Sahrawi people in the context of "Saguía el-Hamra"

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.

The territory had been a Spanish province and former colony. The agreement was signed in Madrid on November 14, 1975, six days before Francisco Franco died, although it was never published on the Boletin Oficial del Estado. This agreement conflicted with the Law on decolonization of Sahara, ratified by the Spanish Parliament (Cortes) on November 18.Under the Madrid agreement, the territory would then be divided between Morocco and Mauritania, with no role for either the Polisario Front or the Sahrawi people generally. Following the accords, the Polisario relocated from the Mauritanian border to Algeria.

The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (Arabic: بعثة الأمم المتحدة لتنظيم استفتاء في الصحراء الغربية; French: Mission des Nations Unies pour l'Organisation d'un Référendum au Sahara Occidental; Spanish: Misión de las Naciones Unidas para la Organización de un Referéndum en el Sáhara Occidental; MINURSO) is the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, established in 1991 under United Nations Security Council Resolution 690 as part of the Settlement Plan, which had paved way for a cease-fire in the conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front (representing the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) over the contested territory of Western Sahara (formerly Spanish Sahara).

MINURSO's mission was to monitor the cease-fire and to organize and conduct a referendum in accordance with the Settlement Plan, which would enable the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara to choose between integration with Morocco and independence. This was intended to constitute a Sahrawi exercise of self-determination, and thus complete Western Sahara's still-unfinished process of decolonization (Western Sahara is the last major territory remaining on the UN's list of non-decolonized territories.)

Cape Juby (Arabic: رأس جوبي, trans. Raʾs Juby, Spanish: Cabo Juby) is a cape on the coast of southern Morocco, near the border with Western Sahara, directly east of the Canary Islands.

Its surrounding area, including the cities of Tarfaya and Tan-Tan, is called the Cape Juby Strip (after the homonymous cape), the Tarfaya Strip (after the homonymous city) or the Tekna Zone (after the Tekna, the native Saharawi tribe). The region is presently the far south of internationally recognized Morocco, and makes up a semi-desert buffer zone between Morocco proper at the Draa River and Western Sahara. The strip was under Spanish rule during much of the 20th century, officially as part of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, but mainly administered alongside Saguía el-Hamra and Río de Oro as part of Spanish Sahara, with which the Strip had closer cultural and historical links.

The Green March was a strategic mass demonstration in November 1975, coordinated by the Moroccan government and military, to force Spain to hand over the disputed, autonomous semi-metropolitan province of Spanish Sahara to Morocco. The Spanish government was preparing to abandon the territory as part of the decolonization of Africa, just as it had granted independence to Equatorial Guinea in 1968. The native inhabitants, the Sahrawi people, aspired to form an independent state. The demonstration of 350,000 Moroccans advanced several kilometers into the Western Sahara territory. Morocco later gained control of most of the former Spanish Sahara, which it continues to hold.

The Green March was condemned by the international community, notably in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 380. The march was considered an attempt to bypass the International Court of Justice's Advisory opinion on Western Sahara that had been issued three weeks earlier. Morocco gained control of most of the former Spanish Sahara, which it still holds to this day. The refusal of the Sahrawi people to submit to the Moroccan monarchy gave rise to the Western Sahara conflict, still unresolved today, and whose main episode was the Western Sahara War.

27°09′13″N 13°12′12″W / 27.1536°N 13.2033°W / 27.1536; -13.2033

Saguia el-Hamra or Sakia el Hamra (Spanish: Saguía el Hamra [saˈɣia el ˈxamɾa] , Arabic: الساقية الحمراء, romanized: al-Sāqiyah al-Ḥamrāʾ, lit. 'Red Canal') is the northern geographic region of Western Sahara. It was, with Río de Oro, one of the two territories that formed the Spanish province of Spanish Sahara after 1969. Its name comes from a waterway that goes through the capital. The wadi is inhabited by the Oulad Tidrarin Sahrawi tribe.

The Movement for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Wadi el Dhahab, also referred to as the Liberation Movement (Arabic: حركة تحرير, romanized: Harakat Tahrir), Movement for the Liberation of the Sahara, Advanced Organization of the Sahara, or simply the Muslim Party, was a Sahrawi movement created in the late 1960s by Muhammad Bassiri, a Sahrawi journalist and teacher of Qur’an.

Its aim was the peaceful overturning of Spanish colonial rule and achievement of Western Sahara's self-determination. It initially organized and operated in secret, but revealed its existence in a demonstration in El-Aaiun (Laayoune) against Spanish rule in 1970, attempting to hand over a petition to the Spanish colonial rulers calling for better treatment and Western Sahara's independence.

Tindouf, also written Tinduf (Arabic: ولاية تندوف), is the westernmost province of Algeria, having a population of 58,193 as of the 2008 census (not including the Sahrawi refugees at the Sahrawi refugee camps). Its population in reality could be as high as 160,000 because of the Sahrawi refugee camps. Despite the barren landscape, Tindouf is a resource-rich province, with important quantities of iron ore located in the Gara Djebilet area close to the border with Mauritania. Prior to Algerian independence, the area served as a strongpoint of several tribes of the nomadic Reguibat confederation.

The Settlement Plan (Arabic: خطة التسوية, romanized: Khiṭṭah al-Taswiyah; Spanish: Plan de Arreglo) was an agreement between the ethnically Sahrawi Polisario Front and Morocco on the organization of a referendum, which would constitute an expression of self-determination for the people of Western Sahara, leading either to full independence, or integration with the Kingdom of Morocco. It resulted in a cease-fire which remained effective until 2020, and the establishment of the MINURSO peace force to oversee it and to organize the referendum. The referendum never occurred.