "Holidays in Peace" 
project has always been well-known and appreciated by many who have 
benefited from it. However, is this fair, is this enough? To condemn a 
people to ostracism because of the neglect of Spanish colonialism? 
Because of allowing the Makhzen to exert its control over Western 
Sahara? The Sahrawi people deserve more than that. There is always a 
horizon beyond mere assistance; learning about their struggle is the 
first step.

Western Sahara and the struggle of a people for its existence

The Spanish state made a definitive shift in its stance regarding 
Western Sahara in 2022 when Pedro Sánchez's government sided with 
Morocco and initiated talks with the Alawite monarchy on migration 
issues. These talks have been used as a tool to pressure the government 
into making decisions that directly benefit the Makhzen (Moroccan 
state). Meanwhile, the United States-Morocco's oldest partner - openly 
supported Moroccan control of the territory in 2020 by opening 
consulates in the occupied cities of Dalja and El Aaiún. France, for its 
part, has always stood by Morocco, being one of its most reliable 
partners in the Maghreb region.

Recent events, as reflected in UN Resolution 2797, have led to a 
situation where Morocco's occupation plan for Western Sahara is more 
than validated, with US support at the forefront. With Morocco's 
sovereignty over the territory recognized, the right to 
self-determination and the promise of a referendum-which had been 
hanging in the balance since 1991-are definitively denied. While MINURSO 
9 will remain until 2026, the situation is above all unfavorable for a 
people who have been fighting for their existence for over fifty years. 
Faced with a state that de facto occupies territories belonging to 
Western Sahara, the Alawite monarchy explicitly exercises its power, 
persecuting any opposition or even the slightest dissenting voice that 
dares to question the Western Sahara issue. Morocco is once again 
relying on the US administration to exert its power in the region. 
Meanwhile, the Spanish State and the European Union are abandoning 
Western Sahara in word and deed.

The Western Sahara issue has been a taboo subject in the demands of 
GenZ212, perhaps more due to the repression that the Makhzen could exert 
on anyone who speaks out in favor of their cause. Even so, the 
historical defense of the Sahrawi people's self-determination 
necessarily involves the defeat of the Alawite monarchy and the 
imperialist powers that support it. The liberation of Western Sahara 
inevitably requires the defeat of the Moroccan regime and its partners. 
If in the future we were to see a union of struggles between the popular 
movements of the Rif, the defenders of the Sahrawi people's 
self-determination, and the Moroccan youth protest movement, perhaps 
that would be the moment when the Makhzen would tremble. Until then, all 
that remains is to forge ties and policies of understanding among those 
groups that fight despotism, wherever and whatever form it may take, on 
the ground.

Our people have always supported the Sahrawi cause. On this occasion, as 
on so many others, we will not stand idly by. To quote the British poet 
Percy Bysshe Shelley in his Ozymandias:

I met a traveler from an ancient land who said: "Two enormous stone 
legs, without their trunk, stand up in the desert. Beside them, in the 
sand, half-sunken, lies a shattered face, whose frown

And a grimace on the mouth, and a disdain of cold dominion, tell that 
its sculptor understood well those passions which still survive, 
engraved on these inert objects, to the hands that carved them and to 
the heart that fed them.

And on the pedestal are inscribed these words: "My name is Ozymandias, 
king of kings: Behold my works, you mighty ones, and despair!"

Nothing remains beside it. Around the decay of these colossal ruins, 
endless and bare, the solitary and flat sands stretch into the distance.

No power is eternal, for it always ends up sinking beneath the desert 
dunes; like a giant with feet of clay.

Regeneration Editorial Staff.

1. The Polisario Front resumed fighting with Morocco on November 13, 
2020, after Morocco broke the 1991 ceasefire. The Spanish state began to 
view the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara favorably that year .
2. Israel has played a prominent role in military cooperation, 
establishing landmark agreements on defense, intelligence, and 
cybersecurity in 2021. It has supplied drones, military intelligence 
systems, and surveillance systems to the Moroccan monarchy; in return, 
Zionism has been granted a favorable position in economic agreements. 
Israel's 2023 recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara marks 
a turning point in relations with Morocco .
We see that in the face of issues like the 2016-2017 events of the 
Popular Movement or Hirak in the Rif, the idea of engaging in politics 
is neither unique nor exclusive to the State. Popular struggles in North 
Africa have been more common than one might initially think, whether led 
by Amazigh peoples or by younger generations-as in the much more recent 
GenZ212 protests-and have demanded the construction of a political and 
social reality distinct from the claims of the Alawite monarchy, in 
defense of common interests far broader than those granted by the 
current regime. Although mainstream media outlets seek to ignore this 
fact, if we delve deeper into the search for information about the 
struggles of the peoples with whom the Spanish State shares its 
southernmost borders, we will find more than enough content. For more 
information on these issues, we recommend reading this article: 
https://www.elsaltodiario.com/marruecos/hirak-rifeno-una-revuelta-descabezada-pero-no-derrotada 

4. As an example, what happened in Melilla in 2022: 
https://www.elsaltodiario.com/melilla/disparos-aire-devoluciones-caliente-20-hospitalizados-dos-dias-saltos-valla-melilla 

5. By this term we refer to the current ruling dynasty in Morocco, whose 
origins date back to 1631 .
6. Bártulo (2021): The forbidden history of the Spanish Sahara, p.216
7. Bártulo (2021): The Forbidden History of the Spanish Sahara, p.222
8. Morocco was the first state in the world to recognize the U.S. as a 
country. Their diplomatic relations date back to 1777 .
9. United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara.
LABELED:
Featured , Polisario Front , Green March , Sahara

https://regeneracionlibertaria.org/2025/11/14/50-anos-de-la-marcha-verde/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en