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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 Generales) on November 18. Ley 40/1975, de 19 de noviembre, sobre descolonización del Sahara. – B.O.E. 20-11-1975 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.
Thompson and Adloff argue (e.g., pp. 132–134, 164–167) that the Green March, as well as increasingly heated exchanges between Madrid and Rabat had convinced Spain that Morocco was willing to enter into war over the territory; a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency memorandum to Henry Kissinger had stated as much in early October 1975.Mundy, Jacob, How the US and Morocco seized Western Sahara . Le Monde diplomatique, January 2006. With Spanish leader Francisco Franco dying (he had slipped into a coma and died on November 20), the government was anxious to avoid conflict and decided to split the territory in order to preserve maximum possible influence and economic benefit.
President Moktar Ould Daddah had claimed the territory as part of "Greater Mauritania" even before independence (Ould Ahmed Salem, p. 498). Some argue that the intent of Mauritania's claims was to keep Morocco's border with Mauritania farther away. However, Rabat had historically claimed a "Greater Morocco", in which Spanish Sahara and Mauritania were parts of Morocco, until 1969, when the latter claim regarding Mauritania was dropped.Library of Congress Country Studies. Mauritania. Background to Mauritanian Policy. The Moroccan Factor . June 1988.Thompson & Adloff, pp. 55–57, 145–147
According to the publicised terms, Spain agreed to decolonization the Sahara and leave the area before 28 February 1976. In the interim, the territory would be administered by the Spanish governor general, assisted by two Moroccan and Mauritanian deputy governors, who would respect Sahrawi people public opinion as expressed through the yemaa. (...) As to the Bu Craa (a phosphate mine) deposits, Spain would retain 35 per cent of the shares in the Fosfatos de Bucraa, S. A., Fosbucraa company, and a portion of the 65 per cent that would go to Morocco would presumably be allotted to Mauritania. Reportedly there were unpublicised agreements among the three signatories that gave satisfaction to Spain as regards its fishing rights and included a postponement of further Moroccan demands for the presidios, as well as compensation for repatriated Spanish and Canary Island civilians. (p. 175)
The United States Library of Congress study of Mauritania (1990) states that,
In early 1975, both Morocco and Mauritania agreed to abide by the decision of the International Court of Justice on the status of the Spanish Sahara, but when the court ruledInternational Court of Justice . WESTERN SAHARA. Advisory Opinion of 16 October 1975 in October 1975 that neither country was entitled to claim sovereignty over the territory, both governments chose to ignore the decision. In November 1975, they concluded the Madrid Agreements with Spain under which Morocco acquired the northern two-thirds of the territory, while Mauritania acquired the southern third. The agreement also included the proviso that Spain would retain shares in the Bu Craa mining enterprise. Mauritania acquiesced to the agreements under the assumption, probably correct, that Morocco, with its superior military power, would otherwise have absorbed the entire territory.Library of Congress Country Studies. Mauritania Internal Factors June 1988.Library of Congress Country Studies. Mauritania. Madrid Agreements. June 1988.
The Boumédiène government consequently broke with Morocco and started supplying the Polisario guerrillas with weapons and Tindouf Province and condemned the Accords internationally. Algeria expelled some 45,000 Moroccan citizens then living in Algeria, and began radio broadcasts in support of both the Polisario and – more briefly – a separatist group in the Canary Islands, the latter presumably in an attempt to punish Spain.Thompson & Adloff, pp. 151, 176.
Morocco and Mauritania split the territory between them in the Western Sahara partition agreement, and moved in to assert their claims; this resulted in armed clashes erupted between the two countries troops and Polisario. Polisario and Algeria both deemed the advance of Morocco and Mauritania as a foreign invasion, while Morocco and Mauritania saw the fight against Polisario as a fight against a separatist group. In support of Polisario, Algeria sent troops deep into the territory, but they eventually retreated after the Amgala battle in 1976.
The clashes turned into a 17-year-long war, during which Mauritania was forced to retreat, abandoning all claims to the region, in 1979. As an effect of the conflict, a part of the territory's population became refugees. It was finally ended with a ceasefire in 1991.
Today, the status of the territory, now called Western Sahara, remains in dispute.
Morocco continues to claim Western Sahara as an integral part of its territory, by virtue of the Madrid Accords inter alia. The Polisario Front declared in 1976 an Algeria-based government-in-exile, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which denies that the Madrid Accords held any validity and claims the entire area whereas actually controlling only small uninhabitable parts of it. The SADR is also unrecognized by the UN, but has been admitted as Western Sahara's representative to the African Union (AU) and its ruling party (the Polisario Front) is recognized by the UN at least as the "sole legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people". Mauritania has pulled out from the conflict entirely since 1979.
Morocco broke the treaty to spark the 2020 Western Sahara clashes.
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