Censorship continues to claim victims in Morocco. If it is not to instruct the system directly (as in cases of Akhbar al Youm, Al Oula to Jarida Al Michaal, Tel Quel, Le Journal Hebdomadaire and Nichane) are the same editors to overturn the articles that may not be welcome al Palazzo. E’ il caso della giovane rivista Zamane, un mensile a carattere storico-divulgativo da poco in edicola. Un magazine indipendente che ha proposto fino ad ora un lavoro senz’altro meritevole. Tuttavia, quando il giornalista Aziz El Yaakoubi ha presentato un articolo sulle origini dell’esodo saharawi verso i campi di Tindouf (1975-’76), i vertici della redazione hanno censurato alcuni passaggi chiave del pezzo (come per esempio le testimonianze dei bombardamenti al napalm sulla popolazione civile in fuga effettuati dall’aviazione marocchina o le responsabilità della “marcia verde” sulla partenza dei rifugiati). Evidentemente, dopo la stretta repressiva esercitata negli ultimi due anni da Rabat sulla stampa indipendente, anche le pubblicazioni più serie e rispettabili come Zamane sentono il bisogno di “autoregolarsi” per non incorrere in sanzioni o ritorsioni giudiziarie. Un ulteriore conferma della morte della libertà di stampa in questo paese. Tanto più che la questione del Sahara resta una delle principali linee rosse espressamente elencate nel Code de la presse in vigore dal 2003.
L’articolo in questione, “Aller simple pour Tindouf”, è stato pubblicato nel mese di dicembre (Zamane, n. 2) con le opportune modifiche del caso. L’autore, Aziz El Yaakoubi, si è rifiutato di firmarlo. Di seguito la versione integrale tradotta in italiano.
Thousands of Sahrawi refugees are taken hostage in the camps of Tindouf from a conflict that has gone on too long. Investigation into the reasons and conditions that have driven them away from their lands.
On June 17, 1970 Bassiri Mohammed, founder of the Al Hamra Saqiat Harakat Tahrir wa al-Wadi Daha (Movement for the Liberation of Saqiat El Wadi al-Hamar et Dahab), is organizing a peaceful demonstration against the occupation English in the city of Laayoune. Franco's army will react with violence by firing on the crowd. The dead and wounded are counted in tens. Mohammed Bassiri disappears in the prisons of the occupying power. Deeply affected by the events, a young Sahrawi, then a student at the University of Rabat, draft a reply. El Ouali Mustapha Sayed, joined the faculty of law and an active member dell'UNEM (National Union of Moroccan students), a native of Tan-Tan, where his family has been installed following the defeat of the Army for the Liberation of the South (Operation Ecouvillon "), try to knock on every door. Gather around him a dozen Saharawi students and demand the support of opposition parties in Morocco. In a memorandum submitted in January 1973 in the Algiers section of Tanzim, the armed wing of UNFPA (National Union of Popular Forces, a revolutionary socialist movement Moroccan character, NDT), the young Sahrawi support the idea of \u200b\u200bintegration of Western Sahara to Morocco: "You can say that the region was a province like any other Moroccan, thus ends his text, published by the newspaper Al Ikhtiyar Ahoura , October 19, 1977.
the face of indifference, in some cases, the arrogance, the Moroccan nationalists, El Ouali is moving south and seek the support of the old fellow Bassiri, in exile in Mauritania. Other students, including Mohammed Cheikh Biadillah, the current president of the Lower House, moved a Laayoune per sondare il terreno. Il gruppo di Mohammed Bassiri aveva stabilito eccellenti rapporti con il governo mauritano. Con il suo via libera, il gruppo si riunisce il 10 maggio 1973 a Zouerate, cittadina situata nel nord-est mauritano, e annuncia la creazione del Polisario. “L’obiettivo preposto era allora l’espulsione degli spagnoli dalle nostre terre, non avevamo ancora pensato a cosa fare dopo la cacciata dei colonizzatori”, ricorda Bachir Dkhil, uno dei partecipanti al congresso costitutivo del Fronte e l’ideatore dell’acronimo Polisario (Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro). L’affermazione trova conferma nel manifesto politico redatto dopo la creazione del Fronte, conceived "as a unique expression of the mass, opting for revolutionary violence and armed struggle as the means by which the Sahrawi Arab African people can give them total freedom and to defeat the maneuvers of English colonialism."
