The Moroccan “Autonomy Plan”: A Diplomatic Trap to Legitimize Colonial Occupation
✍️ BY: Dr. Hana Saada
Algiers, Algeria | Morocco’s so-called “autonomy plan” for Western Sahara, often paraded before the world as a “serious and credible” proposal, is nothing more than a diplomatic snare designed to cement an illegal occupation. Behind the polished rhetoric of decentralization lies a darker reality: the denial of a people’s inalienable right to self-determination, the normalization of plunder, and the transformation of colonial subjugation into a seemingly permanent status quo.
October at the United Nations: A Crucial Test
In October, the UN Security Council will decide on the mandate of MINURSO, the mission created in 1991 to organize a referendum on self-determination for the Sahrawi people. More than three decades later, the referendum has never been held. Now, Paris and Washington maneuver relentlessly to impose Rabat’s autonomy scheme as the only acceptable framework, extinguishing the very essence of what international law defines as decolonization. Should this gambit succeed, Western Sahara will no longer be seen as a territory awaiting decolonization, but as a mere provincial dispute under Moroccan sovereignty.
The Mirage of Autonomy
The autonomy proposal, first floated in 2008, promises local governance, economic growth, and civil liberties. But these promises are hollow. Defense, security, foreign affairs, justice, currency, and religion—the pillars of sovereignty—would remain firmly under Rabat’s control. Sahrawis would be permitted to manage schools and marketplaces, while the levers of power determining their destiny would remain in the grip of the makhzen. This is not decentralization but domination disguised.
Even worse, the plan entrenches the decades-long plunder of Western Sahara’s natural wealth—its phosphate, fisheries, sand, and renewable energy resources—largely siphoned by Morocco and its European allies. Time and again, the European Court of Justice has declared such exploitation illegal in the absence of Sahrawi consent. Yet, under the autonomy plan, this robbery would not only continue but be codified as “legitimate.”
Western Hypocrisy Laid Bare
The project could not stand without the active complicity of major powers. France has become Rabat’s most ardent defender, while the United States endorsed the plan in 2020 as part of the Faustian bargain that brought Morocco into the Abraham Accords with Israel. Spain, the former colonial power, shamefully followed in 2022, abandoning its historic and legal responsibilities toward the Sahrawi people. Their motives are clear: border “stability” for Europe, guaranteed access to energy and natural resources, and entrenched military footholds. International law and human rights are casually sacrificed at the altar of geopolitical expediency.
The Trap: A Blow to Self-Determination
The essence of the matter remains unchanged: the United Nations recognizes Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory, and only the Sahrawi people hold the right to decide their future. The Moroccan autonomy plan is a deliberate attempt to replace this principle with a colonial arrangement dressed in modern garb. Accepting such a scheme would establish a perilous precedent: any occupying power could rebrand its control as “autonomy,” burying the principle of self-determination under a veneer of decentralization.
Let us be clear: Morocco’s “autonomy plan” is not a solution, nor is it a compromise. It is an instrument to perpetuate occupation, sanctify plunder, and silence an entire people. The only genuine solution remains exactly as envisioned in 1991: a free, fair, and binding referendum on self-determination, conducted under UN supervision. Anything less is not peace—it is capitulation to colonialism.
To accept this trap is to betray not only the Sahrawi people but the very foundation of international law. It would mark the triumph of brute power over justice, and the replacement of the rule of law with the law of the strongest. That is a precedent the world cannot afford.
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