[The following article appeared in the June 12 issue of Combate, the monthly publication of the Spanish Liga Comunista (Communist League, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International). The translation and footnotes are by Intercontinental Press.)
Thousands of Saharans staged a demonstration demanding their independence during the recent visit of a United Nations mission to Sahara. This action marked a decisive leap forward in the fight of the Saharan people against Spanish colonialism.
This step forward in the struggle of the Saharan people against weak Spanish colonial rule has had a big impact. The maneuvers the Franco dictatorship engaged in to assure its domination rapidly lost effectiveness. The plan to establish a puppet government to uphold Spanish imperialist interests-via the Asamblea General del Sahara,? a body handpicked by the dictatorship, and the PUNS, which was created and financed by Madrid-has suddenly collapsed. The mobilization of the masses exposed Franco's plans as frauds. The PUNS melted in the heat of Rabat's gold.* The Saharan masses have made clear before the eyes of world public opinion what they want-immediate, unconditional independence.
The upsurge of the Saharans, along with the pressure from the neocolonial regimes of the Maghreb, the imperialists, and the Kremlin bureaucrats, is deepening the crisis of the dictatorship, which is already racked by the repercussions of the world economic crisis and the advance of the proletariat and other oppressed layers toward a general strike in the metropolitan center. Each day of rule over Sahara, of confrontations with the Saharan masses, and armed clashes-small though they may beheightens the tension within the army and adds fresh fuel to the struggle of workers and youth in the metropolitan center, deepening the crisis of a dictatorship that is steadily growing weaker.
The recent statements by the cabinet show its inability to continue bearing the costs of colonial rule. These include the growing struggle of the Saharan masses, the increase in anticolonialist guerrilla actions, and a possible armed confrontation with Morocco-all of which would inevitably hasten the collapse of the dictatorship.
The government's fear of a step-up of mass struggle in the metropolitan center reflects the attitude of big business as a whole in face of the growing discontent within the army. Massive desertions of Saharans, which are undermining certain colonial units (the territorial police); guerrilla assaults and the kidnapping of officers; general discontent among the troops— all these are crystallizing into unrest and a loss of cohesion in the officer caste. This phenomenon is still in an early stage. It takes different forms, especially rightist forms, such as demands for more repression and less wavering by the government. However, it is creating divisions among the commanders-not only in the African corps but throughout the army—a development that favors the emergence of views like those held by Busquets and Julve."
The central force behind these divisions is the rise in mass struggles in Spain. In this difficult period, the dictatorship needs more than ever a tightly knit army without divisions. Its latest maneuvers are thus aimed at preventing a continuation of this process.
The dictatorship has had to give up on its most fraudulent plans. This demonstration of its weakness and lack of power has enabled the Saharan people to win an important victory. But at the same time the dictatorship has increased its maneuvers to pressure the governments of the area, the imperialists, the Kremlin bureaucrats, and even the Frente Polisario to guarantee what is fundamental to Spanish imperialism in the Sahara—FOSBUCRAA and its enormous sources of income, which are constantly increasing. Spanish troops and Francoism are still there with all the aggression and threat this implies.
That is why the struggle of the Saharan people is entering a decisive phase of once and for all throwing out the Spanish troops and ending imperialist plunder. At the same time the threat of open war with Morocco continues to hang over the heads of the Spanish, Moroccan, and Saharan masses because of the continued Spanish presence in North Africa.
Morocco, Mauritania, and Algeria Also Want a Slice of the Saharan Pie
In 1969 when Spanish capitalists formed FOSBUCRAA, King Hassan changed his position with regard to Sahara. He shifted from defending its independence to demanding its annexation. The shift came because of the decisive importance of the phosphate deposits to the Moroccan bourgeoisie; by seizing the phosphate beds, they would become the world's leading producer of this mineral. But also involved is an effort by the Muslim monarchy to use the confrontation with Franco to distract the attention of the Moroccan working people and oppressed layers from the real problems they face under the feudalisticcapitalist regime.
Whipping up a wave of chauvinism to accompany its demand for annexation, the Moroccan monarchy is seeking to solve its extremely serious internal problems and to strengthen its authority with the masses. It won the support of the majority of the opposition in that undertaking, including the Communist party.
