RSF & Cartographic Genocide in the Western Sahara

For a number of years now, Reporters sans Frontieres (Reporters without Borders) (RSF) has chosen to completely contradict its high ideals by writing the Western Sahara off its on-line maps and including the territory within Morocco. If you visit RSF.com, click on any of the countries on the drop-down menu under Middle East & North Africa (MENA), and scroll down to their MENA map you will find a Morocco that stretches from Gibraltar to Mauritania. The only hint of Western Sahara’s existence can be found if you click on Morocco itself to reveal a red-highlighted greater Morocco with a barely visible line depicting the border with the Western Sahara.
Weirdly, if you click on any of the other MENA countries, you will find the same MENA map but without the thin line in Morocco.

This is not a new problem. Alle at Western Sahara Info brought RSF’s inexplicable treatment of the Western Sahara to our attention in 2007, and way back in 2003 this tidbit about RSF’s mapping shenanigans appeared on the ARSO website:

Following a protest campaign, the "North Africa to Iran" office of Reporters without Borders (RSF - Reporters sans frontières) decided to withdraw a map of Morocco which included Western Sahara. This map which did not conform to international law figured in RSF publications relating to the campaign for Ali Lmrabet. The President of the Spanish office, said that she realised the map used expressed the expansionist claims of Morocco, but wanted to make clear that RSF did not campaign politically about it, as they were trying to save the life of the Moroccan journalist !!!

Before looking closer at RSF’s mapping problem, a quick review of the Western Sahara’s status is in order. Legally, the territory is categorized by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory. Claims to sovereignty over the territory by Morocco and Mauritania were rejected by the International Court of Justice in 1975. Diplomatically, no country officially recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, even though a couple dozen mostly Arab League countries give lip service to Moroccan sovereignty. Close to 80 countries have at some point recognized the sovereignty of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), but current recognitions number around 40 if you believe that de-recognitions are acceptable. Another element in the diplomatic equation is the full membership of the SADR in the African Union. Militarily, Morocco has de facto control of around 75-80% of the land with the SADR controlling the rest.

On all three counts RSF’s map is totally inaccurate. International law and diplomatic recognition clearly reject any inclusion of the Western Sahara in Morocco; and any depiction of de facto occupation must show the division of the territory between Morocco and the SADR.

RSF’s complete offing of the Western Sahara raises serious issues.

RSF is no Moroccan-American Center for Policy, which clearly is paid by Morocco to lie about the Western Sahara. It is a well-respected human rights NGO that cares about international law and does consistently superb work in support of beleaguered journalists around the world. Furthermore, it has been very forceful in its condemnation of Moroccan press freedom abuses. Why then would they choose to ignore international law and use a map that is rejected by just about everybody except Morocco and its agents?

Then there is the question of consistency and double-standards. RSF on its MENA map unambiguously gives Rabat its greater Morocco, but denies Tel Aviv its greater Israel (The West Bank is clearly not included in Israel). Why has RSF applied different mapping standards to two similar cases of occupation? Alle, once again, has commented on this.

Whenever I run into something as strange as this RSF thing, I can’t help but wonder about motives. Why in the world would a group as basically outstanding as RSF resort to cartographic genocide by mapping the Western Sahara out of existence. Does it have to do with the fact that they are headquartered in France, which supports without reservation Morocco’s illegal occupation? Is there any French political pressure at play, or maybe corporate financial pressure? Is there anyone on their Board that particularly loves Morocco or hates the Western Sahara? Not being privy to RSF internal politics, I am at a loss to understand their persistent refusal to do the right thing on this issue. All I know is that RSF has been made aware of their mapping problem for years now (and I have recently contacted both their offices in Paris and Washington DC about it), and they stubbornly resist changing their maps.

If anyone can shed any light on RSF’s behavior, we here at Western Sahara Endgame would love to hear from you. But until they decide to do the right thing and remove the Western Sahara from Morocco on their maps, I urge you to email your objections to:

Soazig Dollet, North Africa & Middle-East Desk, Reporters without Borders: moyen-orient@rsf.org

