In the
in the middle of a
I go walking in the ...
In the
in the middle of a
I go walking in the ...
In the
in the middle of a
I go walking in the ...
In the
in the middle of a
I go walking in the ...
In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
From the mountains of faith
to the river so deep
I must be looking for something
something sacred I lost
But the river is wide
and it's toohard to cross.
Even though I know the river is wide
I walk down every evening and I stand on the shore
I try to cross to the opposite side
So I can finally find what I've been looking for
In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the valley of fear
to a river so deep.
I've been searching for something
taken out of my soul
Something I'd never lose
something somebody stole.
I don't know why I go walking at night
But now I'm tired and I don't wanna walk anymore
I hope it doesn't take the rest of my life
Until I find what it is I've been looking for
In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the jungle of doubt
to the river so deep.
I know I'm searching for something
something so undefined
That it can only be seen
by the eyes of the blind
In the middle of the night.
I'm not sure about a life after this
God knows I've never been a spiritual man
Baptized by the fire I wade
Into the river that is runnin' to the promised land
In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the desert of truth
to the river so deep
We all end in the ocean
we all start in the streams
We're all carried along
by the river of dreams
In the middle of the night
I go walking in the
| Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
الجمهورية العربية الصحراوية الديمقراطية
Al-Jumhūrīyya al-`Arabīyya aṣ-Ṣaḥrāwīyya ad-Dīmuqrāṭīyya República Árabe Saharaui Democrática |
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| Motto: حرية ديمقراطية وحدة (Arabic) "Liberty, Democracy, Unity" |
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| Anthem: "Yā Banīy As-Saharā" O Sons of the Sahara |
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![Location of Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (dark blue)– in Africa (light blue & dark grey)– in the African Union (light blue) — [Legend]](http://web.archive.org./web/20130914203708/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Location_Western_Sahara_AU_Africa.svg) Location of Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (dark blue)
– in Africa (light blue & dark grey) |
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| Capital | El Aaiún1[1] (proclaimed, under Moroccan administration) Bir Lehlou and Sahrawi refugee camps (administrative) |
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| Official language(s) | Arabic, Spanish[2] | |||||
| Spoken languages | Hassānīya Arabic, Berber languages and Spanish.[3] | |||||
| Demonym | Sahrawi | |||||
| Government | Single party state[4] | |||||
| - | President | Mohamed Abdelaziz | ||||
| - | Prime Minister | Abdelkader Taleb Oumar | ||||
| Legislature | Sahrawi National Council | |||||
| Disputed | with Morocco | |||||
| - | Western Sahara relinquished by Spain |
November 14, 1975 |
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| - | Declared | February 27, 1976 | ||||
| - | Effective | 80% of the territory claimed is under Moroccan Administration as its de facto "southern province". | ||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 266,000 km2 (83rd) 102,703 sq mi |
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| - | Water (%) | negligible | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| - | September 2010 estimate | 100,000 or 502,5853 (182nd) | ||||
| - | Density | 1.9/km2 (236th) 4.9/sq mi |
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| Currency | Algerian dinar (de facto)[5] Sahrawi Peseta (commemorative) |
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| Time zone | UTC (UTC+0) | |||||
| Internet TLD | .eh reserved. | |||||
| 1 The SADR government is based in the Refugee camps of Tindouf, Algeria. They control the area east of the Moroccan Wall in Western Sahara which they label the "Free Zone". Bir Lehlou is within this area. 2 Area of the whole territory of (Western Sahara) claimed by SADR. 3 500,000 is the estimate given for the population of Western Sahara based on comparative study of population growth since 1975, the date where the last census took place in Western Sahara. 100,000 is the estimated number of people living in the refugee camps in the Tindouf province, Algeria where the SADR is headquartered. |
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| Part of a series on the |
| History of Western Sahara |
|---|
 |
| Background |
| Spanish Sahara Moroccan Army of Liberation Harakat Tahrir · Polisario Front · Sahrawi National Union Party Madrid Accords |
| Disputed regions |
| Saguia el-Hamra · Río de Oro Southern Provinces · Free Zone · |
| Politics |
| Legal status of Western Sahara · Politics of Morocco / of the SADR Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs |
| Rebellions |
|
Pre-1975: post 1975: Western Sahara conflict (Western Sahara War · Independence Intifada) |
| Conflict issues |
| Sahrawi refugee camps · Wall · Human rights in Western Sahara |
| Western Sahara peace process |
| Resolution 1495 · Resolution 1754 · Visiting mission · Referendum mission · ICJ Advisory Opinion · Settlement Plan · Houston Agreement · Baker Plan · Manhasset negotiations · Moroccan Initiative |