Silence Moroccan
After the birth of the Polisario, Algeria or Morocco or the events seem to worry about. Muammar Gaddafi says only the movement since its inception. The Front for the meantime make the first attack against the English army. An initial supply of weapons coming from Libya and the repeated ambushes are beginning to worry the army of Franco. "We arrived in Libya barefoot and we left well armed, "said El Ouali Mustapha in a press conference in Tripoli, October 29, 1975, in reference to step out two years ago in the land of Gaddafi. In March 1974 Reuters publishes a statement of the Front who denounces "the silence of the Arab countries of the Maghreb countries of Morocco and especially on the English colonialism and the repression exerted by this savage against the Sahrawi people."
face of the offensive, more effective, the Polisario General Franco announces that his government is preparing a status of autonomy for Western Sahara. "The English government formally guarantee that the population of the Sahara will decide in a free of its future. " For this reason, the dictator seeks to rely on the Jamaa, tribal organization that brings together all the heads of clans Sahrawi. The ancestor of Corcas (Consultative Council for Sahara, government bodies wanted by the Moroccan monarchy, ndt). On the other side, the Polisario Front condemns all forms of parental loyalty Order and its members say they do not recognize the tribal affiliation. The Front enjoys widespread popularity, while the reputation of the Jamaa be affected by the collaboration of some of its members with the occupants.
Only after the announcement of the caudillo comes the first official reaction Hassan II. In a message addressed to Franco July 4, 1974, the king declares that "will not tolerate the creation of a puppet state in southern Morocco," responding in this way the project of autonomy English. In those months multiplied by the Polisario attacks against the army Iberian and its popularity is now expanding to all sections of the Saharawi society as well as abroad. "At the same time began contacts with the Algerian government. I was one of the leaders of the military leadership and remember that I asked permission to assemble tents to house some of the Sahrawi people of Algerian nationality, not far from our military base, on the Algerian border-Saharan Africa. I never understood why, "says Bachir Dkhila. These tents are the nucleus of the future camp. The second congress was held in front of a few tens of kilometers from Tindouf. The choice of venue and the reason for the installation of the first tents in this arid desert remains a mystery. The year 1974 is certainly the darkest in the history of the Polisario. During the second conference, held August 25 to 31, change the tone and purpose of the claims: "The Sahrawi people have no other choice but to fight to achieve independence," reads the manifesto released dall'assise .
Repression English and the agreement of Madrid
Faced with the pressure of Morocco, France and the United States, Spain decided to change the game. The project of autonomy is abandoned and you open a phase of secret negotiations with Morocco and Mauritania for the decolonization of the Sahara. Spain withdraws from the most isolated and the Polisario presses occupied the abandoned territory. In Sahara occidental: September at Enjeux d'une source du désert wars, Tony Hodges writes that during the month of October 1975 (a few days before the "Green March", ndt ) the Spaniards controlled the only large city in the Sahara, while there was no trace of their presence to the east of Smara. The Front ha in mano ormai la quasi totalità del deserto e sferra attacchi contro i centri urbani raccolti lungo la fascia occidentale del territorio. La Spagna, dato il sostegno popolare ricevuto dai guerriglieri, sceglie la repressione. “Ogni manifestazione pro-Polisario era vietata. I quartieri saharawi di Laayoune erano assediati, circondati dal filo spinato, e tutte le sere veniva imposto il coprifuoco”, ricorda Guejmoula Bent Abbi, deputato del Partito del progresso e del socialismo (PPS), che all’epoca aveva quattordici anni. Da parte sua Hassan II annuncia la marcia verde, subito dopo il verdetto emesso dalla Corte internazionale di giustizia che rifiuta la pretesa sovranità storica sul Sahara di Marocco e Mauritania.
Nel Saharawi territory began to circulate the first rumors of a "transfer of the Sahara from Spain to Morocco and Mauritania." In this climate the Front launches a campaign of denunciation of secret agreements entered into between the three countries. The Moroccans are presented to the Sahrawi people as the new invaders. "Images of the illiterate people who do not know anything about Morocco and its civilization ... From the day to day it was announced that 350 000 people are going to invade their lands," noted Bachir Dkhila. The Green March, although presented by its instigators as a "glorious march", it seems, in these circumstances, a fatal mistake. The first military incursion
Morocco is dated October 31, 1975, five days before the start of the "march". Some units of the Armed Forces real (FAR) cross the border and head east toward Jdiriya, House and farce, just in the hands of fighters of the Polisario. The first fights break out, the first shots of a war that will last approximately sixteen. The Front took the opportunity to confirm the charges brought to Morocco and to thank the city's population. It 's the general panic. "The fear of the Sahrawi people has grown with the arrival of the marchers green," says Bent Guejmoula Abbi. In fact, the people involved come from, in most cases, from the poorest neighborhoods and degraded delle grandi città marocchine. In poco tempo si è diffusa una pessima immagine del Marocco e dei marocchini.
