The Green March (in Spanish: La Marcha Verde; in French: La Marche Verte; in Arabic: المسيرة الخضراء; romanized: Almasirat Alkhadra) was a civil and military operation carried out by the government of the Moroccan king Hassan II. More than 350.000 unarmed civilians and 25.000 soldiers of the Moroccan army invaded the Spanish Sahara in the year 1975. This demonstration was made as a way to force Spain to give the region to Morocco, and to establish total control from Rabat over the disputed territory. At this moment, Spain was passing through a period of instability. The "Caudillo" and dictator, Francisco Franco, was dying and the control of the country was under the hands of who will become the king of the country, Juan Carlos I. Because of the instability the country was passing through, it was impossible for Madrid to respond to this agression committed by the Moroccan government, forcing the Spanish State to give control of the region to Morocco in the 31st of October of the year 1975. As a consequence of this situation, the territory passed to be controlled by Morocco and Mauritania, but legally speaking (according to international law), the region is still a colony of Spain that needs to pass through a process of decolonization.
Before this invasion, the Western Sahara was in a process of decolonization from Spain. In which the indigenous population, the sahrawis, were claiming their independence. But, the Green March happening, this provoked a rejection from the natives towards what they consider "occupiers". The majority of Sahrawis united into the Frente Polisario to resist Moroccan occupation, starting a conflict that found a ceasefire agreement brokered by the United Nations in 1991.
According to the international community, the Green March was an illegal act made by Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is right now recognised by more than 82 countries as the sovereign state of the region. The United Nations doesn't recognize any Moroccan claim for Western Sahara since 1975 and is trying to solve by any diplomatic means this conflict.
Background
Spanish Colonization
During the Berlin Conference of 1884, Spain was looking for some benefit in sharing the African continent. As a result of these negotiations, the territories of Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara were handed over to Spain. At the beginning ot the spanish colonization of Western Sahara, Spain signed different treaties with the native tribes of the Sahara Desert in order to establish its rule over this territory. Once these treaties were signed, Spain started to build military bases and administrative outposts in the region, progressively expelling the sahrawis from their ancient territories and subjugating them to the Hispanic domain to work in the exploitation of resources in the area. Spain's colonization of Western Sahara was marked by violence and oppression, as it sought to subjugate the local population and exploit the region's resources by using strategies such as foced labor and military repression.
According to Virginia Bouvier and Mieczyslaw Boduszynski (2008), Spain's colonization of Western Sahara was driven by a desire to secure its interests in North Africa. They argue that Spain saw this region as a strategic position because of its closeness to important trade routes and its access to the Atlantic Ocean. According to Lisa Shelley, Spain legitimized its rule over the region by promoting the idea that it was bringing "civilization" to the Sahrawi people, through the "evangelizing" task of a Catholic nation.
Resistance and Nationalism
The Spanish colonization of Western Sahara in the late 19th century, Spain jus founded small outposts closer to the coast and they did not witnessed any resistance. But, in the early 20th century, Spain tried to increase its domain , provoking a response from Sahrawi people against Spanish rule. These kind of resistance varied during this period of time, between armed rebellions and civil disobedience against Spanish authorities that ended up in nothing significant for Sahrawis. With the pass of years, Sahrawi resistance grew in numbers and became more organized. in 1973, inspired by the independence of Equatorial Guinea in 1968 as part of the decolonization project of the United Nations.
