Editing Western Sahara (section)

=== Demands for independence ===
[[File:Western sahara walls moroccan map-en.svg|thumb|upright=1.6|System of the [[Moroccan Wall]]s in Western Sahara set up in the 1980s]]
[[File:RASD - Commemoration of the 30th independence day in the Liberated Territories (2006).jpg|thumb|Commemoration of the 30th independence day from [[Spain]] in the [[Free Zone (Western Sahara)|Liberated Territories]] (2005)]]
In the waning days of General [[Francisco Franco|Franco]]'s rule, and after the [[Green March]], the Spanish government signed a [[Madrid Accords|tripartite agreement]] with Morocco and Mauritania as it moved to transfer the territory on 14 November 1975. The accords were based on a bipartite administration, and Morocco and Mauritania each moved to annex the territories, with Morocco taking control of the northern two-thirds of Western Sahara as its [[Southern Provinces]], and Mauritania taking control of the southern third as [[Tiris al-Gharbiyya]]. Spain terminated its presence in Spanish Sahara within three months, repatriating Spanish remains from its cemeteries.<ref>Tomás Bárbulo, "La historia prohibida del Sáhara Español",''Destino, Imago mundi,'' Volume 21, 2002, Page 292</ref>

The Moroccan and Mauritanian annexations were resisted by the [[Polisario Front]], which had gained backing from [[Algeria]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/7091323//|title=Algeria Claims Spanish Sahara Is Being Invaded|date=1 January 1976|work=The Monroe News-Star|access-date=19 October 2016|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> It initiated guerrilla warfare and, in 1979, Mauritania withdrew due to pressure from Polisario, including a bombardment of its capital and other economic targets. Morocco extended its control to the rest of the territory. It gradually contained the guerrillas by setting up [[Moroccan Western Sahara Wall|the extensive sand-berm in the desert]] (known as the Border Wall or Moroccan Wall) to exclude guerrilla fighters.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/05/western-sahara-struggle-freedom-cut-wall-150528065625790.html|title=Western Sahara's Struggle for Freedom Cut Off By a Wall|last=McNeish|first=Hannah|date=5 June 2015|work=Al Jazeera|access-date=17 October 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/is-one-of-africas-oldest-conflicts-finally-nearing-its-end |author=Nicolas Niarchos |title=Is One of Africa's Oldest Conflicts Finally Nearing Its End?|quotation=For the past forty years, tens of thousands of Moroccan soldiers have manned a wall of sand that curls for one and a half thousand miles through the howling Sahara. The vast plain around it is empty and flat, interrupted only by occasional horseshoe dunes that traverse it. But the Berm, as the wall is known, is no natural phenomenon. It was built by the Kingdom of Morocco, in the nineteen-eighties, and it's the longest defensive fortification in use today—and the second-longest ever, after China's Great Wall |magazine=The New Yorker|date=29 December 2018|access-date=30 December 2018}}</ref> Hostilities ceased in a 1991 cease-fire, overseen by the peacekeeping mission [[United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara|MINURSO]], under the terms of a UN [[Settlement Plan]].