3 MARTINDALE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE Mauritania, but the Sahrawi people, who had laid claim to the area, were not consulted during the process. Morocco, under King Hassan II, rallied around the seizure of Western Sahara and ignored international calls for a referendum and consultation with the Sahrawis, leading Algeria to evict 30,000 Moroccans living in Algeria (Hughes, 2001; UN, 1975). The Polisario Front, through its militant wing, the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army, engaged Morocco and Mauritania militarily. They soundly defeated the disorganized and demoralized Mauritanian military by 1978, resulting in a peace agreement in 1979 (Hughes, 2001). Morocco and Algeria clashed directly over the issue in 1976 in the oasis town of Amgala in Western Sahara. The Algerians were reportedly using the town as a staging area for Western Saharan refugees, but the Moroccans claimed there were heavily armed Algerian regulars in the town, including surface-to-air missile systems intended to inhibit Moroccan air operations. As a result of a two-day Moroccan attack, the Algerians and Sahrawis were forced to withdraw. Algerian President Boumédiène argued that his country was, as a champion of the Non-Aligned Movement, primarily concerned with the self-determination of the Sahrawi people, who he said were suffering genocide at the hands of the Moroccans. Accordingly, the Algerians began supplying arms to the Polisario Front. Morocco had started to consolidate its land claims in Western Sahara, but the town of Amgala changed hands again, the result of a Polisario raid in which the Moroccans were soundly defeated. King Hassan II claimed that the Algerians had participated in the raid, or at least supported the Polisario troops with heavy weaponry, but the Algerians denied this claim (Hughes, 2001). On March 6, 1976, the Algerians recognized the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, leading Morocco to end diplomatic relations with Algeria (Rachidi, 2022). With both sides thoroughly divorced from the idea of cooperation, relations remained strained through the end of the Cold War, and Algeria continued to supply the Polisario Front with Figure 1 Western Sahara and the Moroccan border berm Source: Boukhars, 2012. Figure 1 Western Sahara and the Moroccan border berm Source: Boukhars, 2012.
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