SUMMARY
POLISARIO (Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro: Frente popular de liberación de Saguia el Hamra y Rio de Oro) established itself as a national liberation movement for the Saharawi inhabitants of the Spanish colonial territory of Western Sahara on 10 May 1973. Seeking independence, it adopted an armed struggle against the Governments of Mauritania and Morocco after the Government of Spain relinquished the territory for the latter countries to divide between themselves in 1975. POLISARIO resolved its territorial dispute with the Government of Mauritania when both parties signed a peace agreement on 5 August 1979 and the Mauritanian forces withdrew accordingly. However, POLISARIO’s territorial dispute with the Government of Morocco continued whilst Morocco extended its claim over the disputed territory by formally annexing areas vacated by the Mauritanian forces. Since 1991, a UN-monitored ceasefire between POLISARIO and the Government of Morocco has been in place and there has been no active levels of violence since 1989. However, the dispute remained outstanding.
In line with other emerging liberation movements of the time, POLISARIO began with socialist aspirations in addition to its main goal of achieving independence. It described itself as a nationalist and Islamic socialist organization; however, its leftist ideological orientation dissipated over time. In contrast, the nationalist objective of territorial independence for the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which POLISARIO declared one day after Spain withdrew from it on 27 February 1976, remained consistent.
Originally based in Mauritania, POLISARIO relocated to Algeria after it undertook its armed struggle. Large camps of indigenous and nomadic Saharawi refugees were located in a part of Algeria previously deemed uninhabitable. Drawing upon the population that was wholly dependent on aid agencies to survive, many young male Saharawi refugees became POLISARIO fighters.
POLISARIO established a formal government-in-exile in Tindouf, Algeria for the SADR with an inaugurated constitution in 1976. Whilst POLISARIO maintained responsibility for achieving SADR independence, the government-in-exile was responsible for the administration of services to the Saharawi population, particularly in the refugee camps in Algeria. Once independence was achieved for the SADR, POLISARIO would relinquish its authority to the SADR government. Despite being separate entities, much of the POLISARIO and SADR governmental structures overlapped; for example, the leader of POLISARIO was president of the SADR government-in-exile. The Sahrawi People's Liberation Army served as the armed wing of POLISARIO. Its troop size varied across the years, ranging from 5000 to at least 20 000 during the eighties when it was actively engaged in armed conflict.
El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed, who had been one of the main forces behind the group’s creation, was the first Secretary General of POLISARIO. After Sayed was killed in action in June 1976, fellow POLISARIO founder Mohammed Abdelaziz was elected leader of POLISARIO. He also served as President of the SADR government-in-exile and maintained both positions until dying of natural causes in 2016. Subsequently Brahim Ghali, another founding member as well as a key POLISARIO military leader, took over as elected leader of POLISARIO. During the late eighties, disputes arose over accusations that POLISARIO had been overtaken by Algerian and Mauritanian radicals. Consequently, some members defected in support of Morocco’s territorial claim such as fellow group founder Omar Hadhrami.
POLISARIO received various types of assistance from Algeria and Libya particularly, but also from North Korea, Cuba, and Yugoslavia reportedly. The Libyan government was the first to provide support to POLISARIO, motivated by its pan-Arab nationalism and the plight of the Arab Sahrawi population. This lasted until a Moroccan-Libyan pact was agreed and they withdrew their support in 1984. The Government of Algeria quickly became POLISARIO’s largest and most crucial benefactor. Motivated by the possibility of gaining access to the Atlantic Ocean, Algeria provided substantial support to POLISARIO although this reduced in the nineties. Nonetheless, it was considered unlikely that POLISARIO would have been able to continue its struggle for independence without the assistance of Algeria.