Il 14 novembre 1975 viene firmato l’accordo di Madrid, che trasferisce l’amministrazione del Sahara al Marocco e alla Mauritania. Il Polisario rifiuta di riconoscere l’intesa e annuncia il proseguimento della lotta armata contro “i nuovi invasori”. Il 25 novembre 1975 il primo convoglio militare marocchino fa il suo ingresso a Laayoune in compagnia di Ahmed Bensouda, governatore aggiunto del territorio sahariano, appena nominato da Hassan II. Qualche giorno più tardi è la volta del governatore mauritano a mettere piede nella città. Il Marocco sceglie di muovere guerra al Fronte Polisario, che gode tuttavia del supporto popolare, e commette lo stesso errore degli spagnoli appoggiandosi sulla Jamaa , priva di consensi dopo l’ascesa degli guerriglieri.
Bombardamenti al napalm
E’ in questo contesto che i primi rifugiati iniziano a lasciare le loro case e partono in direzione della frontiera algerina. Houari Boumedienne non nasconde più il suo sostegno al Fronte e propone ai fuggitivi di occupare la regione di Tindouf come base di ripiegamento. “Dopo l’accordo di Madrid, i marocchini hanno preso il posto degli spagnoli nella coscienza della gente. La paura fu la principale motivazione della nostra partenza”, ricorda con amarezza la deputata of PPS, which has left the city of Laayoune November 27, 1975. Everyone gets by as he can. The urban residents begin the journey under its own power. On foot, in trucks or jeeps Land Rovers, thousands of people head to the east. Far away in the desert, the Polisario Front is in charge of leading up to the Algerian border. But it is not the only one. According to the Map (the Moroccan press agency, ndt) and Reuters, 30 January 1976 the FAR stormed oasis (Amgala) where hundreds of soldiers were stationed and where Algerians had gathered thousands of Sahrawi refugees, one of the few water points located 290 km from the border. Dozens die in Algerian military the attack, a hundred are taken prisoner.
After the incident, the Moroccan Army discovers three huge camps in Tifariti, and Oum Dreiga Guelta Zemmour. Dozens of refugees were killed by bombing aviation Alawite, which also uses the napalm. "I was present during the raid Moroccan Tifariti, luckily we had dug the tunnel a few days before. Who is left out had no chance and lost his life, "says Bent Guejmoula Abbi. "I was in prison a year when the Algerian forces wanted to take control of the Polisario. I was released in March 1976 with a mandate to conduct an inquiry on victims of napalm after the arrival of the refugees in Algerian territory, "says Bachir Dkhila instead, which then adds:" Nobody knows how many people died on the road of exile, nor the Polisario nor Morocco. I could see with my own eyes dozens injured for burns gas. "
The plight of refugees
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees shows that about 50 000 Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria are finished. "Of this number only 19 000 people originated in the Western Sahara," insists Bachir Dkhila. A delegation from the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) conduct a visit to the camp of Lahmada in October 1976. According to the report, the population is composed of 80% women and children, "only unarmed civilians." Men are at the front. But the report adds that all respondents claiming to be originating in the disputed territory. "Being a native of the English Sahara was a privilege in the fields. And 'why all those who claimed, "replies the co-founder of the Polisario.
In 1976 he presented the first serious logistical problems for the Polisario and the host country. According to the FIDH document, you need 10 000 150 000 tents and blankets, to address the rigors of winter Saharan supplies of vitamins, milk for infants, antibiotics and other medicines to treat bronchitis, tuberculosis and measles. No doctor is present in the camps in the years '75 and '76, only some Algerian nurse caring for the sick. It 'important to remember that those released by the FIDH delegation are only estimates, since only nine managed to go on twenty-two existing camps along the border. "The Sahrawi refugees are fed almost exclusively on vegetables, no fruit, no eggs, meat only rarely," writes the journalist Pierre André Barou in the columns of Libération, after visiting the camps in November 1976.
"During our stay, the refugees received two kilograms of grain per month, one kg of dried vegetables, a pound of sugar, one kg of milk powder, six hundred grams of oil, three hundred of tea and almost never for dates," reports in detail a Swiss Support Committee, who spent April 1976 in the camps. "Having left Tindouf, there are 25 km of road before spotting the tents on top of a hill. Soon a military force us to stop. These guys are to control access in the field. At thirteen, fourteen, often stand guard day and night. The clothes are torn to shreds ... ", according to the report of Friends of the Saharawi People ", published after his return from the trip. Over time, the story of refugees has become public domain. Thirty years later the living conditions are certainly improved, but the drama continues. Until when?
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