Western Sahara: Renewed Hope to End the Stalemate?

"The participants included representatives from the embassies of Morocco, Algeria, the Polisario, and other NGOs that work actively on the conflict."
-- Dorina Bekoe

The Polisario, a rebel movement working toward the separation of Western Sahara from Morocco, and the government of Morocco have been unable to decide how to organize a referendum to settle the sovereignty dispute that has plagued Western Sahara since Spain ceded the territory in 1976. After the departure in 2004 of James Baker as the United Nations Secretary General's Personal Envoy on Western Sahara, no serious negotiations between Morocco and Polisario have taken place. However, the separate proposals on re-opening talks submitted by Morocco and Polisario in April 2007 revived the negotiation process.

What are the lessons to be applied if the current process is to succeed? How can the United Nations and other interested parties avoid repeating past mistakes? What are the prospects for resolving the stalemate? Is this conflict now "ripe for resolution?"

Speakers

• Anna Theofilopoulou
  Author of The United Nations and Western Sahara: A Never-ending Affair
• I. William Zartman
  Jacob Blaustein Professor of International Organizations and Conflict Resolution, Director of the Conflict Management Program, SAIS, The Johns Hopkins University
• Dorina Bekoe, Moderator
  U.S. Institute of Peace
• David Smock, Moderator
  U.S. Institute of Peace