Results
The agreement was bitterly opposed by Algeria and the Polisario Front, which remained committed to independence. Algeria dispatched a high-level delegation to Madrid in order to pressure Spain not to sign the Accords and started supporting the Polisario Front militarily and diplomatically by early 1975. Algeria officially viewed its opposition as a way to uphold the UN charter and combat colonialism, although many observers believed that Algeria's actions were more to counter Morocco's influence and to gain access to the Atlantic Ocean. A long-standing rivalry between the two countries contributed to the tense relations.
The Boumédiène government consequently broke with Morocco and started supplying the Polisario guerrillas with weapons and refuge and condemned the Accords internationally. Algeria expelled some 45,000 Moroccan citizens then living in Algeria., and began radio broadcasts in support of both the Polisario and - more briefly - a separatist group in the Canary Islands, the latter presumably in an attempt to punish Spain. (Thompson & Adloff, p. 151, 176.)
As Morocco and Mauritania moved in to assert their claims, armed clashes erupted between the two countries troops and Polisario. Polisario and Algeria both deemed the advance of Morocco and Mauritania as a foreign invasion, while Morocco and Mauritania saw the fight against Polisario as a fight against a separatist group. In support of Polisario, Algeria sent troops deep into the territory, but they eventually retreated after the Amgala battle in 1976.
The clashes turned into a 17-year long war, during which Mauritania was forced to retreat, abandoning all claims to the region, in 1979. As an effect of the conflict, a part of the territory's population became refugees. It was finally ended with a ceasefire in 1991.
Today, the status of the territory, now called Western Sahara, remains in dispute.
Read more about this topic: Madrid Accords
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