| Green March | |||||||||
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| Part ofWestern Sahara conflict | |||||||||
 Marches of 7 November (in green) and military action of 31 October (in red) | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Spain |  Morocco | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Prince Juan CarlosCarlos Arias Navarro | Hassan IIAhmed Osman | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
Units ofTropas NómadasLight cavalry groups of the Third and Fourth Thirds of theLegion Expeditionary battalion of the Canary Infantry Regiment 50 | Royal Armed Forces | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 5,000legionaries | 350,000 civilians 25,000 soldiers | ||||||||
TheGreen March was a strategic mass demonstration in November 1975, coordinated by theMoroccan government and military, to forceSpain to hand over the disputed, autonomous semi-metropolitan province ofSpanish Sahara to Morocco. The Spanish government was preparing to abandon the territory as part of thedecolonization of Africa, just as it had granted independence toEquatorial Guinea in 1968. The native inhabitants, theSahrawi people, aspired to form an independent state. The demonstration of some 350,000 Moroccans advanced several kilometers into the Western Sahara territory. Morocco later gained control of most of the former Spanish Sahara, which it continues to hold.
The Green March was condemned by the international community, notably in theUnited Nations Security Council Resolution 380. The march was considered an attempt to bypass theInternational Court of Justice'sAdvisory opinion on Western Sahara that had been issued three weeks earlier.[1]
Morocco gained control of most of the former Spanish Sahara, which it still holds to this day. The refusal of the Sahrawi people to submit to the Moroccan monarchy gave rise to theWestern Sahara conflict, still unresolved today, and whose main episode was theWestern Sahara War.
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Morocco, to the north ofSpanish Sahara, had long claimed that the territory was historically an integral part of Morocco.Mauritania to the south argued similarly that the territory was in fact Mauritanian. Since 1973, a Sahrawiguerrilla war led by thePolisario Front (armed and financed by Algiers) had challenged Spanish control, and in October 1975 Spain had quietly begun negotiations for a handover of power with leaders of the rebel movement, both inEl Aaiún, and with foreign ministerPedro Cortina y Mauri meetingEl Ouali inAlgiers.[2]
Morocco intended to vindicate its claims by demanding a verdict from theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ), which was issued on 16 October 1975. TheICJ stated that there were historical legal ties of allegiance between "some, but only some"Sahrawi tribes and theSultan of Morocco, as well as ties including some rights relating to the land between Mauritania and other Sahrawi tribes.[3] However, the ICJ stated also that there were no ties of territorial sovereignty between the territory and Morocco, or Mauritania, at the time of Spanishcolonization; and that these contacts were not extensive enough to support either country's demand forannexation of the Spanish Sahara. Instead, the court argued, the indigenous population (the Sahrawis) possessed the right ofself-determination. This meant that regardless of which political solution was found to the question of sovereignty (integration with Spain, Morocco, Mauritania, partition, or independence), it had to be explicitly approved by the people of the territory. AUN visiting mission had concluded on 15 October, the day before the ICJ verdict was released, that Sahrawi support for independence was "overwhelming".[citation needed]
However, the reference to previous Moroccan-Sahrawi ties of allegiance was presented by Hassan II as a vindication of his position, with no public mention of the court's further ruling on self-determination. (Seven years later, he formally agreed to a referendum before theOrganisation of African Unity). Within hours of the ICJ verdict's release, he announced the organizing of a "green march" to Spanish Sahara, to "reunite it with the Motherland".[citation needed]
In order to prepare head off any possible counter-invasion fromAlgeria, theMoroccan Army entered the far northeast corner of the region on 31 October, where it was met with stiff resistance from thePolisario, by then a two-year-old independence movement.[4]
The Green March was a well-publicized popular march of enormous proportions. On 6 November 1975 approximately 350,000 unarmed and controlling the situation tens of thousands of Moroccan soldiers camouflaged among themselvesMoroccans[5] converged on the city ofTarfaya in southern Morocco and waited for a signal fromKingHassan II to cross into the region ofSaguia El Hamra. They brandishedMoroccan flags andQur'an; banners calling for the "return of theMoroccan Sahara", photographs of the King and theQur'an; the colorgreen for the march's name was intended as a symbol ofIslam.[citation needed] As the marchers reached theborder, theSpanish Armed Forces were ordered not to fire to avoid bloodshed. The Spanish troops also cleared some previously mined zones.