At present Morocco has not gone beyond pressure tactics in its drive for annexation, fearing a military defeat that would mean the end of the Muslim monarchy. It has combined maneuvers in the United Nations-trying to get support from the other Arab governments, the imperialists, and the Kremlin bureaucracy-and the resurgence of guerrilla actions by the FLU, an organization linked to the Moroccan army.
The continuation of such efforts, the momentum of the annexation campaign, and the continued presence of Spanish imperialism in Sahara add up to the risk of an armed confrontation. The determination shown by the Saharan masses to move toward independence is a blow not only to Madrid but also to Hassan. Moreover, as the dénouement approaches and the situa tion becomes more unstable, the risks of war become increasingly serious.
For reasons similar to Hassan's, the ruling class of Mauritania also has annexationist aspirations. They hope to extinguish the flames of discontent among the masses of their own country with a strong dose of chauvinism.
For its part, the Algerian government would like to prevent Morocco, its principal rival in the Maghreb, from growing any stronger, while at the same time assuring its own bourgeoisie the privileges of control over Sahara. Its aim is to install a government under its influence, one that would give the country formal independence but keep it under the rule of the sheikhs, the bourgeoisie, and the imperialists. To assure that, it is currently backing the Frente Polisario.
In following such a course, Algeria is forced to take objectively positive stepssuch as materially supporting the Frente Polisario and promoting formal independence for Sahara-despite the fact that its aspiration is merely to place new chains on the Saharan people.
For an Anti-Imperialist United Front
During centuries of Spanish colonial domination of Sahara, the imperialists have plundered its national wealth. They have maintained feudal relations, personified in the sheikhs, which preserve the backwardness and most extreme exploitation of the country. Deprived of independence and freedom, the Saharan people suffer to an extreme degree from illiteracy, starvation, and misery. The endemic diseases of underdevelopment, infant mortality, housing that amounts to little more than hovels, slavery, and the selling of women are the legacy of Christian, "civilized" Spain.
To find the route to sovereignty and real independence, the Saharan masses must overcome formidable obstacles, including violent plunder by the imperialists, the designs of the national bourgeoisies of the Maghreb, and those of the Kremlin bureaucracy, which is plotting in the background the best way to guarantee its interests in the region.
The sheikhs and notables are, of course, willing to sell themselves to anyone- Madrid, Rabat, Algiers-to maintain their rule. This means that the only road to liberation is a struggle against imperialism in which the workers, peasants, youth, and women of Sahara are allied with the workers and peasants of Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania, and the proletariat of the metropolitan center.
Such a course will make it possible to secure the withdrawal of Spanish troops, the nationalization of FOSBUCRAA and all other mineral and energy resources, all democratic rights, and the establishment of a democratically elected Constituent Assembly to decide the form of government the Saharan people want. It will definitively sweep away feudalism, the slave trade, and the selling of women. Full assurance of national independence requires the general arming of the people and the establishment of workers control over imperialist firms and businesses.
All this can only be assured by a workers and peasants government without a single representative of the sheikhs, the national bourgeoisie, or the imperialists—a government emerging from the alliance of the oppressed Saharans led by the proletariat.
We Trotskyists unconditionally support the struggle of the Saharan people for their independence. We pledge to mobilize support for it at all levels of struggle, to the full extent of our forces.
Today the Frente Polisario is leading the Saharan liberation movement. The Frente Polisario is a petty-bourgeois nationalist organization that maintains close ties with the Algerian bourgeoisie and government. It is willing to guarantee them substantial privileges in Sahara if they support its struggle. In addition, the Frente Polisario's program for the liberation struggle does not fundamentally combat the privileges of the sheikhs and leaves the door open for a liquidationist agreement with Madrid. For these reasons, the Frente Polisario is incapable of waging a consistent fight for the liberation of its people. Its whole orientation is an obstacle to the independence of the Saharan people.
We Trotskyists will denounce and fight this. But at the same time we will continue to support the steps, no matter how small they may be, that the Frente Polisario takes in the struggle against Spanish imperialism; we will also continue to defend it against all attacks by the Franco dictatorship.