The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية الصحراوية الديمقراطية), (Spanish: República Árabe Saharaui Democrática aka RASD) is a partially recognised state that claims sovereignty over the entire territory of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony. SADR was proclaimed by the Polisario Front on February 27, 1976, in Bir Lehlu, Western Sahara. The SADR government controls about 20-25% of the territory it claims.[6] It calls the territories under its control the Liberated Territories or the Free Zone. Morocco controls and administers the rest of the disputed territory and calls these lands its Southern Provinces. The SADR government considers the Moroccan-held territory occupied territory, while Morocco considers the much smaller SADR held territory to be a buffer zone.[7]
Contents |
Following the Spanish evacuation of Spanish Sahara, Spain, Morocco, and Mauritania signed the Madrid Accords on November 14, 1975, leading to both Morocco and Mauritania moving in to annex the territory of Western Sahara. Neither state gained international recognition and war ensued with the independence-seeking Polisario Front, claiming to represent the Sahrawi people. The creation of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic was announced in Bir Lehlou in Western Sahara on February 27, 1976, as the Polisario declared the need for a new entity to fill what they considered a political void left by the departing Spanish colonisers. Bir Lehlou remained in Polisario-held territory under the 1991 cease-fire (see Settlement Plan) and has remained the government in exile's symbolic capital[citation needed] of the exiled republic, while Polisario continues to claim the Moroccan held city of El Aaiún, as the capital of a would-be independent Western Sahara. Day-to-day business, however, is conducted in the Tindouf refugee camps in Algeria, which house most of the Sahrawi exile community.
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This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability. |
The highest office of the republic is the President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, now Mohamed Abdelaziz, who appoints the Prime Minister of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, now Abdelkader Taleb Oumar. The SADR's government structure consists of a Council of Ministers (a cabinet led by the Prime Minister), a judicial branch (with judges appointed by the President) and the parliamentary Sahrawi National Council (SNC, present speaker is Kathri Aduh). Since its inception in 1976, the various constitutional revisions has transformed the republic from an ad hoc managerial structure into something approaching an actual governing apparatus. From the late 1980s the parliament began to take steps to institute a division of powers and disentangle the republic's structures from those of the Polisario party, although without clear effect to date.
Its various ministries are responsible for a variety of services and functions. The judiciary, complete with trial courts, appeals courts and a supreme court, operates in the same areas. As a government-in-exile, many branches of government do not fully function, and has affected the constitutional roles of the institutions. Institutions parallel to government structures also have arisen within the Polisario Front, which is fused with the SADR's governing apparatus, and with operational competences overlapping between these party and governmental institutions and offices.
The SNC is presently weak in its legislative role, having been instituted as a mainly consultative and consensus-building institution, but it has strengthened its theoretical legislative and controlling powers during later constitutional revisions. Among other things, it has added a ban on the death penalty to the constitution, and brought down the government in 1999 through a vote of no-confidence.
| Party | Seats |
|---|---|
| Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro | 101 |
| Total | 101 |
The SADR acts as a government administration in the Sahrawi refugee camps located in the Tindouf Province of western Algeria. It is headquartered in Camp Rabouni, south of Tindouf, although some official events have taken place on Western Saharan territory in the provisional capital of Bir Lehlou, in Tifariti and other towns in the Liberated Territories. The government of the SADR administers both the Western Sahara territories under its control and the Sahrawi refugee camps on Algerian soil near Tindouf, but only claims sovereignty on the first ones. Several foreign aid agencies, including the UNHCR, and NGO's are continually active in the camps.
A new 1999 Constitution of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic took a form similar to parliamentary constitutions of many European states, but with some paragraphs suspended until the achievement of "full independence". Among key points, the head of state is constitutionally the Secretary General of the Polisario Front during what is referred to as the "pre-independence phase," with provision in the constitution that on independence, Polisario is supposed to be dismantled or separated completely from the government structure. Provisions are detailed for a transitory phase beginning with independence, in which the present SADR is supposed to act as Western Sahara's government, ending with a constitutional reform and eventual establishment of a state along the lines specified in the constitution.