Clothilde Le Coz, Director Reporters without Borders USA: clc@rsf.org

Jean-François Julliard, Secretary General RSF: rsf@rsf.org

I went through, it seems, hundred of maps of Morocco and the Western Sahara in putting together this post – many of them quite original if not altogether accurate. In line with their iconoclastic image, Lonely Planet gets the award for Most Bizarre Map. Apparently having missed the part of the ICJ ruling about terra nullius, they clearly separate the two entities, refraining from naming the southern entity, and writing “Western Sahara Desert” overlapping the borderline. For those of you who wonder why so many Moroccans are perpetually constipated over the Western Sahara issue, there’s the Greater Moroccan Map. They just can’t get over being smaller than Algeria and not being able to steal fish from the Senegal River like they do from the Western Saharan waters (actually I was surprised not to find Washington DC on the Greater Moroccan Map given the US’s perpetual genuflecting before the King on the Western Sahara issue; but then I guess I could say the same thing about Israel). The award for Most Conflicted Mapmaker goes to the National Geographic Society. Between their On-Line Atlas , On-Line World Map , and Africa Political Map, they map the area in at least three different ways using a mind-boggling array of borderline, color, and nomenclature gimmicks. Finally, the Most Accurate Map prize goes to MINURSO, the UN Mission in the Western Sahara. I detect a crazy amount of time being spent by a lot of organizations trying to figure out how to map the area. Why not show it as it is and use the MINURSO map that clearly separates Morocco and the Western Sahara and marks the zones of occupation?

Commander Zartman's Last Stand on the Western Sahara

Why the Maghreb Matters: Threats, Opportunities, & Options for Effective US Engagement in North Africa has been sitting on my desk for a few months now. This policy paper released in March by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and the Conflict Management Program (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins is worth a look, if only because of the all-star cast that has chosen to affix their names to such a thoroughly flawed study. Panel Members on the North Africa Policy Paper Project behind the report include such luminaries as Secretary Madeleine Albright, General Wesley Clark, and Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, and notable academics Chester Crocker from Georgetown, John Entelis from Fordham, and I. William Zartman from Johns Hopkins (Co-Chair). While one would think that this star power might guarantee a certain level of honesty and rigor in the study, Why the Maghreb Matters is a joke, and a very bad one at that.

Initially, my intention was to write a lengthy post about all that is wrong with this study, but alas as so often happens several individuals and groups beat me to it with excellent reviews. So rather than bore you with a rehash, I’ll link you to the two that I found most illuminating: The Potomac-SAIS report on North Africa: Paid Analysis, Partisan Fear Mongering, Bad Policy by Jacob Mundy and Why the Facts Matter: A Response by the Saharawi Journalists and Writers Union (UPES) to “Why the Maghreb Matters." Their revelations on the blatant dishonesty of the Potomac-SAIS work are truly damning.

While these two reviews are pretty comprehensive in their debunking of the Potomac-SAIS study, there is one part of the study that epitomizes its utter intellectual bankruptcy and which, as far as I can tell, nobody has commented on -- that is their incursion into comparative self-determination. On page 14 they site several examples of what they consider to be similar self-determination cases to that of the Western Sahara which back up and support their autonomy proposal. An examination of these examples reveals that they either have nothing at all to do with the Western Sahara or else serve as far better support for the Polisario point of view. Here is the section in question, with the highlights mine:

The people of the region must be given an opportunity for self-determination, which can take the form of autonomy (as occurred from Zanzibar to Aceh). That acceptance can be expressed in a referendum confirming the option offered. The process could begin with a formal endorsement by the interested Western states— US, UK, France, Spain—of the principle of autonomy, with a limited period of time for final negotiations to take place over its details. At the end of the upcoming fifth round of UN-sponsored negotiations between the parties, whatever its outcome, the US could pursue an effort among Security Council members to recognize autonomous status within Morocco and invite others to follow suit, much as was done for a similar option for Aceh, Cameroon, Biafra, and for a reverse option for Bosnia and for Kosovo.

Zanzibar

Zanzibar? Their choice of Zanzibar is baffling. A British protectorate from 1890, Zanzibar was given full independence from Britain in 1963 after a 1961 election that formed the first post-protectorate government. In 1964, after a bloody revolution brought a leftist regime to power under Amani Karume, the Zanzibar government agreed to unite with newly-independent Tanganyika to form The United Republic or Tanzania under which Zanzibar had substantial autonomy. What is so strange about this choice of examples is that, since Zanzibar was granted independence BEFORE agreeing to join up with Tanganyika and accept autonomy, this is a far better argument for granting independence to the Western Sahara. Then if it turns out that the Saharawis really love the Moroccan crown as much as Rabat claims, they can always join up later with Morocco. Moroccahara has a good ring to it.

