26th of February 1976; Spain declared to UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim that from then on it did not consider itself responsible anymore for the territory of the Western Sahara in any way possible. A necessary move, since Franco was dying at that moment and domestic political stability was priority number one. However, after turning its back to its former West-African colonies, they never really looked over their shoulder anymore to help them managing to govern a country. And up to today it is still visible. Forty years long two parties have been fighting over a piece of land, almost completely desert, to claim their right to rule the territory; called the "Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic" (SADR) by the one party and "Southern Provinces" by the other, neither of them is giving a sign of giving in after years of denying the other. What happened and how did it come to this? How can it be that all of the UN their attempts to bring the two groups together failed? The research question for this paper will be: "Can the hourglass model help us to understand why the conflict between the Polisario and Moroccan government is still waiting for an agreement after forty years?" .
This question will be answered, by first mapping the conflict. This will be done by giving a history of how the conflict developed, followed by describing the two different parties' relations with third parties and each other. Next, the issues and events after the UN pushed ceasefire will be discussed. Then, the hourglass model will be used to show how it can be that this conflict still is not solved. The answer will be provided in the conclusion.
History of the conflict development.
The strange thing is that both groups are really convinced of themselves having the right to the territory. Why they both arguably have this right, can be traced back in history. The original inhabitants of the region of Northwestern Africa are called the Sahrawi people.