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Sahrawi People's Liberation Army

Polisario Front
Frente Polisario
جبهة البوليساريو
Jabhat al-Bōlīsāryū
Secretary-General Brahim Ghali
Founder El-Ouli Mustafa Sayed
Founded 10 May 1973 (10 May 1973)
Headquarters Sahrawi refugee camps, Tindouf Province, Algeria
Youth wing UJSARIO
Women's wing National Organization of Sahrawi Women
Trade union affiliation UGTSARIO
Ideology Sahrawi nationalism
Democratic socialism
International affiliation Progressive Alliance
Socialist International (observer)
Colors Red, black, white and green (Pan-Arab colors)
                   
Sahrawi National Council
53 / 53
Pan-African Parliament
5 / 265
Party flag
Website
saharalibre.es

The Polisario Front, Frente Polisario, FRELISARIO or simply POLISARIO, from the Spanish abbreviation of Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y o de Oro ("Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro" Arabic: الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير ساقية الحمراء و وادي الذهب‎‎ Al-Jabhat Al-Sha'abiyah Li-Tahrir Saqiya Al-Hamra'a wa Wadi Al-Dhahab), is a Sahrawi rebel national liberation movement aiming to end Moroccan presence in the Western Sahara. It is an observer member of the Socialist International. The United Nations considers the Polisario Front to be the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, and maintains that the Sahrawis have a right to self-determination.

The Polisario Front is outlawed in the parts of Western Sahara under Moroccan control, and it is illegal to raise its party flag (often called the Sahrawi flag) there.

After attempting in vain to gain backing from several Arab governments, including both Algeria and Morocco, but only drawing faint notices of support from Libya and Mauritania, the movement eventually relocated to Spanish-controlled Western Sahara to start an armed rebellion.

The Polisario Front was formally constituted on 10 May 1973 at Ain Bentili by several Sahrawi university students, survivors of the 1968 massacres at Zouerate and some Sahrawi men who had served in the Spanish Army. They called themselves the Constituent Congress of the Polisario Front.

Its first Secretary General was El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed. On 20 May, the new organization attacked El-Khanga, where there was a Spanish post manned by a team of Tropas Nomadas (Sahrawi-staffed auxiliary forces) was overrun and rifles seized. Polisario then gradually gained control over large swaths of desert countryside, and its power grew from early 1975 when the Tropas Nomadas began deserting to the Polisario, bringing weapons and training with them. At this point, Polisario's manpower included perhaps 800 men and women, but they were suspected of being backed by a much larger network of supporters. A UN visiting mission headed by Simeon Aké that was conducted in June 1975 concluded that Sahrawi support for independence (as opposed to Spanish rule or integration with a neighbouring country) amounted to an "overwhelming consensus" and that the Polisario Front was the most powerful political force in the country. With Algeria's help, Polisario set up headquarters in Tindouf.


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