Sahrawi people right to self-determination has been confirmed again and again by the UN Security Council, and even Morocco formally subscribes to it.

By alle*

The Western Sahara builds the whole case for its self-determination on inherited colonial borders. Between 1884 and 1975, whatever the prehistory, it was a separate territory with its own colonial master (Spain). And every single such colonial territory in Africa, except Western Sahara, has been granted independence: the last ones were Namibia in 1990 and Eritrea in 1993. (A belated Asian case, very similar to W. Sahara, was East Timor, which became independent only in 2002 after lengthy occupation by neigbouring Indonesia.)

To make matters even clearer, the UN has ruled that all colonial territories have the right to self-determination, in General Assembly resolution 1514, of 1960, which has since then become an established part of international law. Many of today's third-world countries in fact base their legal claim to existence on that resolution. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) looked into the Spanish Sahara case in 1975, on Moroccan demand, and came out unambigously in favor of applying 1514 on Western Sahara:
"... the Court's conclusion is that the materials and information presented to it do not establish any tie of territorial sovereignty between the territory of Western Sahara and the Kingdom of Morocco or the Mauritanian entity. Thus the Court has not found legal ties of such a nature as might affect the application of General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) in the decolonization of Western Sahara and, in particular, of the principle of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory".

That settles it for Western Sahara: its people has a legal right to self-determination. This has been confirmed again and again by the UN Security Council, ever since, and even Morocco formally subscribes to this (even if it also holds that Western Sahara has already exercised its self-determination: back in 1975, by joyfully welcoming their Moroccan liberators).

However what the court said: it is not "Sahrawis" in general who have this right, it is "the peoples of the territory", thus restricting the claim to those Sahrawis who were deemed native to the territory. Sahrawi people and tribes whose main residence has traditionally been located safely within in, say, Mauritania, Mali or, most importantly today, Morocco, are thus not entitled to take part in this self-determination process, which is the self-determination of the territory, not of the (widely scattered) ethnic group. This is extremely imporant, because Morocco has settled tens of thousands of supposedly loyal (are they?) Sahrawis in the territory, in order to stack the voter rolls against independence. Most of them are uncontestably from within Moroccan territory in Western Sahara, where their tribes have lived for generations with little or no contact with today's Western Sahara except, occasionally, as traders. The Moroccan argument is that the vote should be widened to all Sahrawis (or Moors, i.e. Hassaniya-speaking nomads), regardless of origins or citizenships in other states, in order to take their nomadic habits in consideration. But the kingdom also signally fails to include the two million or so Mauritanians who would qualify under those rules, and who would by sheer numbers easily determine the vote. Why? Because they wouldn't necessarily vote in favor of Morocco.

* http://w-sahara.blogspot.com/