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The Sahrawi of Western Sahara: The last colony in Africa

Konstantina Isidoros

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76907

© Paulo Nunes dos Santos'The Western Sahara is the last country in Africa that has not been correctly decolonised - instead, the right of the Sahrawi people to post-colonial independence has been frozen in time,' writes Konstantina Isidoros in introducing this special edition of Pambazuka News. 'If we are to take the rule of international law as our guiding foundation, then Morocco has blatantly defied international law twice, by its illegal invasion of someone else’s sovereign territory and by its illegal occupation that still continues today.'

‘There is no greater sorrow on earth than the loss of one's native land.’ Euripides, 431 BC


© Andrew McConnellThe Sahrawi desert nomads of the Western Sahara have been waiting since 1975 for their fundamental human right to a simple vote -that of self-determination. As Spain chaotically began withdrawing its colonial presence from Western Sahara, Morocco abruptly claimed the country as its own and threatened to invade.

The United Nations (UN) asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to investigate. This highest court of law in the world delivered its legal opinion - Morocco had no valid claim to territorial sovereignty over Western Sahara, and the Sahrawi indigenous population were the rightful sovereign heirs of the territory. Morocco defied international law and invaded. As the Sahrawi nomads’ liberation movement, the Polisario Front, became locked in fierce war with Morocco, the UN issued a number of alarmed messages reiterating to Morocco that its actions were intolerable.

The Western Sahara is the last country in Africa that has not been correctly decolonised - instead, the right of the Sahrawi people to post-colonial independence has been frozen in time. If we are to take the rule of international law as our guiding foundation, then Morocco has blatantly defied international law twice, by its illegal invasion of someone else’s sovereign territory and by its illegal occupation that still continues today. The Sahrawi people have spent the last 36 years fighting off Morocco’s illegitimate presence on Sahrawi soil and contesting against Morocco’s refusal to cooperate in a UN-led self-determination process. Morocco knows that if it allows the self-determination vote to occur, the Sahrawi will most likely choose independence rather than remain under an illegal colonial military occupation.

The Sahrawi struggle for independence strikes at the heart of our core principles of law and human rights. Are they to be applied uniformly across the globe to safeguard human rights, or is it tolerable that some societies cannot have human rights?


© Paulo Nunes dos SantosGiven the media silence on the geo-political importance of the Western Sahara conflict and the lack of consciousness of the plight of the Sahrawi people, this special issue of Pambazuka News has been developed to raise greater international awareness about the deception by certain Western governments and the European Union (as powerful members of the UN Security Council), and the failure of the United Nations itself it enforce its mandate. I hope that readers will be inspired to further explore the Sahrawi story and to join the international campaign groups and NGOs, and that students in disciplines such as international law, political science and anthropology may study the Western Sahara case and join a respected world-wide group of academics and scientists who are vociferously objecting to Morocco’s theft of sovereign territory, denial of human rights and exploitation of natural resources in a land it brutally occupies.

This special issue of Pambazuka News on Western Sahara spotlights the indigenous Sahrawi voices from both sides of the Berm (Morocco’s ‘Wall of Shame’: heavily militarised and landmined sand-walls), and their cultural heartbreak of being forcibly divided. From the Moroccan Occupied Territory, Sahrawi human rights activists - some of whom are currently prisoners of conscience from inside Moroccan prisons - have written articles and short stories in prison to tell us about the brutality of Morocco’s militarised oppression. Other Sahrawi writers have sent us descriptions of the many ways in which daily life is disrupted through the denial of freedoms of speech, movement and livelihoods on their own soil.


© Andrew McConnellShining through all these texts are the hopes and dreams of a people and their children - the Sahrawi youth and university students have become a phenomenon of youth activism on YouTube and Facebook - longing for freedom, independence, and an end to the ‘disappearances’, prolonged arrests, unfair court hearings, and torture by Moroccan security forces and secret service. Watch the BBC’s‘Tropic of Cancer - Western Sahara’ and follow up BBC story of an informant in the documentary being beaten up by Moroccans after the BBC film crew left.

Living on the other side of the Berm are the Sahrawi residing in refugee camps on the Algerian border. From these texts we hear of Sahrawi memories of homeland and longings for return. Here there is no need for uprisings against the invader, for this half of the Sahrawi population have the proximity of the Algerian border, which prevents Morocco from daring to invade further inland. Instead the Sahrawi refugees are free to be freedom fighters and their camps provide the symbolic structure of the nation-state in exile. Life is hard in the camps, it is not easy for a dignified and self-sufficient peoples to be dependent on humanitarian aid, to be trapped in refugeehood. The BBC documentary ‘We are Saharawis’ provides an insight into this life.

Woven among the personal stories from both sides of the Berm are powerful visual photographs and online documentary films to bring the reader close to the incredible world and desert geography of the Sahrawi. I hope this special issue will bring to life the story of the Sahrawi people and let their dream of freedom touch your hearts.


© Robert GriffinI also invited non-Sahrawi voices in selected analytical pieces that focus on the international legal and political science disciplines because the Western Sahara story is clear-cut in the context of international law. Every African nation-state had this right, and it is a symbol of Sahrawi perseverance to the rule of international law that they have been a full and founding member of the African Union since 1984, and some 80 countries recognise the Sahrawi nation-state, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR, also referred to as RASD).

I especially asked Anthony Pazzanita to write an update to his 1994 article on Morocco’s sophisticated propaganda tactics. Jacob Mundy also provided a new article from his PhD research showing how Morocco’s brutal repression has ironically fuelled the phenomenon of the Sahrawi’s resilient human rights resistance. I was flooded by offers from the international network of analysts and observers offering to add their voices to this special issue. Sadly, space is limited but it is a testament to the Sahrawi story that so many around the world responded with speed to the opportunity to stand alongside the Sahrawi. I raise these three points because I hope readers will begin to distinguish the two very different sides of the conflict’s story. No matter what Morocco says, the fundamental benchmark is that of international law. It neither supports Morocco’s contemporary political thesis nor its historical claims to sovereignty over the Western Sahara. I point readers to the newest book on the conflict to be published, by Stephen Zunes and Jacob Mundy, ‘Western Sahara: War Nationalism & Conflict Irresolution’, Syracuse University Press (2011).

Finally, Morocco consistently uses its sophisticated resources to paint a poor picture of the Sahrawi, especially of the Polisario Front (the political representative of the Sahrawi people, recognised by the UN itself). Readers might like to know that the Polisario Front was first formed in the late 1960s, originally as a liberation movement as Spain began moving towards decolonisation, but that it then had to shift its goal to fight off the invading Moroccan ‘Green March’. The Polisario Front’s constitution states that it will dissolve when it has achieved its original liberation goal and the vote of self-determination. I would like to give readers a chance to hear from four senior representatives of the Polisario Front based in various areas around the world - and gauge for yourselves.

Lamine Baali was recently interviewed by Think Africa Press (August 2011). One of the discussions is that the huge financial drain on Morocco, with its recent purchase of 24 F16 fighter jets from the United States in order to continue its illegal military occupation of Western Sahara, could otherwise be used for economic development and social developments on the Moroccan people themselves. Dr Sidi Omar delivered his analytical paper ‘The legal claim of the Saharawi people to the right to self-determination and decolonisation’ at UNISA’s conference on international law and Western Sahara in Pretoria in 2008 and Emhamad Khadad delivered his paper ‘Sovereignty & Self-Determination in Western Sahara’ at Durham University. Kamal Fadel was interviewed by the Australian Worker’s Union who subsequently visited the refugee camps themselves.

* Konstantina Isidoros is a PhD researcher at the University of Oxford.

INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN GROUPS:

-Free Western Sahara Network
- Western Sahara Campaign UK
- Western Sahara Resource Watch
- Australian Western Sahara Association
- War on Want
- Sandblast
- Fish Elsewhere
- Norwegian Support Committee
- Belgium Western Sahara Solidarity Group
- ARSO (Association de soutien à un référendum libre et régulier au Sahara Occidental)
- France APSO (Amis du Peuple du Sahara Occidental) – Spain Sahara Libre
- Western Sahara Action Ireland
- Germany Project Gruppe Westsahara

SAHRAWI SOURCES OF INFORMATION:

-ASVDH

Run from the occupied territories, this website of The Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations Committed by the Moroccan State, is a very important source of information regarding the human rights violations committed in Western Sahara.

-Sahara Press Service

The Polisario Front's e-mail based news service.

- Malainin Lakhal’s Saharawi Journalist and Writers Union

- AFAPREDESA

The Association for the Families of Saharawi Prisoners and the Disappeared.

- CODESA

Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders.

A history of the Western Sahara conflict

Australia Western Sahara Association

2011-10-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76871

cc T EThe Australia Western Sahara Association provides a short history of Morocco's military invasion of Western Sahara and its effects on the populace.

Prior to Spain’s colonisation of Western Sahara, this western part of the Sahara desert in North-West Africa had been historically inhabited by a society of desert nomads pasturing their herds of camels and growing crops.

When Spain began to colonise the area from 1884, Western Sahara was inhabited by these nomadic peoples, who were politically and socially organised in tribes and under chiefs competent to represent them. Spain acquired its sovereignty over Western Sahara not because it was a land without an owner, terra nullius, but through agreements concluded with local rulers.

While Spain was the colonial ruler of the territory of Western Sahara, it did not have effective control over the people of the area. The Saharawis resisted colonisation and there were bloody clashes until they were ‘pacified’ in 1934. However at this time, and into the 1940s, the Spanish administered only a handful of settlements, none of which was larger than a medium sized village. El Aaiun (Laayoune), now the capital of Western Sahara, was not established until 1940. Between 1956 and 1958 there were riots in Western Sahara and bloody battles between the Spanish and the Saharawi resistance.

In 1963, the UN included Western Sahara in the list of countries to be decolonised and asserted the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination. In 1966 the UN, for the first of many times, passed a resolution calling for this self-determination to be exercised by referendum.

There was organised pressure from the Saharawis for independence in the 1960s and early 1970s. This led to the establishment of the Polisario Front in 1973 and the beginning of its armed struggle. By 1974 Spain announced its intention to hold a referendum in 1975; however, it announced it was postponing the referendum when, at the request of King Hassan II of Morocco, the UN General Assembly sought an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Western Sahara. The documentary True Wars and Fake Peace deals with this period.

On 16 October 1975, the ICJ delivered its Advisory Opinion in Volume 59 of the International Law Reports page 13, with this quote at page 85:

‘[T]he Court’s conclusion is that the materials and information presented do not establish any tie of territorial sovereignty between the territory of Western Sahara and the Kingdom of Morocco or the Mauritanian entity. Thus the Court has found no legal ties of such a nature as might affect the application of resolution 1514 (XV) in the decolonization of Western Sahara and, in particular, of the principle of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory.’

MOROCCO’S MILITARY INVASION OF WESTERN SAHARA AND THE ‘GREEN MARCH’

King Hassan II disregarded the ICJ’s conclusions and on 31 October 1975 Moroccan troops crossed the frontier and clashed with the Saharawi guerrillas, who had formed their liberation movement, the Polisario Front, in the northeast of Western Sahara. The king had been planning for the march long before the ICJ gave its Advisory Opinion and on 6 November 1975, he ordered the 300,000 marchers he had assembled near the border of Morocco and Western Sahara to commence the ‘Green March’ - so named after the holy colour of Islam.

At least 160,000 marchers entered Western Sahara. King Hassan threatened Spain to open direct negotiations with Morocco or else he would continue in his quest. Spain gave in. Negotiations between Morocco, Mauritania and Spain began in Madrid on 14 November 1975 and culminated in the signing of the Madrid Accords, sometimes called the Madrid Agreement or the Tripartite Agreement.

SPAIN ABANDONS WESTERN SAHARA

As the long-term dictator of Spain, General Franco, lay dying, his government abandoned its responsibilities as a colonial power and purported to divide Western Sahara between Morocco and Mauritania. Both countries seized part of the land, but Mauritania soon made peace with the Polisario Front. The Saharawis, through the Polisario Front, continued the fight against Morocco.

On 6 November 1975, the Security Council ‘deplored’ this action and ordered King Hassan to withdraw the marchers. However the king did not withdraw his troops or the marchers and Morocco’s invasion of Western Sahara continues to this day. The Security Council’s resolution No. 380 (1975), stated:

‘The Security Council,

Noting with grave concern that the situation concerning Western Sahara has seriously deteriorated,

Noting with regret that, despite its resolutions 377 (1975) of 22 October and 379 (1975) of 2 November 1975 as well as the appeal made by the President of the Security Council under its authorization, to the King of Morocco with an urgent request to put an end forthwith to the declared march on Western Sahara, the said march has taken place,

Acting on the basis of the aforementioned resolutions,

1. Deplores the holding of the march;

2. Calls upon Morocco immediately to withdraw from the Territory of Western Sahara all the participants in the march;

3. Calls upon Morocco and all other parties concerned and interested, without prejudice to any action which the General Assembly might take under the terms of its resolution 3293 (XXIX) of 13 December 1974 or any negotiation which the parties concerned and interested might undertake under Article 33 of the Charter of the United Nations, to co-operate fully with the Secretary-General in the fulfilment of the mandate entrusted to him in Security Council resolutions 377 (1975) and 379 (1975).’

THE EFFECTS OF MOROCCO’S INVASION

Many Saharawis fled the tanks and aerial bombardments of napalm and cluster bombs and set up refugee camps near Tindouf in south-west Algeria where more than 165,000 of them now live. Life is scarcely viable in the harsh Hamada desert where the refugees live, as there are no means for self-sufficiency. Consequently, they are supported by the UN Food Program and other humanitarian aid provided through the generosity of non-government organisations and international campaign groups.


cc J d'UrgellNevertheless, the Saharawis have set up their own government, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which not only runs the camps and attends to the education of the children and the health care of everyone in them, but also represents the interests of the Saharawi people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere and lobbies the UN agencies, the EU and governments throughout the world. SADR is recognised by at least 80 nations and is a founding member of the African Union.

Those Saharawis who remained in their homeland (now termed the Moroccan Occupied Territory) have constantly faced arrest, imprisonment, death and ‘disappearance’ at the hands of the Moroccan occupying forces. Their escape is blocked by a 2,400km wall dividing Western Sahara into the coastal zone occupied by Morocco and the interior part held by the Polisario Front.

THE CEASEFIRE, MINURSO AND THE REFERENDUM ON SELF-DETERMINATION

The war between Morocco and the Polisario Front continued until a UN-African Union brokered ceasefire in 1991.

MINURSO (Mission des Nations Unies pour un Referendum au Sahara Occidental) was established to organise a United Nations-led referendum for self-determination of the Saharawi people in 1992 as part of the peace process between Morocco and the Polisario Front. However, by 1996 the peace process was in stalemate.

In 1997, James Baker (George H. Bush’s secretary of state) became a UN envoy and drew up a new plan for the referendum, the Framework Agreement on the Status of Western Sahara. Morocco refused to co-operate. In 2003, Baker made a new plan, titled Peace Plan for Self-Determination of the People of Western Sahara. This was supported unanimously by the UN Security Council and by the SADR. However, Morocco still refuses to allow the referendum.

The UN has arrangements in place for a referendum, but Morocco continually refuses to allow the referendum to take place. Every six months the UN votes to keep MINURSO in place and each year the UN passes a resolution supporting the right of the Saharawi people to self determination, but more than 30 years have now passed since Morocco invaded Western Sahara, preventing the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

MINI DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT THE SAHRAWI REFUGEES:

- Trailer for a Documentary about the Saharawi refugees, directed by Tamás Polgár.
- United Nations video called ‘Crossing the Divide’.
- Al-Jazeera’s Inside Story documentary on the Sahrawi: Part One and Part Two.
- ‘Children of the Clouds’ documentary by Spanish film maker Carlos González: Part One and Part Two.

LINKS TO PHOTOS AND VIDEOS OF THE WAR YEARS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BsG4BpGd4A&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_QXHZJnj1E&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7vb3fCx4_s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_YL2heiBOI&feature=related

FURTHER READING:

- International Court of Justice, Reports on Western Sahara (1975)

- Stephen Zunes and Jacob Mundy, ‘Western Sahara: War Nationalism & Conflict Irresolution’, Syracuse University Press, 2011.

- Jacob Mundy, ‘Neutrality or Complicity? The United States and the 1975 Moroccan Takeover of the Spanish Sahara’, 11 Journal of North African Studies, 2006.

- Anna Theofilopoulou, ‘The United Nations and Western Sahara: A Never-Ending Affair’, US Institute for Peace, Special Report No. 166, July 2006.

- John Damis, ‘Conflict in Northwest Africa: The Western Sahara Dispute’, Stanford, Hoover Institution Press 1983.

- Tony Hodges, ‘Western Sahara: The Roots of a Desert War’, Westport, Lawrence Hill, 1983.

- Yahia H. Zoubir and Daniel Volman (eds), ‘International Dimensions of the Western Sahara Conflict’, Westport, Praeger, 1993.

- Thomas M. Franck, ‘The Stealing of the Sahara’, 70 American Journal of International Law 694, 1976.

- Kamal Fadel, ‘The Decolonization Process in Western Sahara’, Indigenous Law Bulletin, 1999, p. 66.

- Ian Williams and Stephen Zunes, ‘Self Determination Struggle in the Western Sahara Continues to Challenge the UN’, Foreign Policy in Focus, 17 September 2003, found at www.fpif.org

34 years and waiting

Nikolaj Nielsen

2011-10-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76870

© N NielsonIn 2007, Nikolaj Nielsen undertook a clandestine journey into the Moroccan Occupied Territory of Western Sahara to meet some leading activists and students of the Sahrawi human rights movement.

This is a story that is over 30 years in the making. It begins in the barren deserts of the Western Sahara and stretches into a stalemate between the Sahrawi people and the Kingdom of Morocco. It involves a conflict of state-centric interests, human rights abuse, plunder of natural resources, refugees, a protracted status quo, a fragmented independence movement, and a monarchy with a nationalist agenda. It involves people, some with extraordinary abilities to mobilise and continue a struggle against insurmountable odds. These are the people I met and whom I will tell you about.

Foreign media are banned from reporting about the Western Sahara so I travelled as a tourist to avoid police questioning. From Tangiers I eventually made it to Laayoune where I met clandestinely with various Sahrawi. But events took a turn. Upon my return to Agadir I witnessed the organisation of a student protest over the deaths of two Sahrawi students killed the day of my arrival. The protest quickly spread to Fes, Rabat, Marrakech and Casablanca. Everywhere, Sahrawi students along with sympathetic Moroccans were staging demonstrations. The police began rounding up students and the Moroccan secret service (DST) were on alert, at which point my contacts became too afraid to meet me.

In 1963 the United Nations recognised the Sahrawi right to self-determination, while the International Court of Justice ruled in favour of the Sahrawi case for self-determination in 1975. How can one then begin to measure the promotion of world-peace and cooperation if the Security Council undermines its own value system as inscribed in article 24 of the Charter? In the slums of Laayoune, in the refugee camps in Algeria, in the quiet demeanour of tortured victims, individuals attempt to elevate the discourse of repression by aspiring for the rights to dignity, equality, and justice.



© N NielsonPART TWO: GOING TO THE FRONTLINE

The journey to the occupied territories in the south is a journey through all six senses. In a few days the landscape will change as the Western Sahara draws closer and eventually stretches into a hot, dry desert. As I slowly make my way down, starting first in the chaos of Tangiers and into the silence of the vast desert plains, the Sahrawi continue their movement. Inside cafes and on billboards along the highway, portraits of King Mohammed VI dominate. Newspapers must refer to him as ‘His Majesty the King, Mohammed VI, may God help him in his task…’ and are not allowed to criticise him.

A national symbol, his shy nature and his rare interviews add to his mystic. In over a decade, he has accorded only a handful of interviews to the foreign press and none to the Moroccan. Time Magazine called him the King of Cool. As a powerful national symbol of a dynasty 350 years in the making, the man is quite simply revered. But he is also the Amir al-Muminin or leader of the faithful, and lest one forget, this man rules with absolute authority.

SEGUIAT AL HAMRA

The Seguiat al Hamra underground lake basin that runs along the northern edge of Laayoune is a place of fear.

For the Sahrawi youth who have been tortured at its edge, the shimmering water and wading birds, indeed its natural beauty and serene settings, are a mark of indifference betrayed only by the eyes of 18-year old Hassanna Aalaia. Hassanna, who had been taking photos of victims of Moroccan oppression, recalls the moment when he was abducted by the police. Already arrested nine times for gathering testimonies of Sahrawi and distributing them to the banned human rights organisation ASVDH, Hassannaʼs run-ins with the police have left him more determined. ‘They took me to the river, they beat me there, they tortured me, and then they left me there,’ he says.

At a distance, you see the reflection of the opposing sand dunes on its surface. This is the lahmada, a desert with no vegetation and literally translated as, ‘Oh the heat, the cold.’ Secrets are buried in its shallow depths.

Seguiat al Hamra is the back alley beating where speckles of blood dot the concrete. Only the evening before I had taken a cab to meet my contact in the Sahrawi-populated Eraki neighbourhood. Four youths, one maybe not even 10 years old, were lined up against a wall, visibly shaken by the three Moroccan police officers yelling into their faces. ʻDrugs,ʼ commented the cab driver. But only a few metres away a slogan calling for a liberated Sahara had been spray-painted on the wall.

The closer one gets, the more Seguiat al Hamraʼs isolation seems to close up in itself, locking away the panic of those unfortunate enough to have been led to it. A green algae flourishes thick along the edges in stagnating water. Empty water bottles and rusting Pepsi cans appear stuck in the green swill. There is a striking odour of decay. The walls of the apartment blocks facing the river are cracked.

Along the footpath leading down to the river are broken concrete slabs and scattered debris from a collapsed apartment. On the rooftops, antennas appear like an anachronism in this slum where electricity and running water are either in short supply or non-existent. A boy stands at the edge of the water and is tending several goats that are quietly grazing at some litter.

‘They accused me of things I didn’t do. They said I attacked the police,’ says Hassanna. The police came after him at night, around 9pm during Ramadan in 2007. They accused him and seven others of vandalising a police car. They forced them to strip naked, took photos and threatened to send the pictures to pornographic web sites if they didnʼt stop protesting. They also threatened to pour acid on him. ‘We are living under repression and oppression. Help us end this. We are struggling for independence.’

Looking at the waterʼs edge and the concrete slab that leads to it, I picture the scene. Here, near this stagnating water, in the middle of a desolate desert, behind the slum walls of Laayoune, the secrets of the conflict in the Western Sahara begin to unravel.

BACK IN THE FRAY

I met the Sahrawi human rights activist, Ahmed Sbai, in the outskirts of this wasted city of Laayoune, in the Eraki neighbourhood where the marginalised live in bland block apartments. The days pass by in a blur and time has slowed to a crawl. Sbai, a young man with rectangular glasses, is now on the run, chased by the Moroccan police. But the story doesn’t begin here and the memories, the faces, the voices, are coming back to me. I receive the call in my hotel room at around 8pm. It’s my contact Mohammed Mayara. He tells me to take a cab to Eraki and then wait. Then a figure of a man appears, he waves his arms and I follow him at a distance; we walk quickly. To my right, the desert. Plastic bags and dust are kicked about in the cold wind. We arrive at a courtyard, a door opens, light momentarily basking the gravel and dirt.

Inside, are Mohammed Daddach and Brahim Sabbar, two men who have known imprisonment and torture. Sabbar once spent 11 years in the French-built secret detention center, Kalaat Megouna, and was released after spending another two years in the notorious Black jail. His crime - meeting with human rights activists in Boujdour.

‘You enter the Black jail lost, you leave as a new born,’ says Sbai, also a member of several banned Sahrawi human rights organisations. ‘I cannot really express with words what it is like.’ In 1999, Sbai says he was kidnapped from a demonstration in Smara and sent to Lebbayer, a secret jail 25 kilometres outside Laayoune. He was taken to a room inside the compound and tortured. ‘Itʼs an empty room with no furniture except for a table and a large light. There are at least eight people in the room who then band your eyes before the torture begins. They place you facing the wall on your knees with your hands bound behind your back. I sat like this the whole night until they set me on the table and beat me.’


© N NielsonHe says he was then taken by his hands and feet, stretched out with his face pushed to the floor while someone pounded on his kidneys. Accused of belonging to a criminal organisation, Sbai was then sentenced to prison for two years in what he describes as rigged court proceedings.
‘There is no independence in the court system. The judge will always decide in favour of the Moroccan government.’ Sbai describes the Black Jail as a building coming apart at its foundations.

Inside, there are five rooms three to four meters in length with a maximum total capacity for 250 prisoners. ‘I lived among thieves and criminals but I did meet two other political activists. Each room has at least 60 prisoners,’ he says. Even in these closed quarters, Sbai says drugs and alcohol are rampant, smuggled into the jail by prison staff. ‘The authorities allow the drugs to control the prison population. The food made us sick and we were given water that [had] been stored in [the] cistern where rats swam.’

El-Garhi Chrif, who was born blind, says his imprisonment continues to haunt him. ‘I suffer from nervous tensions and psychological disorders,’ he says. Ten days after being released, Brahim Bensaami, feared among the Sahrawi as a ruthless torturer, along with a handful of police officers, came to El-Garhiʼs home to force him to retract his testimonies of torture while at the prison. ‘Bensaami threatened me and said if I continue to speak out, he would arrest me. I told him I didnʼt care. He then pushed me to the ground.’

Sitting across from El-Garhi is Brahim Sabbar, a man who spent a decade in a secret detention centre in southern Morocco. Here is a human rights activist who understands the world as it is, its beauty and its terror. Somewhere between both, lies the inspiration of human nature in all its complexities.

While imprisoned in the Black Jail, Sabbar received over 600 letters from around the world. He is still moved by the gesture, he says. And with the help of Amnesty International, he finally saw the light of day in June 2008.

Kalaat Megouna is now empty, a shell, and is nestled on the foot of the Atlas mountains, near the Draa valley where the French built an administrative centre in 1928. The memories of 43 dead Sahrawi prisoners, some killed, others starved, others too weak to fight off typhoid, haunts the ground. Within those walls emerged the origins of a resistance movement - the Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations Committed by the Moroccan State (ASVDH).

‘My story is very long,’ he says. And for the next several hours I listen to him speak. When Sabbar arrived at Kalaat he, along with eight other Sahrawi, remained isolated from the rest of the population. For four years. ‘We kept ourselves entertained by creating plays and using theatre as a vehicle. We became both the audience and the actor. In 1985 we came into contact with 15 other prisoners who then became our audience. We drew as well. We used art, writing, and drawing as tools about our resistance. We wrote on the back of our hands with nettle. We were able to create colours from labels. We also sculpted, sometimes objects like camels which we would barter with the guards in exchange for medicine. We created a lot of committees, committee of theatre, of culture, of coordination with the leaders, and tried to emulate the organized structure of the Polisario from inside the prison. Finally we got the right to get a radio with a single medium wave. However, we figured out how to get short wave so we could listen to the BBC and Radio France Internationale. The radio became a kind of intellectual nourishment.’

A commission from the region visited the prison once every two years to count the dead. A high-ranking Moroccan official in Laayoune, Aallal Saʼadaoui, was among those from the commission. On his last visit, he told the remaining 369 Sahrawi prisoners they would be released. Sabbar didnʼt believe it. For all those years in prison, his friends and his family had no idea about what had happened. Dead most likely. His mother, he says, stopped speaking. She was in shock. Two weeks after his return home, she began to speak again.

AGADIR

Ahmed Salem Dohi is trying his best not to cry. His eyes are bloodshot and his voice shaking as he tells his story of the two Sahrawi students killed the night before. He was there and had witnessed a Supratours bus crush them. He shakes his head and stares at the floor of the apartment at the university residence. ‘The people in the bus ran away when the police came. They were beating everyone,’ he says. Twenty-two year old Baba Khaya and 20-year-old Lheussein Abdsadek Laktei lay dead beneath the forward axle.


© N NielsonSitting next to Ahmed is Sahrawi student leader Aino Mohammed. His phone rings. A protest is being organised. If I go, I go alone and without a camera, they tell me. At that moment, Ismaaili El Bachir enters the room and describes the march from the university to the bus station earlier that morning. Aino says marches will soon begin in Marrakech and Casablanca, in solidarity with Agadir. Fifteen minutes later I’m in a taxi and arrive at a scene of mourning and anger. Several hundred Sahrawi students have gathered and formed a circle. They sing, they chant. A young man stands in the centre and leads the chorus. ʻJustice, justice,ʼ they demand.

The university is closed, its green iron gates are padlocked shut with heavy chains. Everyone is demanding justice and the chants get louder and louder as more and more students arrive. I stand alone, outside the circle, hoping not to draw too much attention. Aino says some of the students are Moroccan spies and will denounce me to the authorities. I feel the tension and the stares and decide to leave. I need my camera.

