Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic

الجمهورية العربية الصحراوية الديمقراطية Al-Jumhūrīyya al-`Arabīyya aṣ-Ṣaḥrāwīyya ad-Dīmuqrāṭīyya Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
Flag
Motto: حرية ديمقراطية وحدة  (Arabic) "Liberty, Democracy, Unity"
Anthem: Yābaniy Es-Saharā  listen
Territory claimed by the SADR, viz. Western Sahara (the lower half of the section shaded yellow). The majority is currently administered by Morocco; the remainder is named the Free Zone by SADR, and is marked in yellow.
Capital	El Aaiún  (under Moroccan administration) Bir Lehlou (temporary capital) Tindouf Camps (de facto) Tifariti (proposed new provisional capital)
Official languages	Arabic, Spanish
Demonym(s)	Sahrawi
Government	Nominal republic1
• President	Mohamed Abdelaziz
• Prime Minister	Abdelkader Taleb Oumar
Disputed  with Morocco
• Western Sahara    relinquished by Spain	November 14, 1975
• SADR proclaimed	February 27, 1976
Area
• Total	(83rd)
• Water (%)	negligible
Population
• July 2004 estimate	267 405 (182nd)
• Density	1.3/km2 (3.4/sq mi) (228th)
Time zone	UTC+0 (UTC)
Internet TLD	none3
1 The SADR government is situated in Tindouf, Algeria. They claim control of the area east of the Moroccan Wall in Western Sahara which they label the Free Zone. Bir Lehlou is within this area. 2 Area of the whole territory of (Western Sahara) claimed by SADR. 3 .eh reserved.

The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) (Template:Lang-ar) is a partially recognised state which claims sovereignty over the entire territory of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony. SADR was proclaimed by the Polisario Front on February 27, 1976. The SADR government currently controls about 20% of the territory it claims. It calls the territories under its control the "Liberated Territories" or "Free Zone." Morocco controls and administers the rest of the disputed territory and calls these lands its Southern Provinces. The SADR government considers the Moroccan held territory "Occupied Territory" while Morocco considers the much smaller SADR held territory to be a "Buffer Zone."

History

Main article: History of Western Sahara

Following the Spanish evacuation of Spanish Sahara, Spain, Morocco, and Mauritania signed the Madrid Accords, leading to both Morocco and Mauritania moving in to annex it. Neither state gained international recognition and war ensued with the independence-seeking Polisario Front, claiming to represent the Sahrawi people. The creation of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic was announced in Bir Lehlou in Western Sahara on February 27, 1976, as the Polisario declared the need for a new entity to fill what they considered a political void left by the departing Spanish colonizers. Bir Lehlou remained in Polisario-held territory under the 1991 cease-fire (see Settlement Plan) and has remained the government in exile's symbolic capital of the exiled republic, while Polisario continues to claim the Moroccan held city of El Aaiún, as the capital of a would-be independent Western Sahara. Day-to-day business is, however, conducted in the Tindouf refugee camps in Algeria, which house most of the Sahrawi exile community.

Government structure

The highest office of the republic is the President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, now Mohammed Abdelaziz, who appoints the Prime Minister of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, now Abdelkader Taleb Oumar. The SADR's government structure consists of a Council of Ministers (a cabinet led by the Prime Minister), a judicial branch (with judges appointed by the President) and the parliamentary Sahrawi National Council (SNC, present speaker is Mahfoud Ali Beiba). Since its inception in 1976, the various constitutional revisions has transformed the republic from an ad hoc managerial structure, into something approaching an actual governing apparatus. From the late 1980s the parliament began to take steps to institute a division of powers and disentangle the republic's structures from those of the Polisario party, although without clear effect to date.

Its various ministries are responsible for a variety of services and functions. The judiciary, complete with trial courts, appeals courts and a supreme court, operates in the same areas. As a government-in-exile, many branches of government do not fully function, and has affected the constitutional roles of the institutions. Institutions parallel to government structures also have arisen within the Polisario Front, which is fused with the SADR's governing apparatus, and with operational competences overlapping between these party and governmental institutions and offices.

The SNC is presently weak in its legislative role, having been instituted as a mainly consultative and consensus-building institution, but it has strengthened its theoretical legislative and controlling powers during later constitutional revisions. Among other things, it has added a ban on the death penalty to the constitution, and brought down the government in 1999 through a vote of no-confidence.

