In the middle of the current term of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), international Envoy Christopher Ross is insisting on reaching something that would enhance the belief in the possibility of resuming the negotiations between the sides involved in the conflict. And after he tried unofficial talks to rebuild trust, he is seeking a calm breakthrough to expand their scope - if not through the official sides which the Security Council resolutions hoped would cooperate with the United Nations to overcome their predicament, then by pumping new blood into secondary veins. But the ceiling of the talks is not budging and the sides have stopped at the last concessions. Morocco put forward the autonomy formula - after which everything is considered a red line – while the Polisario and Algeria are pushing in favor of a return to the referendum, with autonomy as one of its options, alongside independence or the final merger with Rabat. For its part, Mauritania is neutrally monitoring the direction of the winds, and it does not seem that the sides are prone to change their positions unless a political miracle that has been awaited for around four decades occurs. Whenever Ross is able to grab a thread leading him to see the light at the end of the tunnel, other lines manage to change the landmarks. Indeed, in the absence of regional concord, it would be impossible to achieve any encouraging progress. At this level, the experiences and facts have revealed that Moroccan-Algerian détente constitutes the cornerstone of any course, seeing how the greatest ceasefire mission was achieved at the beginning of the 90s against the backdrop of a Moroccan-Algerian understanding which came close to settling one of the most complicated problems. To that same extent, the United Nations achieved a major breakthrough, but was obstructed by the difficult question surrounding the sides entitled to participate in the referendum, replaced by the Security Council resolutions with the "consensual political solution formula." In the past, the positive impact of the two neighboring countries' understanding was not limited to the Sahara issue and the revival of the pending bilateral files solely. It exceeded them and reached the point of spreading a new spirit in North Africa, leading to facets of complementarity, coordination, and the deterrence of regional challenges within the Maghreb structure. Then everything collapsed at the same time, after Moroccan-Algerian relations returned to the square of tensions, caution, and lack of trust. Throughout the consecutive transformations in search of a political solution to the conflict, nothing was implemented from the latter understanding. Indeed, the land border remained closed between the two neighbors and the positions diverged in regard to the handling of the security challenges in the Sahel region south of the Sahara. In addition, the gap grew wider at the level of the management of the regional conflict file. Hence, Envoy Ross is engaged in a dual wager: pushing towards a viable regional concord, while holding on to the thin line leading towards the resumption of the negotiations which are almost a goal in themselves. This is an impossible mission. But just like walking through a minefield, it requires careful steps and the use of invisible guidance devices. The American diplomat realizes that his mission is not about reaching a ready-made vision, but about pushing the concerned sides to agree over a consensual formula that would become binding, especially since there is nothing forcing them to succumb to a vision which could be taken as a whole or relinquished. At the same time, he cannot annul the outcome of previous negotiations, as his predecessor Peter van Walsum recognized in an official document that the region's independence could not be implemented. To Ross, this conclusion pushed Walsum to resign, while James Baker's second recommendation which called for combining autonomy to the referendum collapsed. Hence, Ross's mission appears to be more complicated, after he saw how the fact of pleasing this or that side produced more trouble. Ross was able to differentiate himself from his predecessors who dealt with the Sahara file along two courses. The first time, he turned towards the regional sides to see how they felt about the neutralization of the dispute based on a regional wager under the slogan of the Maghreb structure. Today, i.e. the second time, he is trying his luck by talking to the inhabitants of the squares. He is probably the first international envoy to choose this direct approach, instead of settling for listening to the official positions. He realized that before granting the population the means to express their will freely, one should know who are the ones concerned by whichever form of popular consultation, whether over autonomy or any other topic. The organization of the referendum was obstructed due to the disputes surrounding the people qualified to participate in whichever polls. And what is certain is that the same applies to the principle of the political solution, taking it from its abstract character to the implementation phase. Hence, Ross appears to have started off from the last link in this file, based on the required elements to rebuild trust. Listening to the populations of Sahrawi origins in the concerned provinces, in Tindouf and in Mauritania where they are distributed into groups, becomes a realistic approach which does not aim to drown the file in a loose formula, but rather to limit the problem to its human and social character. Indeed, the loyalties are the same when the members of one family are brought together under the tent of kinship and greetings. This is a deep and encouraging assumption, had the loyalties not shifted away from familial and tribal dimensions to political ones, due to the prolongation of the conflict. And just like more than one generation in the provinces controlled by Morocco coexisted with the reality of integration and unity, their parents in the Tindouf camps opened their eyes to a completely different reality. Ross is thus engaging in his last wager to correct this course, in the hope that the human facet manages to eliminate political divergence.
