Western Sahara peace process

The Western Sahara peace process refers to the international efforts to resolve the Western Sahara conflict. The conflict has failed so far to result in permanent peace between Morocco and the Polisario Front (including its self declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic). The standing issues of the peace process include Sahrawi refugees (specifically Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria), and human rights in Western Sahara.

Background

The

Sahrawi people and the state of Morocco. The conflict is the continuation of the past insurgency by Polisario against the Spanish colonial forces in 1973–1975 and the subsequent Western Sahara War

between the Polisario and Morocco (1975–1991). Today the conflict is dominated by unarmed civil campaigns of the Polisario Front and their self-proclaimed SADR state to gain fully recognized independence for Western Sahara.

The conflict escalated after the withdrawal of Spain from the

MINURSO zone, with additional pockets of control in the Sahrawi refugee camps

along the Algerian border. At present, these borders are largely unchanged.

Despite multiple peace initiatives through the 1990s and early 2000s, the conflict reemerged as the "

Independence Intifada" in 2005; a series of disturbances, demonstrations and riots, which broke out in May 2005 in the Moroccan-held portions of Western Sahara, and lasted until November of that same year. In late 2010, the protests re-erupted in the Gdeim Izik refugee camp in Western Sahara. While the protests were initially peaceful, they were later marked by clashes between civilians and security forces, resulting in dozens of casualties on both sides. Another series of protests began on 26 February 2011, as a reaction to the failure of police to prevent anti-Sahrawi looting in the city of Dakhla, Western Sahara

; protests soon spread throughout the territory. Though sporadic demonstrations continue, the movement had largely subsided by May 2011.