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According toMorocco, the exercise of sovereignty by the Moroccan state was characterized by official pledges of allegiance to the sultan. The Moroccan government was of the opinion that this allegiance existed during several centuries before the Spanishoccupation and that it was a legal and political tie.[6] The sultanHassan I, for example, had carried out two expeditions in 1886 in order to put an end to foreign incursions in this territory and to officially invest severalcaids andcadis. In its presentation to the ICJ, the Moroccan side also mentioned the levy oftaxes as a further instance of the exercise of sovereignty.[7] The exercise of this sovereignty had also appeared, according to the Moroccan government, at other levels, such as the appointment of local officials (governors and military officers), and the definition of the missions which were assigned to them.[8]
The Moroccan government further pointed to several treaties between it and other states, such as with Spain in 1861, the United States of America in 1786, and 1836 and with the United Kingdom in 1856[9][10]
The International Court of Justice found that "neither the internal nor the international acts relied upon by Morocco indicate the existence at the relevant period of either the existence or the international recognition of legal ties of territorial sovereignty between Western Sahara and the Moroccan State. Even taking account of the specific structure of that State, they do not show that Morocco displayed any effective and exclusive State activity in Western Sahara. They do, however, provide indications that a legal tie of allegiance existed at the relevant period between the Sultan and some, but only some, of the nomadic peoples of the territory, through Tekna caids of the Noun region, and they show that the Sultan displayed, and was recognized by other States to possess, some authority or influence with respect to those tribes. "[3]
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The Green March caught Spain in a moment of political crisis. Thecaudillo GeneralFrancisco Franco, who had led the country for 36 years, was dying. Despite the overwhelming military and logistic superiority of the Spanish armed forces based in Western Sahara in relation to the Moroccan armed forces, the Spanish government feared that the conflict with Morocco could lead to an open colonial war in Africa, which could putFrancoist Spain into question and lead to an abrupt political change or a social instability and disaster. The Spanish government, directed by PrinceJuan Carlos, who was acting Head of State in substitution of General Franco, and the incumbent Prime Minister Don CarlosArias Navarro, were in no mood for troubles in the colony. Only the year before, thePortuguesegovernment had beentoppled by the Portuguese armed forces after becoming bogged down in colonial wars inAngola andMozambique. Therefore, following the Green March, and with a view to avoid war and preserving as much as possible of its interest in the territory, Spain agreed to enter direct bilateral negotiations with Morocco, bringing in also Mauritania, who had made similar demands. Under pressure from Morocco, Spain also agreed that no representatives of the native population would be present in the negotiations that resulted in 14 NovemberMadrid Accords. This was a treaty which divided Spanish Sahara between Mauritania and Morocco.[11] In the agreements Spain agreed to cede the possession of the colony to Morocco and Mauritania, under the condition, expressed in point 3 of the Trilateral Agreement, that the views of the Saharan population had to be respected.
Spain received a 35% concession in thephosphate mines ofBou Craa and offshore fishing rights[12] that were not respected by Morocco. Morocco and Mauritania then formally annexed the parts they had been allotted in the Accords. Morocco claimed the northern part, i.e.Saguia el-Hamra and approximately half ofRío de Oro, while Mauritania proceeded to occupy the southern third of the country under the nameTiris al-Gharbiyya. Mauritania later abandoned all claims to its portion in August 1979 and ceded this area to the Popular Army of Sahrawi Liberation (Polisario), but it was instead promptly occupied by Morocco. Nevertheless, Mauritania preserved for itself a small outpost atLa Güera to preserve the security of its major port ofNouadhibou.
The Polisario, now with heavyAlgerian backing, refused the Madrid Accords, and demanded that the ICJ's opinion on Sahrawiself-determination be respected. The consequence was that a conflict raged between the Polisario and the Moroccan government. The conflict has still not been resolved. Currently, there is acease-fire in effect, after a Moroccan-Polisarioagreement was struck in 1991 to solve the dispute through the organization of areferendum on independence. A UN peace-keeping mission (MINURSO) has been charged with overseeing the cease-fire and organizing the referendum, which has still not taken place as of 2019[update]. Morocco has rejected the idea of the referendum as unworkable in 2000 and has suggested a plan ofautonomy for Western Sahara within Morocco. That proposal has been rejected by the Polisario, and also by its Algerian backers; it was presented to the UN in April 2007.
Spain is divided between its desire to preserve a good relation with Morocco, its southern neighbor with whom it shares terrestrialborders inCeuta andMelilla, and its responsibility to the international legality as the former colonial power. The traditional position of all the Spanish democratic governments until the election of Prime MinisterZapatero had been that the wishes of the Western Saharan population have to be respected, and of support to the organization of the referendum requested by the United Nations. According to the US Department of State's documents leaked by Wikileaks, Spain, under Zapatero, has changed its traditional position concerning the organisation of the referendum for the Western Sahara, and now supports the Moroccan position. The documents also stated that Spain had been trying to broker an agreement between the two parties. However, in her speech to the Spanish Parliament of 15 December 2010, the Spanish Minister of Foreign AffairsTrinidad Jiménez denied that Spain supports the Moroccan position in Spanish Sahara. She also argued that Spain will support any agreement between the Polisario and Morocco. In 2022, Prime MinisterPedro Sánchez announced that Spain would back Morocco's autonomy plan during a visit to Rabat.[13]
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