MARCHING TO THE KING’S TUNE
Talk of ‘Greater Morocco’ began in the 1950s, but in the 1970s it became the official explanation for Morocco’s annexation of
phosphate-rich Spanish Sahara. There was a snag: the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Sahara and the Rio di Oro
(Polisario – Saharawi pro-independence militia) declared the region independent. Putting his French legal training to work,
Hassan II took up the matter with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in 1975, expecting the court would
provide a resounding third-party endorsement for Morocco’s claims. Instead the ICJ considered a counter-claim for
independence from the Polisario, and dispatched a fact-finding mission to Spanish Sahara.
The ICJ concluded that ties to Morocco weren’t strong enough to support Moroccan sovereignty over the region, and
Western Sahara was entitled to self-determination. In a highly creative interpretation of this court judgment, Hassan II declared
that Morocco had won its case and ordered a celebratory ‘peace march’ of more than 350,000 Moroccans from Marrakesh into
Western Sahara in 1975 – some never to return. This unarmed ‘Green March’ was soon fortified by military personnel and land
mines, and was vehemently resisted by armed Polisario fighters.
The Green March is no longer the symbol of national pride it once was; Green March murals that once defined desert-cafe
decor have been painted over with apolitical dune-scapes. Meanwhile, phosphate profits have dwindled, due to falling prices,
mining sabotage and spiralling costs for Moroccan military operations, exceeding US$300 million annually by 1981.
A truce was finally established in 1991 between Morocco and the Polisario, but Morocco’s 2010 raid of Gadaym Izik protest
camp of 12,000 displaced Saharawi resulted in at least a dozen deaths and hundreds of injuries, according to the BBC, plus
more than 100 detentions of activists, as reported by Human Rights Watch. The actions haven’t altered Polisario’s demand for
a referendum, while Rabat maintains that it will grant Western Sahara autonomous status, but not a referendum. So the status
of the Western Sahara remains unresolved – a rallying cry for many Saharawi, and an awkward conversation nonstarter for
many deeply ambivalent Moroccan taxpayers.
TIMELINE
At the very start...
According to Amazigh folklore, the earth’s first couple birthed 100 babies and left them to
finish the job of populating the planet – no mention of who changed all those nappies.1-1½ million years ago
The Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of their day, precocious ‘pebble people’ begin fashioning stone
tools some 250,000 to 700,000 years ahead of the European Stone Age technology curve.5000–2500 BC
Once the ice age melts away, the Maghreb becomes a melting pot of Saharan,
Mediterranean and indigenous people. They meet, mingle and merge into a diverse people:
the Amazigh.1600 BC
Bronze Age petroglyphs in the High Atlas depict fishing, hunting and horseback riding – a
versatile combination of skills and cultures that would define the adaptable, resilient Amazigh.950 BC
Amazigh rebuff Rome and its calendar year, and start tracking Berber history on their own
calendar on January 13; it’s maintained for centuries after the Muslim Hejira calendar is
introduced.