The Question of Western Sahara and the Literature on Conflict
The purpose of this paper is to survey the literature on conflict to see whether there are elements which may be of use in the context of resolving the question of the Western Sahara. It is not a paper written by someone who is well versed in all the details of the Western Saharan question, but rather someone who is suggesting ideas that may be useful for those who are versed in the details of the conflict.
- From settlement to resolution?
The first distinction that comes to mind is that between conflict settlement and conflict resolution. A conflict settlement is one where a set of relationships has been imposed upon some or all of the parties to a dispute, either by a victor or by a third party, such as the United States or the United Nations, but without there being an eradication of the roots of the conflict. In short, if the pressure from outside parties, or the victor is taken away, then the conflict will resume in one form or another. In a resolution of conflict, on the other hand, there is no need for coercive force, be it political, economic or military on the part of a third party or a victor, since now the relationships are fully acceptable to all the parties in terms of their own values and their own interests, and with full knowledge of the circumstances. In other words, it is self-sustaining without coercion in any form. To give an example, think of the relationship between France and Germany at the time of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It was, so far as the Germans were concerned, a victor’sdictated peace, and they sought to change its terms as soon as they could. Compare that with the process whereby resolution gradually became the mode dominating relationships between France and Germany from 1950 to the Charter of Paris. At some point along that path the conflict was resolved. In 1919 it was merely settled and once the circumstances enabling Germany to right perceived wrongs were present, it took advantage of these. There is no such idea now in the relationship between France and Germany, the conflict is resolved. If we look at the Western Saharan question, it is quite clear that we are in a situation of settlement, rather than resolution, in the sense that there is a clear military stalemate, a significant political stalemate, and the question is not resolved in the sense that the parties to the dispute fully accept their relationships without any form of coercion. The aim of the exercise, therefore, is to move what is a relatively non-hurting settlement, to a fully fledged resolution, which is by no means an easy task.
- The perils and pitfalls of negotiation
Article 33 of the United Nations Charter states that “the parties to any dispute, the continuation of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice”.These are techniques which are familiar to all.Each has its strengths and weaknesses and its successes and failures, and many of these have been tried in the context of the question of the Western Sahara, but there is no magic wand which enables any one of these techniques to bring about the resolution that we are desiring, and there are reasons for this.
Direct negotiations between the parties in a serious dispute rarely leads to anything more than a settlement, because, very quickly the parties get stuck in a rut and there is a dialogue of the deaf. Without a third party to support the process, the disputants very quickly run through their repertoire of complaints about atrocities, disloyalty, lack of good faith and aggression, but to no great avail.In such circumstances there is often then recourse, sometimes under duress from third parties, to some form of judicial settlement or arbitration. However, frequently this is not a useful exercise in the context of a serious dispute, because if the dispute is deep-rooted about fundamental values and interests, then the parties want to control the whole process in which they are involved, including the outcome. The issue is far too important to be left to so-called independent judges. The term‘so-called’ is used because international law is often a weapon of propaganda on the side of the status quoin deeply rooted conflicts.It may not be a mutually acceptable normative framework for dealing with the question, which on a less important issue it could well be. To give an example, when President Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, what he did was illegal under the terms of the Convention of Constantinople of 1888, but in his own terms he rejected the values on which that Convention of Constantinople was based, and argued that there were different values which justified his position. International law tends to represent the values of immediate past great Powers, and the present great Powers, it is their law, and above all, of course, it is a European, Christian and capitalist impregnated law, reflecting its origins. Within that Christian capitalist and ‘European’ world there is no problem, since the basic values and norms are shared, but some issues cut across those values. So we must question whether international law and judicial processes are appropriate in the context of the Western Sahara. Are the values underlying it fully acceptable to the parties in what is a very deeply-rooted conflict? Of course this does not mean that a resolution cannot be set out in a legal document once there is a shared normative framework as in the case of the Charter of Paris.
In short, the parties need help not judgement, and there is a long history of mediation and conciliation, , but it does have the drawback that in the last resort the parties only trust themselves even if they need help, but the question is what sort of help? They need help, above all, with processes, and perhaps with information about conflicts in general, and about their perceptions. This suggests that the approach should be one which is non-judgemental, in the sense that the process involving a facilitator is not to make a judgement on the rights and wrongs, morally or legally, of the parties, it is non-directional, in the sense that the facilitator, or conciliator, is not turning up with a ready-made plan to put on the table and simply waiting for the parties to sign up to it because it reflects a consensus view from outside. The failure of the Annan Plan for Cyprus in 2004 is a graphic example of that mistake. Rather, it has to be something which is supportive of all parties in the process, so they each feel, according to their own values, and according to their own interests, that the process is an acceptable one. The process then, should be aimed at resolution, and be characterised by a non-judgemental, non-directive, but highly supportive approach of all the parties to the dispute.
