political party there. In addition to this, Polisario remained distrustful, and did not accept the demand of PUNS leaders to form a common political front while preserving the party's internal structure. El-Ouali instead insisted that the PUNS dissolve itself and that its supporters could join the Polisario Front as regular members. Collapse in 1975 On July 6, 1975, the first clashes between PUNS and Polisario membership took place in El Aaiun, with several wounded. The night before, the PUNS offices in Smara were burned by POLISARIO members. In October, PUNS sent telegrams to the 1975 UN visiting mission members protesting the portray given in their report of Errachid as PUNS Secretary General, as he had been expelled of the party on May 14 for his treason. In the night of November 14, 1975, the remaining members of the party, headed by last Secretary General Dueh Sidina Naucha, dissolved the PUNS, giving the affiliates the chance to join the Polisario Front. As Morocco and Mauritania invaded in November 1975, after the Madrid Accords, Spain abandoned PUNS, and what little remained of the party instantly collapsed. Its membership dispersed: many were swept away in the refugee exodus to Tindouf, Algeria, where they joined the Polisario. A small number, including some prominent leaders, instead went to Morocco, where they denounced their own earlier nationalist campaign and lent their support to the claims of King Hassan II to Western Sahara — notably, PUNS leader Khellihenna Ould Errachid, who still today (2012) acts as the Moroccan monarchy's main Sahrawi face to its claims to Western Sahara. Dueh Sidina Naucha went to Spain in 1975. In 1987 he surprisingly reappeared in the Liberated Territories during a UN technical visiting mission. He declared that even though not a Polisario member, he is a Sahrawi, so he support the Polisario Front as the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people. Naucha added that after the Green March "our 20,000 (PUNS) militants integrated the POLISARIO: in war it is needed to fight united". He now lives in the Canary Islands. A very small number of activists went to Mauritania, supporting the Ould Daddah government's claims on the territory until its collapse in 1978. References Further reading Tony Hodges (1983), Western Sahara: The Roots of a Desert War, Lawrence Hill Books () Anthony G. Pazzanita and Tony Hodges (1994), Historical Dictionary of Western Sahara, Scarecrow Press () Western Sahara conflict Political