premise: UN envoy James Baker launches a fresh initiative on Western Sahara beginning Tuesday, in a bid to revive plans for a long-delayed political settlement for the disputed mineral-rich territory.
  Baker, who was named the personal envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for Western Sahara last month, made few predictions on what he hoped to achieve before his departure.
  During a visit here for consultations earlier this month, the former US secretary of state said it was premature to envisage changes to a UN peace plan providing for a referendum on the future of the territory claimed by both Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front.
  The UN-proposed referendum would determine whether Western Sahara should become part of Morocco or an independent state.
  With a UN-monitored ceasefire holding since 1991, a resolution to the conflict which has festered for 22 years since Spain's withdrawal from the territory has been put on the international community's back burner for the past year.
   What made conflict fester for 22 years?
hypothesis: UN-proposed referendum