Canarians get involved in West Sahara while the Moroccan tyrant choses repression again

Tenerife con el Sahara reports[es] that a number of Canarian citizens have taken part in a protest for the rights of the Arab Democratic Sahrawi Republic at El Aaiun. The reaction of the Moroccan autocracy has been brutal, as usual.

Carmen Roger one of the Canarian victims

After being beaten by the Moroccan occupation forces, the Canarians have been arrested at the "House of Spain". Two international observers, Mexican Antonio Velázquez Díaz and Catalan Isabel Terraza, are being besieged by the occupation forces at the homes of their Sahrawi host family. Tenerife con el Sahara claims that they are at serious risk, as well as the Sahrawi families besieged at their homes by the invader troops.

The international protests are organized by Saharaacciones which is promoting nonviolent protest in order to make the occupation and repression of the West Sahara more visible and hopefully push towards a democratic solution through the right of self-determination of the Sahrawi people:

We are demonstrating to make visible a vetoed territory, where we are unwelcome by the occupation forces, following the example set by the admirable peaceful resistance that the Sahrawi people are doing once and again since the beginning of the Intifada in May 2005.

Morocco may be pushing for greater involvement of Spain

This is what Pedro Canales argues at El Imparcial newspaper (found at Sahara Libre). According to him, Morocco wants Spain to take a more clear pro-Moroccan stand in regards to the West Sahara, a former Spanish province. As Spain cannot really control the high level of popular support for the Sahrawi cause, which is generally perceived as a treason to the formerly "Spanish" people of the Sahara by Madrid, nor can reign on the local and regional administrations in this matter, Morocco seems to have opted to do the same: leave the Moroccan popular discontent with Spain on matters such as the colonial outposts of Ceuta and Melilla or the treatment of immigrants, break loose.

However Canales seems to be writing for the Moroccan viewpoint and seems to think that greater Spanish involvement alone could change things. This is not possible because Spain already has a very shameful role by mere inhibition and cannot really take any stronger political stand against the Arab Democratic Sahrawi Republic. So if Spain would get involved, it could only do with a stand at least moderately opposed to Morocco's aspirations, so really Morocco is doing it wrong if Canales is right. After all some border riots at the Melilla fence won't get anyone worried this side of the Strait.

On the other hand, I guess it is always positive when the people, in this case the Moroccan people can express their discontent. It is a positive development that may be in the future will turn against the autocrat of Rabat. If the people can really express their anger and gets organized maybe in the near future we can hope to see a simultaneous solution to both colonial problems: Moroccan occupation of the Sahara and Spanish control of Ceuta and Melilla.

In any case, I don't think that Morocco really wants to press Spain to get itself "more involved" in the conflict of West Sahara because it can only backfire. For Moroccan imperialist interests the best situation is the status quo, with Spain inhibiting itself, what is as pro-Moroccan as it can get.

But that the people organizes itself and gets to speak out loud in any conflict is as such a good development. In an ideal democracy situation all these conflicts would not exist because it'd be up to each local people to self-determine their status and their future.

How West Sahara was given to Morocco

There is a rather interesting historical review at Le Monde Diplomatique (in English) on how the then Spanish provinces of Saguía el Hamra and Río de Oro (then legally as much part of Spain as Madrid, by the way - so good for the unalienable unity of the fatherland) ended up in Moroccan hands with the blessings of the USA and France.

Map of the colonial West Sahara and Morocco in the mid 20th century (from Wikipedia).

Apparently the USA saw Algerian interest in supporting the Sahrawis as part of the Cold War geopolitics, so, by default, it supported Morocco discretely. Spain was reluctant to yield the territory and specially if it appeared they had been kicked out, however it eventually yielded to pressure in the context of an uncertain regime change.

The appointed Sahrawi council (Yemaa or D'jemaa) however declined to play the rubber-stamping role that the USA, France, Morocco and Mauritania had devised for them and instead declared its own dissolution and transfered its power to the recently created POLISARIO Front, which proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

To Moroccan disillusionment the African Union Organization, as well as most African states, also recognized the rebel republic and the weakest part, Mauritania, soon yielded to Polisario attacks and recognized the country's independence in 1979. Morocco became isolated in Africa. However, later on, the Moroccan tyranny (it's a police state where people fear speaking freely, I can tell you), with massive support from Saudi Arabia, the USA and France, managed to build their version of the Great Wall, forcing the Polisario out of most of the country and preventing them from attacking the much coveted phosphate mines and foreign fishing ships that had no authorization from the Republic.

