UN envoy meets Polisario for talks on autonomy for Sahrawi people

HE WAS greeted like the Great White Hope. Mr James Baker, the former US Secretary of State, more recently named the UN Secretary General's special envoy to Western Sahara, on Sunday met the people whose fate he is supposed to resolve.

In his introduction to the Sahara Desert, sandstorms prevented his helicopter flying from the Algerian border town of Tindouf to the Sahrawi, refugee camp at Wilaya Smara, and Mr Baker was forced to make a one hour drive across the desert while sand swirled like mist around his convoy.

After four hours of meetings with Sahrawi tribal leaders and Mr Mohammed Abdel Aziz, the president of the self declared Arab Democratic Sahrawi Republic, Mr Baker admitted to journalists that the Western Sahara was a tough problem" but, he added, "it is not in my opinion hopeless or I would not be here".

After visiting the states involved - Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania Mr Baker said he was "convinced the people of this region are overly weary with this problem and are longing for a peaceful, lasting and just solution".

The Polisario laid on a kilo metre long reception committee. On one side, thousands of women and children cheered and waved flags. On the other, around 2,000 Polisario guerrillas stood at attention, Kalashnikov rifles to hand. The message was clear, the Polisario still has an army. If Mr Baker fails to make peace, as previous envoys have, the guerrillas are ready to restart the war.

A ceasefire has held for the past six years, under supervision of the UN Force Minurso. But the Polisario now says it was foolish to accept the truce without concessions from Morocco, which has occupied the Western Sahara since 1975.

In four desert refugee camps, so impoverished that they make the slums of the Gaza Strip look luxurious, the Sahiawi people have invested great hopes in Mr Baker. The Polisario's insistence that it will accept nothing short of full independence - not autonomy under Moroccan rule - is repeated by the refugees.

But after nearly 22 years in the wilderness, the Polisario knows that circumstances are against it. Algeria, which armed and trained its members against Morocco is preoccupied with its own civil war. King Hassan II of Morocco is a friend of the US - which appreciates his willingness to be a bridge between the Arabs and Israel.

The Polisario is a relic of both Spanish colonialism and the former Eastern Bloc. Its members believe Spain betrayed them by "selling" the former Spanish Sahara to Morocco in 1975. For the next decade and a half, the former Soviet Union and its satellites - promoted the Polisario.

A UN sponsored referendum on independence was supposed to have taken place in 1992. But Morocco moved some 200 000 of its own citizens into the Western Sahara and the referendum plans degenerated into a dispute over who should be allowed to vote.

UN officials believe the Polisario question could be resolved soon, because the guerrillas are in a position of weakness. "They lost the military card when they accepted the 1991 ceasefire," a UN official said. "They lost the political card with the end of the Cold War. The only card they have left is the refugee one in Algeria. If they go back to the Western Sahara and Morocco tricks them, it will be too late. They need somebody credible to reassure them - that's where James Baker steps in."

Speaking after his meeting, Mr Baker said the UN Secretary General had asked him to assess whether there is still any hope of implementing the 1991 referendum plan and, it not, what steps can be taken. As a goodwill gesture, he announced, the Polisario had agreed to free 85 of the 2,000 Moroccan prisoners of war.

Mr Baker is expected to return to the region in a few months, probably with proposals for Sahrawi autonomy under Moroccan rule.