Western Sahara: the Refugee Nation by Pablo San Martín

Author:Pablo San Martín
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Published: 2014-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

In other words, more than two-thirds (65 per cent) of the members of the Spanish Yemaa rejected the possibility of staging a captive ‘self­determination consult’ in the general assembly as delineated in the Madrid Accords. It was just one more in the long list of miscalculations of the Spanish authorities, since at this point they even proved unable to control any longer the network recipients of ‘sugar vouchers’ who had been so loyal in the very recent past. Over the following weeks, numerous chiuj would follow this route, such as a group of eighty-five who on 16 December announced en masse in Algiers that they were joining the Polisario. At the beginning of 1976, the majority of those 226 Saharawis classified in the Spanish census as chiuj, which never­theless was a rather arbitrary classification, had already ‘defected’ to the Polisario. On 26 February 1976, two days before the deadline established in the Madrid Accords for the tripartite administration, Rabat attempted to organize a meeting with the remnants of the Yemaa to ratify and legitimize the division and occupation of the terri­tory, but managed only to obtain the support of fewer than forty nota­bles. Some of them, such as Banahi Sid El Bachir, would say later that some of them were ‘captured’ and ‘forced’ to sign against their will.63 That same day, 26 February 1976, the last Spanish soldier departed from the territory and so Spain abandoned its responsibilities as de jure administrative power of the Western Sahara, leaving behind a ter­ritory on fire.

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