All this only barely dealt with in the Le Monde Diplomatique article but it is still interesting to read to understand how the imperialist interests of the USA and France played in favor of the last absolute monarchy of Africa... and to read how Kissinger view the issue on his own words.

However, in spite of a two decades long cease fire, the wound is still open and the war might start again at any moment. Moroccan official maps, of the kind you find only there, have no borders south of Oujda, as the fascist monarchy claims all the desert for them: a good bunch of Algeria, all Mauritania and, who knows, maybe even Mali.

Further reading (in Spanish) at Sahara Libre, where you can find news of the ongoing conflict such as the violent repression of striking workers yesterday, the long hunger strike of Dr. Abbas Mohammed Chej Sebaj or how lobbyists in the USA are trying to bring the now unemployed Louisiana fishermen to the rich Sahrawi banks.

Origin of Aterian

Julien Riel-Salvatore writes today on new research on the Moroccan site of Dar es-Soltan (near Rabat), which has yielded dates of c. 110,000 BP for one of the oldest cultures of our species: Aterian, defined by its characteristically tanged points and the clear evidence of symbolic behavior in form of perforated shells, extended through North Africa.

He mentions that the same Germano-Moroccan team has been working in other sites dated to as early as 175,000 BP, what is really bordering the very origins of our species as such (oldest skulls are dated to 190,000 BP in Ethiopia and 160,000 in both Ethiopia and Morocco).

He also points to a very promising site at Ifri n'Amar (at the Rif) with a depth of 6.3 meters which seems to include also recent layers of this culture. No final dates are given anywhere but the fact that the tanged peculiarity persisted through Upper Paleolithic (Oranian, Capsian) makes me think of some sort of continuity even through change.

Ref. Press release of the Moroccan Ministry of Culture (in French and Arabic).

Sign against the exploitation of Sahrawi waters

The EU is paying Morocco to fish in occupied Western Sahara. You can help by signing this petition, whose text follows (bold type is mine):

Petition:

Stop EU fisheries in Western Sahara!

To the European Commissioner for Fisheries,

No state in the world has recognised the Moroccan annexation of Western Sahara. Still, the EU is paying millions of Euros annually to the Government of Morocco to allow EU vessels to fish in the waters of Western Sahara. The EU fisheries activities in Western Sahara must immediately come to an end.

Morocco continues to refuse to cooperate with the decolonization process in Western Sahara, thereby defying more than 100 UN resolutions that insist on the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination. Simultaneously, Moroccan authorities commit human rights violations against Sahrawis who voice their political views. No EU states, nor the UN, recognise the Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.

In this context, cooperating with Morocco in exploiting Western Sahara’s natural resources is highly unethical, and clearly jeopardizes the UN’s efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.

According to the UN, the natural resources in Western Sahara cannot be exploited without regard to the wishes and interests of the people of the territory. However, the EU is transferring European taxpayers’ money to the Government of Morocco for access to Western Saharan waters, without even consulting the Sahrawi people.

The EU has the legal and moral obligation to stop subverting the UN peace process in Western Sahara, by respecting the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination over their land and their resources.

We urge the European Commission to put an immediate stop to the granting of all licenses to EU vessels fishing in Western Saharan waters, and we demand that no further EU fisheries operations take place in Western Sahara until a peaceful solution to the conflict has been found.

Yours sincerely,

Sign the petition!

The petition was published on 06.11.2009 and has now 10414 signatures.

I would add: pay the taxes to the Arab Sahrawi Democratic Republic and, with their agreement, send that useless NATO navy to ensure the safety of our fishermen and fight against Morocco for the sovereignty of West Sahara.

Aminatu won! She's back in West Sahara.

Sahrawi human rights activist Aminatu Haidar, who has fought a brave nonviolent struggle for 33 days, with the only weapon of hunger strike, is reported to have arrived to her home in El Aaiun (West Sahara).

She has arrived accompanied by her sister Leila and the doctor who attended her at Canary Islands. Supporters were waiting for her at the ariport and the Moroccan occupation authorities returned her passport after arrival.

Her return has caused demonstrations of happiness and support in the Sahrawi capital, where people went to the streets chanting Long live the Sahrawi People, out with Morocco. Occupation police forces attacked them and cut access to the Haidar home. The Committee for the Defense of the Right of Self-Determination of the West Saharan People (CODAPSO by its Spanish acronym) denounced Moroccan police for arbitrary arrests and violence against demonstrators.