Area of authority

The SADR acts as a government administration in the Sahrawi refugee camps located in the Tindouf Province of western Algeria. It is headquartered in Camp Rabouni, south of Tindouf, although some official events have taken place on Western Saharan territory in the provisional capital of Bir Lehlou, Tifariti and other cities in Polisario controlled territories. Effective independence is unclear with Polisario and Algerian authorities claiming Algerian authorities respect the autonomy of the government in exile, and stay outside the Sahrawi refugee camps. This however is disputed by former members of Polisario and questioned by outside observers. Several foreign aid agencies, including the UNHCR, are continually active in the camps.

Constitution and characteristics

Main article: Constitution of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic

A new 1999 Constitution of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic took a form similar to parliamentary constitutions of many European states, but with some paragraphs suspended until the achievement of "full independence". Among key points, the head of state is constitutionally the Secretary General of the Polisario Front during what is referred to as the "pre-independence phase," with provision in the constitution that on independence, Polisario is supposed to be dismantled or separated completely from the government structure. Provisions are detailed for a transitory phase beginning with independence, in which the present SADR is supposed to act as Western Sahara's government, ending with a constitutional reform and eventual establishment of a state along the lines specified in the constitution.

The broad guidelines laid down for an eventual Western Saharan state in the constitution include eventual multi-party democracy with a market economy. The constitution also defines Sahrawis as a Muslim, African and Arab people, The Arabic language is prescribed as the sole official language of the SADR. The Constitution also declares a commitment to the principles of human rights and to the concept of a Greater Maghreb, as a regional variant of Pan-Arabism.

International recognition and membership

The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is currently recognized as a sovereign representative of Western Sahara by forty-three states, mostly African and other governments in the developing world. Twenty-two states have withdrawn their former recognition, and twelve have "frozen" their diplomatic relations with the republic pending the outcome of the UN referendum. Sahrawi embassies exist in thirteen states. On the other hand, Moroccan territorial integrity, apparently meaning including Western Sahara, is explicitly recognized by the Arab League and by twenty-five states.

Although it has no representation at the United Nations, the republic has been a full member of the African Union (AU, formerly the Organization of African Unity, OAU) since 1984. Morocco withdrew from the OAU in protest and remains the only African nation not within the AU since South Africa's admittance in 1994. The SADR is also a member of the Asian-African Strategic Partnership formed at the 2005 Asian-African Conference, over Moroccan objections to SADR participation.

In 2006, the SADR participated in a conference of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of the Latin American and the Caribbean (COPPAL).

The SADR is not a member of the Arab League, nor of the Arab Maghreb Union, both of which include Morocco as a full member.

A Western Sahara Authority?

In the most recent peace plan, the UN-endorsed Baker Plan, created by James Baker, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's personal envoy to Western Sahara, the SADR would have been replaced with a five-year transitional Western Sahara Authority (WSA), a non-sovereign autonomous region supervised by Morocco, to be followed by a referendum on independence. However, as Morocco has declined to participate, the plan appears dead.

In April 2007 the government of Morocco suggested that a self-governing entity, through the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS), should govern the territory with some degree of autonomy for Western Sahara. The project was presented to the United Nations Security Council in mid-April 2007. A stalemate over the Moroccan proposal led the UN in an April 2007 "Report of the UN Secretary-General" to ask the parties to enter into direct and unconditional negotiations to reach a mutually accepted political solution.

Foreign recognition

Main article: Foreign relations of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic § States recognizing the SADR

