Baker Plan

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The Baker Plan (formal name, Peace Plan for Self-Determination of the People of Western Sahara) is a United Nations initiative to grant Western Sahara self-determination. It was intended to substitute the Settlement Plan of 1991, which had been further detailed in the Houston Agreement of 1997.

1 Background
2 Baker I & II
3 Status of the plan
4 External links

[edit] Background

Western Sahara's occupation by Morocco since 1975 is challenged by Polisario guerillas living in exile in neighbouring Algeria. Since 1991 a cease-fire is in place, accepted by both parties under the assumption that the UN would organize a referendum on independence. The 1991 referendum plan was however stalled due to disagreements on voter eligibility (Morocco demanding inclusion of its settlers, brought into the territory to out-number the Saharawi indigenous population), and by the late nineties Morocco was openly declaring the referendum a "dead option"; the cease-fire held due to foreign pressures on the Polisario.

The Baker plan aims at instituting Saharan self-rule in a "Western Sahara Authority" for a period of five years, whereafter the referendum is to be held, with Moroccan settlers controversially allowed the vote.

[edit] Baker I & II

The first version of the plan, called Baker I or the Framework Agreement, was delivered by UN special envoy James Baker in 2000, but both parties refused to accept it. The second version (Baker II) included minor changes, notably provisions as to how the Saharan autonomy was to be safe-guarded from Moroccan pressures, pleasing the Polisario, but also adding a third option of "permanent autonomy" to the ballot, thereby indulging Morocco.

This version of the plan was unanimously put forward by the Security Council in mid-2003. It was accepted by the Polisario but rejected outright by Morocco, on the basis that the plan "questions Moroccan territorial integrity". This prompted Baker to resign, the second UN envoy to Western Sahara to do so, claiming there was no longer any feasible way to implement the peace agreement provisions. He has since then stated that Morocco showed no interest in implementing the UN decisions and will not do so if it stands a chance to lose in the referendum.

[edit] Status of the plan

Since early 2005, the UN Secretary General stopped referring to the plan in his reports, and by now it seems largely dead. No replacement plan exists, however, and worries persist that the political vacuum will result in renewed fighting.