Every Monday, the Eye in the Retro makes you relive a significant story from the past. This Monday, heading for Morocco. In the midst of an investigation into corruption in the European Parliament by Qatar and Morocco, we discover that we have to go back to February 27, 1976 to understand the reasons that can push Morocco to influence MEPs.
That day, the last Spanish soldier left what was still called the Spanish Sahara, causing a thorny international problem which is still not resolved today. So what are we talking regarding? From a territory in northwest Africa that overlooks the Atlantic, opposite the Canary Islands, which are still Spanish.
This territory, which became Spanish at the end of the 19th century, became Western Sahara in 1976. Compared to other decolonizations, here, when the settler leaves, the neighbors Western Sahara share the territory. THE Morocco seizes two-thirds of the Sahara and Mauritania the remaining third, under an agreement with Spain. But no one asked the Sahrawis for their opinion. And on February 27, 1976, when the last Spanish soldiers left, the independence of Western Sahara was declared by the national liberation movement, the Polisario Front.
The latter will enter into armed struggle once morest what he considers to be the new occupants, Morocco and Mauritania. Three years later, in 1979, Mauritania abandoned the struggle and recognized the Polisario Front as having sovereignty over the territory it occupied. But Morocco takes the opportunity to seize this part too.
Since then, the conflict has continued, even if, in practice, Morocco now occupies 80% of the territory it protected by a wall. And behind this wall is the small part without access to the sea, under the control of the Polisario Front.