Another taxi back to the student residence. I grab my bag and head back. And as I arrive at the scene the students are marching, waving photos of Khaya and Laktei. A Moroccan in army uniform sees me in the cab. The driver continues past the protesters before I exit the cab. I can hear the voices now, loud, singing, on a street parallel to the one Iʼm on. But I decide not to follow their lead and walk in the opposite direction. I think Iʼm being followed by the Moroccan DST, the intelligence service. I spot a taxi stand but the cab driver refuses to take me. Three other cabs are available but they wonʼt take me either. Then another cab arrives. The driver keeps asking me questions about why I am there and what my profession is. He wants to know if the people I was visiting were Moroccan or ʻotherʼ, as he puts it. And then he says, ‘We saw you earlier.’

Foreign journalists caught writing on Western Sahara will have their material confiscated and be deported. Worse, the students I met will be beaten and possibly jailed for disturbing the peace and the national interest. My trip to the occupied Western Saharan capital of Laayoune from Agadir and back was delayed by numerous checkpoints. There is a media blackout.

Day three after the tragedy of Agadir Iʼm back in Marrakech. My contact in Laayoune says students are being rounded up and arrested. In Agadir, things canʼt be much better. Sahrawi students Ali Salem Labras and Fadali Lbanani said they had been abducted by police on Khartoria street and sent, blindfolded, to Wilaya police station. And as I left the station in Agadir, four garrisons of police vans were stationed at the far end of the concrete tarmac. Somewhere on that concrete pad once laid the crushed bodies of 22-year-old Baba Khaya and 20-year-old Lheussein Abdsadek Laktei.

Eugene Delacroix said that in Morocco, glory is a word empty with meaning. The vibrant colours of the Atlas mountains, the drive from Agadir to Marrakech, the desolation of the deserts in Laayoune. Yes, all that matters in such a time when a resistance movement, 30 years in the making, weaves itself through the psychology of identity - the identity of resistance that prevails with a deep horizontal comradeship among those on the frontline and those left to fade away in the scorching deserts of Algeria.

The Sahrawi seek what is their due cause. What can be said of the new fishing agreements off the disputed coastline that have been signed? The phosphate mines in Boucraa that are exploited? The plunder of natural resources in a territory still under litigation? What happened to international justice?

I see Minurso in Laayoune. I see the fleet of UN SUVs parked at the expensive hotels. Shining in the hot sun. A man walks his mule with his goods past a mandate that has no political will.

A double row of Moroccan flags wave alongside Minurso HQ. Moroccan soldiers ‘guard’ the HQ and as I walk by they politely if firmly ask me to walk on the street opposite.

Indeed, the neutral arbiter has succumbed to the real-politik of the Security Council, a bloated and incoherent institution pillared to resolve conflicts and maintain global security.

And now here I am. In Marrakech, I have just received a text message from a young man who can no longer meet me. ‘I am being followed by the police,’ it reads. And I feel ashamed and bitter.

* Read the full version of 34 Years & Waiting (PDF), which includes photographic illustrations and a journey to the Sahrawi refugee camps on the Algerian border of Western Sahara.

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* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Malainin Lakhal: Spotlight on a Sahrawi activist

Malainin Lakhal

2011-10-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76895

cc M BenericettiMalainin Lakhal made the dangerous escape journey through the Moroccan Berm 11 years ago. Malainin’s contribution here provides an insight to that perilous escape journey, which many Sahrawi activists are forced to make when their lives are in extreme danger from the security forces. Watch a video of Malainin Lakhal’s Australia talk from from 30 January 2011
or listen to the podcast.

I think of myself as a freedom fighter with a laptop - I am an activist, a dreamer (a poet!) and journalist in the Sahrawi refugee camps, where I set up the Sahrawi Journalists and Writers Union with a few other friends to tell the world the story of the resistance and survival of the Sahrawi people. (Other media include the press service SPS RASD and the new local TV funded and assisted by Spanish NGOs called RASD TV.) But the Moroccans called me a ‘trouble maker’. I was born and raised in the occupied city of El Aaiun. I was four years old when the Moroccans invaded us.


© Paulo Nunes dos SantosIn 2000, I was forced to flee Moroccan occupied Western Sahara because the regime began hunting me down for my resistance activities as a human rights activist. I had to make a dangerous crossing over the berm, through the heavily land-mined sand wall that the Moroccans built to divide my country, to the safety of the refugee camps. Had they caught me, I would have faced harsh imprisonment and beatings, if not torture and disappearance forever.

They wanted me because I was active in the Sahrawi students’ movement in Moroccan universities – I had studied English Language and Literature at Ibn Zuhr University in Agadir. They had detained me more than three times and shown me the colour of their torture methods and hatred. In 1999 I helped organise the biggest popular uprising in Western Sahara - for more than three months we were able to ‘liberate’ our city from Moroccan control. We had daily demonstrations and sit-ins, but there were violent scenes from the Moroccan military and secret service.

For just over a year I had to work undercover, but then my friends and family told me it was time to leave. Once I reached the refugee camps, I first worked as a teacher, then a translator, then I found an opportunity in 2003 to join the Saharawi Press Service to launch the English page of SPS, and from then on I continued to focus on my work as a journalist-activist, to help the guys inside the territory get the story to the outside world.

It started in 1975 when the Moroccan invasion started. They wanted our land, our Atlantic coastline and our natural resources. Their war made it clear they wanted to exterminate the Sahrawi people. That was clearly declared by the Moroccan king in the speech where he declares his ‘Green March’, but the Polisario Front and the Sahrawi people were organised before the invasion, thank God.

Our liberation movement was constituted in 1973 so we were able to put up resistance to the Moroccan invasion. Morocco infamously called the invasion the Green March, which was made up of ordinary Moroccan citizens, most of whom were misled by propaganda or driven to participate by force on 6 November 1975.

But six days before the march, Moroccan military tanks were already erasing any resistance in front of them. The phosphorous bombs, the fighter jets, the soldiers and the secret service did the dirty work to prepare the ground. The Spanish administration didn’t resist; they signed what they call the Madrid Tripartite Agreement with Morocco and Mauritania to split the country between these two African regimes. Morocco started sending settlers - ordinary Moroccans given incentives to resettle on our land - to change our demographics.

When our women and children had fled east towards Algeria, they set up the first refugee camps. A year later, in 1976, we proclaimed our nation-state in exile, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic. We have the only refugee camps in the world in which there is a nation state. Our population is split into two - half of us are in the refugee camps, the other half live in the Occupied Territory where Morocco suppresses us and systematically violates all our human rights.

So far, the Moroccan government has refused and confused all possible peaceful resolutions to the conflict. A referendum should be the solution to the conflict, according to international law and all United Nations resolutions. All that we, the Sahrawi people, want is that simple human right of self-determination that we should have had when the Spanish colonial administration in our country began to end. Other colonies were given that right to vote, except us. To this day, Morocco keeps refusing to cooperate within the UN, thanks to the unconditional help of France and the United States. It is because of these two powers and because of Spain that the Moroccan kingdom has succeeded in avoiding complying with international law. More about this dynamic can be seen by watching this Democracy Now! investigative documentary that features huge Spanish civil society protests and includes famous actor Javier Bardem.

Sahrawi people bear no enmity towards the Moroccan people. We think of them as an oppressed people living under an absolute monarchy that has spent billions of dollars on its defense budget to steal our land, rather than spend that money on its own people and infrastructure. The question about the Western Sahara conflict is a question about the Moroccan king himself. We know that the Moroccan people themselves, especially the settlers in the occupied territory, are not those responsible for the occupation. They are tools used by the regime to make the occupation demographically substantial and real. So our problem is not with the Moroccan people or the Moroccan settlers. The Polisario Front has clearly said in peace talks at the UN that it is ready to offer some of these settlers the right to Sahrawi citizenship.

Morocco wants to silence us; it wants us to go away, to abandon our land, to delete our history from the desert geography. But we are only demonstrating for the right to vote and choose our destiny. We are freedom fighters - we want the right to choose our destiny. We want Morocco to stop violating our human rights and our territorial rights. Our human rights organisations talk about more than 500 people who have disappeared, of 151 Saharawi prisoners of war who are still not accounted for by the Moroccan authorities, of 20,000 victims of arbitrary arrest and thousands of victims of torture. And these are only the cases that these human rights organisations can document - there used to be many more that were not recorded. But now we have an active network of human rights advocates and university students who risk their lives to get the information out to organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.


© Paulo Nunes dos SantosWe have always been in a war against Moroccan colonialism; the only difference is that we are now using new weapons - the demonstration, the sit-in, the word. Sahrawi political prisoners and activists in the occupied zones are giving their blood and bodies as weapons and sacrifice for the sake of freedom. And they need help; they need from us to watch their backs, to support them and to make the world hear their stories. The youth need also to learn more about our history, our tradition, our values and our culture, because this is another weapon in the ongoing war. The Moroccan regime worked hard and invested millions to try to destroy Sahrawi culture, values and identity.

Will we vote for independence or for ‘integration’ into Morocco? Well, the answer might be the latter. But the fact that half our population resolutely suffer the hardship of the refugee camps, and the other half in the Moroccan Occupied Territory risk their lives with regular Moroccan detentions and torture suggests that our people want full independence. This is what Morocco is so scared of. This is why Morocco keeps making the peace talks muddy.


© Paulo Nunes dos SantosWe just want the right to vote. Then, finally, we will all know the answer to the question of the Western Sahara. We have to fight for our right all the time because people like me are not only journalists, but also human rights activists and freedom fighters. We are struggling for a basic human right, the right to self-determination, to democracy, to freedom of expression, to the right to a safe life, and to independence - and these are rights that all human beings must have and defend. And you have to know that if we lose them today because we are weak and because you did not care, you will lose them tomorrow because our case will be a precedent.

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* Malainin Lakhal is secretary general of the Sahrawi Journalists and Writers Union, based in the Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

VIDEO LINK

- UN investigative piece on the Western Sahara, Part One and Part Two.

Non-violent resistance: the Sahrawi people under Moroccan occupation

Mohamed Brahim

2011-10-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76873

© Robert GriffinMohamed Brahim, Enaama Asfari, El Ouali Amidane and Mustapha Abdedayem, alongside some other writers who have requested anonymity in this special edition, are indigenous Sahrawi living in the area occupied by Morocco. Their contributions provide insights into life under occupation.

For over three decades, the Moroccan government has abused human rights in Western Sahara, using various brutal and inhumane tactics.[1] There is a long list of people who disappeared throughout the 36-year conflict when they were kidnapped by the Moroccan secret services. Many of the Sahrawi political detainees were denied trial and kept in dungeons and other secret detention centres throughout Morocco and Western Sahara. Until the early 1990s, the Moroccan government denied the existence of these prisoners and the prisons. Then suddenly, some of these detainees were given a royal pardon by the monarchy and released. The king’s pardon stated that these prisoners had been abroad on missions for the Moroccan government, in an attempt to explain their disappearance.


cc SaharauiakToday Morocco is still imprisoning Sahrawi who are peaceful demonstrators or peaceful defenders of human rights, for the sole reason that these Sahrawi are calling for a referendum to be held in Western Sahara and demanding the right to exercise their entitlement to self-determination. The right to self-determination is a natural right of a people. It is included in the United Nations Charter as one of the basic decolonisation principles that the UN is empowered to preserve.

All of these Sahrawi prisoners were, and have been, a target for unjustified attention, torture, and surveillance. Such actions constitute a human rights violation on the part of the Moroccan government. Recently, some of these people have been tried in Moroccan courts. However, the Moroccan judges were mere puppets of the Moroccan regime. Therefore, it is necessary to have international human rights observers to attend those trials. It is amazing to see that the Sahrawi prisoners are only asking for freedom of speech and freedom of expression and for the right of self-determination, but when they petition the Moroccan regime for these rights, they are imprisoned.


© ASVDHWomen have not been spared. Sahrawi women were always part of the struggle and have played a vital role in fighting against the Moroccan regime through peaceful resistance. These women endure being beaten, sometimes raped, denied their legal rights, and their houses ransacked. The website of ASVDH, the Sahrawi human rights monitoring organisation, contains some graphic examples of Moroccan abuse.

Aminatou Haidar is one of these female heroes of our non-violent struggle and is considered to have led many non-violent actions against the Moroccan occupation in Western Sahara. For many years she met with foreign delegations and initiated many non-violent actions, such as writing articles to foreign newspapers about the oppression and about the human rights violations. She also wrote many letters to officials in different countries. She succeeded in getting more NGO’s interested in the malpractices of the oppressive Moroccan regime. She is constantly in touch with human rights organisations all over the world and coordinates many activities aimed at unmasking the atrocities of the Moroccan regime in Western Sahara.


© ASVDHMany international organisations have condemned the atrocities of the Moroccan state, but the international community has not put sanctions in place against Morocco. No real action has been taken to address these atrocities, except on a few occasions when hearings have been held. These have had little impact. Morocco may be a traditional ally of the United States, but the Moroccan regime has denied the Sahrawi their rights and has continued to abuse them in different ways. Distributing leaflets and writing graffiti on walls is our long-time tactic to tell the Moroccans that we are here, that we are resisting and that we refuse to accept their occupation of our land and our spirit.[2]

It is common practice and well-known policy that the Moroccan government does not give employment positions to Sahrawi people in cases where they would have access to confidential information. No Sahrawi can serve in a political office at any level of the Moroccan government - local, state, or national. This means, with Morocco as the occupier of our land, we are unable to play any part in the governing and administration of our land. The only Sahrawi given this privilege are those who have served as Moroccan agents to disseminate propaganda. Some of these are defectors with no sense of loyalty to the Sahrawi people. Some choose to work for the Moroccans for financial gain. The Moroccan regime commonly gives bribes in order to get people to defect and to get these people to continue to do work for the Moroccan government. Some of them defect out of fear because the Moroccan government threatens their lives or the lives of their families.

It is also important to clarify that non-violent resistance is the only weapon used by the Sahrawi in the occupied territories against the oppression. Meanwhile, war was the tool used against the Moroccan army along the borders with the Sahrawi liberated territories.

Therefore, it has been essential for Sahrawi under occupation to look for different peaceful options to fight occupation and to reject Morocco’s strategy, which attempts to assimilate every Sahrawi into Moroccan society. King Hassan II (the current king’s father) tried to assimilate young Sahrawi into Moroccan society in 1989 by giving them jobs and free accommodation inside Morocco-proper, but it was a total failure and the Sahrawi were able to preserve their identity and maintain their own ancient heritage.

The Sahrawi people also adopted the strategy of not letting their own dialect and cultural heritage slip away from them. Sahrawi under occupation speak their own dialect and preserve their own identity.

Recently, an ‘Intifada’ began in the occupied territories to give a push to the Sahrawi cause as it seemed to have reached an impasse.[3],[4] This non-violent political resistance was initiated by the creation of our ‘independence camp’ at Gdeim Izik in the Occupied Territory, by Sahrawi from all walks of life, all ages, and from both genders. It was peaceful and successful as it made the Moroccan authorities very angry, and they began arresting many Sahrawi people and human rights activists. For visuals of this resistance watch Gdeim Izik videos here and here.

Another non-violent tactic has been the formation of human rights associations. These human rights advocates run a secret network of informants and activists who assist them in gathering all information necessary to show the world that the Sahrawi are suffering and are being segregated. They have succeeded in attracting the attention of many international human rights organisations and NGO’s.

Another non-violent strategy is to refuse to sell their houses to Moroccan settlers. Sahrawi also try to live away from Moroccan settlers and prefer to stay within Sahrawi communities. When having a wedding ceremony or other local festival, only Sahrawi are admitted or invited so as to keep away the Moroccan secret service, security forces and settler informants. Finally, the Sahrawi under occupation are always looking for diverse means to empower their non-violent struggle, and always adopt non-violent ways to defend themselves and resist Morocco’s occupation. We have a great need to have NGOs in the occupied territories, but the Moroccans do not let them in. Even international lawyers who try to monitor court cases are not allowed to witness unfair court hearings. We are hoping that more NGOs will put pressure on their governments, who will in turn put pressure on the Moroccan government to let these NGOs and international observers enter the Western Sahara.

Justice will prevail, and freedom will come!

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* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES:

[1] See Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch websites for reports and press statements going back 25 years.

[2] For both Sahrawi and the thousands of international campaign groups who support the Sahrawi struggle for self-determination, the Sahrawi flag and the colourful graffiti are now famous resistance symbols. Sahrawi youth risk their lives on these acts of resistance – for the flag is banned by Moroccan regulations and there are many unfair arrests because Sahrawi are caught with a plastic flag logo on a key-ring, for example.

[3] The term ‘intifada’ as used by the Sahrawi means a peaceful non-violent uprising against what they see as a brutal invasion and occupation by Morocco. Respected academics and analysts note that there have been a number of ‘intifadas’ by Sahrawi over the years, the most famous being the Intifada in May 2005, and subsequent student demonstrations by Sahrawi students studying in Moroccan universities. The Sahrawi emphasise that they use peaceful tactics to protest against Morocco - citizen-reporting videos and photographs uploaded to the internet and testimonies given to human rights monitoring groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch suggest this is accurate.

[4] This ‘impasse’ refers to a mounting feeling across the Sahrawi population that the ‘diplomatic’ route taken by Sahrawi leadership since the 1991 UN-lead ceasefire has brought only broken promises by the UN and its Security Council members and the hardships of life under occupation due to this irresolution. Again, respected academics, analysts and NGO groups often criticise the UN’s failures in ensuring that a decolonised peoples are allowed their basic human right of a referendum for self-determination.

Morocco versus Polisario in 2011

The continuing competition for influence

Anthony G. Pazzanita

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76900

© Paulo Nunes dos SantosMorocco versus Polisario: a Political Interpretation provided one of the first analytical insights into Morocco’s budding ‘propaganda war’ regarding its illegal invasion and occupation. Since 1994, Morocco has rapidly increased its natural resource exploitation of the Western Sahara, which also breaks international law. Pazzanita has written a 2011 update to his 1994 article which confirms Morocco’s nascent diplomatic machine has since grown into a highly sophisticated PR war on, for example, its illegal fisheries plunder and oil exploration - which campaign groups are tirelessly lobbying for the country to halt.

Readers of the foregoing article, originally published by the ‘Journal of Modern African Studies’ in 1994, were treated to a discussion of the respective positions and activities of Morocco and the Polisario Front in their attempts (or the lack of same) to convey their respective points of view on the Western Sahara conflict to audiences in the United States and Europe. Specifically, the efforts of the two parties to the dispute to communicate their views to segments of élite public opinion in the US came in for special attention, with the conclusion drawn that it was the Kingdom of Morocco and not the Polisario Front which was prevailing in the American forum and that media attention paid to Western Sahara had diminished to the vanishing point.

Seventeen years on, the Western Sahara ‘propaganda war’ is ready for re-examination. A survey of more recent activity on the part of three actors/set of actors - Morocco, the Polisario Front and various nongovernmental organisations (NGO’s) - reveals important continuities with the 1994 situation, yet which encompasses not only different groups, issues, and personalities, but also takes account (as any analysis of the sort must) of the explosion of information and of opportunities to spread information made possible by the advent of the Internet, something which was nearly invisible in the early 1990s. But those individuals and NGO’s who attempt to pierce what amounts to a wall of silence on the Saharan question usually still encounter a situation in which not only does Morocco enjoy inordinate influence, but also an environment (not at all created by Rabat or its backers but certainly utilised by them) that make their alternative story difficult to disseminate.

MOROCCO: A MASTERY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS?

Since the 1990s, Morocco’s effort to publicise its side of the Western Sahara issue to educated public opinion in the West has never flagged. In about 1998, the Kingdom enlisted the services of the high-powered and well-connected Cassidy Group of Washington lobbyists, whose other clients included the US tobacco industry as well as the brutal dictatorship of Téodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.


© Paulo Nunes dos SantosThe firm was reportedly paid upwards of US$100,000 per month for what one observer called a ‘charm offensive’ that, rather than dwelling on Western Sahara and the severe Moroccan repression therein, stressed the long history of US-Morocco friendship and the country’s perceived utility as an American ally. The Morocco project, apparently overseen by Gerald Cassidy, the company’s founder and a prominent member of the Democratic Party, was described in a legal document filed with the US Department of Justice as ‘advancing the appreciation of Morocco’s culture and historic ties with the United States and its role in the development and stability of North Africa,’ although Western Sahara was undoubtedly high on the list of Cassidy’s priorities, all the more so in light of the intensive lobbying of the US Congress by Polisario’s Washington representative, Mr Mouloud Said.

Morocco also has had considerable success attracting former US diplomats to its side. Set against the fact that State Department diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks organisation show that serving US diplomats unswervingly support Morocco’s 2005 plan for Western Saharan ‘autonomy’ under the overall and permanent authority of Rabat - a stance which, in fairness, reflects a support for the autonomy plan made at the highest levels of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama Administrations - it should not be entirely surprising that at least two former US ambassadors to Morocco continue to lobby for the country’s position on Western Sahara, in the process making extravagant allegations against the Polisario Front with little or no evidence. For example, Frederick Vreeland, US Ambassador to Morocco in 1992 and 1993, wrote an op-ed article in the ‘New York Times’ on 3 March 2007 (p. A-15), not only backing Rabat’s autonomy plan but also linking (without evidence) Polisario to the Algerian-based terror group, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Then, about two weeks later (22 March, p. A-27), the ‘Times’ was obliged to print an amplification to Ambassador Vreeland’s biographical data, pointing out that he was ‘the chairman of an solar-energy company that has had contracts with the Moroccan government’, damaging his credibility. Another former ambassador to Morocco, Edward M. Gabriel, went even further in his fabrications against the Polisario Front in the spring of 2011, alleging - with not the slightest evidence - that Polisario’s armed forces were in Libya assisting the country’s ruler, Colonel Muammar el-Qadaffi, in his military campaign against the rebellion against his 42-year dictatorship. Completely ignored in Gabriel’s accusation were several excellent reasons why Polisario would almost certainly not militarily assist Qadaffi, including the irreversible damage to Polisario’s reputation if such support were ever publicly revealed, and not least the decidedly uneven relationship between Polisario and the erratic Libyan leader ever since the early 1980s.

The case of Robert M. Holley, not a former ambassador but still a diplomat whose 21-year state department career included postings in Morocco, involves a more extensive and lengthy lobbying effort on behalf of the kingdom. Holley, the director of the Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP), which he founded after leaving the US government in 2002, and which is a registered agent of the Moroccan regime. MACP has issued at least two strongly pro-Moroccan and anti-Polisario papers in recent years. The first, ‘Cuba and the Polisario Front’, published in August 2005, describes the Polisario Front as a ‘Marxist’ organisation and calls both Cuba and Polisario ‘renegade forces’ bent on the destabilisation of North Africa. Polisario’s Moroccan-backed opponents thus seem to find no inconsistency between calling the front Marxist in character and at the same time accusing it of ties with the militant Islamist terrorists of AQIM.

In September 2009, a second document was released by MACP, this time in collaboration with the International Law Institute, a group which had hitherto concerned itself almost wholly with international trade and commercial law issues. Entitled ‘Group Rights and International Law: A Case Study on the Sahrawi Refugees in Algeria’, the report criticised the world community for turning a blind eye to the ‘warehousing’ of Western Saharan refugees in the Tindouf region of southwestern Algeria since the mid-1970’s, overlooking not only the reasons why the Sahrawis fled to the area (Morocco’s armed invasion of Western Sahara starting in late 1975), but also why these selfsame refugees for the most part do not feel they can return to the territory (Morocco’s repressive behavior there and its refusal to allow a referendum on self-determination).

The pattern exhibited by Robert Holley, Edward Gabriel and Frederick Vreeland, consequently, is to level one-sided allegations which in some cases have a superficial plausibility - as is the case in the long-acknowledged links between Cuba and the Polisario Front in the educational and health care fields - while ignoring Moroccan repression inside Western Sahara, disregarding wider international legal questions, and unconvincingly trying to link the Sahrawis with an array of unsavory actors.

In Europe, Morocco’s efforts have involved different personalities deployed to similar ends. In Belgium, Claude Moniquet, President of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center (ESISC), published a report in May 2010 that not only repeated allegations that Polisario was somehow associated with AQIM, but that the Sahrawi group was also engaged in criminal activities, including the smuggling of cigarettes and other goods across the Sahel region, something that countless individuals in the area have indulged in for centuries. It also drew a bizarre parallel between the Polisario Front and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), despite the fact that Polisario, unlike the IRA, has never engaged in attacks on civilians. In Spain, David Alvarado, a correspondent for the European branch of CNN, does not go quite as far as Mr Moniquet, but does allege that individuals associated with Polisario are sympathetic to Islamist extremism out of frustration with the intractable character of the Saharan conflict. His efforts, though, are probably less effective than in the US or France, due to Spain’s continuing status as the one European country where the visibility of the Western Sahara issue is the highest and the number of organisations favoring self-determination, as well as those groups dedicated to humanitarian relief for the Sahrawi refugees, are by far the greatest.

NGO’s: SWIMMING AGAINST THE TIDE (WITH SOME SUCCESS)

Assisted by the Internet and fortified by an increased worldwide sensitivity to human rights, yet still not able to compete with Morocco’s much greater resources or those of its supportive groups and personalities, NGO’s nevertheless scored notable (if limited) successes from the late 1990’s to 2011.

We have already seen how Morocco’s outreach/lobbying endeavors have focused on the United States Congress. How has Rabat fared there? Rather well: resolutions in the House of Representatives and the Senate expressing generalised approbation for Morocco usually are adopted by lopsided majorities, and in spite of all the visits to the Tindouf-area Sahrawi refugee camps which Polisario has arranged, only two current members of the House, Joseph Pitts (Republican, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania) and Donald Payne (Democrat, Newark, New Jersey) have shown a sustained and sympathetic interest in Western Sahara at variance with the Moroccan viewpoint. Visit the Robert F. Kennedy Center for more information.

Polisario itself is still locked into the same pattern I mentioned in 1994: only one representative each in Washington and New York, with the latter individual of necessity devoting nearly all his time to the Western Sahara question at the UN. Polisario’s presence in the US thus remained minimal and practically devoid of meaningful outreach in the US generally.

As far as nongovernmental organisations were concerned, it was with regard to the search for, or the exploitation of, Western Sahara’s natural resources such as fisheries, phosphates, and possible petroleum deposits that these groups achieved some of their most important victories, or at least garnered additional publicity for the Saharan problem (such as Western Sahara Resource Watch). And in some cases, they actually stopped or discouraged multinational corporations from cooperating with the Moroccan government on oil exploration matters, for example, although NGO’s have had less success when it comes to the determination of the European Union (EU) to include Western Saharan waters on a par with those of Morocco proper relative to fishing rights by vessels of EU member states. But even here, NGO’s in North America and Europe (including the multi-nation Fish Elsewhere) had succeeded by 2011 in getting an airing of the Western Sahara question when fisheries agreements between Morocco and the EU were either being negotiated or were up for renewal. Watch the Fish from Sahara video for more information.

But it was the search for oil reserves in the territory’s waters that got the international campaign against Morocco’s activities into high gear. In late 2001, Morocco’s petroleum agency (known by its French acronym, Onarep) contracted with several companies to explore for oil deposits in Western Saharan waters, including the Houston, Texas-based firm of Kerr-McGee, the Franco-Belgian company then known as TotalFinaElf, and TGS-Nopec, a Norwegian firm which landed a sub-contract from Kerr-McGee to perform seismic surveys in the affected area. The campaign against this was bolstered by a formal UN legal opinion by Hans Corell on 12 February 2002, who stated that the extraction of natural resources from Western Sahara could not take place without the approval of the native Sahrawis, and several NGO’s immediately went on the offensive, seeking to force as many companies as possible to pull out of their agreements with Onarep.

This campaign, spearheaded by Western Sahara Resource Watch had its first major victory in early 2003, when TGS-Nopec, reportedly under pressure from the Oslo government, stopped all its activities in Western Sahara. A company official, Arne Helland, even acknowledged that this firm’s presence in Western Sahara was the result of an ‘unwise decision’.