Before leaving for Sahara, Aminatu Haidar declared that this is a victory for International Law, for Human Rights, for international justice and for the Sahrawi cause.

Aminatu Haidar when leaving the hospital for the airplane that would bring her back home

24 hours before leaving Lanzarote, she had willingly gone to hospital, as her health was already very poor and was suffering of stomach pains and dehydration.

Source: Gara (link 1, link 2).

UN trying to find a solution for Haidar

The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, has met the Moroccan foreign minister in an attempt to solve the situation of Sahrawi human rights activist Aminatu Haidar, illegally expelled to Spain in November and since then in hunger strike in demand of her right to return to West Sahara, largely occupied by Morocco since 1975.

Ban Ki-Moon also talked by phone with the Spanish foreign minister. The responsability of this Kafkian situation lays on both the shoulders of Morocco, who could not legally expel her or deprive her of the Moroccan nationality, and on those of Spain, who could not accept her, being an illegal immigrant who has not asked for any sort of polytical assylum.

Source: Swissinfo (found via Hala Bedi Irratia).

Al Jazeera also has a report and video on the situation of Haidar, who is holding her hunger strike at the Tenerife Airport bus station, needing already help and a wheelchair for something as basic as going to the toilet.

POLISARIO Front warns that if Aminatu Haidar dies, the truce is over

Aminatu Haidar is a Sahrawi citizen and human rights activist who was expelled from the territory occupied by Morocco to Canary Islands (Spain) after she wrote down in her police file that her country of residence is Sahara (meaning West Sahara or the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, as is officially recognized by many countries).

Since then she has mantained a hunger strike for more than 20 days and her life now is at increased risk. However she refuses to be hospitalized on fear of Spanish manipulations or forced feeding. She has also rejected the offer of political assylum by Spain and demands to be returned to Moroccan-administered territory.

I have several times thought of covering the matter but, with so many things going on, I have failed to do it until now.

Aminatu Haidar is known as the Sahrawi Gandhi

Anyhow, the case is that the POLISARIO Front (acronym of Frente POpular para la LIberación de SAguía el Hamra y RÍO de Oro, names of the former Spanish provinces in West Sahara) has declared that if Aminatu Haidar dies, they will abandon their long standing UN-sponsored truce, that has given no results besides diplomatic blah-blah, and return to armed struggle. It was none less that Taleb Omar, leader of the Front and Prime Minister of the disputed Republic who made this warning to the Spanish state news station RNE, so it is something that must be taken very very seriously.

Oddly enough, Taleb Omar demands that the Law of Foreigners is strictly applied in this case, which would result in Haidar being expelled to Morocco immediatly (and Morocco would have to accept her because of the bilateral treaties on this matter). He had very rough words for Spain, which is accused again of being accomplice of the Moroccan tyranny (also a privileged ally of the USA and France) and compared disfavorably the role of Spain in the Sahrawi case with that of Portugal in the similar case of East Timor, where the former metropolis had a proactive commitment to the independence of its ex-colony.

Source: Rebelión.

Sahrawis could face death penalty

Seven Sahrawi citizens are being subject in Morocco to military trials for "treason". Their crime, to meet with the refugees at the Tindouf camps in Algeria and therefore having contact with the Polisario Front.

They were originally kidnapped by the occupation forces upon their return to West Sahara. Other five people were similary kidnapped but abandoned then in the desert.

The seven activists are jailed in the infamous high security prison of Salé, near Rabat. They are being accused of "attack against territorial integrity, against national security and meeting the enemy, and could even face the death penalty.

Morocco is an authoritarian regime where the monarch's power is absolute. It is, together with Swaziland, the last monarchy of Africa. In the 1970s, Morocco annexed unilaterally the former Spanish colony of West Sahara against the will of the people, sparking the continuity of the anti-colonialist guerrilla. The annexation is not recognized internationally and Morocco is in fact an occupying power.

Source: Rebelión.
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Morocco: religious freedom activists threatened

A group of people who have begun a campaign of civil disobedience against the constrictions placed by religious law in Ramadan in Morocco have not just been arrested but also received many death threats.

