A Battlefield Transformed: From Guerilla Resistance to Mass Nonviolent Struggle
in the Western Sahara
By: Dr. Maria J. Stephan (International Center on Nonviolent Conflict) and Jacob Mundy
International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference, San Diego
March 22-26, 2006
INTRODUCTION
In late May 2005, a popular uprising against foreign domination rocked the Maghreb region of
North Africa. With scenes reminiscent of the recent unarmed insurrections against unpopular
governments in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-05), and Lebanon (2005), thousands of ethnic
Sahrawis from the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that has been under strict military
control by the Kingdom of Morocco since the latter invaded and occupied the territory in 1975, took
to the streets en masse demanding the withdrawal of Moroccan troops and independence for
Africa’s last remaining colony. Sahrawis are calling their sustained defiance against foreign rule an
Intifada, or “shaking off”.
The desert uprising represents a dramatic turning-point in the Sahrawi people’s struggle for national
self-determination for three main reasons. First: the scope, intensity, and mass civilian involvement
in the nationalist uprising took Moroccan occupation forces by surprise. Moroccan police, soldiers,
and intelligence agents, who controlled the Western Sahara using violence and intimidation, were
suddenly confronted by thousands of fearless civilians. Second: Sahrawis of Western Sahara, a
traditionally nomadic people with a distinct language and culture, confronted their oppressors with
neither guns nor bombs. Like the first Palestinian Intifada, a largely unarmed mass civilian uprising
against the Israeli occupation launched in December 1987, the Sahrawi Intifada has featured
nonviolent “weapons” like symbolic protests, mass demonstrations, civil disobedience, and other
forms of nonviolent defiance. Third: like the first Palestinian Intifada, this uprising was led by
Sahrawis living under occupation and not by any armed vanguard on the outside. The local Sahrawi
resistance is being supported by a strong transnational component led by members of the Sahrawi
diaspora who are in daily communication with their compatriots using interactive internet chat
rooms. This internet communication has helped promote unity, nonviolent discipline, and strategic
coordination in the Sahrawi movement.
This paper analyzes the transformation of the Sahrawi pro-independence movement’s strategy from
one based on armed struggle and diplomacy conducted by the Polisario, to one based on civilian-led
nonviolent resistance led by Sahrawis living inside the occupied territory and in southern Morocco.
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