Carsten Dombrowski - here is the homepage of his CAPSARIUS ACADEMY, which delivers the excellent "Callsign Doc" newsletter - was deployed as a military observer of the German Bundeswehr in the Western Sahara. Today, there is more military presence in the area and how to efficiently control it:
The UN mandate for the MINURSO mission includes monitoring both conflict parties. In my case, I had to inspect the units of the Moroccan Army. These were stationed west of the ceasefire line. This is where my team was based and where patrols were launched from.
Morocco has stationed a mechanized brigade in this area. These forces are deployed up to 15 kilometers behind the BERM (sand wall separating the conflicting parties).
During aerial patrols, the positions and units could be easily identified. I often found myself recalling my tactical training at the officer school. Almost classically, infantry would be in positions, followed by mechanized, mobile forces as quick reaction forces and artillery in the rear combat zone.
For daily ground work, this meant driving to units up to company level with great effort. After hours of driving on desert tracks, upon arrival, a protocol had to be followed. This protocol included information about daily unit strength, armament, and operational capability of the respective unit. It is easy to imagine that no army in the world would disclose its actual operational readiness, that is, the number of combat vehicles it has available. The Moroccan units were no exception. Sometimes these interrogations turned into a farce, such as when the on-duty non-commissioned officer could not reach his superiors and simply denied entry to the UN soldiers waiting at the barrier. Despite the high-level authorization from political mandates, there was no way to address this situation on-site. It was a frustrating cat-and-mouse game. Weapons were not physically counted but rather relied on oral statements. Counting hundreds of firearms would have exceeded any schedule.
The collected information was reported as patrol reports to the UN headquarters in LAYOUN. There, they were evaluated and forwarded to the UN in New York. Incidents like denial of access were directly reported to the commanders of the Moroccan Armed Forces in Western Sahara, who promised to take corrective action. I won't dwell on the implementation of this support commitment. It was an endless bureaucracy with hardly measurable results. Welcome to the world of international politics.
In conclusion, two things stuck with me. Firstly, the nagging question of what all these painstaking patrols achieved, especially when the results were often questionable. Secondly, a certain fascination with the sheer field capability of these units in the middle of nowhere. I often imagined how our European armies could survive under such simple, almost primitive conditions for such long periods in the field. Almost without any comfort. At least at the company or battalion levels.
Military observers in Western Sahara - to read more:
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