The broad guidelines laid down for an eventual Western Saharan state in the constitution include eventual multi-party democracy with a market economy. The constitution also defines Sahrawis as a Muslim, African and Arab people,[8] The Constitution also declares a commitment to the principles of human rights and to the concept of a Greater Maghreb, as a regional variant of Pan-Arabism.
The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is currently recognised as a sovereign representative of Western Sahara by 58 states, mostly African and other governments in the developing world.[citation needed] Twenty-two states have withdrawn their former recognition, and twelve have "frozen" their diplomatic relations with the republic pending the outcome of the UN referendum.[citation needed] Sahrawi embassies exist in fifteen states. On the other hand, Moroccan territorial integrity (i.e. Morocco including Western Sahara) is supported by the Arab League.[9][10]
Although it has no recognition from the United Nations, the republic has been a full member of the African Union (AU, formerly the Organisation of African Unity, OAU) since 1984. Morocco withdrew from the OAU in protest and remains the only African nation not within the AU since South Africa's admittance in 1994. The SADR is also a member of the Asian-African Strategic Partnership formed at the 2005 Asian-African Conference,[11] despite Moroccan objections to SADR participation.[12]
In 2006, the SADR participated in a conference of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of the Latin American and the Caribbean (COPPAL).[13]
In 2010, the SADR ambassador to Nicaragua participated in the opening conference of the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN).[14]
On 27 February 2011, the 35th anniversary of the proclamation of SADR was held in Tifariti, Western Sahara. Delegations, including parliamentarians, ambassadors, NGOs and activists from many countries participated in this event.[15][16]
The SADR is not a member of the Arab League, nor of the Arab Maghreb Union, both of which include Morocco as a full member. Having stated his support for the right of the State of Palestine to be admitted as a UN member, H.E. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe called upon "Similarly, the tormented people of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic must not be forgotten. We call for immediate progress in the engagement for a solution to their long-running problem".[17]
In the most recent peace plan, the UN-endorsed Baker Plan, created by James Baker, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's personal envoy to Western Sahara, the SADR would have been replaced with a five-year transitional Western Sahara Authority (WSA), a non-sovereign autonomous region supervised by Morocco, to be followed by a referendum on independence. However, as Morocco has declined to participate, the plan appears dead.[citation needed]
In April 2007 the government of Morocco suggested that a self-governing entity, through the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS), should govern the territory with some degree of autonomy for Western Sahara. The project was presented to the United Nations Security Council in mid-April 2007. A stalemate over the Moroccan proposal led the UN in an April 2007 "Report of the UN Secretary-General" to ask the parties to enter into direct and unconditional negotiations to reach a mutually accepted political solution.[18]
| Date | Name | Original event / Notes |
|---|---|---|
| February 27 | Independence Day | Proclamation of the SADR in Bir Lehlou, 1976 |
| May 10 | Foundation of the Polisario Front | Founded 1973 |
| May 20 | May 20 Revolution | Start of the armed struggle against Spain in 1973 |
| June 5 | Day of the Disappeared | Remembering missing Sahrawis |
| June 9 | Day of the Martyrs | Day on which El-Ouali died in 1976 |
| June 17 | Zemla Intifada | Harakat Tahrir riots in El-Aaiun, 1970 |
| October 12 | Day of National Unity | Celebrating the Ain Ben Tili Conference, 1975 |
Dates kept according to the lunar Islamic calendar.
| Date | Name | Observance |
|---|---|---|
| Dhul Hijja 10 | Eid al-Adha | Sacrifice feast |
| Shawwal 1 | Eid al-Fitr | End of Ramadan |
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A democratic republic is a country which is both a republic and a democracy. However, in practice countries which describe themselves as democratic republics do not always hold free or fair elections. One example of this was the German Democratic Republic, a communist state commonly known as East Germany.[1] Another is the Democratic Republic of the Congo which in 2011 was rated by Freedom House as a "not free" country having a rating of 6.0 (1.0 being completely free and 7.0 being completely unfree).[2]
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This article about politics is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
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