As you may know it is customary and a Muslim religious obligation to strictly fast during daylight in the month of Ramadan. In most countries of Muslim majority, which normally also have some sort of religious law seriously affecting civil life, even for non-believers or followers of other religions, individuals cannot freely choose whether to follow this religious imposition or not, at least in public: they must bend to the dictate of the mullahs and behave as devote Muslims, even if they are not.

It's like, in a country of Catholic tradition, meat would be forbidden in restaurants and all sort of public meals on fridays, and butcheries would be forced to close such day. Of course this would cause atheists and other religious freelancers to go out to the streets in protest because freedom of religion is a human right and secularism a most important value, so nobody should be imposed the values and precepts of any particular sect. If you want to impose them upon yourself, then it's your problem, of course.

So Radi Omar and other Moroccans have created the Movement for Individual Freedoms (MALI in its French acronym), that counts with some 1200 members in its Facebook site. They attempted an act of civil disobedience, organizing a meal at the train station of Mohammedia, near Dar-el-Beida (Casablanca) but suffered a police charge and six of its members were arrested. Accused of breaching the compulsory religious precept, they face severe fines and up to six months in prison.

But worse is that Radi Omar has reported receiving a hundred death threats this week for this courageous attitude of disobedience. It must be a really difficult situation to be for human rights and freedom in Morocco in general, where the pseudo-democratic system is just a whitewash for an autocratic police regime, where criticism is hardly allowed. For that reason I can't but cherish and send a most supportive hug to these brave Moroccans who are trying to forge secularism at the other side of the strait.

Source: BBC.
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Morocco: conscience prisioners nearing death after two months of hunger strike

Ignacio Ramonet, director of Le Monde Diplomatique, writes at Rebelión on the ongoing unrest in Morocco, the silence in European media and the many cases of most brutal torture.

Her name is Zahra Budkur, she is twenty years old, student at Marakech University. After taking part in a protest march, she was beaten by police, jailed along with hundred other protesters in the sinister police station of Jamaâ El Fna square (visited daily by thousand tourists) and brutally tortured. Policemen forced her to remain naked, while she was having her menstruaion, for days before her comrades. In order to protest against this abuse, she began a hunger strike and now is in state of comma. Her life hangs from a thread.

Has anybody in Europe heard of this young woman? Have our media even mentione the tragic situation of Zahra? Not a word. Not either on another student, Abdelkebir El Bahi, thrown by police from a third storey and now bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his life because of backbone fracture.

Zero information either on the other 18 sudents from Marakech, arrested with Zahra, who, in order to protest their arrest in Bulharez prision, are in hunger strike since June 11. Some cannot stand anymore, several vomit blood, others are losing their sight and yet others, in comma, had to be hospitalized.

All this among the general indifference and silence. Only their relatives have protested, what has been seen as sign of rebellion, and have been hatefully beaten for it.

All this happens not in any remote country like Tibet, Colombia or South Osetia but just 14 km from Europe, in a country visited every year by millions of Europeans and whose regime enjoys in our media and among our leaders of great tolerance and complacency.

Nevertheless, since last year, all around Morocco protests multiply: urban revolts against living costs and rural uprisings against abuses. The bloodiest mutiny happened last June 7th at Sidi Ifni when a peaceful demonstration against unemployement in that city was repressed with such brutality that caused a major uprising with street barricades, building burnings and attempts of lynching some authorities. In response police forces acted with unmeasured brutality. (...)

The article continues analyzing the silencing of press, the vanished hopes of democratization with the young king (tyrant) Mohammed VI, the feudal latifundist property (and power) structure of the country, the fast growing economy (thanks to the millions of emigrants and their money transfers). But he also comments on the strong dynamics of civil society and its growing political activities, organized both in secularist and islamist groups - the latter being most benefitted from state repression, while it is precisely the alleged threat of islamism what (among other reasons) justifies the blind eye of European authorities and media.

Source: Rebelión: El polvorín Marruecos

Related posts:
- More on the brutal repression in Sidi Ifni
- Morocco attacks Al Jazeera for reporting protests and deaths in Sidi Ifni

More on the brutal repression in Sidi Ifni

A month ago I posted on how Morocco has been attacking Al Jazeera because of their coverage of the protests and repression in Sidi Ifni.

Image of the protests

Besides the informations of murders and rapes by the Moroccan police, it is clear is that 12 people were arrested and charged, including Brahim Sebaa Ellil, member of the Moroccan Center for Human Rights, who was sentenced to 6 months in prision and a fine of 50,000 dirhams on July 10, and Brahim Bara, Secretary General of ATTAC Morocco, who is still in jail. ATTAC, French acronym of Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions to Aid Citizens, is an international alterworldist organization that demands that international monetary transactions are taxed in order to curb speculation.

