Spanish Sahara

Spanish Sahara

Infobox Former Country
native_name = "Sahara Español"
conventional_long_name = Spanish Sahara
common_name = Spanish Sahara
continent = Africa
region = Western Africa
country = Western Sahara
era =
status_text = Province of Spain
status = Province
empire = Spain
life_span = 18841976
event_start = Established
year_start = 1884
date_start = December 26
event_end = Disestablished
year_end = 1976
date_end = February 26
event1 = Madrid Accords
date_event1 = November 14, 1975
event2 =
date_event2 =
event_post =
date_post =
p1 = Spanish West Africa
flag_p1 = Flag of Spain (1785-1873 and 1875-1931).svg
p2 = Spanish West Africa
flag_p2 = Flag of the Second Spanish Republic.svg
s1 = Morocco
flag_s1 = Flag of Morocco.svg
s2 = Mauritania
flag_s2 = Flag of Mauritania.svg
s3 = Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
flag_s3 = Flag of Western Sahara.svg













image_map_caption = Map of Spanish Sahara.
capital = El Aaiún
common_languages = Spanish, Arabic
religion = Roman Catholicism, Islam
title_leader = Royal Commissioner
leader1 = Emilio Bonelli Hernando
year_leader1 = 1885-1886
title_representative = Subgovernor
representative1 = Emilio Bonelli Hernando
year_representative1 = 1886-1902
representative2 = Ángel Villalobos
year_representative2 = 1902-1903
title_deputy = Governor
deputy1 = Francisco Bens Argandoña
year_deputy1 = 1903-1925 (first)
deputy2 = Federico Gómez de Salazar y Nieto
year_deputy2 = 1974-1976 (last)
currency = Spanish peseta
footnotes =

Spanish Sahara was the name used for the modern territory of Western Sahara when it was ruled as a territory by Spain between 1884 and 1975.

Colonization

In 1884, Spain was awarded the coastal area of present-day Western Sahara at the Berlin Conference, and began establishing trading posts and a military presence. In the summer of 1886, under the sponsorship of the Spanish Society of Commercial Geography ("Sociedad Española de Geografía Comercial"), Julio Cervera Baviera, Felipe Rizzo (1823-1908), and Francisco Quiroga (1853-1894) traversed the colony of Rio de Oro, where they made topographical and astronomical observations in a land whose features were barely known at the time to geographers. It is considered the first scientific expedition in that part of the Sahara. [http://www.sge.org/sge03/conferencias.asp]

The borders of the area were not clearly defined until treaties between Spain and France in the early 20th century. Spanish Sahara was then created from the Spanish territories of Río de Oro and Saguia el-Hamra in 1924. It was not part of, and administered separately from, the areas known as Spanish Morocco.

Entering the territory in 1884, Spain was immediately challenged by stiff resistance from the indigenous Sahrawi tribes. A 1904 rebellion led by the powerful Smara-based marabout, shaykh Ma al-Aynayn, was put down by France in 1910, but it was followed by a wave of uprisings under Ma al-Aynayn’s sons, grandsons and other political leaders.

Modern history

Because of this, Spain proved unable to extend control to the interior parts of the country until 1934. At its accession to independence in 1956, Morocco laid claim on Spanish Sahara as part of its pre-colonial territory, and in 1957, the Moroccan Army of Liberation nearly expelled the Spanish from the country in the Ifni War. The Spanish were only able to re-establish control with the assistance of the French by 1958, and embarked on a harsh strategy of retaliation towards the countryside, forcibly settling many of the previously nomadic bedouins of Spanish Sahara and speeding up urbanization, while many others were forced into exile to Morocco proper. In the same year, Spain returned the provinces of Tarfaya and Tantan to Morocco.

In the 1960s, Morocco continued to claim Spanish Sahara and succeeded in getting it to be listed on the list of territories to be decolonized. In 1969, Spain returned to Morocco the region of Ifni, that served as the seat of the Spanish administration of Spanish Sahara. In 1967, the Spanish colonization was further challenged by a peaceful protest movement, the Harakat Tahrir, which demanded the end of occupation. After its violent suppression in the 1970 Zemla Intifada, Sahrawi nationalism reverted to its militant origins, with the 1973 formation of the Polisario Front. The Front’s guerrilla army grew rapidly, and Spain had lost effective control over most of the countryside in early 1975. An attempt at sapping the strength of Polisario by creating a modern political rival to it, the Partido de Unión Nacional Saharaui (PUNS), met with little success.

Spain proceeded to co-opt tribal leaders by setting up the Djema’a, a political institution (very) loosely based on traditional Sahrawi tribal leaderships. The Djema’a members were hand-picked by the authorities, but given privileges in return for rubber-stamping Madrid’s decisionsFact|date=February 2007.

Immediately before the death of the aging Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, in the winter of 1975, however, Spain was confronted with an intensive campaign of territorial demands from Morocco, and to a lesser extent Mauritania, culminating in the Green March. Spain then withdrew its forces and settlers from the territory, after negotiating a tripartite agreement with Morocco and Mauritania in 1975, by which both took control of the region. Mauritania later surrendered its claim after fighting an unsuccessful war against the Polisario. Morocco engaged in a war with the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, although a cease-fire came into effect in 1991, and the territory remains under dispute.

Present status

The United Nations considers the former Spanish Sahara a non-decolonized territory, with Spain as the formal administrative power. UN peace efforts have aimed at the organization of a referendum on independence among the Sahrawi population, but this has not yet taken place. The African Union and at least 44 governments consider the territory a sovereign, albeit occupied, state under the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), with an exile government backed by the Polisario Front.

ee also

*International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on Western Sahara
*History of Western Sahara
*Saharan Liberation Army
*Southern Provinces
*Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
*Spanish Morocco

References


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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Spanish Sahara — former name for WESTERN SAHARA …   English World dictionary

  • Spanish Sahara — geographical name former Spanish possessions Río de Oro & Saguia el Hamra see Western Sahara …   New Collegiate Dictionary

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  • Spanish Sahara — former name of Western Sahara. * * * …   Universalium

  • Spanish Sahara — noun The territory of Western Sahara …   Wiktionary

  • Spanish Sahara — Span′ish Sahar′a n. geg former name of Western Sahara …   From formal English to slang

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  • Spanish Sahara — former colony on Africa’s northwest coast where it included Rio de Oro and Saguia el Hamra until 1976 when it was ceded by Spain and divided between Mauritania and Morocco …   Eponyms, nicknames, and geographical games

  • United Nations visiting mission to Spanish Sahara — To assist in the decolonization process of the Spanish Sahara (now Western Sahara), a colony in North Africa, the United Nations General Assembly in 1975 dispatched a visiting mission to the territory and the surrounding countries, in accordance… …   Wikipedia

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