Later in 2003, the NGO’s efforts bore further fruit. Both the Dutch firm Fugro-Svitzer and the UK’s Robertson Research International pulled out of Western Sahara, and in a major development in November 2004, the Total Group (as TotalFinaElf had renamed itself) announced that it would end its exploration activities in the disputed territory, although it insisted (falsely, in the eyes of the resource groups) that the international effort against Morocco had nothing to do with its decision and that it had simply not found any commercially viable oil deposits in the Onarep concession zone. By now, only Kerr-McGee remained as an active participant in the oil exploration endeavor, but its time in that arena seemed limited, not only due to the continuous pressure from the human rights community, but also by the fact that a free trade agreement between the US and Morocco explicitly encompassed only Rabat’s recognised frontiers, thus excluding Western Sahara. By 2010, attention had shifted to the export of phosphates from the territory, as natural resources campaigners sought to discourage Canada’s Potash Corporation from continuing to do business with Morocco, so far to little discernible effect. All told, the natural resource issue has been the one area where Western Sahara-oriented NGO’s (including those in the US) have encountered the greatest amount of good fortune, and so is a welcome departure from my 1994 observation that ‘…the work of any pro-Sahrawi NGO in America has often assumed the nature of a small and dedicated group preaching to the already converted (p. 276).’

As everyone advocating self-determination for Western Sahara probably knows, France generally - and the French leadership cadre in particular - has been particularly resistant to modifying its highly supportive stance on behalf of Morocco. But even here, there are a few signs of change in the form of the Fondation Danielle Mitterrand-France Libertés; as the name of the organisation suggests, the widow of the former French president is prominent in its affairs. Starting in 2002, the group has taken a position which is increasingly helpful to the Sahrawis. In October and November of that year, two France-Libertés researchers toured the Moroccan-administered areas of the territory and published a report highly critical of human rights conditions there. In July 2003, however, the organisation raised more than a few eyebrows when it alleged that the Moroccan prisoners of war held by the Polisario Front since the start of the Saharan war in 1975 had been kept in the Tindouf region for decades in utter misery and regularly suffered severe mistreatment, including forced labour and torture. Although Polisario responded strongly and in detail to the accusations, the damage to the Front’s reputation was substantial, and the report was perhaps instrumental in convincing Polisario to repatriate all of its remaining POW’s by August 2005, which had the side effect of depriving Rabat of a potent propaganda weapon with which to discredit the Sahrawis. France-Libertés drew its share of suspicion for possible pro-Moroccan bias with respect to the POW report, but when its prior criticism of Morocco is added to the equation, it appears that the organisation is either genuinely impartial or supports self-determination unreservedly. The second possibility gained added credence by the release of a letter dated 10 June 2011 addressed by France-Libertés and two other Swiss-based human rights groups to the Turkish president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). In the letter, the three groups urge the Council of Europe not to accept the Moroccan Parliament as a ‘partner for democracy’ on the grounds that Rabat’s behaviour in Western Sahara disqualifies it from such a privilege, rhetorically posing the question, ‘Do you really think that the Moroccan state shares the same values as those of the Council of Europe?’

The emergence of France-Libertés as a major presence on the Western Saharan human rights scene, from a country where backing for self-determination has previously been rather sparse, should, when all is considered, serve as encouragement that efforts to publicise the plight of the Sahrawis need not be futile, even as it remains a decidedly uphill battle and the forces arrayed against them are still formidable.

* Copyright © 2011 by Anthony G. Pazzanita. All Rights Reserved.

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* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

LINKS:

- The original letter containing the 2002 legal opinion by Hans Corell.

- UNISA 2008 Pretoria conference book, ‘Mutilateralism and International Law with Western Sahara as a Case Study’.

- YouTube videos of Hans Corell delivering his legal opinion in Stockholm in 2005: Part one and Part two.

- This secret video shows a Moroccan phosphate mine in the Occupied Territory.

The dynamics of repression and resistance

Sahrawi nationalist activism in the Moroccan occupied Western Sahara

Jacob Mundy

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76904

© Robert GriffinMorocco’s repression of Sahrawi resistance through beatings, detention, torture and disappearance has helped create and sustain a new generation of nationalist activists demanding independence, writes Jacob Mundy. All the major dissident Sahrawi civil society groups are led by past victims of repression.

INTRODUCTION

Jacob Mundy zooms our analytical lens into the phenomenon of Saharawi human rights activism defying Morocco’s repression. He charts this history through the war years (1975-1991), after the ceasefire (1991 onwards) and up to the December 2010 dawn raid by Moroccan security forces upon the Saharawi Gdeim Izik camp in the occupied territory and illuminates how Morocco’s excessive violent approach has only served to fuel the determination of each generation to continue the indigenous struggle for their fundamental human rights under international law.

Below is a selected extract, however the full article provides greater illumination on the intriguing emergence of Saharawi human rights advocates and the youth movement’s innovation of peaceful intifadas, as well as a superb analysis of the Moroccan monarchy and its ‘King of the Poor’. Full article The dynamics of repression and resistance: Sahrawi Nationalist Activism in the Moroccan occupied Western Sahara(PDF)

In 2001, renowned Moroccan author Tahar Ben Djelloun published This Blinding Absence of Light. The story — written in the first person — is based upon the experiences of a former Moroccan political prisoner, a survivor of Morocco’s most infamous ‘secret’ detention centre, Tazmamart. Located in the eastern High Atlas Mountains on the edge of the Sahara, the prison was not only boiling in summer but freezing in winter. Under international pressure, King Hassan II, who ruled from 1961 until his death in 1999, reportedly destroyed the prison in the early 1990s and released or relocated many of its inmates. Up to that point, Tazmamart had been the home of the regime’s worst political enemies, especially the participants of failed military coups in the early 1970s like the narrator of Ben Djelloun’s retelling. Yet according to This Blinding Absence of Light (Ben Djelloun 2006: 31), there was one class of prisoner that was considered even more treacherous than the putschists — Western Saharan nationalists:

‘Baba, the Saharawi who joined our group one evening, froze to death. There were two of them, tall and skinny. The other one’s name was Jama’a. He never spoke. They had arrived exhausted, probably after being tortured. They could hardly walk. A guard threw them each into a cell. ‘You sons of bitches!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve brought you company — some bigger sons of bitches, since they’re even worse traitors than you are. They say the [Western] Sahara doesn’t belong to Morocco!’’

Whether or not this aspect of the story is fiction [1], King Hassan II likewise seemed to betray a similar attitude. In his memoir, the late sultan stated firmly that, ‘I have always said that, in this country, the rights of man stopped at the question of the [Western] Sahara. Anyone who said that the Sahara was not Moroccan could not benefit from the rights of man’ (Hassan II 1993: 293).

While Moroccan elite attitudes towards Western Sahara’s nationalists tend to be hostile (to say the least), the Moroccan government has nonetheless sunk billions of dollars into the territory since 1976 — to militarily control it, to build up its infrastructure, to cultivate Loyalist Sahrawis and to subsidise the large number of Moroccan settlers of non-native origin (Damis 2000: 25; Von Hippel 1996). From 1976 to 1991, a large portion of these outlays — then heavily subsidised by France, the United States and Saudi Arabia — went towards the war against the Algerian-backed independence movement, Frente POLISARIO (Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguia el-Hamra y Río de Oro; here: Polisario). With the completion of a series of defensive barriers in 1987 (termed the Berm or Moroccan Wall of Shame), which succeeded in limiting Polisario attacks, Morocco has maintained control of roughly eighty percent of the territory.

A 1991 UN-sponsored ceasefire and two decades of subsequent diplomatic wrangling have further allowed Morocco to fortify its position in Western Sahara. Morocco’s unimpeded ability to create ‘facts on the ground’ benefits in large part from Security Council’s demonstrated unwillingness — owing to French and US support for Morocco — to confront Rabat’s occupation and colonization of Western Sahara as a clear violation of the UN Charter’s prohibition against aggression, not to mention Geneva IV’s famous Article 49 dealing with settlers. Under these conditions, one would think that the Moroccan government has been well placed to win over the hearts and minds of the native Sahrawi population over the past three and a half decades (see Thobhani 2002).[2]

During the reign of Hassan II, it was nearly impossible to gauge Morocco’s success in ridding Western Sahara of indigenous nationalist sentiment. Shortly before Morocco’s invasion, a 1975 mission of the UN General Assembly claimed that the majority of Western Saharans favored independence under Polisario. Following Spain’s definitive abandonment of the territory in February 1976, the Moroccan government generally adhered to this story: Polisario was an Algerian created mercenary army with no real constituency. And while Polisario continued to claim that the majority of native Western Saharans desired independence, this was impossible to prove. During the first half of the Morocco-Polisario dispute, Rabat’s portions of Western Sahara were strictly controlled military zones. Even following the arrival of UN peacekeepers in 1991, Western Sahara remained largely off limits to independent foreign observers. Only in the past ten years, with the relative freedom’s introduced by King Mohammed VI and, more importantly, the diffusion of new media technologies (e.g., cyber cafes, the internet, digital cameras) has the outside world been able to get a better picture of Saharawi sentiments in the occupied Sahara. These advents have allowed the rapid circulation of texts, images and video from the Moroccan zone, shedding much light on a previously opaque occupation.

For the Moroccan government, much of the new information coming out of Western Sahara did not support its claims of overwhelming native support for annexation. The first major sign that Morocco had failed to win over many Saharawis came in September 1999, when a large numbers of Saharawis took to the streets of Al-‘Ayun — the territorial capital (Shelley 2004). These demonstrations began as platforms to air social and economic grievances, but soon became political with calls for self-determination being launched. In the following years, there was a series of smaller demonstrations. Then, in May 2005, Al-‘Ayun saw some of the largest and most explicitly pro-independence demonstrations in the history of the Moroccan occupation. The famous Intifada May 2005. In the year following the ‘intifadah may’ (May uprising), the situation on the ground mutated into an almost nightly cat-and-mouse game between Sahrawi youth (sometimes brandishing the Polisario flag) and Moroccan security forces, punctuated by smaller, sporadic and sometimes spontaneous acts of defiance.


© Robert GriffinFive years later, Western Sahara witnessed, yet again, massive demonstrations for independence in late 2010. This time Sahrawi youth activists established a tent city on the outskirts of Al-‘Ayun to symbolize their socio-economic marginalization under Moroccan occupation. The camps were also a show of solidarity with the 100,000 Sahrawi refugees who have lived in exile in refugee camps in Algeria since1976. The ‘Gdeim Izik camp - many videos selections on youtube.
Interestingly, the Saharawi students and unemployed youth who participate in these decentralised and mostly uncoordinated or ‘rhizomic’ acts of resistance have grown up during the latter half of the Moroccan administration period and, unlike their parents, have no first-hand knowledge of Spanish rule or Polisario. Indeed, there is even an emerging third generation of Saharawi activists who have come of age alongside the UN presence in Western Sahara, activists who have known nothing but Moroccan occupation and visible international acquiescence to it. Though the older or first generation of Saharawi human rights — read: nationalist — activists, the ones who witnessed the Moroccan annexation firsthand and suffered the most from it, form a kind of elite, the youth increasingly constitute the most dynamic aspect of Saharawi resistance. Their open embrace of Western Saharan nationalism, without having been directly indoctrinated by Polisario, should be very disconcerting for Morocco. Morocco’s steadfast reticence to allow a referendum on independence implicitly recognizes and fuels international speculation that many Saharawis — perhaps a majority — harbour nationalist sentiments or are at least receptive to pro-independence ideas.

The failure of Morocco to coerce or convince many Western Saharans to abandon their pro-independence feelings has many roots. In addition to the overriding political complaint (for example the denial of self-determination and national rights), Western Saharan nationalists commonly point towards socio-cultural grievances (marginalisation of Saharawi culture or the ‘Moroccanization’ of Western Sahara) as well as economic factors ( unemployment or discriminatory employment practices towards Saharawis, etc). This article, however, is concerned primarily with the apparently disastrous effects of Morocco’s security policy against Saharawi civilian activists in the occupied Western Sahara.

The main claim here is that Morocco’s heavy reliance upon the tools of coercion in the occupied Western Sahara have furthered, rather than dampened, Saharawi nationalist ideals and practices. The reason for this is the formation of an activist Saharawi class whose nationalist careers are rooted in personal histories of suffering at the hand of Moroccan security policy.

The events of May 2005, and the more recent violence of November 2010, are indicative of the now permanent state of Saharawi nationalist insubordination inside the Moroccan occupied Western Sahara. Where one would never see Saharawis brandishing the flag of Polisario in the streets of Western Sahara or on Moroccan campuses before 2005, it has now become a quotidian symbol of Saharawi resistance. Meanwhile, Morocco’s well documented, consistent and continuing reflexive resort to coercion in the face of Saharawi resistance — beatings, detention, torture — has helped create, reinforce and sustain a whole new generation of nationalist activists who know nothing of Polisario firsthand yet embrace its project of independence.

Indeed, it is easy enough to see the relationship between Morocco’s overly coercive security policy in the occupied Western Sahara and the resistance it has engendered. All the major dissident Sahrawi civil society groups are human rights organization led by past victims of repression, especially the former disappeared. In addition to sustaining and invigorating the very resistance it seeks to abolish, Morocco’s excessively coercive approach towards addressing the problem of Western Saharan nationalism has had another important effect. These cycles of repression and resistance have only helped further convince the Sahrawi refugees in Algeria that they are better off in the camps waiting for independence. Thus it goes without saying that both these trends do not augur well for a consensual resolution of the conflict. They instead point towards something bleaker.

NOTES
[1]. Contrary to Ben Jelloun’s second-hand account, some Sahrawi rights activists dispute the claim that there were any Western Saharans held in Tazmamart. Other Sahrawi activists, however, have heard rumors that there was a special section of Tazmamart reserved for Western Saharan nationalists.
[2]. In Arabic, Sahrawi sing.; Sahrawa plural. The terms Sahrawi and Western Saharan are often used interchangeably though there are ethnic Sahrawi populations native to southern Morocco, western Algeria and Mauritania. In this paper, the term Western Saharan will refer to a Sahrawi native to Western Sahara, whereas a Sahrawi will mean either an ethnic Sahrawi (generally) or a Western Saharan.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This paper was originally presented at the 2008 annual meeting of the International Studies Association in San Francisco. I would like to thank the organizer of the panel, Yahia Zoubir, comments from David Sorenson and co-panellists Karima Benabdallah‐Gambier and Stephen Zunes. I would also like to thank a very special Sahrawi, Mohammed Brahim (pseudonym), for his comments on an earlier draft, as well as other Sahrawi informants who wish to remain anonymous.

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* Jacob Mundy is assistant professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, Colgate University.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

'Do not forget us'

Spotlight on a Sahrawi prisoner of conscience

Claude Mangin

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76898

© ASVDHEnaama Asfari’s persecution by Moroccan authorities, recounted here by his wife Claude Mangin, illustrates the horrible extent to which the occupying power will go to quash Sahrawi resistance. But true freedom fighters will not give up until they liberate their homeland.

INTRODUCTION

Enaama Asfari is currently in Salé prison in Rabat from where he is unable to get any messages out to foreign observers. His wife, Claude Mangin in France, has given us permission to publish a selection of text from her records of his human rights advocacy work, and arrests and his diaries: The first between 2007-2009 and more recently since November 2010 to the present day. Enaama is one of the prominent human rights activists in the occupied territory and was famously arrested and imprisoned for carrying a key-ring that had a small plastic flag of Western Sahara. Here is his story.

A FAMILY OF RESISTANCE FIGHTERS

His father, like his paternal grandfather, was a great desert nomad, free men who had never pledged allegiance to anyone, neither the French nor the Spanish colonisers. He was a trader with a great mercantile caravan that travelled across the vast desert cities of Gao, Timbuktu and Marrakech. He was rich with a caravan of camels and many shops.

In 1976, Abdi Ould Moussa was 40 years old. Shortly after the Green March came the start of numerous abductions and disappearances, especially in Tan Tan where all families were affected, and whose consequences are still felt by their children. The Moroccan army installed themselves after the withdrawal of Spanish troops. Abdi was removed from his shop in front of his son, then aged six years, to whom he gave the keys and said, ‘Go to your mother’. All his property was confiscated. He disappeared for 16 long years in the prisons of Agdez and Kelaat M'gouna, in the famous ‘Valley of Roses’ in eastern Morocco near Ouarzazate.

In 1978, his mother, Moguef Ment M'Hamed, a female icon of the Saharawi resistance, was also arrested in Rabat, the capital of the Kingdom of Morocco, when she accompanied a group of Saharawi women to learn about the fate of their husbands. These women were deported to the town of Tan-Tan where Enaama’s mother spent more than two months in prison. When she was released, the authorities imposed on her house arrest in Tan Tan. She was 30 years old and a mother of four; Ennaama is the eldest of them.

Ennaama's mother, who was seven months pregnant during the arrest of her husband, lost her 15-days-old baby. She then fell ill with cancer and Ennaama and his brothers were supported by their uncles. Ennaama grew up in the house of his maternal grandfather in the oasis of Laksabi. He went to school in the village where his grandfather was the teacher of Arabic since the 1950s, when he was obliged to move his family to relocate to Guelmim to allow Ennaama to go to college. Marked as a son of political resistance, he was forbidden to attend the boarding school.

In 1981, his uncle, Brahim Bellagha, the brother of his mother, was taken from Tan Tan with a group of young Saharawi. They were incarcerated in the prison of Tan Tan where Moguef visited and supported them. He was then led to an unknown destination for 10 years of enforced disappearance in the same prison as his father. He remains today in exile in the region of Paris; he never returned home. Ennaama’s other uncle, the brother of Brahim, Mohamed Ali Bellagha, a teacher, is prohibited from living in Guelmim; he is relegated to Smara where he founded a school and moved to Dakhla when denied further residence in Smara.


© ASVDHIn 1991 his father was released with more than 300 victims of enforced disappearance on the eve of the launch of the United Nations resolution forcing the Moroccan regime to release all Saharawi disappeared. He was released in Tan Tan. This is where Ennaama went to see if his father was among the released. He had to be shown who his unrecognisable father was. His father is now an old man, still a fighter and highly respected. He lives in Tan Tan and is permanently under surveillance especially when he receives foreigners, such as the French girl who was arrested in April 2008 and was put in custody for 12 hours at the police station of Tan Tan before being expelled with observers, including a member of ACAT (Action of Christians for the Abolition of Torture and the Death Penalty), who had come to the trial of her husband in Marrakech. His father assists with all the trials of the Sahrawi youth and is at the helm to popularise the struggle for self-determination and independence.

ENAAMA’S HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY BACKGROUND

Enaama arrived in France in 1999 with a scholarship to study law and French at the Alliance Française in Paris. He already held a degree in International Law in Arabic from the University of Marrakech, an academic subject that many male and female Sahrawi students still choose. He went on to obtain a postgraduate diploma in International Public Law from the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences at Paris X-Nanterre University, in ‘Human rights and public freedoms’. His thesis was entitled, ‘The future of MINURSO, the United Nations Mission for the referendum in Western Sahara’. It was at this time that we met in Paris. We married on 20 October 2003 at Tan-Tan, his hometown; the marriage was recorded in the Consulate of Agadir. He holds a 10-year residence card which was issued by the Prefecture of Créteil as being that of the matrimonial home.

In May 2005 the intifada [uprising] of independence started. In late May, his brother Khadad, who worked with him in their car rental business that they had created in Marrakech was arrested at home. He disappeared for three days before being released. He had been taken blindfolded with other Saharawi students in Rabat to be interviewed.

In September 2005, some months after the beginning of the May 2005 ‘intifada for independence’ uprisings across the territory of Western Sahara, Enaama participated in the creation of a new French-Sahraoui association, CORELSO (Committee for the respect of liberties and human rights in Western Sahara), of which he was elected co-chair with Aline Pailler, to raise awareness in French public opinion of the gross violations of human rights suffered by Saharawi citizens in the occupied territories.

Since then, CORELSO has been extensively involved as a human rights monitor, in particular by attending the trials of Sahrawi political prisoners that have occurred since 2005 in Morocco and the Western Sahara, and by accompanying delegations of civil society and legal observers and foreign journalists who attend the trials and make visits to families of the political prisoners. In 2006, Enama participated in Morocco and Western Sahara as an observer, along with groups of international observers, in most of the political trials of the Sahrawi.

In September 2007, he ‘disappeared’ for 72 hours in Agadir. He had spent three days on the premises of the DST [one of a number of Moroccan security forces]. Whenever stopped, his car is confiscated; it is most difficult to recover it during his detention and there are heavy fines. Since then he has continued to suffer harassment. At every turn, he is questioned for hours at airports on his activities in France in which the Moroccan secret services are well informed of. For example, he was arrested by Moroccan police in Laayoune on 20 May 2007 and held for 10 hours in a police station.

After participating in July 2009 with a group of Sahrawi in the 3rd Festival of Pan-African Culture in Algiers, he was arrested again on 14 August 2009 at the northern checkpoint entrance of the city of Tan Tan. During this routine check, police officers noticed that on the key-chain that Enaama Asfari carries was a small flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic [the nation-state in exile]. He was arrested and sentenced by the court to four months in closed prison and transferred to Tiznit prison.

RECORD OF ARRESTS 2007-2009


© ASVDHEnaama was first arrested on 6 January 2007 at the police station at the entrance to the city of Smara, while in the final stage of a family visit by my parents over Christmas. The day before, I had returned to college in France, where I heard about his arrest. After some days under arrest, he was released after being sentenced to a two-month suspended prison sentence with a fine, in a trial that took place in Smara and which had been attended by international observers such as Daniel Voduet.

Enaama was arrested a second time on Sunday 13 April 2008 and ‘disappeared’ from the apartment he rented in Guéliz, a district of Marrakech. He ‘reappeared’ on 16 April 2008 in Boulmharez prison. I had already arranged a civilian monitoring mission participating in human rights among other things, from ACAT. We started as scheduled on Sunday 20 April, but instead of going to the south we went to Marrakech where we could attend the trial of my husband on Monday 21 April with international observers. At the end of the hearing which postponed the trial for eight days, France Weyl and I were met by our request by the president of the tribunal and the king's public prosecutor and by Mr Wiet, the French Consul. The next day, I went to see my husband in prison and I found the marks of the beatings he had received during his abduction which I communicated to Amnesty International. The following Monday, in the presence of international observers and France Weyl and Aline Chanu, he was sentenced to two months in a closed prison and a fine of 3000 dirhams. He was released on 13 June 2008, after a trial of appeal which upheld his sentence.

Three days later, the monitoring mission that I was driving was stopped behind the house of my parents in Tan Tan and after 12 hours of custody at the police station, we continued at night to the airport of Agadir to await the arrival of Mr Perrier of the French Consulate but we were expelled for ‘disturbing public order’. Minister Kouchner responded to the letters sent by participants of the mission. Their parliamentarians whom they had alerted were particularly shocked by the way we had been treated.

Enaama was arrested a third time on 14 August 2009 in the evening at the north entrance to the Tan security post when he joined me with the new civilian monitoring mission I was driving. We saw the same night security guards; he was beaten during his arrest and his glasses were broken. The trial took place on 24 August in the presence of Aline Chanu and other international observers but was postponed to 28 August where it took place in the presence of observers, including Sylvie Bourjon. Enaama was sentenced to four months by the court of the town. He was transferred to the prison of Tiznit and made his appeal. In addition to international observers, a delegation of five of our fellow French citizens of Ivry sur Seine, including two municipal officials and a priest of the Mission of Francesont, went to his appeal hearing on 17 November 2009. He was released on 14 December 2009, at the end of his sentence.
Video-interview in November 2010 at Gdeim Izik camp
Videos of Morocco’s brutal dawn raid

RECORD OF ARRESTS 2010-2011

Recently, in October 2010, my husband had a prominent presence in the Gdeim Izik ‘freedom camp’ of 8000 tents in the vicinity of El Aaiun video of Morocco’s brutal dawn raid on the camp ]. The Sahrawi call it the ‘camp of pride and dignity’, where he helped to make known what was happening by explaining the objectives of this new movement of resistance, exceptional by its magnitude. He travelled back and forth to Laayoune, while the camp was besieged by the Moroccan Army, to edit videos with photographic images and interviews he had filmed in the campt o upload them to the internet for the international observers and media. video interview transmitted from Gdeim Izik camp November 2010

As the airwaves were jammed in the camp by the Moroccan authorities, he also kept returning to Laayoune in order to send news to his family and to me and make calls to the media and friends of the international solidarity associations, hoping in vain to avoid what finally happened on 8 November 2010 when the Moroccan security forces dismantled the camp by force. On 7 November 2010, my husband was in Laayoune, where he was being tracked down. He was hiding with friends when he called me at 8.15pm to give me his new mobile number. He wanted me to communicate with friends and in particular to the French delegation that was expected to arrive the same night in Laayoune, his other number having become too well known by the Moroccan security services.
But Deputy Mayor Jean-Paul Lecoq was at that moment already being held by the Moroccan authorities at the airport in Casablanca, where he stayed overnight before being expelled, as his visit to Laayoune for evidence of the events was something the Moroccan government did not want.

Meanwhile, Madam Marie Thérèse Marchand, commissioned by the Association of Friends of SADR to accompany Deputy Mayor Lecocq, arrived at Laayoune at two o’clock in the morning. Having not been identified by the Moroccan authorities, she remained 24 hours in the town and was witness to much of the violence. At 8.20pm, police entered the home of the friends of my husband, beat him and took him unconscious to an unknown location. Then nothing, no more contact with my husband, and no information from the Moroccan authorities to his family or to me. From Paris, thanks to calls from our Saharawi friends and Marie Thérèse Marchand, we watched from a distance the Black Monday of 8 November2010, the tragic attack and the dismantling of the camp of Gdeim Izik, the clashes in the streets of Laayoune and the mass arrests of Saharawi civilians. The following days were full of anguish. I was contacted by numerous French and foreign media and by international associations of human rights in search of information on this event which was a ‘surprise’ to many observers even though we had alerted them to the possibilities for several weeks.

Friday 12 November 2010, or five long days of waiting for me and the family, I finally got news at about 3.30pm. Witnesses had seen my husband at 5am in the morning in court in Laayoune with other inmates, half-naked, wearing only shorts, his body covered with traces of the ill-treatment. He was alive! Without a hearing or lawyers, the Attorney General of the King decided to transmit the records of Ennaama and the 5 other prisoners to the Military Tribunal of Rabat and transfer them there the same day. Two days later, they were joined by two more.


© ASVDHOn Sunday 14 November, I learnt that nine Saharawi detainees including Ennaama had arrived in Rabat’s Salé prison from Laayoune. They were incarcerated in an annex of Zaki prison, recently built for the exclusive imprisonment of terrorists and Islamists, this detention centre being under the responsibility of General Information and not of the Ministry of Justice. This would put them in a critically serious situation. For eight days after that, no witnesses saw them, no information was available; they are truly missing.

On February 3, 2011, a message was received from Enaama in Salé prison in Rabat, which read: ‘I ask everyone I know in the world to help us exercise our right as political prisoners, because until now the Sahrawi are isolated from other prisoners. We cannot send letters, we cannot do sports, almost no eating because of unsanitary [conditions] and many have consequences of torture. We need your media broadcasting, do not forget us. Thank you.’

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* Testimonies collected by C. Mangin, in a civilian mission of observation of human rights in the Moroccan occupied territory of Western Sahara 2005-2007. To be printed in a forthcoming novel.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Western Sahara and the United Nations norms on self-determination and aggression

Roger S Clark

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76902

© Paulo Nunes dos SantosThe right of the people of Western Sahara to decide their own destiny has historically encountered two major obstacles: Spain’s efforts to divide the territory between Morocco and Mauritania and invasion of the territory by the two countries, writes Roger S Clark.

INTRODUCTION

Roger S. Clark makes a meticulous investigation into the norms of self-determination as defined by the United Nation’s 1960 Resolution 1541 (XV). Here we have selected extracts from his article that convey the complexities which international jurists face in determining the meaning and application of international law. Clark is one of many respected international jurists who examine the case of Western Sahara to challenge Morocco’s claim to the territory and show how Western Sahara’s rightful decolonisation process has been frozen contrary to the conventions of international law.

THE NORMS ON SELF-DETERMINATION

Resolution 1541 (XV) notes that ‘[t]he authors of the Charter of the United Nations had in mind that Chapter XI [which includes Article 73] should be applicable to territories which were then known to be of the colonial type.’ It asserts that ‘prima facie there is an obligation to transmit information in respect of a territory which is geographically separate and is distinct ethnically and/or culturally from the country administering it.’ It continues:

‘Once it has been established that such a prima facie case of geographical and ethnical or cultural distinctness of a territory exists, other elements may then be brought into consideration. These additional elements may be, inter alia, of an administrative, political, juridical, economic or historical nature. If they affect the relationship between the metropolitan state and the territory concerned in a manner which arbitrarily places the latter in a position or status of subordination, they support the presumption that there is an obligation to transmit information under Article 73 e of the Charter.’

In what is usually regarded as a more radical statement of principle, adopted also in 1960, the general assembly asserted in its resolution 1514 (XV), the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, that ‘[i]mmediate steps shall be taken, in trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories or all other territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer all powers to the peoples of those territories, without any conditions or reservations, in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire, without any distinction as to race, creed or colour, in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom.’

