Spain abandoned this colony after the death of Franco in 1975, opening the door to Moroccan occupation (and armed resistance by the Polisario Front). The UN brokered a ceasefire in 1991. This established MINURSO – the UN Mission for a Referendum in Western Sahara – but basically froze the situation, with Morocco occupying most of the territory and building a 2,700 km fortified wall to prevent incursions from the zone bordering Mauritania and controlled by Polisario (itself based in Algeria). The turn to unarmed resistance has taken the form of waves of protest – either demanding the promised referendum or on social conditions – in 1999, in 2005-6, and again in 2010, and the emergence of a younger generation of leaders, the best known being Aminatou Haidar.
E. V.B.b.3. Western Sahara
Isodoros, Konstantina Awakening Protests in Morocco and the Western Sahara, In Firoze Manji, Sokari Ekine, African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions (E. I.2.3. Third Wave of Protests: 2011 - 2021) Cape Town, Dakar, Nairobi and Oxford, Pambazuka Press (imprint of Fahamu), 2011 , pp. 122-129
Shelley, Toby Endgame in the Western Sahara: What Future for Africa’s Last Colony?, London, Zed Books, 2004 , pp. 240
Chapters on building Sahrawi identity, civil society, and countering the ‘wall of fear’.
Stephan, Maria; Mundy, Jacob A Battlefield Transformed: From Guerrilla Resistance to Mass Nonviolent Struggle in the Western Sahara, Vol. 8, issue 3, 2006 , pp. 1-32
Zunes, Stephen; Mundy, Jacob Western Sahara: War Nationalism and Conflict Resolution, Syracuse NJ, Syracuse University Press, 2011 , pp. 319
Benefits from firsthand research in Western Sahara. For links to other writing by Zunes and Mundy, see http://wsahara.stephenzunes.org.
The online version of Vol. 1 of the bibliography was made possible due to the generous support of the 
The online version of Vol. 2 of the bibliography was made possible due to the generous support of