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The term Djema'a (or Djemaa, meaning "Congregation" or "Gathering" in Arabic) can refer to two things in a Western Sahara context.
The Djema'a was the leading body in a Sahrawi tribe, composed of elders and elected leaders. It organized war efforts, raiding parties, lawmaking and diplomacy, among other things, and also settled disputes between members of the tribe. Sometimes, a larger assembly known as the Ait Arbein (Council of Forty) would be gathered, composed of elders from several tribes, to organize the community against foreign invasion or other such supratribal concerns.
The exact organization of the Djema'a varied from tribe to tribe, but it generally incorporated both old Berber customs, Arab traditions and based its practices on Islamic law. Women served on the Djema'a in at least some of the Sahrawi tribes.
An enduring social structure, tribalism had ruled the Sahrawis since they first appeared in the area in the Middle Ages, but a combination of colonization and modernization has gradually eroded its hold on the population.
After Spain and France invaded the territory in 1884, the Djema'as remained very active, but as the Spanish Army gradually extended its control and subdued the tribes, resistant Djema'a leaderships were killed or jailed, while others were coerced or bribed into cooperation with the colonizers. The Ma al-Aynayn uprising in the early 1900s, and the rebellions which followed, represented something of a last stand of the traditional tribal society against colonization. In the 1950s, tribal authority was slowly eroding due to urbanization and new ways of life.
Harsh Spanish repressive measures after the Ifni War, including forced settlement, accelerated this process. By 1967, Sahrawi nationalist politics were for the first time organized in a modern political party, the Harakat Tahrir. Tribal traditions and divisions remain strong in Sahrawi society, however, although the formal system of Djema'a has largely been destroyed by the appearance of modern states.
The Polisario (see below) has generally taken a hostile attitude to tribalism, arguing that it is an outdated and antidemocratic model of governance, and actively campaigned against tribalism in the Tindouf refugee camps and the areas of Western Sahara ruled by the exiled Sahrawi republic. Morocco has generally been content to extract allegiance from tribal elders in areas controlled by it, and otherwise ignored it. In Mauritania, the Sahrawi-Moorish communities are still strongly tribally organized.
The Djema'a was also a ruling council of Sahrawi elders created in May 1967 by the authorities in Spanish Sahara, today Western Sahara. Djema'a officials were elected, but the colonial authorities ran the process and in effect selected the candidates. The first round of elections were held between July 14 and August 20, 1967, and the Djema'a was inaugurated on September 11 in El Aaiún. A second round Djema'a was elected in January 1971, and as the Polisario Front uprising began in 1973, it was also the last.
The members of the Djemaa often had status within tribes, but were not necessarily considered authentic representatives by the tribe membership. The Djema'a had little effective power, but was occasionally consulted by the Spanish military governors, and allowed to send representatives to Madrid. Its primary function was to provide the occupation with a facade of legality in the eyes of the Sahrawi population, drawing on traditions such as the tribal Djema'a and the Ait Arbein.
In 1974–75, the Djema'a lost in importance, as Spain set up a new organization in support of its policies, the Sahrawi National Union Party (PUNS), which absorbed many of the Djema'a's members, and most of its political functions. Without Spanish backing, and with Franco declaring his intent to release the territory, many of the Djema'a members hastily defected to the Polisario Front, a rebel movement which was involved in a rapidly growing guerrilla war against the Spanish presence. A smaller number also left for Morocco, to support that country's claims to Western Sahara as its Southern Provinces, and a few to Mauritania where they were presented as backers of Mauritanian rule in Tiris al-Gharbiyya. After the joint Moroccan-Mauritanian invasion of Western Sahara in late 1975, the Djema'a was dispersed in the mass exodus of refugees that followed.
A majority of its membership (67 of 102) voted on October 12, 1975 in the Polisario-backed Ain Ben Tili (Mauritania) congress to denounce the Moroccan invasion, declare support for Polisario and dissolve the Djema'a, so it would not be possible to exploit the body for political purposes. Later that year, however, the Moroccan government convened a meeting of Djema'a members in Morocco to declare support for its annexation of the territory. This was contested by the Polisario, which argued that:
On February 27, 1976 the independence movement in Western Sahara, Polisario, proclaimed the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, intended to replace the Djema'a as a Sahrawi ruling body.
Although neither side recognized the Djema'a's authority when it was operative, denouncing it as a puppet of Spain, both Polisario and Morocco still use these instances of alleged Djema'a support as an argument for independence or annexation in the still ongoing Western Sahara conflict.
Western Sahara is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 80% of the territory is occupied and administered by neighboring Morocco. It has a surface area of 266,000 square kilometres (103,000 sq mi). It is the second most sparsely populated country in the world and the most sparsely populated in Africa, mainly consisting of desert flatlands. The population is estimated at just over 500,000, of which nearly 40% live in Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara.
The history of Western Sahara can be traced back to the times of Carthaginian explorer Hanno the Navigator in the 5th century BC. Though few historical records are left from that period, Western Sahara's modern history has its roots linked to some nomadic groups such as the Sanhaja group, and the introduction of Islam and the Arabic language at the end of the 8th century AD.
The Polisario Front, Frente Polisario, Frelisario or simply Polisario, from the Spanish abbreviation of Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro, is a rebel Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement claiming Western Sahara.