Resolution 1514 (XV) apparently proceeded on the basis that ‘everyone knows’ a colony when they see it. Western Sahara certainly looked like one. Moreover, if one applied the more moderate approach of Resolution 1541 (XV), Western Sahara rather plainly fit both the prima facie case and also exhibited the ‘additional elements’ placing it ‘in a position or status of subordination’. Spain, unlike Portugal, conceded the point and the General Assembly included Western Sahara in its list of Spanish non-self-governing territories. It is noteworthy that in its first resolution dealing with the territory, and in subsequent resolutions, the Security Council also saw fit to refer to the decolonization norms. When first seized of Western Sahara in 1975, the council reaffirmed ‘the terms of General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960 and all other relevant General Assembly resolutions on the Territory’.

Resolution 1541 (XV) spoke also to the ways in which the colonial status might be terminated by the territory reaching a ‘full measure of self government’. This could occur, in terms of the Resolution by emergence as a sovereign independent state, by free association with an independent state or by integration with an independent state. The option of integration is the subject of two fairly detailed provisions aimed at ensuring that the choice to that effect is genuine and on a basis of equality. Principle VIII insists that integration ‘should be on the basis of complete equality between the peoples of the erstwhile Non-Self-Governing Territory and those of the independent country with which it is integrated.’
Principle IX adds: ‘Integration should have come about in the following circumstances:

a. The integrating territory should have attained an advanced stage of self-government with free political institutions, so that its peoples would have the capacity to make a responsible choice through informed and democratic processes;

b. The integration should be the result of the freely expressed wishes of the Territory’s peoples acting with full knowledge of the change in their status, their wishes having been expressed through informed and democratic processes, impartially conducted and based on adult suffrage. The United Nations could, when it deems it necessary, supervise the process.’

The attempt to carry out an appropriate referendum for Western Sahara under United Nations auspices should be seen in this light.

Underscoring the right to self-determination of colonial territories, including independence if that is what its people desires, the general assembly’s Declaration on Friendly Relations and Cooperation insists that the territories are separate international legal persons:
’The territory of a colony or other Non-Self-Governing-Territory has, under the Charter, a status separate and distinct from the territory of the State administering it; and such separate and distinct status under the Charter shall exist until the people of the Non-Self-Governing Territory have exercised their right of self-determination in accordance with the Charter, and particularly its purposes and principles.’

The right of the people of Western Sahara to decide upon their own destiny has historically encountered two major obstacles. The first involved Spain’s efforts to divide the territory up between Morocco and Mauritania, rather than empowering the people to decide their future (the so-called Madrid Agreement of 14 November 1975). The second was the invasion, both en masse and militarily, of the territory by Morocco and Mauritania, continued by Morocco after Mauritania’s concession of defeat. Morocco, as I understand it, currently occupies some 80 per cent of the territory.

Spain’s attempted division of the spoils requires only a brief comment or two. In the first place, Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter, the Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories, insists that administering powers ‘recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost, within the system of international peace and security established by the present Charter, the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories.’ Among the corollaries of this general principle that are listed in the Charter is the obligation ‘to develop self-government to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples....’ It is difficult to see how the holder of a sacred trust along these lines can fulfil the trust by dividing up the national territory among others! Moreover, bearing in mind the distinct legal personality of the territory, someone else can hardly give it away. It is rather an obvious case of res inter alios acta’

The Moroccan invasions were an obvious breach of the United Nations principles on self-determination. Consider for example this statement in the Declaration on Friendly Principles and Cooperation: ‘Every State has the duty to promote, through joint and separate action, realization of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter, and to render assistance to the United Nations in carrying out the responsibilities entrusted to it by the Charter regarding the implementation of the principle....’ Morocco and Mauritania sought to avoid the application of resolutions 1514 and 1541 by arguing that there were legal ties between them and Western Sahara in the period before Spanish colonization of the area that precluded the application of an option of independence. In its advisory opinion on this, the International Court of Justice emphasized that ‘General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) provided the basis for the process of decolonization which has resulted since 1960 in the creation of many States which are today Members of the United Nations. It is complemented in certain of its aspects by General Assembly resolution 1541 (XV), which has been invoked in the present proceedings.’ The court places great emphasis on the right of free choice of destiny but also concedes that in some cases independence was not an option:

‘The validity of the principle of self-determination, defined as the need to pay regard to the freely expressed will of peoples, is not affected by the fact that in certain cases the general assembly has dispensed with the requirement of consulting the inhabitants of a given territory. Those instances were based either on the consideration that a certain population did not constitute a ‘people’ entitled to self-determination or on the conviction that a consultation was totally unnecessary, in view of special circumstances.’

It is clear from the context that one of the ‘certain cases’ that the court had in mind was the coastal enclave of Spanish Ifni, a territory that the General Assembly had treated differently from Western Sahara from the early days of consideration of the item, namely between 1966 and Ifni’s retrocession to Morocco in 1969. Ifni was a clear-cut acquisition from Morocco during the colonial period, in what we might now characterize as an unequal treaty. As the court points out, in 1966 Spain said in the Committee of 24 that it favoured decolonization of Western Sahara through the exercise of the right to self-determination of the population. The court describes this as receiving at the time the ‘support of Mauritania and the assent of Morocco’. As to Ifni, Spain had suggested establishing contact with Morocco as a preliminary step. Morocco suggested then, as later, that the decolonization of Ifni should be brought into line with Paragraph 6 of Resolution 1514 (XV). That paragraph is both the bastion of those defending against efforts at secession and the lifeline of those who advance irredentist claims on their neighbours. It was to be a significant part of Morocco’s later arguments to acquire Western Sahara. Its application there, given the historical differences in the relationships between those territories and the state of Morocco, is of a different order. Ifni passed by treaty from Morocco to Spain; Western Sahara passed by treaty from the Saharawi groups to Spain. The Assembly’s resolutions over the next couple of years reflected this different approach to the two territories, which seems to have been widely accepted. Rather blandly, the court comments that: ‘Since 1969 Ifni, having been decolonized by transfer to Morocco, has no longer appeared in the resolutions of the Assembly.’ It is against this background that the court’s treatment of the legal ties between Western Sahara on the one hand and Morocco and Mauritania on the other has to be understood.

The court found ultimately that, at the time of Spanish colonization, there were ‘legal ties of allegiance between the Sultan of Morocco and some of the tribes living in the territory of Western Sahara’(emphasis added). There were also ‘rights, including some rights relating to the land, which constituted legal ties between the Mauritanian entity, as understood by the Court, and the territory of Western Sahara.’ Nonetheless, the court’s holding that these did not amount to the kind of rights that affected the application of the right to an exercise of self-determination was emphatic:

‘On the other hand, the court’s conclusion is that the materials and information presented to it do not establish any tie of territorial sovereignty between the territory of Western Sahara and the Kingdom of Morocco or the Mauritanian entity. Thus the court has not found legal ties of such a nature as might affect the application of resolution 1514 (XV) in the decolonization of Western Sahara and, in particular, of the principle of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory...’

An aspect of self-determination is sovereignty over natural resources. In November 2001, the members of the security council requested the opinion of the United Nations legal counsel on ‘the legality in the context of international law, including relevant resolutions of the security council and the general assembly of the United Nations, and agreements concerning Western Sahara of actions taken by the Moroccan authorities consisting in the offering and signing of contracts with foreign companies for the exploration of mineral resources in Western Sahara.’ This led the legal counsel into considering the status of Western Sahara and the status of Morocco in relation to it. It caused him also to analyze the principles of international law governing mineral resource activities in non-self-governing territories. The legal counsel was at pains to insist that the non-self-governing status of Western Sahara had continued notwithstanding the Madrid Agreement of 1975, Spain’s 26 February 1976 announcement that it had terminated its presence, and the withdrawal of Mauritania in August of 1979. He commented coyly that, since 1979, ‘Morocco has administered the Territory of Western Sahara alone. Morocco, however, is not listed as the administering Power of the Territory in the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, and has, therefore, not transmitted information on the Territory in accordance with Article 73 e of the Charter of the United Nations.’ Given these considerations he thought it ‘appropriate for the purposes of the present analysis to have regard to the principles applicable to the powers and responsibilities of an administering Power in matters of mineral resource activities in such a Territory.’ In considering this, he examined in particular recent state practice and that of the general assembly addressing the question whether the principle of permanent sovereignty prohibits any activities related to natural resources undertaken in a non-self-governing territory or only those which are undertaken in disregard of the needs, interests and benefits of the people of that territory. He came to the conclusion that the latter is the case:

‘The recent State practice, though limited, is illustrative of an opinio juris on the part of both administering Powers and third States: where resource exploitation activities are conducted in Non-Self-Governing Territories for the benefit of the peoples of those Territories, on their behalf or in consultation with their representatives, they are considered compatible with the Charter obligations of the administering Power and in conformity with the General Assembly resolutions and the principle of ‘permanent sovereignty over natural resources’ enshrined therein.’

His ultimate conclusion was of small comfort to Morocco and its contractual partners: ‘while the specific contracts which are the subject of the Security Council’s request are not in themselves illegal, if further exploration and exploitation activities were to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, they would be in violation of the principles of international law applicable to mineral resource activities in Non-Self-Governing Territories.’

THE NORMS ON AGGRESSION

One might have thought that the Moroccan invasions were equally a breach of the charter provisions concerning the use of force, notably the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2, paragraph 4, and the provisions of Chapter VII concerning threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression. It is particularly telling to examine those actions against the General Assembly’s 1974 Definition of Aggression, which was intended as a definitive interpretation of the meaning of aggression within the meaning of the Charter. It is drafted in the form of a recommendation on the factors that the Security Council should take into account in determining the existence of an act of aggression for its purposes. It also has wider implications and it provides a key element in efforts to draft a provision concerning aggression for the purposes of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The structure of resolution 3314 is somewhat similar to that of resolution 1541. Article 2 is a presumption: the first use of armed force by a state in contravention of the Charter shall constitute prima facie evidence of an act of aggression. The Security Council may, however, conclude that a determination that an act of aggression has been committed would not be justified in the light of other relevant circumstances. The only possible ‘relevant circumstance’ in the present context is that Morocco was justified in ‘taking back’ something that belonged to it in the pre-colonial era. As we have seen, that argument appeared to be closed to Morocco after the Advisory Proceedings in the International Court of Justice. But that did not deter it from making the argument and emphasizing the ‘ties’ that had preceded the colonial period. Article 3 of the 1974 Resolution reinforces Article 2 by setting out a list of ‘acts’ that ‘shall, subject to and in accordance with the provisions of Article 2, qualify as an act of aggression.’ Most relevant is paragraph (a):

‘The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion or attack, or any annexation by the use of force of the territory of another State or part thereof.’

It is hard to escape the implications of this definition for Morocco’s actions. The political nature of the choices in which the security council engages in dealing with particular cases is perhaps underscored by the failure of the security council to condemn this breach of the charter and invoke the sanctions of Chapter VII of the Charter. The Council has, rather, consistently sought to characterize the matter as one involving a dispute and thus subject to Chapter VI’s dispute settlement mechanisms. It has thus also failed to address the application of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. In particular, the population movements of Moroccans into the occupied territory should be measured against Article 49’s assertion that, ‘The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.’

THE NORMS AND THIRD STATES

A further aspect of the matter that requires mention is the attitude of third states. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa expressed his attitude on it concisely in a letter to King Mohamed VI of Morocco explaining that he was making operational a long-standing policy to give diplomatic recognition to the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). Referring to the Moroccan statement that ‘the final nature of the autonomy solution is not negotiable,’ the president insisted that ‘[t]he avoidable cul-de-sac caused by the positions advanced by the Government of Morocco has created the situation that any further delay on our part to recognise SADR will inevitably translate into an abandonment of our support of the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination.’

He continued:‘For us not to recognize SADR in this situation is to become an accessory to the denial of the people of Western Sahara of their right to self-determination. This would constitute a grave and unacceptable betrayal of our own struggle, of the solidarity Morocco extended to us and our commitment to respect the Charter of the United Nations and the constitutive act of the African Union.’

A version of the ‘accessory’ issue is expressed in the General Assembly’s Definition of Aggression, article 5, paragraph 3, which insists that ‘No territorial acquisition or special advantage resulting from aggression is or shall be recognized as lawful.’ I have argued in discussing the situation in East Timor that this provision in the Definition of Aggression and similar provisions in other instruments represent an international customary law obligation on third states. Since I wrote on the subject, the International Law Commission has completed its Articles on State Responsibility. While the Commission abandoned the position taken in its earlier drafts that there were cases of substantial violations of the obligations of states that it was appropriate to characterise as ‘criminal’, the commission retained a Chapter (comprising Articles 40 and 41) in its Articles dealing with ‘Serious breaches of obligations under peremptory norms of general international law.’ There is no doubt that the norms dealing with self-determination and aggression fit this category, and the express provisions of the Articles support the argument that I made in respect of East Timor and its application to Western Sahara. Article 41 speaks to ‘Particular consequences of a serious breach of an obligation under this chapter.’

Paragraph 1 asserts that States shall cooperate to bring to an end through lawful means any serious breach within the meaning of Article 40. Paragraph 2 insists that no state shall recognize as lawful a situation created by a serious breach within the meaning of Article 40, nor render aid or assistance in maintaining that situation. It will be noticed that the duty of non-recognition is one that goes beyond the kinds of active complicity invoked by the words ‘aid or assistance’ and rejects passive assistance by acquiescence. The failure of political will represented by permitting Morocco to remain in place represents a failure to give effect to the requirement of Article 41 of the Articles on State Responsibility.

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The tea struggle: Lessons from a Saharawi ritual

Senia Bachir Abderahman

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76903

© Robert GriffinYoung Senia has spoken before delegates of the UN Special Political and Decolonization Committee and met with politicians and NGOs in the UK, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Here she explains parallels between the Sahrawi tea ritual and the people’s quest for freedom.

I am 22 years old and was born and grew up in the refugee camps, specifically in Smara camp. I graduated from Mount Holyoke College, United States, with a BA degree in Biological Science May 2010 and I just finished a program in journalism from Jakobsberg College in Stockholm, Sweden.

Part 1 – Senia challenging a US law firm on Moroccan phosphates plunder.
Part 2 – Senia challenging a US law firm on Moroccan phosphates plunder.

One of the greatest characteristics of the Saharawi culture is that of our tea ceremony. It is special and unique to the Saharawi people. It is a time of unity, celebration, discussion and filling-up free time. Family members, neighbours, relatives or simply people passing by gather around to chat about everything and nothing while they enjoy a cup of the special tea. ‘et-tay’, meaning tea in Hassaniya, the Saharawi native Arabic dialect, is made up of three cups and each one represents something different. The first cup is bitter as life, the second is sweet as love and the third is soft as death. The tea ceremony can take a few minutes to make or, even better, last for hours. Video showing special Saharawi tea making ceremony and Saharawi talking about the cultural and political importance of their tea-making

et-tay is also the perfect parallel to the Saharawi struggle for freedom and independence. This struggle could be divided into three stages and during each period the Saharawi people drunk from one of et-tay’s three cups. Even though the Saharawi struggle has gone through these stages in a different order from that of et-tay, still a great comparison can be drawn between the two.


© Andrew McConnellThe bitter stage began with the Spanish colonization, which lasted for nearly a century. When the Spanish left Western Sahara, Saharawi’s celebrations of freedom did not last long before the double invasion led by their neighbours Morocco and Mauritania ripped the country apart. The latter withdrew in 1979 and Morocco took over the whole territory, which it continues to occupy until today. During the bloody war with Morocco, which lasted for years, mothers lost their sons, children lost their parents and families separated from their loved ones. During this period, the Saharawi people drunk from the bitter cup. Then the Saharawi struggle entered its soft stage, which is not so soft but a lot like death. This period is the time of waiting in one of the most unbearable corners of the planet. Softly and quietly, the Saharawis wait for the international community to act upon their case. For more than three decades, the Saharawi refugees in southwest of Algeria have been dependent on the outside world. Food, water, clothes and health care are basic necessities that we have no control over. This stage of our struggle is – as we say in Hassaniya – the slow death. These were the first two stages of the struggle. However, the question is, when will the Saharawis enjoy that last sweet cup of freedom and independence?

As the et-tay may take a few minutes or as long as hours to finish and enjoy the last cup, so it could take the Saharawi struggle to be rewarded with justice and freedom. Similarly, the Western Sahara conflict could have taken only few years, if not months, to be resolved. Instead, it took decades to even think of a solution. Either way, the Saharawi struggle will enter its third stage sooner than later. It is everyone’s responsibly in the world to help the Saharawi people to finish their last cup of struggle. It is a process that would require the unity of the Saharawis, the neighbours, the strangers and the international community to achieve.

As it is said in Arabic: ‘There is an end to everything’, and so it is the time for the Saharawi people to get their share of justice and freedom. So let’s not give up the hope of enjoying the last cup of this struggle and the reward of freedom.

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Palestine and Western Sahara

A comparative analysis of both disputes and the applicable law

Juan Soroeta Liceras

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76901

© Andrew McConnellFor four decades the UN has clearly and repeatedly affirmed the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination, writes Juan Soroeta Liceras. Morocco’s continued occupation of Western Sahara violates international law, just like the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

‘Little is said about the wall that the United States has raised on the Mexican border and little is said of the fences in Ceuta and Melilla. Almost nothing is spoken of the wall in the West Bank, which perpetuates Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands, and yet it will be a little over 15 times longer than the Berlin wall. And nothing, nothing at all, is spoken of the wall of Morocco that has perpetuated Morocco’s occupation of the Western Sahara for 20 years. This wall, land-mined from end to end and guarded by thousands of soldiers from end to end, measures 60 times longer than the Berlin wall. Why are these walls so high-flown and so mute? Are they the walls of incommunication that the mass media of communication build every day?’ Eduardo Galeano

Blog full of information about the Berm
Landmine Action’s presence near the Berm and their video about Sahrawi
Victims of the Moroccan Berm and its landmines

1. INTRODUCTION

On 9 July 2004 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on the illegality of the construction of the wall that Israel has been raising in the Palestinian occupied territories. It was 36 years ago (16 October 1975) that the ICJ considered the possibility of rights of sovereignty by Morocco and Mauritania over the territory of Western Sahara. ICJ’s webpages with all the international legal documents Three decades separate these two opinions of the court, which could not act within its litigious function to dictate any obligatory judgement to these two states, because they both openly violate international law, and that neither Morocco nor Israel supports its jurisdiction.

So, although it must be recognised that, strictly speaking, neither of the two court opinions legally bind the two states, so too is it beyond doubt that both opinions constitute a clarification on the legal status of both territories and on the two states occupying them. On the other hand, it should be recalled that the international literature which has addressed the analysis of the advisory opinions of the court has highlighted the fact that, despite their non-binding value, in practice it tends to give ‘a similar, if not identical, value to the judgements’, possessing an ‘indubitable legal, political and moral value’. Since the court had the opportunity in extenso to comment at length about a case which parallels with the Saharawi, this paper analyses whether some of the findings are equally comparable to it, and the extent to which they apply to the Western Sahara issue.

2. ISRAEL AND MOROCCO ARE OCCUPYING POWERS

The court has no hesitation on this claim in the Palestinian case, especially as Israel claims to be the sovereign of what is otherwise commonly referred to as the occupied territories. In the Western Sahara issue, it is clear that the legal position of Morocco is an occupying power. If, as in 1975 the court established clearly, Morocco possesses no title or any right to sovereignty over the territory, there is no other option but to affirm that, if it continues in a territory that does not belong to it, then it is occupying it illegally. Morocco aims to be the administering power of the territory, a claim that unfortunately has maliciously and repeatedly been shared on several occasions by senior members of successive Spanish governments. The truth is that the United Nations, far from recognising Morocco as the administering power, has on various occasions objected to such an unauthorized occupation. The colonial Spanish withdrawal would have required the delivery of the territory to its inhabitants, either through a referendum on self-determination, as occurred in the vast majority of colonial African territories, or by a provisional administration of the United Nations, but never in an agreement in concert with Morocco and Mauritania, followed with a military occupation by them.

The implementation of the Madrid Accords led to a situation of constant violation of international law, since it led to an occupation, firstly on the part of Morocco, and then after Mauritania’s withdrawal from the territory, whereas the resolution 2625 (XXV) establishes it does ‘not recognize as legal any territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force’, a statement that reminded the court of its 2004 opinion. So, even before Morocco occupied the territory through the Green March, the Security Council had requested that the march was not carried out, and once made, urged it to withdraw.

From another point, resolutions of various bodies of the United Nations have expressly qualified the situation as occupation. In this regard, remember that when, after Mauritania’s withdrawal from the conflict, Morocco occupied this part of the territory which Mauritania left, that the General Assembly resolution 34/37 of the UN on 21 November 1979 legitimized the armed POLISARIO Front struggle, profoundly deploring ‘the worsening situation, as a result of the persistent occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco, and the extension of the occupation into the territory recently evacuated by Mauritania’. Similarly, there is resolution 12 (XXXVII) of 6 March 1981, of the Commission on Human Rights on ‘Denial to the people of Western Sahara of their right to self-determination and other human rights as a result of the occupation of their territory by Morocco’, in which it stated it ‘deplores the continuing occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco.’

In accordance with the United Nations, the territory of Western Sahara is a non-autonomous territory, pending, therefore, on decolonization. The issue remains under review annually before the Commission on Decolonisation. Among other reasons, this is why, after 30 years of occupation, no state has recognised the annexation of Western Sahara by Morocco. If somehow United Nations had come to recognise the nature of administering power in Morocco, it is clear that any state – at least its major allies, see France – would have proceeded to recognise the annexation.

Furthermore, as regards the legal position of Spain, it is worth remembering that, as noted on several occasions by the UN general assembly, ‘in the absence of a decision by the General Assembly itself, in the sense that a non-self governing territory had attained a full measure of self-government in accordance with Chapter XI of the Charter, the administering power concerned should continue to transmit information under subsection (e) of Article 73 of the Charter with respect to that territory’. Therefore it is clear that, although de facto it is not, legally Spain continues to be the administering power of the territory, and Morocco is an illegal occupant of it.

It is obvious that the tripartite agreements of Madrid (November 1975) through which Spain handed the territory to Morocco and Mauritania did not assume a transfer of sovereignty over the territory because, among other reasons, Spain was only the administrator of it. In this sense it should be interpreted from the Spanish-Algeria joint statement which was completed a few years later (1 May 1979), that Spain claimed that ‘its position on the basis that it definitively terminated its administration of the territory on 26 February 1976 could not mean a transfer of sovereignty, because of the non-autonomous status of the territory, within the meaning of Article 73 of the Charter of the United Nations’.

On 29 January 2002, at the request of the president of the security council, the General Counsel and Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs of the United Nations, Hans Corell, issued a report on ‘the legality in the context of international law, including relevant resolutions of the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations and the agreements on Western Sahara, of the actions allegedly taken by the Moroccan authorities, namely the offering and signing of contracts with foreign companies for exploration of mineral resources in Western Sahara’. Among the most important issues dealt with therein and to be raised here are highlighted as follows:

(a) ‘the Madrid Agreement did not transfer sovereignty over the territory, nor confer upon any of the signatories the status of administering power, a status which Spain alone could not have unilaterally transferred. The transfer of administrative authority over the territory to Morocco and Mauritania in 1975 did not affect the international status of Western Sahara as a non-autonomous territory’.

(b) ‘after the withdrawal of Mauritania from the territory in 1979 and the conclusion of the Mauritanian-Saharawi agreement of 19 August 1979, Morocco has administered the territory of Western Sahara alone. Morocco, however, is not listed as the administering power of the territory in the list of non-self-governing territories of the United Nations’.

Obviously, given that Morocco is not entitled to sovereignty over the territory, nor is it the administering power, there is no other qualification for its presence in the territory than that of occupying power.

Having clarified the status of occupying power in these two states (Israel and Morocco), what legal regime is applicable in these territories? In its 2004 opinion the ICJ examined this question in relation to four key issues: the principle of the prohibition of the use of force in international relations; international humanitarian law; international law of human rights; and the right to self-determination of peoples – to then establish the extent to which Israel violates these principles and rights with the construction of its wall. Therefore, we are going to follow the steps given by the court to see to what extent the consequences are equally applicable to the occupation of the Western Sahara territory.

3. WALLS ERECTED BY ISRAEL AND MOROCCO VIOLATE PROHIBITION OF THE USE OF FORCE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The opinion of the court on the Israeli wall reaffirmed its own jurisprudence (especially from the issue of the military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua: Nicaragua v. USA), asserting that the principle of the prohibition of the use of force in international relations, reflected in both Article 2.4 of the Charter and Resolution 2625 (XXV), is now part of customary international law, and, by virtue, the territory of a state cannot be the object of acquisition by another state resulting from the use of force. That means that the construction of the wall constitutes a violation of this principle, insofar as it seeks to consolidate little by little some borders that international law does not recognise to Israel.

The similarity to the wall which was built for more than two decades by Morocco in the Western Sahara, and that currently separates the occupied territories from that controlled by the POLISARIO Front (known by the Saharawi people as the ‘liberated territories’) is evident, because the purpose of its construction was, and remains, to impede the return of the Saharawi to the territory, thus consolidating the occupation. If the court had to answer the same question with regard to the Saharan conflict it could hardly reach a different conclusion.

4. ISRAEL AND MOROCCO VIOLATE INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

In the case of the Israeli wall, the court made a number of important statements in relation to the applicable law in the territory, saying that although Israel is not part of the IV Hague Convention on laws and use of war on land (1907), this is fully applicable to the case, because it now forms part of customary international law. Also, confirming earlier statements by the General Assembly, the Security Council and Israel’s own Supreme Court (Case 30 May 2004) stated that the IV Geneva Convention of 1949 on the protection of civilian persons in time of war is applicable de jure in the occupied territories. Israel claimed that at the time it occupied the territories in 1967 they were not under sovereignty but under Jordanian administration, so it would not meet one of the requirements of application laid down in Article 2 of the Convention: that there is armed conflict and this conflict has arisen between two contracting parties. However, the court rejected this approach because Article 2.2 of the convention affirms its applicability ‘in all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if such occupation meets no resistance’ . Therefore, to affirm the existence of an armed conflict between two contracting parties is irrelevant to the status of the territory prior to the Israeli occupation.

It is easy to translate these same arguments to the Western Sahara conflict. Indeed, in the same way as Jordan with respect to the occupied Palestinian territories until 1988, Spain was the administering power and not sovereign of the territory, as on the other hand clearly established in 2002 by the Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs of the United Nations. The Geneva Conventions

Consequently, in regard to international humanitarian law, the opinion states that, with the construction of the wall, Israel violates such provisions of the Rules of the Hague – prohibition of confiscation of property (art. 46), as of the VI Geneva Convention, prohibiting mass forcible transfers and deportations of the population of the territory and, in the opposite direction, to move the occupying state’s natives into the occupied civilian population (Art. 49); prohibition of actions which cause unemployment to induce people to work for the occupying power (Art. 52); prohibition of destruction of homes (Art. 53); prohibition of exploitation and plunder of the resources of the territory, preventing the minimum supply to the population (Art. 59).

If we moved these statements once again to the Western Sahara case, the Moroccan violations of international humanitarian law are equally obvious: remember the successive ‘Green March’ of Moroccan populations into the territory of Western Sahara in order to alter the composition of the population and attempt to distort the composition of the Saharawi census on an increasingly distant referendum on self-determination; equally remember the contracts concluded by Morocco with foreign companies to explore and exploit the resources of the territory and the content of the 2002 report on this issue by Hans Corell, the Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs of the United Nations.

5. ISRAEL AND MOROCCO VIOLATE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Israel also argues for the inapplicability in the occupied territories of the international law of human rights, in particular of the two International Agreements of 1966 and the Convention of Children 1989, of which it is a state party, under the surprising argument that the objective of these treaties is to protect citizens from their own governments in peacetime, so that would be incompatible with humanitarian law.

As noted by the court, applying pure logic, ‘the drafters of the covenants had no intention of allowing states to avoid their obligations to exercise jurisdiction outside national territory’. According to this statement, the opinion states that, through the construction of the wall, Israel violates specific provisions of Civil and Political Rights Agreement: freedom of movement and residence (Art. 12.1), prohibition of arbitrary or unlawful interference in private and family (Art. 17.1) – as required by the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Agreement, and the Convention of the Rights of the Child, such as the right to work, health, education and an adequate standard of living.