Aceh

This is an interesting choice. Aceh’s claims to self-determination stem primarily from the territory’s marginal integration into the Netherlands East Indies. Jakarta’s brutal military rule and exploitation of the abundant natural resources of the territory have further complicated the matter. Nevertheless, Aceh was never designated a non-self-governing territory by the UN, and I am not aware of any country that does not recognize Aceh as an integral part of Indonesia. The study’s attempt to use the example of Aceh to justify their autonomy proposal for Western Sahara is perplexing on several counts. First, under international law the cases are totally different. Second, autonomy for Aceh -- from the granting of “special territory” status in 1959 with some autonomy in religious, educational and cultural matters to the autonomy granted after the 2004 tsunami – is very much a work in progress and there are real questions about the sustainability of the current status. Last but not least, the use of Aceh begs the question of why the authors chose to ignore the case of East Timor, which has far closer parallels to the Western Sahara than does Aceh. In case you hadn’t noticed, the non-self-governing East Timor got its referendum in 1999 and gained independence in 2002. Fears that the loss of East Timor would lead to an unraveling of Indonesia, a communist and/or fundamentalist takeover in Jakarta, and the end of the free world as we know it were apparently unfounded.

Bosnia

I admit my ignorance here of what this “reverse option” is. Why Bosnia is even mentioned is a mystery to me in that it is not autonomous and furthermore has a rather dubious independence given the threats of the Republika Srpska to secede.

Kosovo

One would think that Potomac-SAIS would have avoided mention of Kosovo like the plague. After all, it was the CANCELLATION of Kosovar autonomy by the Serbs in 1989 that in no small measure set in motion the events that led to Kosovo’s independence. If anything the Kosovo case is a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of autonomy and thus I would think greatly strengthens the Polisario case.

Cameroon

I’m at a bit of a loss identifying exactly which part of Cameroonian history is being held up here to support the autonomy proposal. Is it the decision of the UN in 1961 to deny the British Cameroon real self-determination (in violation of the UN Charter) and to instead offer them a choice between inclusion in Nigeria or the Republic of Cameroon (the former French Cameroon)? Is it the decision of President Ahidjo in 1972 to unilaterally cancel the autonomy that the federated state of West Cameroon (the part of British Cameroon that chose to join the Republic of Cameroon) enjoyed after 1961? Or is it the clamoring of the anglophone Cameroonians for at least the last 20 years for a return of the autonomy they enjoyed until 1972? Whatever the case, none of this long sad history of denial of self-determination and cancellation of autonomy appears to offer much support for the Moroccan autonomy plan. Au contraire, autonomy in Cameroon comes across as a pretty dubious proposition. And actually the more I think about the original UN decision in 1961 to deny the British Cameroonians a vote on independence but to allow a choice between inclusion in Nigeria and Cameroon, the more I wonder whether the Potomac-SAIS people might be on to something. If they really think that independence is the end of the world, why not offer the Western Saharans a choice between inclusion in say Algeria, Mauritania, Spain, and Morocco. But then again I guess we all know who would come in last here.

Biafra

Biafra is the classic case of secession. As much as Morocco likes to think of the Western Sahara as secession pure and simple, there is very little international support for this notion. The UN certainly doesn’t consider it secession, and the total lack of any recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory tells me that the international community is similarly skeptical.

As an aside, I can’t help but add that this bizarre collection of examples dredged up in support of Morocco’s autonomy proposal bears the unmistakable marks of Commander I. W. Zartman’s compromised scholarship on the Western Sahara. Commander Zartman, once again, is the co-chair of this whole Potomac-SAIS fiasco. Take a look, for instance, at these talking points from his presentation at a 2005 forum on self-determination and the Sahara hosted by the NGO Search for Common Ground:

What is the case of Western Sahara like and not like (in comparison to “similar” cases)?
It is not like East Timor -- Western Sahara was colonized 40 years ago and not 400.
It is not like Palestine -- It is not a separate nation.
It is not like Sudan -- Its habitants are not “separate” people (e.g. its habitants are of the same religion as Morocco)
It is not like Namibia -- It is not a trusteeship territory with the UN as an administrator.
It is like Catalonia (Spain) -- It is self-autonomous within a larger state.
It is like Aden (Yemen)
It is like Zanzibar (Tanzania)
Compared to “similar” cases, Western Sahara has a tiny population and little resources.

Western Sahara colonized 40 years ago? Not like East Timor? Like Catalonia? Didn’t Aden get INDEPENDENCE as the People's Republic of South Yemen in 1967, long before it united with North Yemen in 1990? I’ve already talked about Zanzibar. Do any of his examples make any sense?

The recommendations of the Potomac-SAIS report are based on bad history, bad facts, bad analysis, and, as I argue here, bad examples. With this level of honesty and scholarship from Commander Zartman and his cronies, it is no wonder the Obama administration is considering dumping Morocco and its autonomy plan.