Spain to Declassify Secret Archives: Morocco Awaits Revelations on Western Sahara

Morocco World

2 days ago

Marrakech – Spain's government has approved a groundbreaking draft law on Classified Information that will replace the Franco-era Official Secrets law of 1968. The legislation, approved by the Spanish Cabinet in late July, represents an unprecedented step toward transparency by automatically declassifying documents over 45 years old.
According to Spanish news outlet El País, the declassification process will affect thousands of documents dating before 1982, including sensitive files on Spain's hasty, sudden withdrawal from Morocco's Saharan territories in 1975 and the triumphant Green March.
The newspaper reports that 'the process that led to the precipitous abandonment of Western Sahara in 1975, with Franco dying' is among the central historical episodes that will be illuminated by the newly accessible documents.
The new law establishes varying timeframes for declassification based on document sensitivity: 'highly secret' information after 45 years, 'secret' after 25-35 years, 'medium secret' between 7-9 years, and 'restricted' documents after just 4-5 years. Only materials that continue to pose exceptional threats to national security would remain classified.
For Morocco, this legislative change represents a crucial opportunity to expose historical truths. The documents will undoubtedly confirm what Spain publicly denied for decades until its policy reversal – namely, the undeniable Moroccan sovereignty over its Saharan territories, which Madrid finally acknowledged in March 2022.
Spain's belated recognition of Morocco's autonomy initiative as 'the most serious, realistic and credible' solution merely formalized what these classified documents likely contain: evidence of Morocco's legitimate historical rights that Spain concealed for decades.
Documents may confirm decades of Spanish duplicity
For Moroccan researchers and officials, these archives represent a historic opportunity to access definitive evidence supporting Morocco's territorial integrity.
They eagerly await revelations about the diplomatic maneuvers and military actions before and after the Green March, as well as details of Madrid's behind-the-scenes negotiations with Rabat following Spain's withdrawal from the territory.
Any document confirming Spain's early acknowledgment of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara – whether explicit or implicit – will further validate Morocco's rightful claims and expose Spain's historical duplicity on the issue.
The archives are expected to reveal the full extent of American diplomatic pressure on Spain. They will likely expose the European country's contradictory positions and shed light on how its official stance on Morocco's territorial integrity evolved leading up to the landmark 2022 acknowledgment.
The declassified files are expected to unveil the hidden chapters of Spain's position on Ceuta and Melilla – Morocco's occupied northern enclaves.
These documents may reveal Spain's internal assessments of Morocco's legitimate rights to the occupied cities, the diplomatic tensions these claims have sparked, and Spain's responses to Morocco's repeated demands for their return.
They may also uncover Madrid's own doubts about the sustainability of its colonial presence, along with undisclosed aspects of military and intelligence cooperation between the two countries.
The archives may finally reveal everything
Felix Bolaños, Spain's Minister of the Presidency, has warned that the volume of documents is 'enormous' and their declassification 'cannot happen overnight' but will occur 'gradually, prioritizing those related to human rights violations.'
The government hopes to pass the law through parliament in the coming months, with publication in the Official State Gazette expected in late 2025 and implementation by the end of 2026.
Accessing these archives presents challenges beyond declassification. Documents must be 'perfectly identified, organized, ordered and described' before transfer to the Archives Commission of the General State Administration.
Without a comprehensive index, researchers cannot request documents whose existence they are unaware of – a potential tactic to obscure particularly damning evidence of Spain's historical mishandling of Morocco's territorial rights.
Historians express caution about potential gaps in the archives. Professor Nicolas Sesma warns, 'We don't know to what extent these archives have been purged,' referencing a notorious incident at the beginning of the democratic transition when thousands of police files on Franco regime opponents were destroyed in furnaces at the Interior Ministry.
This raises legitimate concerns about whether Spain has already destroyed documents that might strengthen Morocco's position.
The challenge for Spanish democracy is not merely making these archives accessible but confronting its colonial past honestly.
For the North African country, these documents may finally provide irrefutable evidence of what it has maintained all along – that its sovereignty over its Saharan territories is legitimate, historical, and was recognized even by Spain long before its public admission in 2022.
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