There is an online petition in four languages open to signature demanding the immediate liberation of Brahim Bara.

Source: La Haine (in Spanish).

Also there is the testimony of Maryam, a young woman arrested in the inccidents of Sidi Ifni, that I cannot but translate here:

It was the morning of Saturday June 7th, Maryam got out from her home for shopping. A policeman in the street insults her: "hoe, bitch!" She asks the policeman to moderate his language. Another agent then brings her to the police chief. He commands: "bring her where she gets fucked!" They bring her to the wall of the secondary school Mulay Ben Abdellah. There she watches 15 policemen brutally beating a young man. Then it comes her turn.

A policeman with his face covered beats her buttocks. When she stops yelling because she doesn't even feel the pain anymore, he beats her on the face and body. When she tries to cover her face another agent grabs her so his mate could continue the beating, that continues till she faints. Then a police car brings her to the police station.

At the gate she's brought out of the car through more beatings, they even threaten with breaking her galsses (Maryam is myopic). She cries that she had to sell a sheep to buy them. A policeman keeps her glasses and she's brought into the building.

Once inside humilliations begin: mockery and more mockery, they take off her clothes, they touch every corner of her body. Each time she tries to resist they beat her brutally. A policeman puts his baton between her legs. Up to 10 policemen abuse her sexually. In other rooms groups of women are forced to undress before the policemen with tehir husbands as witnesses. Many women that have gone through the police station have been abused that way, knowing the policemen that most won't say anything because of what implies in their society. In another room young men are forced to sit on bottles. The "good cop" finally appears and ask fogiveness for what they are doing to her.

A chief walks around the naked men and women. A young man asks to talk with the Caid of Agadir, claiming that he had arrived to Sidi Ifni to fullfill a mandate from the Caid and that is car is outside to prove it. The chief, arrogant, says: "We follow orders of King Mohammed VI. Is maybe your Caid more than the King himself?" Maryam remembers perfectly the face of who said that and claims that she would recognize him among thousands.

A policeman throws her to the floor, grabbing her neck with his legs. "If you move, I'll kill you". More beatings, abuses and humilliations.

They put a bandage on her eyes and bring her upstairs to interrogate her. For the first time she's not beaten. They take her data. They ask for her people, if she belongs to any organization, what ideas does she have, what does she think of the situation in Sidi Ifni. Then they bring her downstairs, take off the bandage and set her free.

At the exit a group of policemen surround her, insult her, beat her again. One yells: "The dick of the Makhzen is very long, bitch!" Never in her life Maryam heard so many insults nor so nasty ones.

June 7th will be recorded for long in the memory of the people of Sidi Ifni because of the savage behaviour of the Moroccan polcie forces commanded by General Laanigri, element that secures the continuity of the regime of Hassan II into that of Mohamed VI.

Policemen grabbing a baby from her mother

Morocco attacks Al Jazeera for reporting protests and deaths in Sidi Ifni

Nothing surprising I'd say, considering the poor record of Morocco in human rights and freedom of speech, the curious thing is that it has decided only to attack Al Jazeera and not the other media (both Moroccan and international) that reported on the same incidents and deaths.

Apparently four (or maybe up to eight) people from the impoverisehd southern coastal town were killed by the Moroccan police, while many others had to flee to the mountains for their lifes, after protests caused by extreme poverty.

Hassan Rachidi, Al Jazeera's Arabic bureau chief in Morocco is on trial accused of broadcasting false information.

More: 'Al Jazeera: No apology to Rabat'.

Moroccan navy kills migrants trying to reach Spain

I watched it yesterday on TV news and read today at Al Jazeera again. It happened on April 28: the immigrants were trying to reach southern Spain on an inflatable motor boat and were intercepted by a Moroccan militray ship that sent a group on another boat. One of the soldiers punched a hole with his knife, saying: try to reach Spain now.

According to the survivors account they managed to continue barely but the Moroccans insisted and attacked the boat again with the knife. They begged for their lives but the soldiers ignored their plea. A handful of them managed to reach the Algerian coast but most drowned.

It reminds me of the Berlin Wall, really. It seems that EU has bought the Moroccan authorities throughtly and now they serve their masters with extreme criminal efficiency.