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EVENT: Saudi Defence Minister Prince Sultan al-Feisal, having visited Algeria, is due in Morocco today to continue efforts to reconcile the Maghreb neighbours who remain at odds over the war in Western Sahara.
SIGNIFICANCE: Morocco's conflict with the Polisario guerrillas, who are supported by Algeria, renders nugatory all appeals for Maghreb unity: at the same time, Moroccan-Algerian antagonism provides Colonel Gaddafi of Libya with room for manoeuvre. Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia's renewed efforts to end the Saharan war are unlikely to succeed.
ANALYSIS: The war in the Sahara owes its origins to an agreement in 1975 between Morocco and Franco's Spain which enabled Morocco to establish its rule over the whole of the former Spanish Sahara. This represented a major rebuff for Algeria, which had previously combined with Morocco to challenge Spanish imperial rule; and it provoked an unexpected level of resistance from the Saharans whose Polisario Front guerrillas established the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic in armed conflict with Morocco.
The Moroccan military, however, has won the war by the simple expedient of constructing a sand wall which deprives the Saharans of the advantages they once had as a resourceful and resilient guerrilla army in the desert. But the Saharans have not given up their aspirations to independence. Outside the wall they have established the apparatus of a state, with education and health services. Their numbers, a possible 750,000, are sufficiently small to permit an effective functioning of tribal democracy.
No political solution is in sight. The Moroccan government has accepted the UN's demand for a referendum. But it insists on controlling the referendum and determining who should take part, claiming that Algeria would otherwise encourage Saharans who had...