The Sahrawi Movement for Peace (SPM) and the African Centre for Strategic Intelligence for Peace (CISPAIX) organised the 2nd International Conference for Dialogue and Peace in Western Sahara, which was scheduled for 27 and 28 October 2023 in Dakar, Senegal.

This initiative fosters the emergence of the MSP as a third voice in an attempt to peacefully resolve the Western Sahara issue and put an end to the long suffering of the Saharawis over the past decades.

The conference served as a platform to encourage dialogue within the Saharawi community by further involving representatives of traditional authority, tribal notables and civil society. Although some Polisario leaders had been invited, many of them didn’t come.

This conference came at a delicate time, marked by the impasse in the United Nations mediation efforts two years after the appointment of Mr. Staffan de Mistura as Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Western Sahara. Moreover, it was coincided with a new US initiative for a political solution, a move that the MSP has welcomed in contrast to the Polisario.

The 2nd International Conference for Dialogue and Peace in Dakar could offer an opportunity for the PSM to explain and develop its compromise proposal, announced in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. The PSM is convinced that this plan represented a realistic and viable option to guarantee the well-being and prosperity of the Saharawis, while turning away from impossible projects and destructive adventures.

The Sahrawis for Peace movement, chaired by lhaj Ahmed Barikalla, as an emerging political force represents the Saharawis who do not identify with the Polisario’s political project and aims to bring together the positions of the Saharawis of the Southern Moroccan Provinces and the Saharawis of the Tindouf camps on a peaceful solution to the Sahara conflict.

Prominent personalities from Europe, Africa and Latin America had taken part in this event, such as:

• Mr. Domitien Ndayizeye, former President of Burundi.
• Mr. Jose Bono Martinez, former Spanish Minister of Defence.
• Mr. Miguel Ángel Rodriguez Mackay, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru
• Mr. Adalberto Carlos Agozino, political scientist and President of the Argentine Institute for Strategic Studies.

As well as other personalities whom spoke remotely such as the former President of the Spanish Government Mr. Rodriguez Zapatero and the former Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Miguel Angel Moratinos.