Morocco’s new climate of distrust

John Thorne, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: November 17. 2009 10:39PM UAE / November 17. 2009 6:39PM GMT

The Western Sahara activist Aminatou Haidar, right, at Arrecife airport in Lanzarote on the Canary Islands after she was expelled. Desiree Martin / AFP

LAAYOUNE, Western Sahara // Shot in the leg while fighting Moroccan soldiers and jailed for more than two decades, Sidi Mohamed Daddache has seen the worst of Morocco’s treatment of those who question its rule of Western Sahara, the disputed territory that he calls home.

Released as part of an amnesty in 2001, Mr Daddache said human rights have improved in the 10 years since King Mohamed VI took over for his stern father, Hassan II. “But after the most recent events, it seems Morocco is regressing.”

Tension is rising over Western Sahara as Moroccan authorities crack down on Saharawi activists accused of working for the Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed independence movement. The activists say they are being targeted unfairly, while the Polisario says the fraught atmosphere could spoil a new round of United Nations-led talks over the desert territory’s future.

Those talks are the latest attempt to resolve the three-decade conflict, which severely stifles economic growth in North Africa and divides some 200,000 Saharawis between Western Sahara and refugee camps in the Algerian desert.

As Saharawi activists disappear into jail, “the current climate is not a healthy one for negotiation”, said Mohamed Salem Ould Salek, foreign minister of a Polisario exile government that administers the refugee camps.

Trouble began last month, when Moroccan police stopped Mr Daddache, who heads the Committee to Support Self-Determination in Western Sahara, and four other Saharawi activists from travelling to Mauritania, and arrested a further seven as they returned from visiting the refugee camps. The latter are to stand trial in a military court, charged with threatening state security.

King Mohamed went on state television this month to declare that “one is either a patriot, or a traitor” – a message reverberating through Western Sahara as security agents clamp down on Saharawi activists.

On Saturday, police at the airport of Laayoune, Western Sahara’s main city, expelled the activist Aminatou Haidar to the Canary Islands as she returned home from collecting a peace prize in New York. Officials say she renounced Moroccan citizenship; she says her passport was forcibly confiscated.

Meanwhile, plainclothes police who stake out the houses of Saharawi activists have blocked several visiting Spanish lawyers and journalists in recent weeks, citing a new policy requiring government approval for such meetings.

“These are not activists, but opportunists who exploit the conflict,” said a senior official in Laayoune, who spoke on condition of anonymity, alleging that activists are paid by Algeria to fabricate accounts of rights abuses and encourage young Saharawis to attack the police.

Saharawi human rights groups say police have detained and beaten Saharawis who support independence for Western Sahara, and violently broken up demonstrations, while courts have ignored the majority of hundreds of complaints filed by Saharawis during the last few years.

“I think they targeted me because they’d seen me demonstrating,” said Izzana Amidane, 29, a Saharawi computer science student in Laayoune who has repeatedly taken to the streets to wave Polisario flags and shout slogans alongside other independence-minded Saharawis.

One day in September, said Ms Amidane, police bundled her into a van, brought her to a police station, battered her with electric cables, hung her in a stress position and made her sign a document she was not allowed to read. Three weeks later she was snatched again by police, she said, similarly beaten, then stripped naked and photographed.

She filed a complaint with the state prosecutor after the first alleged assault, she said, “but so far I’ve heard nothing”.

Such alleged attacks are rare, intended to frighten supporters of independence, said El Ghalia Djimi, vice president of the Saharawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations. State human rights monitors say accounts of police excess are exaggerated but reveal widespread mistrust of the government.

“There’s been an absence of freedom of expression and assembly,” said Brahim Laghzal, a Saharawi former political prisoner and current member of King Mohamed’s advisory council on Saharan affairs, who specialises in human rights. “The state must make a great effort to win the trust of Saharawis.”

Saharawis descend from Yemeni nomads who entered Western Sahara in the 14th century and mingled with local Berber tribes, herding livestock, dabbling in commerce and plundering desert caravans.

Spanish colonisers arrived in the 19th century, attracted by rich fishing banks and later phosphates. When Spain withdrew in 1975, neighbouring Morocco invaded, claiming historical ties, and raised a 2,500km defensive berm to keep out raids by the Polisario, which had previously contested Spanish rule.

The UN brokered a ceasefire in 1991 meant to allow a referendum on independence, but disagreements over voter lists have prevented it. In August the two sides met in Vienna with UN mediators to start a fresh round of talks aimed at negotiating a peace agreement.

Polisario still wants a referendum with independence as an option, while Morocco proposes autonomy for Western Sahara. Morocco says its solution would square Saharawi desire for self-determination with Moroccan desire to keep hold of the territory.

“We, as a small people, don’t have the power to escape the hegemony of Morocco or Algeria,” said Mohamed Eddah, the Saharawi director of Laayoune’s state television station and a supporter of autonomy. “And I prefer Morocco.”

The government pours around three per cent of GDP into the territory to fuel the economy, maintain over 100,000 soldiers, and cover tax breaks and subsidies aimed at enticing people to live there.

Laayoune, its low rusty skyline mirrored in the waters of the Oued Saguia El Hamra river, is expanding rapidly as cinder-block housing goes up to accommodate newcomers. In a downtown street of shops, fruit-sellers and small cafes, two girls were out one recent afternoon buying school supplies and mulling the future.

“I’d prefer things to stay as they are, because under autonomy the Saharawi tribes would just argue,” said Nabila, 24, born in Laayoune to Moroccan parents. “On the other hand, most of the Saharawis want independence, and you can’t refuse people what they want.”

“I went to a demonstration once, then stopped because my mother was worried,” said her friend Machkoura, 19, a Saharawi. “Now I don’t know exactly what I want – as long as there’s peace and I have a job, I’ll be happy.”

For now, both Morocco and Polisario are committed to the peace talks despite the recent friction.

“We must encourage our brothers on the Hammada to return freely, with dignity, and work here,” said Mr Laghzal, from King Mohamed’s advisory council on Saharan affairs, referring to the thousands of Saharawi refugees stranded in the Algerian desert.

Human rights activists say authorities can start by taking them and their work seriously. “The police look at me as an enemy,” said Mr Daddache, a recipient of Norway’s Rafto Foundation prize for human rights. “I want that to change.”

jthorne@thenational.ae