President of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, has issued a decree declaring an official end the ceasefire signed between the Polisario Front and the Kingdom of Morocco in 1991.
According to Polisario Front News, “The decree entrusted the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army’s Staff Command to take all measures related to the implementation of the requirements of this decree, within the jurisdiction assigned to it.”
What the decree means is that effectively, a state of war is now once again in effect between the Polisario Front, which strives for the independence of the Western Sahara, and the Moroccan occupation forces.
President Ghali also instructed the National Security Authority, headed by the Prime Minister, to take measures and measures related to the official state of war, with regard to the management and administration of national institutions and ensuring the regularity of services.
Earlier, the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army reprinted launching intense attacks on Moroccan army bases in the Al Mahbas, Hawza, Awsard and Al Farisiyah sectors, reporting casualties on the Moroccan side.
Minister of Information in the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Hamada Salma, stated that “Moroccan recklessness in the Guerguerat region has returned the region to square one,” stressing that “the Sahrawi people are determined to extract their right to self-determination at all costs.”
Hamada Salma stated that “the Sahrawi people have lost their confidence in the ability of the United Nations to do justice to them and to establish their inalienable right to organize a free and fair referendum, to determine self-determination and end the last occupation on the African continent in accordance with international legality.”
He added: “The war imposed on us by the Moroccan occupation has begun, and matters will not return to what they were without being deterred by the Moroccan regime, which is responsible throughout this period for obstructing a peaceful solution in the region.”
On Friday, Morocco announced that it had launched a military operation in the buffer zone of Guerguerat in Western Sahara, while the Polisario Front responded, saying that the operation ended the ceasefire that had been in effect for nearly 30 years, stating that “war had begun.”
Conflict on the Western Sahara broke out in 1975, when Moroccan forces occupied the region following the departure of the Spanish colonial occupation. The Polisario Front fought a fierce armed resistance against the Moroccan occupation until 1991, when a UN-brokered ceasefire promised to organise a democratic referendum on independence. However, nearly 30 years later, UN peacekeepers have been unable to make any progress towards the organisation of such a plebiscite, leaving most of the area under a de facto continued military occupation.