As we can see, many of these approaches have been tried in the case of the question of Western Sahara. Recourse has been had to the International Court of Justice for advisory opinions.The United Nations has also played a peace-keeping role and has acted as the patron of the Secretary-General’sSpecial Representatives, who have come up with their own plans, which have been rejected by one party or the other.Mediation has been tried by other international organisations, such as the African Union in its guise of the Organisation of African Unity. Most of these efforts were judgemental and directional, which is not exactly what the parties need in the present state of the conflict, especially when they are not yet ready to meet together on an equal basis.
- Parties to a dispute
This poses the question of identifying the parties to the dispute. It might seem blindingly obvious to the man in the street, but closer acquaintance with the issues involved suggests that it is not a simple matter. If the aim of the exercise is to achieve a resolution of the conflict, then all the parties that have a potential veto have to be present on an equal basis. Veto holders are those parties without the concurrence of whom a self-sustaining non-coercive set of relationships would be impossible. Their identification is not necessarily an easy task and requires rigorous analysis. Without them resolution is not possible although they can be the mainstay of a coercive settlement. For example, in the case of South Africa, it was very clear that on the one hand the ANC and the Bruderbund and its National party were obvious parties to the dispute. However, this was not true of the Pan-African Congress, which took as its basic position ‘one settler, one bullet’, and Inkatha under the leadership of Chief Buthelezi. Did Buthelezi with his much smaller political party and regional political base in Natal have the capacity to torpedo a resolution or not? If he had the capacity then he needed to be included in the process with the ANC, and the Bruderbund and the National Party, if he did not, then he could be safely left out of the question. In fact, Mandela bought Buthelezi into the process and quite wisely so, since the possibilities of sabotage from Inkatha were real, and therefore they were an effective party, they had a veto. If we look at the question of the Western Sahara, it is obvious that two actors are front-line actors in the literal sense, Morocco and Polisario, but that raises the question of Algeria. Is Algeria a party to the dispute in the same sense that Polisario and Morocco are? Does it have veto power? Can it wreck the potentiality for a resolution, and what of other parties who are a little further away, such as Mauritania, France, Spain and the United States? What is their role? Are they veto holders, or merely helpful, or unhelpful, onlookers?
This raises the question of a conflict chain, since one conflict may be linked to another. The Western Sahara conflict is linked to the relationship between Algeria and Morocco, which, in its turn, is linked to a wider question about the role of Western Powers in North Africa. The West Saharan conflict can be taken out of context of this set of linked conflicts and looked at separately. Nevertheless, in the last resort it has to go back into the framework of the other conflicts, and therefore one conflict cannot be fully addressed without addressing the other conflicts in the chain, until they are all resolved. In short, the argument is that all veto holders must be present, on an equal basis, with parity of esteem from the others, because if they are not there, we can only have a settlement, but not the desired resolution of the conflict. In the Northern Ireland conflict, the British Government, and indeed, the Irish Government, both realised, that in the end, they had to deal with the IRA, as well as with the Unionist political parties, and there is hardly likely to be progress towards a resolution of the Palestine question without Hamas. To achieve a resolution of the conflict, all the veto holders must be present, no matter what their standing and reputation may be, or their past behaviour.
- Second Track Diplomacy
It would be naive to suggest that these processes are easily undertaken, and for that reason, second track diplomacy has been developed. A well-known example of this is the Oslo process, which,at the invitation of the Norwegian Government, included top decision-makers from both the Palestinian and Israeli sides. My own experience of such exercises suggests that the heads of the parties to the dispute should nominate a high-ranking and influential individual to speak in a personal capacity, without being able formally to engage that party, but having the ear of the head of the party to the dispute, and being somebody who has a reputation for being a hard-liner. If hard-liners begin to reperceive the situation, then, as hard-liners, they are not so likely to be challenged by their colleagues who have not taken part in the process. There should be no record, no publicity. Normally the actors meet together with a group of facilitators, who are often academics, in the atmosphere of a seminar, in which all statements have to be justified on an empirical basis. The academics raise issues from their academic work, to see whether or not they apply in the particular case, while the parties to the dispute can use the seminar as an opportunity for a pre-negotiation exploration without any major political cost. Frequently these exercises last for a week to ten days, in which the parties explain their positions to the facilitators, and the facilitators ask questions and refer to the literature in conflict studies that seems appropriate to them in the circumstances, as described by the participants. There are sometimes reperceptions, sometimes disillusionment, but often when the parties leave, they request the facilitators to organise further sessions, and so it becomes a series of second track negotiations, which in the last resort, have, of course, to go back into the formal diplomatic framework. Perhaps such a process would be appropriate in the Western Saharan case since there is stalemate and for the parties the process is cost-free in political terms.