The Sahrawis, or Saharawi people, are an ethnic group and nation native to the western part of the Sahara desert, which includes the Western Sahara, southern Morocco, much of Mauritania, and along the southwestern border of Algeria. They are of mixed Berber, Arab and Black African descent.
Spanish Sahara, officially the Spanish Possessions in the Sahara from 1884 to 1958, then Province of the Sahara between 1958 and 1976, was the name used for the modern territory of Western Sahara when it was occupied and ruled by Spain between 1884 and 1976. It had been one of the most recent acquisitions, as well as one of the last remaining holdings, of the Spanish Empire, which had once extended from the Americas to the Spanish East Indies.
The Green March was a strategic mass demonstration in November 1975, coordinated by the Moroccan government, to force Spain to hand over the disputed, autonomous semi-metropolitan province of Spanish Sahara to Morocco. At that time, the Spanish government was preparing to abandon the territory as part of the decolonization of Africa, just as it had previously granted independence to Equatorial Guinea in 1968. The Sahrawi people aspired to form an independent state. The demonstration of some 350,000 Moroccans advanced several kilometres into the Western Sahara territory. Morocco later gained control over most of the former Spanish Sahara, which it continues to hold.
The Madrid Accords, formally the Declaration of Principles on Western Sahara, was a treaty between Spain, Morocco, and Mauritania setting out six principles which would end the Spanish presence in the territory of Spanish Sahara and arrange a temporary administration in the area pending a referendum.
Front Polisario Khat al-Shahid is a minor faction within the Front Polisario. It is based in the Sahrawi refugee camps of Tindouf, Algeria, but also claims to have supporters and members in the Sahrawi diaspora in Mauritania, Morocco, Spain, France and various European countries, as well as in the Moroccan-controlled part of Western Sahara.
Tiris al-Gharbiyya was the name for the area of Western Sahara under Mauritanian control between 1975 and 1979.
Guelta Zemmur is a small town or village in the Moroccan-administered part of the territory of Western Sahara.
The Sahrawi National Union Party, or Partido de Unión Nacional Saharaui (PUNS), was a short-lived political party set up by Francoist Spain to rally indigenous support in its rebellious Spanish Sahara colony.
The Reguibat is a Sahrawi tribe of Sanhaja-Berber origins. The Reguibat speak Hassaniya Arabic, and are Arabized in culture. They claim descent from Sidi Ahmed Rguibi, who lived in the Saguia el-Hamra region in the 16th century. They also believe that they are, through him, a chorfa tribe, i.e. descendants of Muhammad. Religiously, they belong to the Maliki school of Sunni Islam.
To assist in the decolonization process of the Spanish Sahara, a colony in North Africa, the United Nations General Assembly in 1975 dispatched a visiting mission to the territory and the surrounding countries, in accordance with its resolution 3292.
The Western Sahara conflict is an ongoing conflict between the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic/Polisario Front and the Kingdom of Morocco. The conflict originated from an insurgency by the Polisario Front against Spanish colonial forces from 1973 to 1975 and the subsequent Western Sahara War against Morocco between 1975 and 1991. Today the conflict is dominated by unarmed civil campaigns of the Polisario Front and their self-proclaimed SADR state to gain fully recognized independence for Western Sahara.
The politics of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic refers to politics of the Polisario Front's proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, a country in North Africa with limited recognition by other states, controlling parts of the Western Sahara region.
The Western Sahara War was an armed struggle between the Sahrawi indigenous Polisario Front and Morocco from 1975 to 1991, being the most significant phase of the Western Sahara conflict. The conflict erupted after the withdrawal of Spain from the Spanish Sahara in accordance with the Madrid Accords, by which it transferred administrative control of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania, but not sovereignty. In late 1975, the Moroccan government organized the Green March of some 350,000 Moroccan citizens, escorted by around 20,000 troops, who entered Western Sahara, trying to establish a Moroccan presence. While at first met with just minor resistance by the Polisario Front, Morocco later engaged a long period of guerrilla warfare with the Sahrawi nationalists. During the late 1970s, the Polisario Front, desiring to establish an independent state in the territory, attempted to fight both Mauritania and Morocco. In 1979, Mauritania withdrew from the conflict after signing a peace treaty with the Polisario Front. The war continued in low intensity throughout the 1980s, though Morocco made several attempts to take the upper hand in 1989–1991. A cease-fire agreement was finally reached between the Polisario Front and Morocco in September 1991. Some sources put the final death toll between 10,000 and 20,000 people.
In the 1970s in Morocco, after two coup attempts in 1971 and 1972, the patriotism engendered by Morocco's participation in the Middle East conflict and by the events in Western Sahara contributed to Hassan's popularity and strengthened his hand politically despite serious domestic turmoil. The king had dispatched Moroccan troops to the Sinai front after the outbreak of Arab-Israeli War in October 1973. Although they arrived too late to engage in hostilities, the action won Morocco goodwill among other Arab states. Shortly thereafter, the attention of the government turned to the annexation of then Spanish Sahara from Spain, an issue on which all major domestic parties agreed.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic:
Jatri Uld Said Uld Yumani was a Sahrawi politician, professional grazier, procurator of the Cortes Españolas and president of the Djema'a.
Sahrawi nationalism is a political ideology that seeks self-determination of the Sahrawi people, the indigenous population of Western Sahara. It has historically been represented by the Polisario Front. It came as a reaction against Spanish colonialist policies imposed from 1958 on, and subsequently in reaction to the Mauritanian and Moroccan invasions of 1975.