Morocco applies identical policies as the Israelis in the occupied territories of Western Sahara: police harassment, illegal detentions, torture, invasion into private life and restrictions to freedom of movement and residence are a daily practice that the Saharawi have to bear in their own territory. In this sense, the conflict by the Saharawi human rights activist Aminetu Haidar, who was prevented from returning to her homeland after receiving the 2008 Human Rights Prize from the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation (that puts to the test the relations of Morocco and the European Union), trials against Saharawi citizens before Moroccan courts in Western Sahara and Morocco without even minimal due process, the very hard punishments in judgements for participating in demonstrations in favour of self-determination of the territory, or the limitations imposed by the occupying state to access certain positions of the administration for the Saharawi people, are just a few samples of how Morocco openly violates the international law of human rights.

6. ISRAEL AND MOROCCO VIOLATE THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION

For four decades the United Nations general assembly has clearly and repeatedly affirmed the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination. As noted by the International Court of Justice regarding the Israeli wall, its construction helps to accentuate the violation of this right, because it further cripples the Palestinian territory, physically divides even more the recipient of the right to self-determination, the Palestinian people, and ignores the principle of uti possidetis iuris (which affirms the inviolability of borders drawn during colonial times), linked more generally, as noted by the International Court of Justice, to decolonization. Obviously, the wall is not the main cause why the Palestinians could not exercise their right to self-determination, but is another element that contributes to it and therefore also violates this right. Video of Carlos Ruiz Miguel, professor at Universidad de Santiago de Compostela talked in a seminar titled, "Who has the right of Self-Determination in Contemporary International Law?"

The Moroccan wall that divides the territory of Western Sahara into two also prevents the Saharawi population in the Tindouf refugee camps from returning to their land, cuts off its territorial integrity and obviously violates the above-mentioned principle of uti possidetis iuris and therefore also constitutes a violation of the right to self-determination of the Saharawi people.

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* Dr. Juan Soroeta Liceras is professor of Public International Law at Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea University, Spain. Article translated from Spanish by Dr Liceras and Konstantina Isidoros, University of Oxford, July 2011.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Polisario Front intervention before the UN Special Committee of Decolonization

Ahmed Boukhari

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76899

cc WikimediaMorocco is to blame for the current stalemate in the talks to end the long dispute with Western Sahara, writes Ahmed Boukhari. Morocco has refused to discuss the nationalist Polisario Front’s proposal for a process of self-determination that would include independence.

At the beginning of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, and just two months after the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption by the General Assembly of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the 16 remaining non-self-governing territories must be ‘given the opportunity to exercise their right to self-determination in order to take the interests of their peoples fully into account. Colonial situations are completely outdated and must be addressed with renewed vigour and creativity.

In recent months, the international community has repeatedly voiced its support for peaceful transition to democracy in light of the profound and dramatic changes sweeping the Arab world. Events in other parts of the Middle East and northern Africa have demonstrated clearly that the process of decolonization in Western Sahara must reflect the will of its people if it is to be credible, sustainable and foster peace, security and regional integration in the long term. It must also respect international law, including the principles and purposes of the UN Charter.

It is the responsibility of the Special Committee on Decolonization and the General Assembly to ensure that 2011 is a decisive year in international efforts to grant the Saharawi people their long-overdue right to self-determination. In order to do this, four issues are crucial and need to be taken into account by the Special Committee efforts to ensure the implementation of the pending decolonization process of the last African colony on its agenda.

1. REAFFIRM SELF-DETERMINATION AS THE CENTRAL OBJECTIVE OF THE UN POLITICAL PROCESS

UN Security Council Resolution 1979 (2011) reaffirmed the Security Council’s ‘commitment to assist the parties to achieve a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara in the context of arrangements consistent with the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations.’ This was also reaffirmed by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution, which was adopted last year.

The Polisario Front recalls that it is now 20 years since the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 690 (1991), establishing the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to: (1) monitor the ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario Front; and (2) organize the conduct of a referendum of the Saharawi people to choose their own future. The POLISARIO front has held in good faith to the ceasefire, but the international community has failed completely to deliver on its legal obligation, consistent with Article 25 of the UN Charter, to implement a referendum for the Saharawi people.

With this in mind, the Polisario Front reiterates that for both the United Nations and the African Union, the objective of the political process is the long-overdue decolonization of the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara through a process for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara, consistent with the principles and purposes of the UN Charter.

Within this framework, the two parties – Morocco and the Polisario front – each made a proposal in April 2007 on its vision for self-determination in Western Sahara.

The Moroccan plan proposes autonomy for Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty. However, by purporting to declare unilaterally its sovereignty over the territory, Morocco is seeking to determine on its own the final status of the non-self-governing territory without properly consulting the people of that territory. By doing this, Morocco seeks to exclude the option of independence, which it has already accepted in previous agreements endorsed by the Security Council, and which would amount to a rewriting of the scope and meaning of the inalienable right to self-determination defined by General Assembly resolutions 1514 (XV) and 1541 (XV).

On the other hand, the proposal of the Polisario Front stresses the need for a referendum on self-determination that would include the options already agreed by the two parties in the 1991 Settlement Plan and in the Houston Accords of 1997, both endorsed by the UN Security Council: independence; integration; and autonomy. For the POLISARIO Front, the underlying premise is that it must be for the people of Western Sahara to choose their own future.

Against this background, the Polisario Front acknowledges the Moroccan proposal for the establishment of a ‘Saharan Autonomous Region’ as one possible option to be voted on in a self-determination referendum, and that it could be the outcome of the process as long as that is the freely and democratically expressed will of the people of Western Sahara. On the other hand, Morocco has so far refused to discuss in any substantive way the proposal of the POLISARIO Front, rejecting since 2004 and without credible explanation the possibility – as required by General Assembly resolution 1541 (XV) and UN Security Council resolution 690 (1991) – that a self-determination referendum would include independence as one option to be voted on by the people of Western Sahara. It is important to note in this context that the option of independence is not equivalent to secession, since legally Western Sahara is a non-self-governing territory, and is not part of Morocco.

Following the appointment by the UN secretary-general of Ambassador Christopher Ross as his personal envoy for Western Sahara in January 2009, the parties have held six rounds of informal talks, the latest in Malta from 7 to 9 March 2011. While these talks have been held in ‘an atmosphere of serious engagement, frankness and mutual respect’, they largely remain in stalemate due to Morocco’s refusal thus far to discuss the substance of the Polisario Front proposal or other options for a process of self-determination, which would include independence as one of the options to be put to a vote. In this regard, the Polisario Front welcomes the invitation to the parties in the most recent UN Security Council resolution on Western Sahara, UNSCR 1979, to ‘demonstrate further political will towards a solution, including by expanding upon their discussion of each other’s proposals.’ This is a direct recognition by the security council that Morocco remains the main obstacle to the decolonization of the last remaining colony in Africa.

The special committee must now consider ways to proactively support and reinvigorate the negotiating process, which remains in a dangerous stalemate. In this regard, the special committee may wish to reflect on the secretary-general’s recommendation in his most recent report to the Security Council (S/2011/249) that the parties focus their efforts on delivering ‘a referendum that will constitute a free exercise of the right to self-determination,’ and find ways to support that endeavour. Also, the Polisario Front considers that the C-24 should send to the territory of Western Sahara a mission to up-date the committee on all the developments that have taken place after its first mission sent in 1975.

2. UNDERLINE THAT UNILATERALLY-IMPOSED SOLUTIONS ARE INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE NEED FOR A POLITICAL SOLUTION WHICH WILL PROVIDE FOR THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE PEOPLE OF WESTERN SAHARA

Moroccan efforts to present its autonomy plan as the sole framework for negotiating a mutually acceptable solution or to otherwise pre-empt the UN-led political process on Western Sahara with proposals for ‘advanced regionalization’ are baseless, unhelpful and do not take the parties closer to an agreement that will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.

The Polisario Front rejects such unilateral approaches that are indeed inconsistent with the security council’s call for a solution that is mutually acceptable and allows for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.

Only a free and fair vote allows the people of a non-self-governing territory to express their preferred mode of self-government through a process of self-determination, as required by Chapter XI of the UN Charter and General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV), as well as all previous resolutions of both the UNGA and the security council relating to the question of Western Sahara.

Recent attempts to portray Moroccan regionalization and other political reform initiatives as relevant to Western Sahara have a dangerous and completely flawed assumption – that Morocco exercises sovereignty over Western Sahara. On the contrary:

• United Nations does not recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, which under international law – including the UN Charter – is a non-self-governing territory;

• The International Court of Justice, in its 1975 advisory opinion, categorically rejected Morocco’s claims of sovereignty over Western Sahara;

• In an opinion to the security council in 2002 (UN Doc. S/2002/161), the UN legal counsel confirmed that the Madrid Accords, in which Spain attempted to transfer its responsibilities as the administering power in 1975, were without legal effect and did not affect the status of Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory; and

• The Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), declared by the Polisario Front on behalf of the Saharawi people in February 1976, is a full and founding member of the African Union and has already established full diplomatic relations with dozens of countries worldwide.

3. PROTECT AND PROMOTE UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS IN WESTERN SAHARA

The Polisario Front once again calls the attention of the Special Committee to the continued and systematic human rights abuses perpetrated by the Moroccan regime in the occupied Territory of Western Sahara.

A 2006 report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) documented Morocco’s excessive use of force against peaceful Saharawi demonstrators, along with incidents of arbitrary arrest, harassment and intimidation of human rights activists. It found that almost all human rights violations in the occupied territory stem from the non-implementation of the fundamental right to self-determination. These findings were confirmed by a similarly critical report by Human Rights Watch, published in December 2008.

Both reports recommended that the UN Security Council expand the mandate of MINURSO to include a human rights monitoring component, similar to those in place in all other contemporary UN peacekeeping missions. MINURSO currently has no mandate to monitor human rights – it is the only UN mission, peacekeeping or political, established since 1978 that is operating without a human rights capacity.

Reinvigorating MINURSO with a human rights capacity would enable the UN to deliver on the ‘sacred trust’ owed to the populations of non-self-governing territories under Chapter XI of the Charter, and would strengthen the ongoing political process by building confidence between the parties.

During the security council debates on the situation in Western Sahara in both 2009 and 2010, the council was not able - due largely to the objections of France - to adopt any concrete measures to improve transparency and ensure that it is better informed of the human rights situation on the ground in Western Sahara. In UNSCR 1871 (30 April 2009), the council stressed ‘the importance of making progress on the human dimension of the conflict as a means to promote transparency and mutual confidence between the parties’, and in UNSCR 1920 (30 April 2010) expanded this slightly by ‘noting the need for all parties to adhere to their obligations, taking into account the roles and responsibilities of the UN system…”.

In 2011, the security council for the first time stressed ‘the importance of improving the human rights situation in Western Sahara and the Tindouf camps’ and encouraged the parties ‘to work with the international community to develop and implement independent and credible measure to ensure full respect for human rights.’

The past two years have demonstrated with clarity the negative consequences of the failure of the UN to take decisive action to monitor and provide independent and accurate reporting on the human rights situation in Western Sahara. Free from international monitoring, Moroccan authorities have instituted a significant crackdown on freedom of movement and freedom of speech in the territory, targeting Saharawi human rights defenders in a manner inconsistent with Morocco’s international human rights treaty obligations.

In October 2009, seven Saharawi human rights defenders were arrested in Casablanca upon their return from a visit to friends and family in Tindouf and three still await trial on charges of treason. In November 2009, celebrated Saharawi human rights laureate Aminatou Haidar was expelled from her homeland of Western Sahara and only allowed to return after a month-long hunger strike and significant political pressure on Morocco at the highest levels from several security council members.

In November 2010, the forcible dismantling of peaceful camps of protesters in the region of El Aaiún by Moroccan authorities resulted in loss of life, destruction of property and increased tension between the parties. Once again, France’s objections prevented any substantive response to these events from the security council, including a failure to take up a proposal for a fact-finding mission to ascertain the cause and impacts of the violence. This was despite several security council members and the UN secretariat expressing serious concerns about the inability of MINURSO to gather information and report accurately on the situation, due to the significant and unacceptable restrictions placed by Morocco on the mission’s operations and the hindrance of its movement and access within the territory, all in contravention of agreements between Morocco and the UN. In response, the security council’s resolution 1979 calls on the parties to provide ‘unhindered and immediate access for the United Nations and associated personnel’.

A serious and credible UN capacity to monitor and report on human rights is central to restoring the faith and confidence of the Saharawi people in the UN process and to prevent escalations between the parties that have the opposite effect. While UNSCR 1979 makes reference to providing unhindered access to the special procedures of the Human Rights Council, it remains the firm view of the Polisario Front that any human rights monitoring be conducted within the context of the MINURSO mission, which would allow for a permanent presence and direct reporting to the UN membership, consistent with Article 73 of the UN Charter. This would in turn help to ensure the emergence of a free and open political environment that can support preparations for the conduct of a referendum that will constitute a free exercise by the Saharawi people of the right to self-determination.

4. REPORT ON AND PROTECT THE NATURAL RESOURCES OF WESTERN SAHARA FROM ILLEGAL EXPLOITATION

The Polisario Front wishes to again bring to the attention of the special committee the ongoing and systematic plunder of Western Sahara’s natural resources by the Kingdom of Morocco and cooperating foreign interests. These activities are in clear breach of the international legal principles applicable to the utilization of the natural resources of Western Sahara as a recognized Non-self-governing territory under the Charter of the United Nations. In accordance with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV), which contains the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, the natural resources of the Western Sahara are the heritage of the Saharawi people.

The long-standing illegal exploitation of the rich phosphate resources of the territory of Western Sahara by Moroccan state-owned company, PhosBoucraa, and the ongoing plunder by Moroccan-flagged vessels and foreign fishing interests of the Saharawi people’s offshore fisheries resources (including EU vessels fishing under the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement) are a clear violation of international law. The latter is also a violation of the exclusive sovereign rights vested in the Saharawi people by the SADR’s declaration of its Exclusive Economic Zone in the areas off the coast of Western Sahara in January 2009.

The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and Legal Counsel confirmed in an important legal opinion provided to the Security Council in January 2002 that, ‘[i]f further exploration and exploitation activities were to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, they would be in violation of the principles of international law applicable to mineral resource activities in non-self-governing-territories’. (UN Doc. S/2002/161)

To ensure that the fundamental rights of the Saharawi people are upheld, we call on the special committee to consider ways to ensure reporting by the secretary-general on the estimated value of natural resources extracted annually from the territory and its maritime zones, and to consider ways to direct revenues from such exploitation to the benefit and socio-economic development of the Saharawi people. In the absence of any such reporting from an administering power in accordance with Article 73 of the UN Charter, it is incumbent upon the special committee and the General Assembly to assume responsibility for securing such information in order to inform its deliberations on the decolonization of Western Sahara.

Moreover, the Polisario Front calls upon member states, consistent with a number of General Assembly resolutions on the issue, the latest of which is General Assembly resolution 65/109, to take ‘legislative, administrative or other measures in respect of their nationals and the bodies corporate under their jurisdiction that own and operate enterprises in the non-self-governing territories that are detrimental to the interests of the inhabitants of those territories, in order to put an end to such enterprises.’

The Polisario Front, as the internationally recognized representative of the Saharawi people, reserves the right to use all available means, including legal avenues, to prevent and seek reparation in respect of any unauthorized activities relating to the natural resources of Western Sahara. It is the responsibility of the member states, beginning with the unique role of the special committee, to restore respect for international law and to call a halt to the illegal plunder of the natural resources belonging to the people of Western Sahara. This deplorable situation seriously undermines any efforts at confidence-building that might engender progress towards a peaceful solution that will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.

ANNEX WESTERN SAHARA: HISTORICAL AND LEGAL BACKGROUND

1. Western Sahara is the last colony in Africa, located on the continent's Atlantic coast to the south of Morocco and to the north of Mauritania. In the late 19th century, this vast territory - about the size of the United Kingdom - was inhabited by nomadic tribes known as the Saharawi and from 1884 was subject to Spanish colonial rule.

2. Western Sahara was designated by the General Assembly as a ‘non-self-governing territory’ under the Charter of the United Nations in 1963, a legal status it retains to this day. General Assembly resolution 1541 (XV) confirmed that all non-self-governing territories must progress to a ‘full measure of self-government’ by: (a) emergence as a sovereign independent state; (b) free association with an independent state; or (c) integration with an independent state.

3. Under increasing international pressure to decolonize the territory, Spain agreed in 1972 to a referendum on self-determination for the Saharawi people. However, in the final months of the Franco regime, and in violation of UNGA resolutions, Spain initiated a process to withdraw from the territory by signing an illegal deal (the ‘Madrid Accords’ of November 14, 1975), which attempted to transfer the territory to a temporary tripartite administration of Spain, Morocco and Mauritania with a view to achieving a full withdrawal by Spain at the end of February 1976.

4. An advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice in October 1975 found no ties of territorial sovereignty between Western Sahara and either Morocco or Mauritania, and confirmed the legal right of the Saharawi people to a process of self-determination. This prompted illegal invasions of Western Sahara by Morocco and Mauritania, and a 15-year war ensued against the Saharawi liberation movement, or Polisario Front, which declared an independent Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in February 1976. Prior to the formal end of the temporary tripartite administration, Spain then sought unilaterally to exempt itself from its role as administering power and relevant international obligations.

5. Mauritania eventually withdrew from Western Sahara in 1979 and officially recognised the SADR. But Morocco sought to secure its occupation of over two-thirds of Western Sahara by building a sand wall (the so-called "Berm") littered with landmines running the length of the country.

6. The Organization of African Unity (OAU), the precursor to the African Union, granted full membership to the SADR in 1984. The SADR is now a full member of the African Union.

7. Following 16 years of war, the UN and OAU jointly brokered a ceasefire and elaborated a settlement plan, approved by the Security Council in its resolutions 658 (1990) and 690 (1991). The UN Security Council also established a UN mission (MINURSO) to monitor the ceasefire and to organise a referendum of the Saharawi people in order to allow them to determine their own future by choosing between autonomy, independence and integration.

8. Despite publication of UN-approved voter lists in 1999 and the UN’s sole and exclusive authority over all matters relating to the organization and conduct of the referendum, the intended referendum has not yet taken place. In his role as the UN Secretary-General's Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, former US Secretary of State James Baker III proposed two versions of a compromise solution in 2000 and 2003 (Baker Plans I and II), both involving a referendum after a period of autonomy. Baker Plan II was accepted by the Polisario Front and endorsed by the security council in July 2003, but was never implemented due to Morocco's refusal to countenance independence for Western Sahara as one of the options to be put to a vote. However, Morocco had previously agreed to independence as a possible option to be voted on in a self-determination referendum in both the Settlement Plan of 1991 and the Houston Accords of 1997.

9. On April 10 and 11 April 2007 respectively, the Polisario Front and Morocco presented their respective proposals for a solution to the issue of Western Sahara. In its resolution 1754 of 30 April 2007, the security council took note of the two proposals and called on the parties to ‘enter into negotiations without preconditions in good faith with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.’

10. Four rounds of formal talks were convened in 2007 and 2008 under the auspices of the former personal envoy of the UN Secretary-General, Peter van Walsum. Following the appointment of former US Ambassador Christopher Ross as his replacement in January 2009, the parties have held a further six rounds of informal talks, the latest held in Malta from 7 to 9 March 2011. These talks have been held in ‘an atmosphere of serious engagement, frankness and mutual respect’ but largely remain in a stalemate due to Morocco’s refusal to discuss the substance of the Polisario Front proposal or other options for a process of self-determination that would include independence as one of the options to be put to a vote. A seventh round of informal talks is currently scheduled to be held from 5 to 7 June 2011 in Manhasset, New York.

11. The failure to resolve the dispute is widely recognized as posing a major obstacle to political and economic integration in the Maghreb, which as a result has one of the lowest levels of intra-regional trade in the world. Meanwhile, the large Saharawi population that fled Western Sahara during the war continues to live in tented refugee camps in the harsh conditions of the Sahara desert near Tindouf in south-western Algeria. A generation of well in excess of 100,000 Saharawi refugees has grown up in the camps, a situation widely recognised as a humanitarian tragedy, while Morocco continues to exploit the territory’s natural resources in violation of international law.

12. The Saharawi population inside the occupied territory remains subject to various and often serious human rights abuses as documented by, among others, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. As noted by the OHCHR in its September 2006 report, almost all human rights violations stem from the non-implementation of the Saharawi people’s fundamental right to self-determination.

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* Ahmed Boukhari, a representative of the Polisario Front, issued this statement to the Special Committee on Decolonization as it prepared to hold its annual regional seminar in Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, from 31 May to 2 June 2011

* part 1: Video link of a separate interview in November 2010
part 2: Video link of a separate interview in November 2010

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

The taste of detention

Spotlight on a Sahrawi prisoner of conscience

El-Ouali Amidane

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76915

© Andrew McConnell25 years old this year, El-Ouali Amidane is another Sahrawi prisoner of conscience serving a five-year sentence in a Moroccan prison, which everyone hopes will end this October 2011. He was jailed for taking part in a peaceful demonstration for self-determination inside the Moroccan Occupied Territory, as an active member of the Sahrawi human rights organisation CODESA. El-Ouali has become passionate about writing short stories; below we publish two pieces shared with international campaign networks by his family.

1) COMMEMORATING 20 MAY: THE TASTE OF DETENTION

Stop! Hands up!

A noise resonates very strongly behind me shattering my life. A large white car moving quickly towards me dazzles me with its light. I did not realise what was happening around me. I tried to understand but my thoughts scattered like pearls on a broken string. My heart beats inside from the force of terror ... my limbs freeze ... then paralyse completely ... In a fraction of a second, I feel a hand on my neck which catches me like a wolf catches its prey.

An electric moment that leaves me without resistance or objection. Quickly, the wheels of the cursed car turned with the questions in my head like the sword of a revolutionary led by a strong motivation.

- Who are you? You live where? Your name, your surname?

After a long silence, God helped me to get out of my mouth the answers as I have never spoken before.

The noise sounds again.
- Sahraoui! Your name is Abdel Aziz! Oh my God! You are a rebel then.[1]

My face was surprised because of his particular reasoning...
- No, I am Sahraoui.
The same resonating noise but this time it sounds more acute.
- Yes, you are Sahraoui, rebel and thug ...
- But I have not broken the properties or terrorized anyone, and I have never allied myself to someone rebellious. I want the good for everyone and I hate evil and war. I claim peace and I renounce violence.
- The dog looks at me! He would have us brainwashed with his poetic words, he said to another.
- They all say the same thing. Someone who did not know would be easily manipulated.

Something in me tells me that I am in the hands of the colonial police. It is them without a doubt. I know very well their method of oppression. I realize from the first second and I am never wrong when I meet them.

I went to find from the depth of my reserves of courage a word that can be described as heroic.

- Can I know why you stop me?

One of them laughed and said:
- What heroism!

And this heroism that he mentioned does not only signify the act that I made but also, in the Moroccan dialect, indecency and lack of respect.

The car suddenly stopped and the door was opened.
- Get out fine pacifist.

A mocking laugh rises but someone interrupts to say:
- Fine pacifist on the night of 20 May?

Laughter rises again but this time for real and no one interrupts.

The date of 20 May he mentioned made me completely shocked and made me search back in my memory what could be related to that date. It is a national date without doubt but for what occasion? May God curse the ignorance and indifference to the key dates in our struggle. The images of the streets of Laayoun reconstitute themselves bit by bit on my imagination in a strange way. I remember the women dressed in their black nilé cloth sometimes lined in white, men all dressed in their draa’a ... and me who notices all this while thinking that this is quite normal and unremarkable. Ah! No, now I can say it was neither innocent nor natural. Thus, it is possible that the city could hold events here and there. It is equally certain that publications, national flags and graffiti were made since it is the atmosphere in which one has become accustomed to over the past five years. A bitter taste through my throat and my only consolation is that prison is for men.

I escape with my thoughts ... I think of my mother, my wife and my children waiting for me. Each moment, they bring new prey, all Sahraouis naturally and time passes with a painfully slowness.

I ask for mercy every time I sense a little kindness and gentleness in one of them.
- My brother! Sir! I am very late to go home and you know how I am innocent!
- Do not move. This is the tenth time I tell you again. Do not tire me.
- But Sir, I am late and my family ...
- Do not move you bastard or I'll smash you.

Although he was the most kind, he treated me like a nobody, I asked myself if this was the worst and what more he would say.

It would be better for myself that I stay in my place so as not to cause more insults.
- Abdelaziz Sheikh.
- Yes, yes I am here.
- Follow me!

I followed him and joy filled me. Finally, I will be released.

In a darkened room, dirty and fetid, I found someone to welcome me. Not with flowers and hugs, but with punches and kicks.
- Aïe, Aïe ! What have I done? What crime did my hands commit?
- Who has distributed these publications?

Bom! I have fallen into the forbidden. What I thought and feared has indeed arrived.
- What publications?! I do not know. I am a pacifist. I am a pacifist.
- Of course, since the publications are distributed by peace activist like you.
- I am a peace activist, but I do not distribute the publications.
- So it was you who hung the flag on the wire.
- I am a pacifist, but I did not hang the flags.
- This means that you wrote on the walls
- I am a pacifist, I did not write on the walls
- Is there a peace activism that does not make these things that you are on the list for?
- Yes of course

All of them at the same time:
- Who ... Who ... Who ...
- Me.

Blows with the fist, kicks and insults fall on me. They humiliate me until the very end. Then one of the others shouts:
- Stop!

He advances, advances until he arrives at my level. He approaches me, examines me, I even thought he was bending down to strangle me but he did the opposite, he offered me his hand, lifted me up and said:
- Listen my friend! And I'm not your friend!
- Let's say you are my friend.
- Okay, listen to me carefully and believe what I tell you.
- Okay, I'll believe what you tell me.
- Have you seen the flags?
- What flags?
- Flags of the Polisario.
- Yes, I have seen them

He turned to his friends, smiling cruelly as if he has conquered Jerusalem.
- Where did you see them?
- On television.

He became very angry:
- No, I do not mean on TV. I mean the place you have seen them on the street for example, or if someone had distributed them somewhere
- No, I have never seen such a thing.

They tried to beat me again but my friend-the torturer fortunately dissuaded them. But by leaving the room, he asked me to review my calculations and then it would be forced to break the bonds of our friendship. Then, leaving the room he told me to review my answers or he would be forced to break the bonds of our friendship. I did not move from my place waiting for the moment when our friendship would be broken without interrupting my prayers and recitation of the Quran.

After some few minutes, they came back.

- Get up! we are tired of you ... put him in handcuffs ... take the scarf and cover his eyes ... you, put the iron bar between his arms and between his legs ... He will curse the day he was born.

The voices blend together, turn into cries and disputes, not on whether to torture me or not, but on the way and the extent of my torture.

- Put him in the screw propeller, no! hang him in the manner of roast chicken ... no! falaka [methods of torture that consists of fiercely hitting the soles of the feet with a wooden stick] will suffice.

I am drowning in a whirlpool of insanity, I see death only as my final consolation and my body beneath their feet like a rag while their voices echo around the back of the room:

- Put him in the propeller, no! hang him in the manner of roast chicken ... no! falaka will be enough


2) THE STORY OF MY NAME

‘Amidane’ is my surname and ‘El-Ouali’ is my first name. This name has a unique story but I never learnt the details until I turned six years of age. One day I saw the light of life after spending nine months in the darkness and the wonders of the womb.

The arguments between my parents were always strong and the disagreements even stronger. They fought one another with the fearlessness of Saharawi pride; they each took a different direction and approach. My mother wanted to name me ‘Walid’; the same as a hero from the soap opera she used to watch at the time. It turned out that the character had stolen her heart, and so she was determined to name her only boy as ‘Walid’. And it was inevitable.

But my father was a true nomad man by all measures. To him, any mentioning of soap opera or film is a severe sin that requires sincere repentance. This makes mentioning it on his presence worse than speaking of the Satan himself. However, this was not the true reason behind my father’s stubbornness and refusal. So, he did not even bother to put one or two possible names for the newborn boy; as has been prescribed by the customs and traditions governing the Saharawi society. Instead and for the first time, he completely ignored the customs and traditions, and turned his back to what people would talk about. So long as he is the head of the house, he has the final decision. And so, he decided: ‘I shall name my son “El-Ouali,” and will not abide by anything!’
As soon as my mother learnt of the decision, she was struck by sadness and disappointment. After all, she wanted to name the son she carried with hardship and gave birth to with hardship after her favourite and beloved hero. Instead, he was named another name; a strange name. ‘El-Ouali!’ Oh my god! What kind of name is that!

Meanwhile, my father was watching and listening to the women in the house, and did not tell them the truth about the name ‘El-Ouali.’ Who could its owner be?

It was the year 1986 and our country was beaten by the war, and the arrest campaigns against our people were at their highest. The atmosphere was fuelled, anyone who spoke out was destined to disappear and the silent ones were certainly in danger.

