SAHRAWI CAMEL RIDERS HEAD ACROSS DESERT TOWARDS MOROCCO, 2001-02-28 (photo)

Sahrawi camel riders head across the desert after celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the Polisario Front's independence movement for control of Western Sahara from Morocco February 28, 2001 in El Ayoun refugee camp in south-western Algeria. Fifteen years of guerrilla war from 1976 to 1991 followed by a decade of international efforts to organise a referendum have yet to settle the dispute over to whom the territory belongs. Failure to hold the referendum after a U.N.-brokered cease-fire in 1991 has fuelled talks of a "third way", a form of self-rule which the Algerian-based Polisario rejects as a Western plan that favours Morocco. PH