States	Date of recognition	Date of withdrawal of recognition
Algeria	6 March 1976
Angola	11 March 1976
Burundi	1 March 1976	withdrawn 4 July 2005
Benin	11 March 1976	withdrawn 21 March 1997
Guinea-Bissau	15 March 1976	withdrawn 2 April 1997
North Korea	16 March 1976
Togo	17 March 1976	withdrawn June 1997
Rwanda	April 1976
Seychelles	25 October 1977	withdrawn 17 March 2008
Madagascar	28 February 1976	withdrawn 4 June 2005
Democratic Republic of the Congo	3 June 1978	withdrawn 13 September 1996
São Tomé and Príncipe	22 June 1978	withdrawn 23 October 1996
Panama	23 June 1978
Equatorial Guinea	3 November 1978	withdrawn May 1980
Tanzania	9 November 1978
Cambodia	10 April 1979	withdrawn 14 August 2006
Laos	9 May 1979
Ethiopia	24 February 1979
Vietnam	2 March 1979
Afghanistan	23 May 1979	withdrawn 12 June 2002
Cape Verde	4 June 1979	withdrawn 28 July 2007
Grenada	20 August 1979
Ghana	24 August 1979	withdrawn May 2002
Guyana	1 September 1979
Dominica	1 September 1979
Saint Lucia	1 September 1979	withdrawn March 1989
Jamaica	4 September 1979
Nicaragua	6 September 1979	withdrawn 21 June 2000
Mexico	8 September 1979
Lesotho	9 October 1979
Zambia	12 October 1979
Cuba	20 January 1980
Iran	27 February 1980	withdrawn [1]
Sierra Leone	27 March 1980	withdrawn 2002
Syria	15 April 1980
Libya	15 April 1980
Swaziland	28 April 1980	withdrawn June 1997
Botswana	14 May 1980
Zimbabwe	3 June 1980
Chad	4 June 1980	withdrawn 17 March 2006
Mali	4 June 1980
Costa Rica	30 October 1980	withdrawn April 2000
Vanuatu	27 November 1980	withdrawn November 2000
Papua New Guinea	12 August 1981
Tuvalu	12 August 1981	withdrawn 15 September 2000
Kiribati	12 August 1981	withdrawn 15 September 2000
Nauru	12 August 1981	withdrawn 15 September 2000
Solomon Islands	12 August 1981	withdrawn January 1989
Venezuela	3 August 1982
Suriname	11 August 1982
Bolivia	14 December 1982
Ecuador	14 November 1983
Mauritania	27 February 1984
Burkina Faso	4 March 1984	withdrawn 5 June 1996
Peru	16 August 1984	withdrawn october 1996
Nigeria	12 November 1984
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia	28 november 1984	ceased to exist in 1992.
Colombia	27 February 1985
Liberia	31 June 1985	withdrawn september 1997
India	1 October 1985	withdrawn 26 june 2000
Guatemala	10 April 1986	withdrawn april 1998
Dominican Republic	24 June 1986	withdrawn 23 May 2002
Trinidad and Tobago	1 November 1986
Belize	18 November 1986
Saint Kitts and Nevis	25 February 1987
Antigua and Barbuda	27 February 1987
Albania	29 december 1987	withdrawn 9 November 2004
Barbados	27 February 1988
El Salvador	31 June 1989	withdrawn April 1997
Honduras	8 November 1989	withdrawn January 2000
Namibia	2 June 1990
Malawi	16 November 1994	withdrawn 16 September 2008
Paraguay	9 February 2000	withdrawn May 2000
East Timor	2002
South Africa	15 September 2004
Kenya	25 June 2005	withdrawn 19 October 2006
Uruguay	26 December 2005
Source: http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Western_Sahara.html

National holidays

The Spanish actress Verónica Forqué at the Sahara Film Festival.

Date	Name	Original event / Notes
February 27	Independence Day	Proclamation of the SADR in Bir Lehlou, 1976
May 10	Foundation of the Polisario Front	Founded 1973
May 20	May 20 Revolution	Start of the armed struggle against Spain in 1973
June 5	Day of the Disappeared	Remembering missing Sahrawis
June 9	Day of the Martyrs	Day on which El-Ouali died in 1976
June 17	Zemla Intifada	Harakat Tahrir riots in El-Aaiun, 1970
October 12	Day of National Unity	Celebrating the Ain Ben Tili Conference, 1975

Islamic dates

Dates kept according to the lunar Islamic calendar.

Date	Name	Observance
Dhul Hijja 10	Eid al-Adha	Sacrifice feast
Shawwal 1	Eid al-Fitr	End of Ramadan
Rabi`-ul-Awwal 12	Mawlid	Birthday of Muhammad

See also

Main article: Outline of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic

• Moroccan Wall
• List of cities in Western Sahara
• Elections in Western Sahara
• Politics of Western Sahara
• Polisario Front
• Legal status of Western Sahara

External links

Official SADR pages

• "Official Website of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic" (in Arabic). Retrieved 2008-04-21.
• Template:ArTemplate:FrTemplate:EsSahara Press Service (SPS)  (official SADR press agency)
• Template:Es icon RASD TV  (official TV channel)
• Template:Ar icon SADR National Radio  (official radio channel)
• SADR Oil & Gas 2005  (SADR oil and gas licensing offer)

Other

• Western Sahara Online
• Profile of Western Sahara on the CIA World Factbook website (including data and political information)
• Association for a Free and Fair Referendum in Western Sahara (ARSO)