John bolton, the new American am-bassador to the UN, may not be terribly popular outside the White House. But there is one corner of a sandy foreign field where his appointment is being viewed with some optimism: the Western Sahara, a territory that has been disputed for 30 years. Recent events, however, may revive international interest, even raising hopes that the long stalemate can be broken-with Mr Bolton's help. When Spain ceded sovereignty of its colony in 1975, Morocco and Mauritania, on either side of it, laid claim. So too did the Polisario Front, an armed nationalist movement which sought to turn Western Sahara (which has lots of phosphate and maybe off-shore oil too) into an independent state for its largely nomadic people. The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that the Sahrawis had a right to self-determination, but Morocco sent in its army to occupy the territory. War with Polisario broke out. Tens of thousands of Sahrawis became refugees in camps across the border in Algeria, whose government backed their cause.
展开▼