In any case, I grew up and the story with its funny details grew with me. But most importantly, the name ‘El-Ouali’ grew inside me. It grew every time I heard people say: ‘El-Ouali Mustafa Said, the founder of the republic,’ ‘the martyr of the determined people,’ ‘may his good soul rest with light, peace and compassion’…and so on. Then, I felt something strange, something sweet fill up my chest to spill out admiration and pride. To the extent that I thought all peoples‘ names were on one scale and my name ‘El-Ouali’ was another completely different scale.

In my early childhood, my dreams and aspirations intertwined, and the name ‘El-Ouali’ disappeared with its enlightened symbolism. I replaced it, instead, with names of football stars. Since sadly, all the international football stars did not have Arabs or even Muslims amongst them, I always had resentment for not being called Beckham or Ronaldo. Internally, I always blamed my parents for their ignorance and lack of expanding their horizon. And so, whenever I failed to study, which was often, my parents stormed at me with their anger and disappointment. They always assert by saying: ‘If you don’t succeed with pen, you sure will by foot!’ They would lose their temper and get angry, and then surrender repeating their famous saying ‘Oh God don’t grant us a corrupt seed.’

But I have never considered my naughtiness and often misbehaviour as corrupt, instead, I thought of it as playful and fun. Sure, nothing would happen if I stole from the gardener in the neighbourhood, just one apple or an orange after a long football match under the burning Sahara sun. How about throwing stones at the door of that luxurious house, would the occupiers leave the homeland? Of course not! It won’t happen either if I beat that boy who is younger and shorter than me, nor if I break into the neighbours’ house from the rooftop or by pulling the tail of the dog’s newborn. This won’t change life, nor make it revolt against me. And that’s why I was rebellious and free-spirited.

Little by little, my life started to take strong turn based on firmness and attention about my actions and behaviours. For I have become a mature man, and my feet should not deviate from the intended path. This is what my father installed in me. My mother, however, insists that I am small, very small even if I was a thousand years old. They were two contradictory seeds that have formed the bases to my growing-up, and until today, they still determine my actions, my silence, my relationships, my disputes and for certain whatever comes next.

My aspirations have always changed; never consistent except for one aim. It never changed – steadfast like the firmness of a free man on his principles. This aim was to become one day a lawyer with his black suit, fair and honest. He would take it as his responsibility to fight for the oppressed and the persecuted. Unfortunately, I never wore the black suit, instead, I got dressed in a palace of handcuffs, and appointed lawyers to defend me whose intentions may be contradictory to the principles of law. Hence, the irony of life in its best form.

On the first instance inside the prison, I was told that the prison is just a tour and I became patient. And when I was tortured inside it, I was told to pray and say: ‘Oh God protect us from the oppression and subjugation of lesser men.’ And so, I prayed and whenever I prayed, I knew God. He was a merciful, gracious and generous god. Why not since He has granted me not just with patience but with patience and protection, goodness and obeying my parents. He also made writing as my passion. As for how did that happen? That’s another story.

BIOGRAPHY

El-Ouali Amidane was born on 26 October 1986 and is the third son of a family of 9 children in Layoune in the Occupied Territory of Western Sahara. He was named after a grandfather, El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed. Like most Sahrawi children, his first education was at a Qur’anic school. He then moved to a primary school and onto a secondary school which he successfully completed. He then entered college to finish his education, and at this time he was arrested and sentenced to prison in 2003 – he was not 18 years old yet. He was arrested because of his peaceful activism and his involvement in the Sahrawi civil society movement during the independence uprising which had swept through all corners of the Western Sahara.

In Lekhal prison, as a political prisoner, he underwent a complete change in his personality. He saw a lot, witnessed a lot, and survived a lot. He was set free after serving his sentence of eight months. Shortly after, he was arrested again on 12 October 2006 and put back in prison to serve a five-year sentence. He is using his time in jail to learn more and to broaden his knowledge. He also took the initiative to pursue his educational career to sharpen his skills and to strengthen his abilities. He is an accomplished short-story writer from inside the prison; most of his short stories talk about his inner self, his vision, and his daily life. It is very difficult for him to give press interviews or talk to international human rights observers.

----

El-Ouali’s siblings are also human rights activists, his sister Rabab Amidane made many of the videos that recording the 2009 peaceful protests by Sahrawi students across Moroccan universities, in which Moroccan security forces can be seen responding with excessive force. Rabab also received a Norwegion NGO Peace Prize and has made many interviews to Western media to highlight Sahrawi student activism in human rights.

* Rabab Amidane speaks about her brother, El-Ouali, and Sahrawi human rights (April 2007)
* Rabab Amidane speaks to the media when El-Ouali goes on hunger strike in prison. (September 2007)
* Egyptian-made mini-movie about Rabab Amidane, which includes some of her video-recordings of Morrocan forces attacking student protestors (with the wounds and bruises they sustained) and the ransacking of Sahrawi university rooms.

Here are some of Rabab’s 2008 videos of her fellow university students uprising against the Moroccan police. (Rabab subsequently had to escape the security forces and managed to get to Norway):

Sahrawi student demonstration (Part 1)
Morrocan police fire teargas at Sahrawi student demonstration (Part 2)
Student rooms were ransacked (Part 3)
Student rooms were ransacked (Part 4)

2008 Student Protests at Universities:
Saharawi students under attack (Part 1)
Saharawi students under attack (Part 2)
Saharawi students under attack (Part 3)

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* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1]‘Abdelaziz’ here means an insultingly Moroccan reference to the president of the Sahrawi nation-state in exile.

No future under Moroccan rule

A Sahrawi woman

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76908

© Robert GriffinMehdi is employed and has a house and car. But he knows that he could lose it all if he openly shows allegiance to the Sahrawi cause.

This is one of a collection of seven short stories from inside the Moroccan Occupied Territory. These are ordinary Sahrawi people who responded to Konstantina Isidoros’ request for every-day examples of the difficulty of living under an occupying power. She has retained their anonymity.

*

Mehdi is a Sahrawi citizen who is employed and has a job, he has a house, a car and considers himself having good economic means. Despite all this, Mehdi does not see any future for him under Moroccan rule simply because as a Sahrawi person he automatically becomes entangled with the State within a political framework whereby he is forced to abandon any aspects of Sahrawi identity or belonging.

Any declaration of such aspects may result in confiscation by the State of everything he owns and worked very hard to acquire. The State apparatus would not hesitate to destroy Sahrawis if these Sahrawis claimed their own identity publicly. The State would wage an economic war against them; it would start by cutting their salaries off and dismissing them from work or stopping them from engaging in any economic activity.

Frankly, there are no Sahrawis who see any future in living with the Moroccans as a political resolution. The Sahrawis who pretend otherwise are either seeking economic reward for taking such a position or at least to be left alone so they can earn their own living without harassment of the state. If you took a position which opposes the State ideology they consider you an outlaw and they automatically strip you from your basic rights. You become a victim simply because you no longer follow their political authority.

To give you an example, my young children, when there is a football match between Morocco and Algeria, even though they are small and have not visited Algeria and neither have I, we all support Algeria because Algeria supports the Sahrawi cause. Frankly, despite the presence of the Moroccan State for a long time in the Western Sahara, that State cannot win the hearts of the Sahrawi people.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* As told by a Sahrawi woman.
* Here is a selection of video clips documenting Acts of ‘symbolic resistance’ by young people – including Sahrawi girls. There is a whole ‘youth movement’ involved in the resistance.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

A repatriate's plight

Salama

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76909

© Andrew McConnellReturning home from Algeria, Salama finds that as a Sahrawi living in occupied territory, he has ‘become a breathing person without a soul.’

This is one of a collection of seven short stories from inside the Moroccan Occupied Territory. These are ordinary Sahrawi people who responded to Konstantina Isidoros’ request for every-day examples of the difficulty of living under an occupying power. She has retained their anonymity.

*

Salama is 39 years of age. In 1976, he moved from Dakhla with his family of five, to set out towards the region of Tindouf in southern Algeria for fear of war, a period known by Sahrawi as "الانطلاقة " , ‘the launch’ [the beginning of a diaspora fleeing war].

Many years of frustration and dead-end waiting have followed. It was not until after the ceasefire in 1999, that he eventually decided he had enough of United Nations’ broken promises and lies to the Sahrawi people. He decided to seek employment and he moved to Mauritania where he spent three years trying to move to Europe from there. After several futile attempts he gave up trying and a year after that and having failed to obtain a respectable means to earn an honest living he said he received a call from the Moroccan consulate in Nouadibou, inviting him to move to Morocco.

He was told that he would be welcome back to his homeland but that he has to repent to be able to return under what is known in Morocco as a political slogan of ‘The homeland is Forgiving, Merciful’, which was launched by the King Hassan II.

Salama repatriated to his birthplace and the authorities granted him a new house and provided him with a monthly salary of $100. After 11 years of his return to his birthplace, which is under Moroccan administrative rule, he confirms that he regrets his return for these reasons. Salama describes his suffering in the following aspects:

Security: Salama emphasises that State Security considers the Sahrawi as enemies and that the State apparatus perpetuates marginalising the Sahrawis through the State’s internal media which spur the Moroccan people against Sahrawi rights. The implication of this is that a Sahrawi becomes at risk of being arrested, tortured or raped for trivial reasons.

Economically: Salama adds that repatriation for Sahrawi returnees is not economically feasible since the amount designated as monthly salary is one hundred dollars. This sum of money barely covers the payment of electricity and water bills for those who have a house, and he estimates that approximately 87 per cent of Sahrawi families residing in Al-Amal neighbourhood are living under the poverty line and that these families end up struggling at least for ten days of each month to get by without consuming any food due to their low income.

Legally: There are no laws protecting Sahrawi rights. The settlers enjoy rights that Sahrawis are deprived from in their own land and homeland, we suffer discriminatory and racist acts to alarming degrees. It is an occupation and apartheid.

Salama feels that the difference between those living in the Tindouf refugee camps and those residing in Dakhla is that in the camps you can eat and drink without fear of persecution … the struggle is limited to finding the material means of survival but under Moroccan occupation you have no future at all it seems that you are at a dead-end. You become a breathing person without a soul… you are dead in the sense that you feel that in your everyday existence you are either unconscious or absent.

Salama adds that the Sahrawi have no future, everyone has lied to them.

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* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

A young man’s sadness

Anonymous

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76910

cc SaharauiakTortured for taking part in political protest, a young Sahrawi has lost his childhood ambitions for a better life.

This is one of a collection of seven short stories from inside the Moroccan Occupied Territory. These are ordinary Sahrawi people who responded to Konstantina Isidoros’ request for every-day examples of the difficulty of living under an occupying power. She has retained their anonymity.

*

There is a Sahrawi young man of 21 years of age. Today he neither works nor studies, his life wasted between the café and the house. He does not pay much attention to what is around him. He looks back five years to when he was a youth in secondary education, with high ambitions in becoming a pilot or an aeronautical engineer. One day his ambitions ceased to be, causing him to leave education and move to live in the wilderness for a long period of time.

The root of his problem began five years ago, when one day he passed through a street where he saw some friends in an organised gathering for Sahrawi people’s political rights – and he saw political slogans. He paused for a second observing this scene and recalled the memory from his childhood when he would hear over the radio the faded voice of the ‘polisario broadcast’ raising the same slogans and speaking about the same demands. ‘Before I would listen over the radio – me and my father – and today I see it directly in my town’. He felt passionate and remembered also what his mother would say when she would ask him to stay away from every issue relating to politics because she fears for him torture and abduction and arrest and imprisonment by Moroccan security agencies.

After a few minutes of observation he decided to come closer, then decided to participate. They were demanding their political and economic rights. After one or two days of this occurrence his life began to enter a new course, his brother called him suddenly asking where he was. When he answered his brother replied that he must come immediately and that he was awaiting him at home. Upon his arrival he told him that men from the security forces arrived looking for you; what have you done? And during this discussion they arrived again and demanded that he leave with them. When he asked for the reason why they told him in a diplomatic tone that he should just hurry, quickly, and that he would find that out very soon.

‘They moved me to the police station, and when I entered they started hitting me with sticks and hands while coming upon me, and using foul language “we will do this and that with you”’, and started the investigation which lasted three days in which they asked him about every detail of his life and didn’t let him sleep, interrogating him while he hung by his feet head-down. It was truly hell, and after three days they decided to set him free after making him sign a confession that they arrested him for a criminal offence (theft). He returned to his home having decided that he wouldn’t abandon this issue for which they had tortured him.

After a while, he got to know a group which writes political slogans on houses and administrative buildings, and started working with them. One night they arrested him and moved him to an unknown location blindfolded. ‘This time was the deciding hit when they abducted me and excreted on me for two days torturing me inhumanely.’ He assures that the state he lives today goes back to that period; ‘I am worthless, my life is finished, I do not wish to live and if I do live I do not want to remember those times, I don’t want to wake up to my reality because it is painful for a man to lose his honour and dignity; there is then no meaning for life.’

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

No land without sex

Anonymous

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76911

© Andrew McConnellA young woman is told she can only benefit from a land redistribution scheme if she provides sexual favours to the Moroccan official administrating it.

This is one of a collection of seven short stories from inside the Moroccan Occupied Territory. These are ordinary Sahrawi people who responded to Konstantina Isidoros’ request for every-day examples of the difficulty of living under an occupying power. She has retained their anonymity.

*
A young Sahrawi woman is 26 years old and married with two children. Her husband works in the fishing sector and has an income of approximately $41.70 a day. Her economic condition is barely stable.

One day she went after hearing news of redistribution of plots of land, she hoped to benefit because she belonged to the same district. One day she went to speak with the administration. She met someone who was responsible for her administratively, a Moroccan citizen working as a leader of the province to which she belongs.

During the conversation with him about her economic situation and the extent of their need for plots of land in order to build a house instead of renting, he assured her that nothing would be found unless he was able to find plots of land for her in exchange for her satisfying his sexual desire.

When she felt the shock and shouted out against him, he sent for the police to expel her from the place on the grounds that she had tried to rob him. They hit her and then expelled her from the place.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

The following videos provide insights into the Sahrawi fishing industry, in which this woman’s husband works:
* Fishermen in Boujdour strike in protest against Morrocan authorities (August 2011)
* Aminatou Haidar gives an interview about Morocco’s illegal selling of fishing rights to the EU, which has knock on effects on local Sahrawi fishermen.
* Norwegian campaign group video on fishing industry.

Story of a sheikh: Impunity for Moroccans

Anonymous

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76912

This is one of a collection of seven short stories from inside the Moroccan Occupied Territory. These are ordinary Sahrawi people who responded to Konstantina Isidoros’ request for every-day examples of the difficulty of living under an occupying power. She has retained their anonymity.

*

A sheikh called Ahmed Lashin was exercising one morning on a street near a residential area called the quarter of Moulay Rachid. While running near the middle of the road a person riding a motorcycle hit him. He went into unconciousness.

He was taken to the hospital and spent a week bedridden after regaining consciousness. Then he was transferred to his home after the city's main hospital said it was an ordinary accident.

After two days Sheikh felt better but then entered a further stage of coma. His family moved him to the Moroccan city of Agadir but he died after his arrival to the hospital because they discovered he had internal bleeding and the local hospital in the city in which he was afflicted exercises racism against indigenous people, so they did not pay any attention to the health of the Sheikh, resulting in his death.

The person who collided with the Sheikh was a soldier and he still has not been arrested because the police have not taken the necessary actions towards this issue. This example represents a fraction of rights of the Sahrawi being overridden in the dealings of the state and its foundations with this man.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Why I’m not married yet

Hamdi

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76913

© Paulo Nunes dos Santos42-year old Hamdi would like to marry but he can’t afford to, thanks to his economic situation – one that is shared by many other Sahrawis in the occupied territory.

This is one of a collection of seven short stories from inside the Moroccan Occupied Territory. These are ordinary Sahrawi people who responded to Konstantina Isidoros’ request for every-day examples of the difficulty of living under an occupying power. She has retained their anonymity.

*

Abdullah narrates his story as someone who believes in the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and believes this principle is the basis for the future. But he also believes that there is no future for the Sahrawi in Morocco especially after the events of Gdeim Izik and Dakhla.

I am 29 years with employment in the Moroccan administration. And although I have never visited the Polisario and do not have any contact with them and I have never visited Algeria, and I lived all my life in Dakhla and between different Moroccan cities, I do not have confidence in everything offered by the Moroccan State.

I have little confidence in my experience of 29 years under the occupation of the Moroccan state because I do not trust that there is a future with them because the indicators confirm to me that they look at us all as enemies and wait for the opportunity to pounce on us. I really do not feel comfortable and I do not feel part of the Moroccan state, because I am sure that they always lie.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

A young girl’s life in a refugee camp

Senia Bachir Abderahman

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76914

© Robert Griffin‘I spent my whole childhood, or at least until I was six, thinking that living in refugee camps was all that existed for any person,’ writes Senia Bachir Abderahman, in an account that describes how her family came to live in the south-west Algerian desert, following the Morrocan occupation of Western Sahara in 1976. For Abderahman, ‘home is a far-fetched, ideal, dream-come-true state of mind’.

The night has just worn its black coat with bright stars. My grandmother Aziza and I sit on the cold soft dunes of the Algerian desert. She points with her fingers to the wide sky and starts to explain the Saharawi astronomy. Though she is completely blind, she still can sense the position of each star, which she once knew so well. She usually tells me and my brothers about the legends of her family, especially of my great-grandfather who used to be one of the most famous traders in the region. She tells us about their nomadic life and how they used to travel across the desert to exchange goats, sheep, camels and other valuables. At times, she tells us fairytales to make us fall asleep. But, on this night she chooses to tell me a different kind of story, a story that does not make me fall asleep, but one that awakens me and leaves me wondering and pondering on her and my own life.

She takes me back to when she was a young lady and a mother of three daughters and three sons. Like many women in her community, she married at the age of 12, but did not give birth to my mother, her eldest, until she was 20. The number 12 seems to be significant in her life. Even though her name means ‘the dearest one’, she was commonly known amongst her family members as ‘the stubborn one’. She was called so because when her mother was pregnant with her, she ‘refused’ to come to this world until she was 12 months old. It was certainly unusual considering that babies are born after nine months. She was the eldest in a family of five girls and one boy. As a wife, Aziza did not give birth immediately after getting married, which raised concerns amongst her family. But she was lucky enough to have an understanding husband who did not divorce her for that reason. In her community, one of the most important aspects of marriage was to give birth to many children, especially boys. Also, it was common for the husband to divorce his wife if she was ‘infertile’ without considering the possibility that the problem may be his own impotence.

As a mother and a wife, Aziza’s day usually started early in the morning by milking the camels, goats and sheep. ‘Everything was green and the air was so fresh,’ she tells me when comparing the countryside of Smara in the now Moroccan Occupied Territory with the desert of Smara refugee camp, where she has lived in exile for the last three decades. Though she is now blind, she still can sense the dryness and emptiness of the Hamada [Editor’s note: this is the name of this part of the Sahara desert). She tells me things about my homeland, a land that I have never set foot on, and can only fantasise about.

In Smara’s countryside, she was surrounded by the El-Fogra. Although Western Sahara consists mostly of desert areas, Aziza grew up in beautiful, green landscapes next to serene beaches. I think to myself as she speaks, she will never enjoy seeing all of this again! It is very hard for me to imagine where she once lived and enjoyed her youth. For an hour we go back two decades in time to the village of her origin. The hour, however, passes in a glimpse, just as so many of Aziza’s stories. Her fantasies, fairytales, recollections and memories intertwine with one another. She starts to lose interest, and suddenly starts to talk about when her life would change forever.

One morning in January 1976, something unusual happened. The day before, Aziza had heard rumours that the Moroccan army had attacked the northern region and forced people to flee. She did not really pay much attention, nor did any other member of her family, for they lived in the safe countryside and thought no one would bother them. In addition, Western Sahara had just gained independence from the Spanish after over a century of occupation. Everyone thought: Who would come to occupy their country, especially Morocco, their neighbour? They were mistaken in thinking so. On that day, the whole Frig [Editor’s note: frig denote an especially large collection of nomad tents rather than the usual small familial clusters of tents] was forced to abandon their families, properties, animal herds and the rest of the village. Aziza described the Moroccan soldiers as ‘having strange looks and indeed looked unmerciful.’ They were equipped with forces, guns and tanks and they came in groups. In that instant, her husband left to join other men to fight for their land of the Western Sahara. Like the rest of the Frig, she ran away with her children. The village became very unsafe and they could see other people in the distance being tortured and their sons taken away by the Moroccan soldiers.

She and her three daughters and three sons had to cross the desert to seek refuge in Algeria. They had to cross on foot – no camels, cars or any other means of transportation could be used because they were afraid of airplanes dropping bombs on them. During their journey, they walked at night because it was dark and no airplanes would be able to spot them. Even walking at night was dangerous: Snakes, scorpions and other dangerous desert insects lurked in the naked desert sands. During the day, they could not walk because they could see military airplanes flying over their heads and every then and now, they heard a bomb in the distance. They had to hide behind trees, if they were lucky enough to find any, and rocks when resting from the long walks at night and feed the children with the little food they could carry with them. ‘Lala and I took turns watching for airplanes, while the other one napped,’ Aziza tells me. Lala, my mother, was only 12 years old and she was the oldest child, while Brahim the youngest was eight months old.

Three days passed and they started to run out of food and water. So, surviving meant eating whatever could be found in the desert. Not long after that, Brahim died of dehydration. Still, they had to continue for fear of worse things happening. Just two days after Brahim’s death, while taking a break, the other two young boys died in a landmine explosion. ‘Half of the family was gone. It was a true devastation and heartbreaking,’ she tells with tears in her eyes. The tragedy did not end there. As my tears continue to drop, she says: ‘And then I lost my sight.’ On the following day, as they continued their journey, an airplane dropped a bomb just few metres in front of them. Since Aziza was in the lead, the ashes sprayed into her eyes and she lost her sight forever. Despite all of this, they could not stop. With a smile and tears in her eyes, she says, ‘The next day two men came on a truck and took us to the camps.’ A month after they arrived at the refugee camps in the southwest Algerian desert, she received the message of her husband’s death in one of the battles between the Polisario and the Moroccan army.

I quietly cry some more and then hug her. It was then I realised why she was so protective of her eldest grandchild. A widow with no sight, she was the mother and father for her three daughters whom she had to raise and take care of in the harsh conditions of the Hamada. Since there was no man in the family, my grandmother was the head of the family and her consent on every decision was absolutely necessary.

I was eight years old when I was faced with two options: Continue my education thousands of kilometres away from my family or stay at home and get married shortly after. It was a hard decision and one that I could not make by myself. On the one hand my mother wanted me to finish my education for she saw my potential but on the other hand, it was very hard to convince my grandmother who never went to school that this step was an important one in her granddaughter’s life. It took a very long time of arguing for my grandmother to finally agree on sending me to school, but it was too late. The trucks had just left taking the students to the buses, which would take them to boarding school in northwest Algeria. The place was about a two-hour drive and we did not have a car. I was convinced that the second option was what meant to happen.

It was a scary and an unbelievable scenario for me because school has always been the place where I found true refuge. My day always started very early in the morning by waking up as early as five; I was always the first of my family to get up. Every day, I get very excited about starting a new day in the classroom with the teacher and learning something new and different. My daily routine started with Qu’ran School for an hour and a half after which I left to the regular school. I was the most favoured student for Lemrabet, the Qu’ran teacher. He always gave me special privileges like teaching other people who were much older than me. He liked me because I memorised the Qu’ran verses very quick and always learned more than he expected.

Ideally, the point of the Qu’ran School is to understand the Holy Scripture but that was not the case, rather the point was to memorise the entire book and make your family proud. However, that would never be possible in my case for I was a girl. As a girl, I would not be able to teach Qu’ran nor could become an Imam to lead the prayers. It is prohibited by both the Muslim religion and the Saharawi culture. This, however, did not prevent me from memorising a quarter of the Qu’ran in four years. After I finished Qu’ran School, I headed to my regular classes and as always, I was the first one to come to the school. I just loved everything about studying and doing homework. The first thing I did when return from class to my tent was doing my homework. I always did more than what was asked for the homework.

As I stood there helplessly and thinking back to the old school days, which had become just some old memories, I suddenly felt someone grab me from the hand. It was my mother. She told me: ‘You are going to school. Let’s find someone to take you to the buses.’ After few minutes of searching, we finally found a police officer whom my mother convinced to drive me. With brief goodbyes and hugs, I climbed into the police car with my metal-square-suitcase-like baggage. I could only pack certain things. The boarding system was very strict and my family could only afford to give me so much. I had packed two trousers, three tops, a few of my favourite Arabic books, soap, tooth brush and tooth paste. The police car barely made it to the buses. A tall man asked for my name and he checked off the list. I slowly entered the bus and looked around hoping for familiar faces. All the girls were wearing the Melhfa, which made them at least 13 or 14 years old.[1] Since I was not wearing the Melhfa, some of the girls soon started to call me a ‘baby’. I turn around to find a seat, and an older girl asked me: ‘Can I adopt you?’ I smiled and excitingly said, ‘Sure!’. Her name was Galia and she was very nice to tell me all about the do’s and don’t’s in the boarding school. She had been in that school for three years and so she knew every small detail and every single person there. She told me about the usual daily routine and what to expect. She also warned me about many things including not studying very hard and never having a good grade on the sciences: ‘Saharawi girls are known for not doing well in math and sciences. So, I hope you are not that geeky type who likes these subjects.’ I forced a smile and I said: ‘Oh, no, I don’t really like that kind of thing.’ I had to lie because I did not want her to hate me. On the contrary, I loved math and sciences and I was very excited to learn more. At that point I had memorised all the multiplications up to ten, as well as most of the animals. The other subject that I really liked too was geography. I used to make my younger brothers memorise different countries and their capital cities. I knew the name of over a hundred countries and their capital cities by the age of six.

I spent the next eight years in boarding school during which I changed schools three times. Every time it was only the location and the name of the school that changed for me, my routine never changed. Galia was right about the daily routine. It was exactly the same as she described it to me on the bus. The bells go off at six in the morning. We had one hour to wash, brush out teeth and get ready. By seven, we line up for breakfast in the dining hall. Breakfast was exactly the same every single day; five-inch long French wheat bread with jam and butter, and Algerian coffee. It was standard that we have to eat our meals in exactly 30 minutes. For this, you either eat very fast or starve for the next five hours. After breakfast we go to study and do last-minute homework before classes started. At 8:30am, both boarding and day students gather to raise the Algerian flag. Classes started at 9am sharp and went on until noon. At 12:15pm, we line up again for lunch, which for the most part was lentil soup with bread or sometimes rice with tuna fish. At 12:45pm, we go to study until 2pm when the second sessions of classes resume. The classes go on until 5pm after when we go back to the dorm to change and by 6pm we had to go back to study even more. At 7pm we had dinner, which is always the same; plain spaghetti or mashed potatoes. We then had half an hour break to play, chat with your friends or simply spend it alone. At 8pm, we go back for more studying until 9pm when we go back to the dorms. We have one hour to change, wash and get ready to sleep. The lights go off at 10pm. Another day starts with the exact same routine but different clothes!

As I lay down on the soft dunes watching the starts and reflecting upon my struggle to get an education, I remember my exciting route on the way back home from boarding school. My life has been full of routines that even the two-hour drive from Tindouf city has been engraved in my memory very well. This route never changes and if you were to visit the camps this is how your trip would have gone. When you first arrive at Tindouf military airport, the pilot welcomes you to the capital of the Algerian desert and thanks you for l with Air Algerie; things already look totally different from Algiers, capital city of Algeria. When you come out of the airplane, a hot, dry and rather charming breeze hits your face. You walk through brief security and then, you take a mini-yellow-old bus with few torn sits to your intended wilaya (town), in this case Smara, which is about 40 miles away. The minibus goes through the city of Tindouf and you get very excited to see a new and a different kind of civilisation. The red and yellow houses from the French time strike your attention you as you pass through the narrow, crowded but live roads. Clearly you would not expect to see proper houses, shops and a post office; a refugee camp would not be this developed even after two decades of existence. It only takes about half an hour before you realise that what you have just seen was not the actual refugee camp. As the bus keeps going, Tindouf starts to disappear in the fast deserted landscapes of the Hamada. As you turn right and left hoping to see something green, more empty terrain fills your sight. The entire place looks uniformly the same, with exception of some rocky hills every few miles. It would be impossible to travel by yourself in this landscape because only the locals would know it the best.

As the bus goes farther and farther, things don’t change much accept for few desert scrubs and naked trees. As the time passes, the heat starts to increase and the minibus gets unbearable. As the journey progresses, you start entering the far eastern side of Tindouf province. Both the province and the city have the same name. One hour goes by and then two; you wait and wait to see the first person or perhaps the first tent. Two and half hours later, you finally see it. A dark green-coloured, rather funnel-shaped looking object stands in the midst of many similar-looking others shining in the sunny day. What you just saw is what we call ‘al-khayma’ and it literary means ‘the tent’.

