Tucked away among the million-dollar lobby campaigns to preserve the status quo in the Middle East is a $10,000-a-year push by a group of revolutionaries looking to the United States to back their dreams of independence. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) first hired the New York-based lobby firm Independent Diplomat in 2007 and renewed its contract three years later amid expectations that President Barack Obama might prove to be more open to its aspirations for Western Sahara than his Republican predecessor had been. The disputed territory has been the source of fighting between Morocco, which claims sovereignty over the area, and the independence-seeking Polisario Front, the political force behind the self-declared republic, since Spain withdrew as the colonial power in 1975.
To make its case, the Polisario is relying on the unique talents of a non-profit lobby firm that has taken on such nonconventional clients as South Sudan, Somaliland and the Syrian opposition. Run by former British diplomat Carne Ross, Independent Diplomat has pressed Congress and the State Department to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by Morocco against the indigenous Saharawi people. The firm's advice “has had a significant impact on the SADR’s foreign policy,” Independent Diplomat asserts, “in particular on efforts to highlight escalating human rights abuses in the territory and the illegal exploitation of phosphates and fisheries by Morocco and complicit foreign entities.” The campaign has had mixed results.