Solidarity With the Saharan People
Independence for the Saharan people must be a demand of the proletariat and oppressed masses of the Spanish state. The costs of colonial rule are borne by them.
The tremendous investments in the state enterprise FOSBUCRAA come from the money that big business, through the dictatorship and Social Security, swindle from the workers.
The costly army, defender of the phosphate mines, is maintained at the expense of the workers and oppressed.
A large part of our youth must waste a year and a half performing military service in those territories, risking their lives for interests that not only are not theirs but also oppress them both in the army and in their work or studies.
The colonial army, built and maintained through the exploitation of the workers, is a weapon in the hands of the bourgeoisie and its dictatorship, which is preparing to confront the struggles of the workers and all the oppressed.
Moreover, the unleashing of an imperialist war, which is constantly threatened, would impose new attacks, suffering, and misery on the working masses and their allies, since the burden of such a war would fall on them.
Once again Marx and Lenin's historical statement takes on life: "No nation that oppresses another can be free." Oppression and freedom cannot go hand in hand.
Proletarian internationalism-solidarity with the just struggle of the Saharan people-is essential for the development of the fight against the dictatorship. The example of the decisive role played by the struggle of Portugal's African colonies in the fall of the Salazarist dictatorship shows how the advance of the anticolonialist struggle in Sahara and the advance toward a general strike of the workers and oppressed in Spain are closely linked in their outcome. The recent cabinet statements reflect awareness of this link and were made with the specter of a general strike in mind.
That is why the proletariat, the youth, and all the oppressed of the Spanish state must unite in struggle against all attacks of the government in the fight for:
Immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all troops from North Africa. Not a man, not a gun, not a cent, for the imperialist war!
Solidarity with the struggle of the Saharan people!
Total and immediate independence for Sahara!
Return Ceuta and Melilla to Morocco!
Dissolve the special army corps and the colonial reserve corps!
The workers commissions, university organizations of the vanguard youth, and other layers must organize and press this fight. The parties and organizations that claim to represent the working class must unite their efforts and reach the broadest possible agreement to build mobilizations in solidarity with the Saharan people. There is no excuse for not taking steps in this direction.
June 3, 1975
Notes
1. In mid-May a United Nations fact-finding mission visited Sahara to poll the population on what status it desired once Spain relinquished the colony.
2. General Assembly of Sahara.
3. Partido de la Unión Nacional Saharahui (Party of Saharan National Union), formed in February 1975 as the only legal political party of Sahara.
4. PUNS General Secretary Jalihena Rachid quietly left El Aaiún May 15 with the party's strongbox containing 6 million pesetas (1 peseta=US$0.02). He fled to Morocco, where he offered his services to King Hassan.
5. The Arabic name for the region including northwestern Africa.
6. After a meeting of Franco and the Spanish cabinet May 23, an official announcement stated, "Spain will not try in any way to prolong its presence in the Sahara, and never intended to take any advantage, political or material." The Franco regime, the announcement stated, was ready "to transfer sovereignty of the Saharan territory in the shortest period possible."
7. One such instance was reported in May by the Logos news agency. A fourteen-member territorial police unit at a post bordering Mauritania was reported to have deserted to join the independence forces.
8. Maj. Julio Busquets and Capt. José Julve were arrested February 18 and charged with "military indiscipline" after they circulated a manifesto asking for reforms in the military and politics.
9. Frente Popular para la Liberación del Sahara y Rio de Oro (People's Front for the Liberation of Sahara and Rio de Oro), founded in 1970. The Frente Polisario appears to be the political group with the largest following in Sahara. In May 1973 it began armed action against the Spanish troops stationed there. It has stated it will oppose the Moroccan march on El Aaiún with force.
10. FOSBUCRAA is the mine with the largest known phosphate reserves in the world, estimated at 1.7 billion tons. The 750,000 tons of phosphate extracted at Bu Craa in 1973 sold for $30 to $35 a ton; by 1974 the price had risen to $68.
11. Frente de Liberación y Unidad (Front for the Liberation and Unity of Sahara), a 1973 creation of King Hassan promoting annexation of Sahara to Morocco.
12. Ceuta and Melilla are two Spanish enclaves on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco.