How much does Western Sahara cost Morocco?

The latest edition of Moroccan magazine Tel Quel says it has the answers:

• 20 million dirhams on the military
• 3.25 million dirhams on "exonerations, subventions, et prebendes". I don't know what that means.
• 4.87 million dirhams on diplomacy
• 3.25 million dirhams on "irrationnels" investments
• 3.25 million dirhams on governance
• 9.75 million dirhams on "synergies a degager du Maghreb"

That makes for a 44.5 million dirham total. That actually doesn't seem like that much compared to King Mohammed VI's salary (248 million dirhams), according to the same issue of Tel Quel.

The issue also compares how much goods cost in Morocco versus how much they cost in Western Sahara because of government subsides. A liter of cooking oil is 10.2 dirhams in Morocco, while it's less than half that (5 dirhams) in Western Sahara. A liter of diesel gasoline is 7.5 dirhams in Morocco, while it's only 5 dirhams in Western Sahara.

Have Sahrawis started naming streets after activists?

While researching the earlier post about torturer Ichi Aboulhassan, I noticed something strange: a couple sites, when describing where one of Ichi's assaults occurred, referred to streets named after Sahrawi activists.

For example, this page mentions "Ali Salem Tamek Place" as well as Daddach Street. One called a street Sidi Mohammed Daddach street, but I can't find it now.

It's puzzling because I doubt Morocco would be eager to name streets after dissidents. This might be an error translating text that's meant to mean they were visiting a person's home, but if not it's interesting.

Ichi Aboulhasssan out of Western Sahara: no country for this old man

The cheese stands alone

Ichi Aboulhassan, one of Morocco's chief torturers, has been moved out of Western Sahara. The information comes from a Western Saharan human rights activist. This transfer is great news for Sahrawis but bad news for the Moroccan people. Before I tell you why, here are some of Ichi's greatest hits (literally):

• Commanding the Urban Security Group (GUS), a leading instrument in the occupation
• Dragging Aminatou Haidar from her emergency room bed
• Torturing Sahrawi political prisoners in September 2005
• Leading a GUS force that threw Sahrawi Sidi Mohammed Ould Taleb from the roof of a building.
  

Aboulhassan has been transferred to Bensliman, near Casablanca. It's good that such a vicious man can no longer reach the Sahrawis. Still, his material gains he earned with his Western Saharan brutality--he came poor and left wealthy, his new post is closer to power--means torture in Morocco, as in my own country, has become a lucrative career path.

Flashback: Moroccan police beating Sahrawi students last year

Looks like Moroccan police always get hot-headed around this time of year. Last month's attack on Sahrawi students wasn't a unique event, as this Associated Press story that ran in the International Herald Tribune last year shows:

Students pointed to red stains on the pavement that they said were blood from three injured students. They said police arrested 10 students, bundling them into vans while still wrapped in blankets. Police took money and mobile phones from students, Slimane added.

Police then blockaded an avenue running in front of the housing complex. In mid-morning, around 60 riot police wielding truncheons charged some 50 Saharawi students who had remained at the scene. The students retaliated by throwing stones before scattering as police chased them through university grounds.

Emphasis mine. That attack went down at Mohammed V University in Rabat instead of Marrakesh University, the lessons are the same: Morocco is doing a terrible job convincing young Sahrawis they can live peacefully in Morocco.

If you were occupying Western Sahara, how would you win Sahrawi hearts?

These guys don't know what to do.

The Moroccan administrators of Western Sahara and the Sahrawis who work with them aren't exactly experts at winning Sahrawi hearts and minds. The frustrating status quo continues in Western Sahara, but authorities seem more interested in antagonizing Sahrawis over stupid things than in convincing them Moroccan rule is a pretty good second choice to independence.

Play Devil's Advocate (or Stephen Levitt) and think about what you would do if you were trying to keep Western Sahara quiet.

The first thing I would do is crack down on the harassment and assault of Sahrawis, especially students, by Moroccans. All it does is convince Sahrawis they can't live freely with Moroccans and force them to rely on one another, creating the kind of tight-knit ethnic groups Moroccan authorities should avoid.

What would you do to keep Sahrawis under occupation happy, or at least not unhappy enough to demonstrate?

Flickr photo from user Saharauiak used under a Creative Commons license

Chinese journalist signs on for risky mission in Western Sahara

The South China Morning Post has a great article about Western Sahara that interviews people on both sides of the Berm, including the vice-president of ASVDH, the current commander of MINURSO, and a Sahrawi whose grandson was killed by a cluster bomb. The writer also talks to two Sahrawi women who make an unusual request:

Muda and her friends, all grandmothers, are keen to show they are still engaged in the struggle. Gathering swathes of red, green, black and white cloth, they stitch together a Polisario flag on their Chinese sewing machine. 'Take this with you when you go to the occupied territory and bury it in the sand of our birthplace,' they request. 'And when you are safely away from the Moroccan oppressors, the east wind will blow away the sand and our flag will be free.'

Surprisingly, the writer agrees and takes the flag with him after talking to another elderly Sahrawi:

Shaking hands with the nearly blind septuagenarian, I take my leave from his tent and begin my journey back to the occupied territory. There I will fulfil my promise to the Sahrawi grandmothers and plant their flag in the Western Sahara sands. Who knows where the east wind will take it when freed.

That takes guts. Any Moroccan guard who searches the writer's baggage isn't going to be too pleased to find a Polisario flag. It's a good piece and meatier than what usually passes for media coverage of Western Sahara. There's also an unusually good explanation of the beginnings of the Western Sahara conflict.

Flickr photo from user Saharauiak used under a Creative Commons license

Occupation damaging Western Sahara's environment

Painting by Fadel Jalifa. More like it in the paper!

That's the judgment of a paper about Western Sahara's environment (PDF) under Spanish and Moroccan rule. Written by Axel Goldau (not to be confused with commenter Ax) and translated by Nele Saworski, it faults Spaniards with overhunting Saharan animals and hurting biodiversity.

Morocco gets off no better, from allowing Saudis to hunt gazelles in the territory to producing environmental data that displays an embarrassing lack of knowledge about area wildlife. The only good news in the paper, really, are the great paintings by Fadel Jalifa like the one above.

Sahrawi youths carrying SADR ID cards under occupation

According to my source in El Aiaun, some Sahrawi youth are carrying SADR ID cards like the one above as a silent form of protest against the Moroccan occupation. The card Moroccan authorities would rather they carry can be seen here.

They got their cards while living in Tindouf, but eventually returned to Western Sahara after camp life became too hard. My guy in Western Sahara says one person he knows with the card uses it to keep hope for a free Western Sahara, while another plans to use the card to claim SADR citizenship once he reaches Spain.

Obviously, I'm not in Western Sahara to confirm this, but it seems true to me. I worry for the people carrying the cards, though--I don't think Moroccan security forces will be pleased if they find the cards on the youths.

Leave old Sahrawis alone!

Geez, late middle-aged Sahrawis can't catch a break from Morocco. First it was the guy in the wheelchair, now two brothers and their sister, all in their 50's and 60's, were interrogated for six hours by Moroccan security forces for visiting Mauritania and meeting with other Sahrawis there. Not the best way to run an occupation.

More on the Sahrawi in a wheelchair turned away by Morocco

The indispensable Norwegian Committee for Western Sahara has more information and pictures of the wheelchair-bound Sahrawi visiting his family in the occupied territories who was only allowed to visit them for 4 minutes. According to the Committee, Yarba Mahfud Mohamed's visit was cut short because he refuses to renounce Western Saharan independence:

On arrival in El Aauin, I was stopped because I had not signed a declaration that the Moroccan authorities had given me, and which they said was required to obtain permission to enter the country: “I am a Sahrawi who is returning home in order to beg the king’s forgiveness,” it said. After checking the general situation, with plainclothes policemen, and on the basis of the degrading manner in which they treated me, I understood that I only had one alternative: to return to Spain. The worst part was to see my loved ones there behind a dirty glass wall, without being able to being able to do anything.

He says at one point they took his wheelchair away so he couldn't even move. Mohamed makes exactly the point Morocco is missing--treating Sahrawis like this only gives them more reason to find the status quo untenable.

Bomb the suburbs: Sahrawi graffiti

Speaking of Sahrawi Youtube videos, check out this guy spraypainting pro-independence slogans and the SADR flag on walls and doors in El Aiun. At least, that's what I think is happening--I can't figure out the Arabic. Wherever it's going down, it's neat. I love how good his Arabic looks even though he's using spraypaint.

Polisario officials write opinion pieces, but where are the occupied Sahrawi voices?

Emhamed Khadad isn't someone I've heard of before, but he's described as Polisario's coordinator with the UN (I guess that means he's the MINURSO liaison, because I thought Boukhari's the UN representative). He recently wrote two pieces for European audiences: one in the European Wall Street Journal argues that MINURSO needs a human rights component, while another in European Voice complains that the French idea of a European-Mediterranean trade sphere including Morocco strengthens the occupation.

I'm left to wonder, though, why we aren't seeing anything similarly from human rights activists inside Western Sahara like Ali Salem Tamek, Mohammed Daddach, Aminatou Haidar, or Brahim Sabbar. I can see some problems: activists might not know as many languages or be as educated as Polisario leaders, they could face repercussions from Moroccan authorities, or they don't have the connections that Polisario has to get a piece in a major paper. They also can't be as open about support for independence as a Polisario Front representative, certainly.

Still, they're more effective images for readers, and they can comment on Western Saharan issues without overtly opposing Moroccan sovereignty. Even an integrationist could want a human rights component for MINURSO, for example. Polisario should use the contacts it doubtless has with dissidents inside the territory and media elites in Europe and the United States to get articles by Sahrawi activists under the occupation published.

Abderrahim Lemsaoud and Mustapha Rochdi, Hamdi Lembarki's killers, released 8 years early

Hamdi Lembarki (pictured) was beaten to death by Moroccan security forces during the 2005 intifada. His killers, Abderrahim Lemsaoud and Mustapha Rochdi, were sentenced to 10 years in prison but only served 2 after being released early last month. Pretty outrageous stuff, and just one example of the flippant attitude the Moroccan government takes toward human rights in Western Sahara.

I'm pretty behind the times on this, but it's too depressing not to mention. Giving his killers a little negative Google juice, even in their transliterated names, is a little justice but not near as much as Lembarki deserves.

Western Sahara checkpoint woes

Four Americans traveling around the world came to Western Sahara and discovered an unfortunate fact of life for visitors there: checkpoints. According to our intrepid explorers, they were pulled over eight times in one day, and learned that if you don't make friends with the guards they'll let you through faster. Good to remember for my eventual, oft-thwarted trip to the southern provinces.

Check out this dynamite picture from one of their involuntary pitstops. 4 Americans, a Moroccan soldier who looks so serious I thought he was kidding, a portrait of MVI, and a riot baton hidden behind the picture.

I'm surprised they made it through the checkpoints alive considering how little they seem to have no idea about Western Sahara:

Here in the Western Sahara semi-autonomous, free administered territory UN controlled Moroccan owned rebel occupied landmine danger zone surf resort area of the globe, it is really difficult to really tell what is going on.

I don't know what "free administered" means, but (besides Erik Jensen's warlord phase) I don't think Western Sahara has ever been UN occupied.