| | The Polisario Front was formed in the Spanish-occupied western Sahara in May 973 as 'the unique expression of the masses, opting for revolutionary violence and the armed struggle as the means by which the Sahrawi Arab African People can recover its total liberty and foil the manoeuvres of Spanish colonialism' . Over the next two years the Polisario staged a succession of hit and run operations and established itself as a genuine popular liberation movement. A United Nations mission which visited the territory in May 1975 recognised the role of the Polisario Front in the development of the nationalist movement among the population of the 'Spanish Sahara' as well as the 'overwhelming consensus among Saharans within the territory in favour of independence and opposing integration with any neighbouring country' . In October 1975, immediately after the UN mission reported its conclusions (that the majority of the Saharan population favoured political independence and the end of Spanish colonial rule), the World Court at the Hague ruled in favour of self-determination for the Western Sahara and against integration into Morocco, which had obtained its independence in 1956 and claimed the Western Sahara as part of Greater Morocco. |