As the minibus enters the camp, things look completely different. You see children running around and playing with basic and their-own-creation toys like socks wrapped with plastic bags as football balls or small cars made of tuna cans. You also see women covered with a six-metre long and one-metre wide colourful piece of fabric called Melhfa doing their daily chores. The moment the minibus becomes visible, all the children come running to greet you as their new guest. The first thing they ask for after greeting you in Spanish is some candy. The common line which all of the children know by heart is: ‘Hola, dame caramelo.’ Children’s excitement is an indicator of the arrival of a new and different-from-us guest; the children run to inform their mothers and then things become noisy.

Al-khayma is where I first opened my eyes to this world. It is where eight members of my beloved family still live. It is also where my grandmother spent over three decades of her life. It is not just a piece of fabric donated by the International Red Cross, it is more than that; it is the symbol of patience and love. My family’s tent is a reflection of hope and sharing. This 12-metre square space is the shelter for all of my family members. It is a protection against the strong and frequent sandstorms. It is an umbrella against the unbearable heat in the summer and a blanket against the bitter cold in the winter. When you first enter the tent, it looks completely transformed from the inside; many unfamiliar and smiling faces welcome you as you try lowering your head so that it doesn’t hit the ‘roof’. The inside is entirely different; you would never be able to guess that it looks like this just by looking at it from the outside. Simple, handmade, long and beautiful carpets run through the tent. The four ‘doors’ are nicely decorated with bright and multicoloured materials. On the right side there is a mini-closet with few perfectly folded blankets. On the left side there is a short and small table with tea set and perfume for the guests. al-khayma is the headquarters of every social gathering, ranging from the very long Saharawi tea ceremony (‘et-tay’) to simply playing volleyball with a ball made of socks wrapped in plastic bags with my brothers. Et-tay is the time when family, neighbours or simply people passing by enjoy sweet cup of tea. The tea is made in a very special way and in three stages and each stage has a different meaning. The first cup is bitter like life, the second is sweet like love and the last one is soft like death.

As I sit watching my grandmother and wondering about my next steps in life, she concludes the night with words that will stay with me for the rest of my life. To me, she is the example of courage and just struggle. Despite all that she had to endure in her journey to the camps and over three decades of living in one of the most inhospitable corners of Algeria, she still hopes to go back to her homeland. I am thankful to have her in my life but very sad to know that she will never be able to see the beauty of her home country. My life has been shaped and influenced by my grandmother’s daring story. The last thing that she told me that night, which still resonates in my heart, was: ‘They [Moroccans] may have weapons, guns and airplanes, but we [Saharawis] have patience and determination.’

Home! It is a word I can hardly identify with these days and I don’t seem to find where to place it. For some, home is family. For others, home is a place they can always return to and be safe. For me, home is a far-fetched, ideal, dream-come-true state of mind. I spent my whole childhood, or at least until I was six, thinking that living in refugee camps was all that existed for any person. It was hard for me to envision my life differently.

I grew up in a modest tent with eight family members. The tent or as we call it al-khayma is dark green coloured, rather funnel shaped looking object. It usually has the International Red Cross or the UNHCR label on it.

EXPLORE LIFE INSIDE THE CAMPS THROUGH VIDEO:

* ‘We are Saharawis’ (BBC documentary)
* Sahara (Documentary by Michael Palin)
- Part One
- Part two

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] Melhfa is the word for Sahrawi women’s traditonal dress worn on reaching womanhood, consisting of four metres of coloured thin muslin or cotton, and loosely wound around the body and head.

'Critical Reflections on Accumulation by Dispossession in the Agrarian Sector in Africa'

2011-10-09

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/551/palaver.pdf

14 October will see the launch of the book 'The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive
Accumulation and the Peasantry'. The launch forms part of a day-long event taking place at Nyerere theatre one at the University of Dar es Salaam, which will see top academics discussing the theme of the book. Click on the link provided to access the full programme.

Appeal for Africa Unity Tour of Cynthia McKinney

2011-10-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/76972

A network of Pan-Africanists from Ubuntu Pan African Network and Pan Africanist Unity groups are initiating an invitation to Cynthia McKinney to serve as the African World Envoy starting 28 October 2011. It has been recognized that Cynthia McKinney, a former US Representative and 2008 Presidential Election Candidate, has contributed her voice and her life to justice and WORLD peace. She is a long time proponent of abolishing NATO and a tireless voice against the genocidal exploitation of humans and the environment by multinational companies and the West.
Appeal for Africa Unity Tour of Cynthia McKinney

A network of Pan-Africanists from Ubuntu Pan African Network and Pan Africanist Unity groups are initiating an invitation to Cynthia McKinney to serve as the African World Envoy starting October 28, 2011.

We know another World Is Possible. We recognize the relationships with the experiences in Libya to regime change in Ghana back in 1966 and the externally instigated incursions in Zimbabwe. We need Sis Cynthia’s insight to help set a sound foundation for a vibrant movement capturing and reviving the essence of Pan Africanism. This would be the kick-off of a conference slated for 2012.

WHY CYNTHIA MCKINNEY?

It has been recognized that Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Representative and 2008 Presidential Election Candidate, has contributed her voice and her life to justice and WORLD peace. She is a long time proponent of abolishing NATO and a tireless voice against the genocidal exploitation of humans and the environment by multinational companies and the West.

Many know of her stance on the Niger Delta, AFRICOM, sanctions and western interference in Zimbabwe and Democratic Republic of Congo. Recently, she led a self-sponsored fact finding delegation to Libya when NATO attacked the country. We have experienced her energy and power in (SRO) 'The Truth Tour', as she shared what she saw in Libya . We now face the realities of a new contest using an imperialistic tool called 'regime change'.

The Objectives of the African trip:

1) The African People must work together and have sovereignty.

2) The platform for the October African Unity Tour is a diplomatic action to advance our collective objectives which is to rally sons and daughters for the total liberation of our motherland.

3) Social, Economic and Political emancipation.

What our efforts would include:

(1) Sharing the experiences of the present Libya situation to learn lessons to build on what has been going on in the African Unity movement,

(2) relating the experiences Libya to 1966 regime change in Ghana and externally instigated plots of regime change in Zimbabwe today to help build on what is going on in the Africa Unity movement ,

(3) To inspire the grass root and non-establishment oriented activists with insight to Cynthia McKinney’s efforts and experiences.

Organizers include:
Ubuntu Pan African Network
Organising for Africa
Pan Africanist Unity
New Afrikan ImageMakers

Mbarika Kazingizi
Crde Charles Tapfuma Samuriwo
Kola Afolabi
Carl Zeto
Andrew Seraus
Friends in US

We are requesting contributions:
Please do not underestimate the importance of your support.
TO DONATE TOWARDS THE AIRFARE CLICK HERE for paypal account:http://bit.ly/mUmZCL

Individuals without credit or debit cards will soon be informed on where to send their contributions either through Western Union or Moneygram (they can ask questions by emailing to upan2011@gmail.com and copying adinkra@dircom.co.uk or vice-versa)

South Africa: Ugandan feminist lawyer Sylvia Tamale to launch book in Cape Town

2011-10-10

http://www.agi.ac.za/home

The African Gender Institute (AGI) and the Women and Gender Studies programme of the University of the Western Cape will on the 11th and the 12th of October 2011, co-host Professor Sylvia Tamale. Professor Tamale will be launching the book, 'African Sexualities, A Reader' and also presenting a seminar on the politics of sexualities in African contexts. The book launch will be on the 11th of October at the Book Lounge (71 Roeland Street, Cape Town) from 17:30hrs to 20:00hrs while the seminar will be on the 12th of October at the Graduate School of Humanities Building at the University of Cape Town from 13:00hrs to 14:30hrs.

Global: The World vs Wall Street

2011-10-09

http://bit.ly/nObhoe

Thousands of Americans have non-violently occupied Wall Street - an epicentre of global financial power and corruption. You can sign a petition in support of the movement: 'If millions of us from across the world stand with them, we'll boost their resolve and show the media and leaders that the protests are part of a massive mainstream movement for change.'

Ghana: Change agents

2011-10-10

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/551/change.mp3

Every graduate in Ghana is mandated to do a year’s national service. The programme coordinated by the National Service Secretariat was introduced 30 years ago. The purpose was for graduate students to give their first fruits of labour to their country. Students should also be posted to areas where they can best apply the knowledge acquired at university. This documentary highlights concerns the programme is not achieving the purpose for which it was introduced.

Ghana: Discrimination and people who live with Albinism

2011-10-10

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/551/albino.mp3

There is enormous discrimination against people who live with Albinism in Ghana. Perception about the condition has assumed a superstitious twist, with suggestions sufferers don’t die, that they vanish. But why this level of discrimination against people who are only different from others because of pigment? In Tanzania, and many other African countries, they are killed for rituals and those in Ghana are scared these unwarranted attacks could soon occur here.

Ghana: Sex for Grades

2011-10-10

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/551/sexgrades.mp3

The counterfeit medicine business is a big business in Ghana. Experts say only 60 per cent of anti-malarial medicines in the country are genuine; the remaining 40 per cent are fake. As a result hundreds of people are dying yearly. But the institutions charged with the responsibility of dealing with the problem appear not to have the capacity to end it. This documentary investigates the counterfeit medicine business and reveals the business doesn’t look like ending now.This documentary investigates the alleged sexual exploitation of female students in some of Ghana’s schools, especially the tertiary institutions. In this piece, former students talk about how their lecturers pestered them for sex in exchange for grades. For some of the victims the experience has completely changed their outlook on life.

Ghana: When Drugs Don't Heal

2011-10-10

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/551/fakedrugs.mp3

The counterfeit medicine business is a big business in Ghana. Experts say only 60 per cent of anti-malarial medicines in the country are genuine; the remaining 40 per cent are fake. As a result hundreds of people are dying yearly. But the institutions charged with the responsibility of dealing with the problem appear not to have the capacity to end it. This documentary investigates the counterfeit medicine business and reveals the business doesn’t look like ending now.

Global: Africa Today - listen online

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/qwWZgT

Africa Today speaks with Robin Fryday the producer of the film 'The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement' and talks with Eddie Daniels on contemporary South Africa. Eddie Daniels was imprisoned on Robben Island for many years with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Dennis Brutus.

Libya: War on Libya exposed

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/nZkURe

Freedom Now! host Dedon Kamathi interviews Mahdi Nazemroaya, one of the last independent journalists in Tripoli, and former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, about Nazemroaya's findings regarding the fabricated claims that led to the US war on Libya.

Zimbabwe: Mugabe admits he has no power to order elections

2011-10-10

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news071011/mugsadmits071011.htm

For a man who thrives on giving the impression he is in total control, Robert Mugabe surprised many people on Thursday when he admitted he could not call for elections when he wants them. Addressing the ZANU PF Central Committee in Harare Mugabe said: 'We were looking forward to holding elections soon but I’m not in control of the mechanism that would lay the road to elections this year.' For months ZANU PF was adamant that elections would be held this year.

Zimbabwe: Pressure mounts on foreign firms

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/nMCnXt

As Zimbabwe begins investigating 700 foreign-owned companies that missed this week's deadline to submit plans on the sale of majority shares to locals, investors are looking to a deal struck by Old Mutual for clues on compliance. The company, the largest of its kind on the Zimbabwe stock exchange, has significant commercial property holdings and is the largest provider of insurance in the country. As a first step towards the required 51 per cent, Old Mutual agreed to set aside 25 per cent for staff, pensioners, policyholders, a youth fund and black investors.

Global: Why involving men in gender equity is crucial

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/pb5H5A

The involvement of men is key to the success of the gender-equality movement, but changing long-held social structures and convincing men of the importance of equal opportunities for women will not happen overnight, experts say. 'Men giving up their superior position is akin to acting out of the normative or prescribed way and [means men can be] ridiculed for acting differently - not like men,' Maria Magezi, programme officer with the NGO, Akina Mama wa Afrika, told IRIN in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

South Africa: Transgender woman wins battle over ID

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/pkcmbT

After years of living in fear of showing her ID or driving licence to anyone, a transgender Durban woman can now proudly display her documents without being embarrassed or harassed. Her physical journey to womanhood started two years ago when she began hormone treatment and since then she has developed breasts, her facial hair has diminished and her weight has gone down by almost 30kg because the increase in oestrogen has led to a decrease in muscle mass. The task of changing her gender officially was much more difficult. Home Affairs said that since she had not undergone any gender reassignment surgery, her journey to womanhood was incomplete and her details could not be changed.

Tanzania: Gender parity lacking, report shows

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/pSsyiy

Tanzania should encourage gender parity if it wants to have a competitive economy, a new World Bank report shows. In the report on women, business and the law, Tanzania is listed among 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa with high levels of gender discrimination regarding the use of property and basic legal transactions such as signing contracts or getting a passport.

West Africa: Plan to combat GBV in West Africa

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/qY3Dl2

West Africa Network for Peace building (WANEP) in partnership with Crises Management Initiative (CMI) has launched a project on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in Accra. The initiative is aimed at harnessing the dynamics and socio-political impart of gender-based violence for sustainable peace processes in West Africa. The Project dubbed: 'Addressing GBV in Peace Processes in West Africa', hopes to increase the capacity of local and regional mediators in West Africa to address GBV more effectively in peace mediation processes.

Equatorial Guinea: Obiang prize suspended again

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/nzQuxo

The decision by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's executive board on 4 October 2011, to defer any action on a highly controversial life sciences prize named after and funded by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea blocked a move to reinstate the prize immediately, but the board should eliminate the prize permanently, six civil society organisations said.

Ghana: Woes for disabled persist five years after act

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/pryEFg

There are an estimated two million disabled people in Ghana, who, according to the World Health Organisation, account for seven to 10 per cent of the population. Five years after its passage, the Persons with Disability Act has brought few changes to their lives. On paper its provisions promise plentiful employment opportunities, free education, accessible buildings and transportation, and societal acceptance. The reality is much different.

Kenya: 100 days that may change Kenya

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/nxX1ql

An anxious three months lie ahead for Kenya as judges prepare to hand down verdicts on whether International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo will press crimes against humanity charges against the Ocampo Six. This article in the Daily Nation says there is consensus that the defence teams have put in a strong case to try and get their clients off the hook but that the prosecution may have a large mass of evidence which they have only disclosed to the judges and which they are holding on to in preparation for the full trial stage.

Kenya: The justice sector and the rule of law

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/oJI42P

The Kenya Justice Sector report, written by Dr Patricia Kameri Mbote and Migai Akech, comes at the time when the country is going through interesting times. The study looks at: justice sector and rule of law; legal and institutional framework; government track record in respect of rule of law; management of the justice system; independence of the bench and bar; criminal justice; access to justice and the role of donor agencies.

Namibia: Skulls returned by Germany cause anger

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/q9DxEQ

The New Age Online reports that human skulls taken from Namibia by German colonizers returned home after more than 100 years, but the reconciliatory gesture instead has ignited anger and renewed demands that Germany pay for its sins in this corner of Africa where more than 60,000 people were killed. The return of 20 skulls taken to Germany more than a century ago for racist experiments also has fueled anger about current injustices by a people decimated when they rebelled against German colonizers.

South Africa: China sowing fear and lies, says Dalai Lama

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/pmF1gb

The Dalai Lama has accused China's rulers of creating a climate of fear, lies and censorship. 'In reality, for the communist totalitarian system and for many totalitarian systems, hypocrisy and telling lies has unfortunately become part of their lives,' he said in a conversation with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu via video link-up to Cape Town. The Dalai Lama was meant to travel to Cape Town from India for Tutu's 80th birthday celebrations at the weekend but cancelled his trip after South Africa failed to give him a visa in time.

South Africa: Silicosis victims speak out

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/r7qX2j

Three former Anglo American workers who were left destitute and devastated by lung disease acquired in their line of work have expressed their desire for justice, reports The New Age Online. Wilson Mafulwane, Daniel Thakamakau and Alpheos Blom form part of hundreds of former Anglo American workers who are squaring up against the global mining giant in a court battle domiciled in Johannesburg and London. Their course closely resembles the Cape PLC case where 7,500 South African asbestos miners successfully sued for more than £21m (about R268m) in a London court.

Uganda: Government secures land for terror suspects prison

2011-10-06

http://bit.ly/nciWs6

Government has secured 300 acres of land to set up a multi-functional prison for terror suspects.
The disclosure was made by the Commissioner General of Prisons, Dr. Johnson Byabashaija. He said the new detention centre would also accommodate cyber crime suspects and drug traffickers.

Western Sahara: Africa Should Slap Sanctions on Morocco

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/nxbtG4

A firm call for African Union member states to impose sanctions against Morocco until it abides by the United Nations mandate that affirms the people of Western Sahara's right to self-determination was made at the Pan African Parliament proceedings. The Pan African Parliament (PAP), the legislative organ of the African Union (AU), is meeting from 3-14 October for the Fifth Ordinary Session of the Second Parliament in Midrand, South Africa. The call comes as PAP reviewed recommendations of a fact-finding mission to the region on Wednesday.

Cote d’Ivoire: Ouattara's tricky balancing act over Ghana-based refugees

2011-10-09

http://bit.ly/oPk8ut

President Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire is determined to apprehend compatriots he accuses of committing crimes during the country’s protracted post-election crisis. The position bumps against his other declared quest for national reconciliation. When he arrived in Accra on an official visit on 6 October, President Ouattara sought to proclaim national reconciliation but at the same time pushed for the arrest and repatriation to Cote d’Ivoire of persons who have been indicted for war crimes. Earlier, his foreign minister, Mr Daniel Kablan Duncan, had signed a tripartite agreement with Ghana and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of the approximately 18,000 Ivorian refugees.

Global: Meeting discusses damage caused by immigration detention

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/njQt3J

Thousands of people are held in immigration detention in the Middle East and North Africa on any given day. This practice is expensive, can harm the health and wellbeing of those detained and has been found to be ineffective at deterring irregular migrants. To address this growing human rights issue, the first-ever regional workshop on immigration detention was held in Beirut recently by the International Detention Coalition (IDC) with the assistance of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC).

Kenya: A day in the life of a refugee

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/pmChyz

IRIN News carries a feature on Moulid Iftin Hujale, who has spent 14 of his 24 years in the world’s largest refugee complex, Dadaab, in eastern Kenya, close to his home country, Somalia. As well as working with an NGO in the complex’s Ifo camp, Hujale is a writer and freelance journalist. In this installment of his account of life in Dadaab, he reflects further on the quotidian reality of camp life and the tantalizing opportunity of escape offered by a scholarship.

Kenya: Mau evictees still waiting three years on

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/rtBeYe

Evicted from their homes in 2009 when the government initiated efforts to restore Kenya's largest water tower, the Mau Forest Complex, thousands of the affected families are still without permanent shelter. The fact that the country's policy on internally displaced persons (IDPs) has remained in draft form since 2009 does not give the evictees hope that their plight will be resolved soon.

South Africa: Zim deportations to resume

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/pyPG0J

South Africa’s Home Affairs department has notified Zimbabwean authorities that it is resuming the removal of illegal immigrants after lifting a special moratorium which has been in place since May 2009. South Africa had given Zimbabwean immigrants, estimated in the millions, a 31 December 2010 deadline to regularise their stay but just 275,762 submitted work permit applications which were decided by 31 July.

Sudan: 25,000 flee to Ethiopia to escape Blue Nile fighting

2011-10-06

http://bit.ly/mTKQqe

Some 25,000 people have arrived in Ethiopia over the last three weeks to escape fighting between the Sudanese army and rebels in Blue Nile state, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said. 'Since 3 September, when the influx into Ethiopia started, an estimated 25,000 refugees have found refuge in Ethiopia,' said Adrian Edwards, UNHCR spokesperson. Fighting between government forces and rebels from the northern wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement broke out earlier this month, after the SPLM-N refused to disarm.

Tanzania: Resisting repatriation

Burundian refugees struggling to stay in Tanzania

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/r9IPeF

'On 25 May 2011, a Tripartite Commission comprised of the governments of Tanzania and Burundi and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) met in Dar es Salaam to discuss the future of repatriation efforts for Burundian refugees. The situation of approximately 38,000 refugees in Mtabila camp in the country’s Kigoma region was a particular focus of the talks, which ended with a decision to close the camp on 31 December 2011. The government of Tanzania has announced that they expect a renewed repatriation drive.' This report from the International Refugee Rights Initiative examines the situation.

Algeria: Call for harassment against union leaders to stop

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/qDAZlP

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the Action Group of Families of the Disappeared in Algeria (Collectif des Familles de Disparus en Algérie, CFDA), and the Algerian Human Rights League (Ligue Algérienne pour la défense des droits de l'Homme, LADDH) have strongly condemned the intensifying harassment campaign against trade unionists and human rights defenders in Algeria. 'Our organisations call upon the Algerian Government to put an end to all harassment directed against human rights defenders, including union leaders and to suspend all judicial procedures launched against them.'

Egypt: Some public transit workers return to work after strike

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/oi06cM

Some of Egypt’s Public Transit Authority (PTA) workers returned to work 4 October, after striking for two weeks. Workers from the Giza and Imbaba transit garages have remained on strike, however. The workers were on strike to demand fair wages and better work conditions.

Zambia: ZCTU welcomes Sata on minimum wage

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/phH0dD

The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has welcomed President Michael Sata’s directive to the Ministry of Labour to immediately revise the minimum wage. Sata last week directed the minister of labour Fackson Shamenda to work at revising the minimum wage from the current 419 Kwacha.

Latest edition: emerging powers news roundup

2011-10-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/77002

In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...
1. China in Africa

China, Tanzania Sign $1bn Gas Pipeline Deal – report
China and Tanzania have signed a $1 billion loan agreement to build a major natural gas pipeline in east Africa's second-biggest economy, a Tanzanian newspaper quoted the country's energy minister as saying on Friday. Reuters reports that the deal involves the construction of a 532-kilometre pipeline from Mnazi Bay and Songo Songo island in southern Tanzania to the country's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.
Read More

China donates Sh2bn relief food for drought-stricken Kenyans
Kenya has received the largest food relief ever from foreign countries for more than 4.5 million hunger-stricken citizens. The government on Wednesday received the first batch of relief food worth Sh2 billion from the Chinese government at the Port of Mombasa. The food is expected to be distributed to different regions of the country, starting this week.
Read More

Kenya Lauds Chinese Financial, Technical Assistance
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Thursday thanked the Chinese government for the continued financial and technical support to Kenya's development agenda, particularly flagship projects key to attainment of Vision 2030. President Kibaki said Kenya appreciates the massive assistance in development and rehabilitation of infrastructure projects the Chinese government extended to Kenyans which have had significant impact on the country's socioeconomic development.
Read More

Murmurs as Chinese company clinches Sierra Leonean airport deal
China has agreed to finance the construction of a new airport for Sierra Leone, as part of efforts to boos its presence in the West African country. An engineering team from leading Chinese construction group, China International Railway Group, which is said to have been awarded the contract, is in the country to conduct some ground work ahead of the actual construction work. But there are murmurs on the awarding of the country.
Read More

Desertification control: China shares lessons with Africa
Muktar works for Land Resources Management and Environmental Protection Department of the Ethiopian government. Together with 22 people from 10 African countries, he learned desertification-combating techniques like sand fixation, water-saving irrigation and greenhouse planting, and visited an International Horticultural Expo held in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
Read More

2. India in Africa

India to build thermal power station in Mozambique
The Mozambican government has authorised the Indian company Jindal Steel and Power to begin studies for the construction of a thermal power station to produce electricity from coal in the central province of Tete. The power plant would have a capacity to produce 2,640 megawatts (MW) of electricity for the domestic and regional market. According to daily newspaper ‘Noticias’, construction of the power station would cost US$3 billion.
Read More

SA, India seek to build on strong bilateral trade relations
India and South Africa have a historical relationship but, recently, the two countries have been focusing on ways and platforms to further strengthen trade relations. In her opening remarks at a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Business Unity South Africa (Busa) seminar, Busa CEO Nomaxabiso Majokweni said business relations between the two countries were growing and the long-term aim was to increase bilateral trade.
Read More

3. In Other Emerging Powers News

Turkey spreads its wings into Africa
Turkish Prime Tayyip Erdogan visited South Africa on Tuesday, the latest stop in a diplomatic drive into the resource-rich continent whose attention is increasingly fixed on emerging market relationships rather than old commercial ties to Europe. After a landmark August visit to Somalia and a tour of North Africa a month later, Erdogan brought a large business delegation to Africa's biggest economy, a clear sign of his desire to boost trade from its current humble levels.
Read More

Russia, Djibouti to discuss African settlement, situation at Horn of Africa
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Djiboutian counterpart Mohamed Ali Yusuf will meet in Moscow for talks on Thursday, October 6, to discuss African settlement and the humanitarian situation near the Horn of Africa. This is the first visit of a high-ranking diplomat in the history of Russian-Djibouti relations; it should become an important new step forward in the development of our ties with the country.
Read More

Copper miner gets $500m shot in arm
Zambia's importance as a global copper producer was reaffirmed this week when Standard Bank announced that it had provided a $500-million bridge finance facility to Konkola Copper Mines in Zambia.
Read More

5. Blogs, Opinions, Presentations and Publications

ANTHONY BUTLER: Why is China so influential over ANC politicians?
THE debate over the Dalai Lama’s inconclusive application for a visa to visit SA has revolved around one supposedly incontrovertible fact: that China is now SA’s "leading trading partner". Apologists for the government have explained that western luxuries such as free speech are to be set against the maintenance of cordial relations with an increasingly dominant economic and geopolitical power.
Read More

China's big economic stick: No Dalai Lama allowed
In their research paper, "Paying a Visit: The 'Dalai Lama Effect' on International Trade", Andrea Fuchs and Nils-Hendrik Klann wrote: "Meetings of a head of state or head of government with the Dalai Lama lead to a reduction of exports to China by 8.1% or 16.9% on average, depending on the estimation technique used." The economists said that the effect was mainly driven by reduced exports of machinery and transport equipment. However, it disappeared in the second year after a meeting took place.
Read More

India-China Strategic Economic Dialogue: Another Positive Step – Analysis
India and China concluded their inaugural Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) in Beijing. The forum was the result of an arrangement decided in the Joint Communiqué of India and China signed on December 16, 2010 when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited India. Held in Beijing over two days, the Indian side was led by the Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, with a unique format to enhance inter-ministerial coordination by taking along representatives from nine ministries.
Read More

Playing on Chinese ground: Emerging Asian investors in Africa
Currently, China is leading Asian investment in Africa. While criticism and controversies have kept international attention on the biggest Asian economy, investigating whether China is setting an example for other Asian countries to follow bears interesting results. Among the Asian players in Africa, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Thailand, to name a few, have been investing in the energy sector as well as in natural resources throughout the continent. They are differentiating themselves by relying more on the private sector than on their Governmental ties with African countries.
Read More

China’s Influence: Waxing or Waning?
One of the significant unresolved questions surrounding Chinese foreign policy is whether China’s influence is expanding or diminishing. Is China a model for other countries? Does its economic clout give it sway in other arenas? Does its growing military prowess have the potential to bend others to its will?
Read More

Angola: Dos Santos to step down?

2011-10-04

http://n24.cm/nZKtYg

The ruling MPLA's December Central Committee meeting will be closely watched after media reports suggested long-serving President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has chosen a successor and may step down before or one year after a 2012 general election. The weekly Novo Jornal said a month ago dos Santos had selected Manuel Vicente, head of national oil company Sonangol, as his successor, although a party spokesperson said no decisions had been taken and the party would appoint its candidate at the December meeting.

Cameroon: Voting begins

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/pUBjJL

Voting got off to a slow start on Sunday in Cameroon’s presidential elections, which incumbent Paul Biya seems assured of winning to extend his 29-year rule. The 78-year-old veteran is seeking a sixth term against 22 other candidates, with opposition complaining that his control over the electoral system is so complete the outcome is a foregone conclusion. On paper, seven million people are eligible to vote.

Malawi: No reason for apology to Sata, says Malawi

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/pKUty4

Malawi has said there is no reason to apologise to newly-elected President of Zambia Michael Sata over his deportation and declaration as a prohibited immigrant in 2007. Seventy-four-year Sata, elected President two weeks ago after beating a Mutharika-ally Rupiah Banda, on Saturday snubbed the Malawian leader’s invitation to attend the Comesa summit in protest against the Mutharika government and demanded for an apology concerning the 2007 quarrel.