When will parties agree to this sort of process? Usually it is with the realisation that they are in a situation of a hurting stalemate, that is, the parties to the dispute, the veto holders, know they cannot win, they know that they are unlikely to lose, and they are very well aware that they cannot get out of the conflict, that is, they cannot quit, but nevertheless, it hurts. It is a hurting stalemate, but one in which the sense of hurt may be asymmetric, since not all the actors feel the same sense of hurt to the same degree at the same time.In which case they may not have the same incentive to take part in the exercise. One of the characteristics of the Western Sahara question, is that neither party is likely to loseon the ground since there is a territorial stalemate, they cannot avoid the issue, but it is not hurting enough for them to take the risk of changing their position, because they fear they may then be less well off than they are now. They prefer the devil they know to the devil they do not know. A non-hurting stalemate tends to be stable, whereas a hurting one has an incentive to move on. But a contained conflict may become hurting, if there is a big change in the political, military, economic or social environment. For example, there was literally a change in the environment with the earthquakes in Turkey and Greece, which provided an opportunity for the two governments to come together, whereas previously they had almost gone to war over two minuscule islands in the Aegean. One can wonder whether the advent of the Arab Spring, and the position of Islamists in the Arab world, are the changes in the environment which may induce the parties of the Western Saharan question to look again at their long term interests and values.
- A joint problem
There are a number of philosophical positions which underpin this approach. First of all, it is important to acknowledge that it is not merely a matter of turning the other cheek, or a conversion on the road to Damascus, such as was experienced by Saint Paul. Rather, it is a question of fulfilling the interests and values of all the parties as they see them, and in order to move in this direction a number of processes are entailed. Again, it should be borne in mind that these do not constitute some form of magic wand which will solve a difficult problem. There is no secret formula. However, a starting point is perhaps a recognition that the parties to the dispute have a joint problem, and it makes sense to concentrate on the interests and values of an adversary, their hopes, fears, dreams and the like.If their fears are assuaged and their hopes realised, then they are unlikely to become a problem for the other party, since their difficulties have been resolved. Likewise, when the roles are reversed. It is, therefore, a joint problem, to ensure movement from a framework which is one of ‘winner takes all’, to one in which there is the famous ‘win-win’ situation, or at least one in which no one experiences a catastrophic loss.
The problem of Polisario and Morocco is a joint shared one which they can only resolve together by concentrating not only on themselves and their individual hopes and fears but those of the other since it is the hopes and fears of the other that underlie the problem for each of the parties. If the Polisario’s needs are met will it thereafter be a problem for Morocco? Can such needs be met without detriment to Morocco’s hopes and needs? Such is the goal which can be achieved as France and Germany demonstrated.
- Spelling out the cost
It is surprising how often in a conflict the parties become obsessed by one or two values, at the expense of other values that they also hold dear. It is a case of what is called tunnel vision in which only what is at the end of the tunnel is visible, not that which is a little above, a little below, or a little to either side. One of the purposes of Second Track Diplomacy is to explore this tunnel vision, and to get the parties to state the full range of their values as they see them, and their interests. There is an expression in English, which says, ‘I’ll do it if it kills me’, but there is not much point in obtaining something if it kills you, since you will not be able to enjoy that which you have obtained. In order to eliminate tunnel vision it is useful to persuade each of the parties to set out the full range of their values as they see them and also, the relationship between them, in other words, the opportunity cost involved in pursing one value at the expense of other values.Opportunity cost is that which has to be given up to obtain something. For example, the opportunity cost for a student attending a lecture is that he or she has to get out of bed in the morning. Identifying the opportunity cost of a particular policy or activity is a process of assisted rational decision-making. The values come from the parties, and the relationships between the values come from the parties, but they sometimes need help in thinking through the process. The aim of this is firstly, to maximise the totality of the full range of values, and to minimise the opportunity cost in their achievement in terms of other values that are also held. Once this has been done in the context of the party to a dispute looking at its individual values, then the exercise needs to be repeated in the context of other actors in the conflict situation. This can be a joint process of analysis, with the parties to the dispute, and with the facilitators.