Sierra Leone: Parties announce parliamentary boycott

2011-10-09

http://bit.ly/nVZ70P

Sierra Leone's opposition parties have announced an indefinite suspension of their participation in parliament, citing 'attacks on democracy' they say are being perpetrated by the governing All Peoples Congress (APC) party of President Ernest Bai Koroma. Among other things, they demanded the 'immediate' lifting of a ban by the police on political processions, rallies and public meetings.

South Africa: Teargas stampede at ANCYL meeting

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/oO2RMg

Anger over the disbanding of the KwaZulu-Natal ANC Youth League executive by the league’s national leaders almost exploded into violence when fuming youth league members from the eThekwini region tried to storm a meeting being addressed by the league’s national executive in Durban. Pandemonium broke out when the angry youths, singing songs in favour of President Jacob Zuma and chanting slogans against youth league president Julius Malema, approached the office where the meeting was held on the 21st floor of the building.

Tunisia: First election campaign since uprising kicks off

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/oUlEEZ

Nine months after an uprising that deposed former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and inspired the Arab Spring, Tunisians elect politicians on 23 October to an assembly that will rewrite the country's constitution. Parties running candidates have agreed the assembly will sit for one year. An independent committee set up by Tunisia's caretaker government to oversee the poll said nearly 11,000 candidates would contest 218 seats in the assembly.

Tunisia: Police clash with protesters

2011-10-10

http://aje.me/oQ1wal

Police in the Tunisian capital have used tear gas in an attempt to disperse hundreds of protesters who were attacking authorities with stones and batons. The protesters, who are aligned with conservative Islamic groups, had gathered at the main university in Tunis on Sunday to protest against a ban on wearing the niqab, or full-face veil, as well as the closing of a mosque near the campus.

Zambia: Sata reverses bank sale

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/o4vqK2

Zambia’s President Michael Sata has reversed the previous government’s sale of a privately-owned bank to South Africa’s FirstRand, dissolved several parastatal boards and revealed that the nation, including State House, was 'stinking with corruption'. The Zambian leader dismissed all 72 district commissioners that were appointed by the previous government, saying they were politicians, and ordered them to immediately vacate their offices and houses. 'We cannot have civil service positions given to political parties,' he said.

Zambia: Zambia elections - lessons for Zimbabwe

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/nVnW9D

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network sent a 15 member mission to observe Zambia‘s tripartite elections held on the 20th of September 2011. The objectives of the mission were multifaceted and included; to observe the Zambia’s electoral processes, to explore and understand civil society initiatives within and around the electoral process. Lastly, the mission sought to glean lessons and insights to inform Zimbabweans as we prepare for the referendum and the general elections in the future.

South Africa: Arms deal inquiry will be transparent

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/nJNkcP

President Jacob Zuma has said he would soon release further details on the arms deal commission of inquiry. Zuma recently announced he would set up a commission of inquiry into South Africa's controversial multi-million rand arms deal.

Uganda: Charges forwarded against Kutesa, Nasasira

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/oMfnXT

The Inspector General of Government has forwarded charges against Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa, together with Government Chief Whip John Nasasira and junior labour minister Mwesigwa Rukutana to the Anti-corruption Court in relation to the Shs14b tender for fixing Speke Resort Munyonyo, ahead of the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala. The trio, are facing two charges of abuse of office and causing financial loss, according to a charge sheet presented to the court Wednesday morning before the anti-corruption court, by the IGG prosecutor Rogers Kinobe.

Africa: Africa ravaged by continued denial of market access

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/rppi3j

The poorest countries in Africa are not merely the victims of natural calamities. They are also ravaged by the continued denial of market access as promised in the Doha trade negotiations, say African trade diplomats. Almost six years ago at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Hong Kong ministerial meeting, the least-developed countries (LDCs) in the global trading regime, drawn largely from Africa, were assured that their industrial products will be given duty-free and quota-free market access in rich countries. Sadly, there are grave doubts now that these promises will be addressed at the WTO’s eighth ministerial meeting in December.

Egypt: Mubarak’s odious debts

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/pMmdMF

This article from Project Syndicate looks at Egypt’s public finances. 'The interest that the country pays on its foreign loans is larger than its budget for education, healthcare, and housing combined. Indeed, these debt-service costs alone account for 22% of the Egyptian government’s total expenditures. The impact has become impossible to ignore. With growing political uncertainty and a slowing economy, Egypt is likely to witness decreasing government revenues, increasing demands for urgent spending, and rising interest rates on government borrowing. This could lead to a fiscal catastrophe for the government at the very moment when the country is attempting a complicated political transition.'

Global: Europe puts foot down on EPAs

2011-10-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/76893

Botswana and Namibia are set to lose preferential access to the European Union, which wants African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to sign controversial free trade agreements within two years or face potential loss of market access to the 27-member EU bloc. The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are contested because countries fear unfair competition from the EU market. Brussels has finally set an ultimatum for the talks: a total of 18 out of 36 countries that have not yet concluded or implemented an EPA now have till 1 January 2014 to do so, reports IPS.

Global: European markets plummet on fears of a new banking crisis

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/r6PzcR

This article on the World Socialist website argues that the handling of the Eurozone financial crisis points to a policy of 'pushing Greece over the edge, with devastating consequences for the Greek working class, while allocating hundreds of billions more in public funds to cover the potential losses of banks across Europe - a new bailout that will inevitably be paid for at the expense of the jobs, wages and social conditions of workers in every European country. These attacks will set a new benchmark for attacks on the working class in the US and internationally.'

Global: IMF forecast mistakes not trivial

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/qbDvYt

The International Monetary Fund's forecast mistakes on the global economy would be forgiven if they came from a teacher, a lawyer or a surgeon. But, says this article on www.indepthnews.info, there should be no pardon for well-paid 'experts', whose job is to supervise the world economy and alert when things are going wrong. 'What makes things worse is that those experts are not inclined to admit their mistakes and apologize - not to speak of offering their resignation - as if their blunders were inconsequential, and just a minor oversight in a cooking recipe.'

Global: Occupy Wall Street and the start of a new protest era

2011-10-09

http://reut.rs/onDp4t

As Occupy Wall Street protests in the US enter their fourth week, the size of the crowd has begun to grow. 'But as the nascent movement gathers steam, struggles and problems are apparent. Is their message clear enough? Who is their leader? How long can they last, camped out in a concrete park as the weather chills? Who will control it?'

Global: The men who crashed the world

2011-10-04

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/meltdown/

Al Jazeera is carrying a four-part documentary series on the global financial crash. The documentaries examine what caused banks to stop lending, the true causes of the crisis and what is being done to prepare for the next crisis.

Lesotho: Water project needs scrutiny

2011-10-06

http://bit.ly/oh99ss

In August, SA's minister of water affairs and Lesotho's minister of natural resources signed an official agreement to implement Phase 2 of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP). The LHWP has been fraught with problems since the treaty was signed in 1986, says this article from Business Day, which
notes that there are good reasons why the public should be paying more attention to the huge development and that there are better alternatives to building more huge dams in Lesotho.

Malawi: IMF roots for weaker Malawi currency

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/ojarLj

The International Monetary Fund has advised Malawi to further devalue currency and liberalise foreign exchange if it hoped to benefit from Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme. IMF, mid this year, declared Malawi’s ECF programme off-track, leading to most donors withholding their budgetary support to the country. Malawi minister of finance Ken Lipenga last week led a government delegation to meet IMF officials in Washington DC, to discuss resumption of talks on the suspended ECF.

Africa: Hormone drug considered unsafe in US finds its way to Africa

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/nFBYoC

A controversial hormone drug, long opposed by several Black, Latina and Native American women’s health groups, has found its way to Africa where new research has made some alarming discoveries. In the just-published study of seven African countries, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that women who used the Pfizer drug Depo Provera – a hormone-based contraceptive injection - were twice as likely to acquire and pass on HIV as those who didn’t.

Angola: Oil flows, but health care dismal

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/p3HBWr

Despite its oil wealth, in 2006 Angola ranked ninth from the bottom in the world on health spending, which accounted for just 2.5 percent of gross domestic product. Since then, spending per person has tripled from $64 to $204, according to World Health Organisation data. Yet Angola still has less than one doctor for every 10,000 people, while battling to eradicate preventable diseases like polio.

CAR: Cholera epidemic hits CAR

2011-10-04

http://n24.cm/nsMqcv

A new cholera epidemic has hit the Central African Republic and has already claimed at least 10 victims in the south, Health Minister Jean-Michel Mandaba said. His comments came the day after a health services source sounded the alarm that cholera had killed six people in the Limbo region, 20km from the capital Bangui.

DRC: Cholera deaths and cases soar

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/rgOyKB

There has been an increase in the number of cholera cases and deaths in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo where an outbreak has been ongoing since March, say humanitarian agencies. At least 6,910 cases and 384 deaths had been reported as of 3 October, according to a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), compared with a total of 3,896 cases and some 265 deaths by 20 July 2011.

Global: WHO highlights global under-investment in mental health care

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/qXFg5D

One in four people will require mental health care at some point in their lives but in many countries only two per cent of all health sector resources are invested in mental health services, according to the World Health Organisation's Mental Health Atlas 2011, released on the eve of the World Mental Health Day, celebrated worldwide on 10 October. 'Average global spending on mental health is still less than US$3 per capita per year,' said the Atlas, adding that 'In low income countries, expenditure can be as little as US$0.25 per person per year.'

Lesotho: Public health services in decline

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/nFxyNI

Many patients have resorted to private clinics and pharmacies after struggling to get service at both government health facilities and those run by the Christian Health Association of Lesotho (CHAL), an organisation made up of six different churches that provides 40 per cent of health care in the country. Thabo* was forced to go to a private doctor after failing to get drugs or a medical examination at government or CHAL health centres in Maseru. 'I went to the government clinic because I was going to pay only 15 maloti (US$2.14) but now I have to cough up 120 ($17.14),' he said.

Tanzania: Most children perform below standard in Kiswahili, English and numeracy

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/piNJSP

Uwezo Tanzania has completed its second Annual Learning Assessment and has found results similar to its first year: only three in 10 Standard Three pupils can read a Standard Two level Kiswahili story, only one in 10 Standard Three pupils can read a Standard Two level English story and only three in 10 Standard Three pupils can add, subtract and multiply at a Standard Two level.

Zimbabwe: Children 'condemned to life without education'

2011-10-05

http://bbc.in/r6ZhfV

Thousands of children in Zimbabwe, who were forcibly evicted from their homes six years ago, are still not receiving proper education, a rights group says. The government had promised 700,000 families a better life when it demolished slums in major cities in 2005 under Operation Murambatsvina. But Amnesty International says many children are now worse off, attending 'makeshift' schools in new settlements.

Africa: UK to reduce aid to Africa's anti-gay regimes

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/oAXsJg

African countries which persecute gays will have their aid cut, International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has said. He was quoted by the Britain’s Mail on Sunday saying that already his country has cut aid to Malawi by £19million after two gay men were sentenced to 14 years hard labour. Mr Mitchell, one of Mr Cameron’s closest allies, is also threatening to impose further aid 'fines’ against Uganda and Ghana for hardline anti-gay and lesbian measures.

South Africa: Four guilty of lesbian’s murder

2011-10-09

http://bit.ly/nVZ70P

Four people were found guilty of the murder of lesbian Zoliswa Nkonyana in a judgment handed down in the Khayelitsha Magistrate's Court on Friday, SAFM reported. Magistrate Raadiya Whaten said the testimony of two witnesses led to the conclusion that Lubabalo Ntlabathi, Sicelo Mase, Luyanda Londzi and Mbulelo Damba took part in the stoning and stabbing of Nkonyana in 2006 when she was 19. Some civil society groups believe Nkonyana was murdered because of her sexuality.

DRC: Film shows real impact of industrial logging

2011-10-06

http://bit.ly/oQ0DtA

In 2011 Global Witness visited 67 communities in three provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This short film tells the stories of the people they met, who are impacted by the expansion of industrial-scale logging. A pattern of similarly devastating outcomes emerges. This film was shown at the World Bank’s annual meeting in Washington DC, September 2011. The World Bank is undertaking a review of its forest policies, such as those implemented in the DRC.

Global: Climate talks inch ahead on aid despite discord

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/qpvVhr

Climate negotiators said they made progress on laying out ways to help poor countries but deep differences remained on core issues ahead of a make-or-break talks in South Africa. With scientists warning that the planet is far behind on meeting pledges to control climate change, officials from around the world held a week of talks in Panama City to float ideas before the Durban conference opens on 28 November. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said that the talks made 'good progress' and pointed to technical work on the shape of a Green Climate Fund that will assist the poorest nations seen as worst impacted by climate change.

Global: The true costs of coal revealed

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/nIXsMG

A new economic analysis of the costs of pollution to the United States finds that coal power is harming the economy. In the American Economic Review article 'Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy', economists Nicholas Z. Muller, Robert Mendelsohn, and William Nordhaus model the physical and economic consequences of emissions of six major pollutants (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, ammonia, fine particulate matter, and coarse particulate matter) from the country’s 10,000 pollution sources. They estimate the 'gross external damages' (GED) from the sickness and death caused by the pollution, and compare that to the value added to the economy.

Global: World Bank/UN accused of carbon credit land grab

2011-10-06

http://exm.nr/nnPHlw

On 22 September, a shocking study from Oxfam International provided the evidence and insight on how the World Bank, coupled with the United Nations, used the carbon credit scheme introduced by Al Gore, and other green advocates, to literally rob landowners in the country of Uganda of their property, and even bringing about the death of a child when they burned down homes and villages. All so that a grove of trees could be planted on that land.

Tanzania: New ecological debt report available

2011-10-06

http://bit.ly/r5t3LP

AFRODAD has published a new report entitled ' Ecological Debt: the case of Tanzania'. The report interrogates and defines the concept of ecological debt, it traces the origins and applicability of the concept in Africa and more specifically in Tanzania, it identified the fact that repayment of Third World financial debt is having destructive effects on natural environments.

Global: Food prices to be even more volatile, UN says

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/poJm9h

Food prices are likely to become more volatile in coming years, increasing the risk that more poor people in import-dependent countries will go hungry, the United Nations said in an annual report on food insecurity published on Monday. Global food price indices hit record highs in February and were a factor in the Arab Spring of unrest in north Africa and the Middle East. Prices have since eased but the UN report said economic uncertainty, low cereal reserves, closer links between energy and agriculture markets and rising risks of weather shocks were likely to cause more dramatic price swings in the future.

Algeria: New media bill 'not enough' says press group

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/onlARf

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has criticised Algeria’s new media bill, saying the new legislation does not liberate the media. ANHRI released a statement calling the new media bill endorsed by the Algerian Ministers Council a step forward in terms of abolishing the imprisonment penalty for journalists in publication cases, but the wording of the bill itself, along with the severe fines which replace the jail time, still restricts freedom of expression.

Burundi: Media defy censorship order

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/qg3JFY

Tensions between the Burundi government and the local press are bound to increase as several media defied an order not to investigate or discuss a recent massacre. While officials say the measure is 'temporary' and necessary to safeguard national unity and the course of justice, independent journalists are asserting their right to publish information in the interest of public accountability.

Cameroon: Government urged to take action on media reform

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/pF6RRr

Reporters Without Borders visited Cameroon from 26 September to 2 October to assess the degree of media freedom during the campaign for the 9 October presidential election and to promote a series of reforms that are needed to improve media freedom, including a new media law and the decriminalization of press offences. 'The media's coverage of the campaign is trying to be balanced but the campaign itself is not,' Reporters Without Borders said. 'President Paul Biya, who is running for reelection, and the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Rally (RDPC) are everywhere. Biya is the only candidate to be seen on campaign posters. The opposition is hardly managing to make its voice heard. Everyone agrees that there is little political debate and this is reflected in the media.'

Gambia: Ecowas hears appeal on journalist ruling

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/oSe29Y

The ECOWAS Community Court in Abuja, Nigeria, on 26 September adjourned indefinitely its hearing over applications for the review of two landmark judgements brought before by it by Gambian authorities involving two Gambian journalists. The first relates to the illegal arrests and torture of Musa Saidykahn, a former editor-in-chief of the banned The Independent newspaper. In the second case, the Gambian government was ordered to release Chief Ebrima Manneh, a foreign editor of the privately-owned, pro-government the Daily Observer newspaper and compensate him. Costs were awarded against the authorities in both cases.

Tunisia: Palestinian bloggers denied entry to bloggers meeting

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/quYRII

Tunisian authorities refused to grant Palestinian bloggers visas to attend the Third Arab bloggers meeting taking place in Tunis from the 3-6 October, 2011. The meeting is an attraction to Arab bloggers and activists, and an opportunity for them to exchange expertise and learn from each other. The event is co-hosted by Global Voices, Nawaat and Heinrich Böll Foundation and is attended by around 100 bloggers from nearly all Arab countries.

Zambia: Journalist concerned over false reports of his arrest

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/n46Xo6

Media reports that Zambian Watchdog reporter George Zulu is in police custody are not true, the reporter told the International Press Institute, while expressing concern that the newspaper's staff is being intimidated by police who want them to reveal their sources on a controversial story. IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie called on Zambia's new government to be diligent in protecting the rights of journalists to report freely and in calling to task police or other officials who would intimidate journalists or pressure them into revealing their sources.

Haiti: Is Munustah keeping the peace, or conspiring against it?

2011-10-10

http://bit.ly/nVXfkL

In the year and a half since the earthquake in Haiti, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH by its French acronym) has expanded its role in the name of security, stability, and relief. However, since its establishment in 2004, multiple independent human rights organisations have documented myriad violations of the human rights of Haitians. These transgressions have continued unchecked since the earthquake, positioning MINUSTAH as a threat to Haitian stability and security instead of a safeguard.

Egypt: Deadly Cairo clashes over Coptic protest

2011-10-10

http://aje.me/nKNGjz

At least 24 people have been killed and scores more injured in clashes between mostly Coptic demonstrators and military police outside the state television building in central Cairo. Essam Sharaf, Egypt's interim prime minister, called for a calm early on Monday morning as a curfew was imposed in central areas of the capital, including Tahrir Square. Egypt's leadership also held an emergency meeting late on Sunday to discuss the situation, with clashes also reported in Alexandria, Egypt's second city.

Somalia: Al-Shabab claims deadly Mogadishu blast

2011-10-04

http://aje.me/r39Zsm

A bomb blast outside a government compound in Mogadishu has killed at least 70 people and left many others wounded, in one of Somalia's deadliest ever suicide attacks, officials and witnesses said. The attack was claimed by al-Shabab, the armed anti-government group, and came as the rebels launched attacks in the country's west and south.

Somalia: UN Security Council calls for more troops for AU mission

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/q6YbDf

The UN Security Council has called on the African Union (AU) to urgently increase the strength of its peacekeeping force in Somalia (AMISOM) to its mandated level of 12,000 to enable it to better carry out its UN-authorised mandate to stabilize the war-torn country. In a unanimously adopted resolution, the 15-member body also extended AMISOM’s authorisation until 31 October 2012, and called on UN member states and regional and international organisations to provide additional equipment, technical aid and funding to the enlarged force.

Sudan: China could oil the peace process

2011-10-04

http://bit.ly/qq0HA2

China, a major player in the oil industries of South Sudan and Sudan, could use its influence to stop the escalating violence between the two countries that has seen the displacement of thousands of people and a reduction in oil production, a United States State Department official says. China imports more than 60 per cent of Sudan’s oil and owns a 40 per cent share in Petrodar and the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co., the largest oil giants in Sudan, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Science.

Africa: No quick remedy for internet gap

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/qbDvYt

Prior to the 2010 South Africa World Cup, submarine fibre optic cabling was laid to improve the speed and reliability of broadband. Despite this, Internet World Statistics reports that only 11.4 per cent of Africans have internet access, far below the global average of 30.2 per cent. Considering that a World Bank study suggests every 10 per cent of broadband penetration increases developing countries' per capita GDP growth by 1.38 per cent, the scarcity of Africa's online network has significant economic repercussions.

Cameroon: Google Cameroon elections 2011 page

2011-10-06

http://bit.ly/nI1QsP

This Cameroon Elections 2011 page from Google displays which party leader people are searching Google for the most and which issues are most important in the election campaign.

Global: A civil rights-based framework for the Internet

2011-10-06

http://bit.ly/oV5KXe

One of the striking features of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is that it is mainly being signed by Western/'developed' countries, says this post from www.techdirt.com ACTA is the last-gasp attempt of the US and the EU to preserve their intellectual monopolies. Much of the challenge to the old order is coming from the BRICS group of emerging countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Of those, the one in the vanguard of adopting innovative approaches to making knowledge widely accessible in the Internet age is Brazil. One of these approaches is a draft bill for a civil rights-based framework for the Internet.

Global: India launches $35 computer

2011-10-05

http://bbc.in/o7KHgu

India has launched what it says is the world's cheapest touch-screen tablet computer, priced at just $35 (£23). Costing a fraction of Apple's iPad, the subsidised Aakash is aimed at students. It supports web browsing and video conferencing, has a three-hour battery life and two USB ports, but questions remain over how it will perform.

Global: Bracing for a new financial crisis

South Bulletin (South Centre, Issue 56, 3 October 2011)

2011-10-05

http://bit.ly/oeo4qQ

The latest issue of the South Bulletin focuses on the recent deterioration in the state of the global economy and the effects this will have on developing countries. Highlights include:
- Bracing for a New Global Financial Crisis (by Martin Khor)
- The End of Recovery And Start Of A New Global Downturn (by Yılmaz Akyüz)
- A Lot of Uncertainties and Volatilities Facing Developing Countries: Presentation by Dr Yaga Venugopal Reddy.

Africa: New innovation prize for Africa

United Nations Economic Commission for Africa press release

2011-10-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/fundraising/76976

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Innovation Foundation (AIF) are delighted to announce the Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA) to be awarded for the first time in February 2012. This prestigious and well-endowed award aims at encouraging innovations that contribute to sustainable development in Africa. The amount allocated towards the winners for the selected innovators and entrepreneurs, in the three thematic areas of ICTs; Green Technologies; Health & Food Security are two generous prizes: First prize USD 100,000; and USD 50000 for the second prize.
Addis Ababa, 08 July 2011 (ECA) - The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Innovation Foundation (AIF) are delighted to announce the Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA) to be awarded for the first time in February 2012. This prestigious and well-endowed award aims at encouraging innovations that contribute to sustainable development in Africa.

With this award, AIF and UNECA acknowledge, support and encourage innovators and entrepreneurs- the group of stakeholders who till now have been neither considered nor benefited under Africa’s development cooperation agenda.

‘Innovation is a combination of identifying problems, and finding groundbreaking implementable solutions; we hope the prizes will contribute to tapping into the ingenuity of Africans to solve Africa’s problems,’ says the ECA Executive Secretary and Under-Secretary General, Mr. Abdoulie Janneh.

He adds: ‘Currently, ideas, innovation and knowledge are what is driving the world, and transforming economies. It is therefore fitting and appropriate that the Innovation Prize for Africa is targeting a unique group of stakeholders - innovators and inventors in the area of ICTs, Green Technologies and Health & Food Security.’

‘The AIF is very proud of the cooperation with ECA and expects numerous innovation projects to compete for the prize. There is so much untapped talent on this continent,’ adds Mr. Walter Fust, Chairman of the AIF.

The amount allocated towards the winners for the selected innovators and entrepreneurs, in the three thematic areas of ICTs; Green Technologies; Health & Food Security are two generous prizes: First prize USD 100,000; and USD 50000 for the second prize.

The registration deadline for the 2012 prize has been set for September 30th, 2011 with no possibility of extensions.

The organizers expect the prize to promote among young African men and women the pursuit of science, technology and engineering careers and business applications. The aims are to:
1. Create a platform for identification of innovative concepts and projects submitted by applicants that could be supported by AIP;
2. Promote innovation across Africa in key sectors of interest through the competition;
3. Promote science, technology and engineering as rewarding, exciting and noble career options among the youth in Africa by profiling successful applicants; and
4. Encourage entrepreneurs, innovators, funding bodies and business development service providers to exchange ideas and explore innovative business opportunities.

In pursuing those aims, the AIP expects the following outcomes:
1. Increased commercialization of research and development (R&D) outputs in Africa;
2. Increased development of start-up, adoption of new and emerging technologies and accelerate growth of an innovative and dynamic private sector; and
3. Increased general economic activities that result in long term sustainable development

Over the coming five years, AIP will be targeting innovators/entrepreneurs in different thematic areas to be determined each year by the Technical Advisory Committee.

For detailed information of competition categories, conditions of entry, and submission procedures, please visit: http://www.uneca.org/AIP/AIF

Issued by:

ECA Information and Communication Service
P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia

Tel: 251 11 5445098
Fax: +251-11-551 03 65
E-mail: ecainfo@uneca.org
Web: www.uneca.org

Global: Geoengineering Facebook page

2011-10-10

http://www.facebook.com/EIGeoengineer

Visit this Facebook page to find out more about the ecological Internet campaign against the hubris that humans can or should geoengineer our shared biosphere.

Campaigner: Southern Africa

Amnesty International (AI)

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/76906

We’re looking for a campaigner to contribute to our campaigns against human rights violations in Southern Africa. Working as part of the South Africa and Swaziland Team at the International Secretariat, you will work on a range of projects, including our campaign to remove barriers to accessing health services in rural South Africa. You will act as a focal point providing advice and support to our worldwide membership, including devising campaigning strategies, preparing written and other campaigning materials and providing research support.

Location; Central London
Fixed-term contract until March 2012
Salary: £34,032

About the role

We’re looking for a campaigner to contribute to our campaigns against human rights violations in Southern Africa. Working as part of the South Africa and Swaziland Team at the International Secretariat, you will work on a range of projects, including our campaign to remove barriers to accessing health services in rural South Africa. You will act as a focal point providing advice and support to our worldwide membership, including devising campaigning strategies, preparing written and other campaigning materials and providing research support.

About you

You will have excellent campaigning and communication skills, along with strong research skills and an understanding of and experience of working with NGOs and similar organizations. You are dynamic, hardworking and organized, capable of working both on your own initiative and as a member of the team, often under pressure. A strong affinity or experience of economic, social and cultural rights issues, and an interest in Southern Africa, would be a plus. While there is no line management responsibility, you will participate in coordinating the work of the team.

About us

Our aim is simple: an end to human rights abuses. Independent, international and influential, we campaign for justice, fairness, freedom and truth wherever they’re denied. Already our network of almost three million members and supporters is making a difference in 150 countries. And whether we’re applying pressure through powerful research or direct lobbying, mass demonstrations or online campaigning, we’re all inspired by hope for a better world. One where human rights are respected and protected by everyone, everywhere.

For more information and to apply, please visit www.amnesty.org/jobs
Closing date: 19th October

CVs will not be accepted.

Senior Director: Campaigns & Communications, London

Amnesty International (AI)

2011-10-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/76905

For fifty years, we’ve been campaigning for human rights wherever justice, freedom and truth are denied. We’ve reshaped policies, challenged governments and taken corporations to task. And in doing so, we’ve changed thousands of lives for the better. As we deepen Amnesty International’s work in the global south - in particular sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil and India - we are looking for an entrepreneurial leader for Amnesty International’s global campaigns and communications.

About the role

As part of the Senior Leadership team, your first challenge will be to bring together our Campaigns and Communications work to create a single, integrated function. From there, you’ll develop a comprehensive Campaigns & Communications strategy, setting out a clear and cohesive direction that ensures our campaigns and the messages we convey are consistent around the globe, while enabling each of our regional hubs to interpret and develop them for their local and target audiences.

Once the strategy is in place, you’ll lead the planning, development and implementation of the campaigns themselves – combining the power of hard evidence and public opinion to promote activism while making sure each campaign is closely aligned with our wider research, strategy and policy agendas.

About you

This is an exciting challenge that calls for a special set of skills and experience. The chances are you’ll come to us from a similarly senior role with another NGO. You will have an exceptional record of leading innovative campaigns that have mobilized people and the media to fight human rights violations. If your experience extends to both the Campaigns and Communications sides of the challenge, so much the better.

Most important, however, will be your deep understanding of the factors that drive people to get involved with a given cause and your ability to deliver successful campaigns. Your inspirational leadership skills will obviously have a big part to play in that. But so too will your detailed knowledge of campaigning methodologies and practices, your acute political awareness and high levels of emotional intelligence.

About us

Our aim is simple: an end to human rights abuses. Independent, international and influential, we campaign for justice, freedom and truth wherever they’re denied. Already our network of over three million members and supporters is making a difference in 150 countries. And whether we’re applying pressure through powerful research or direct lobbying, mass demonstrations, human rights education, or online campaigning, we’re all inspired by hope for a better world. One where human rights are respected and protected by everyone, everywhere.

To find out more about this role and to apply online, please visit www.ai-isleadership.com

Closing date: 6th November 2011

Fahamu