Government News: Top Stories

Feature: Western Sahara protest camp tests Morocco's nerve
by Lamine Ghanmi

Reuters Translate This Article
7 November 2010

AKDIM IZIK, Western Sahara (Reuters) - In the protest camp where 86-year-old Omar Harwache and his family have set up a makeshift home, the rows of khaki-coloured tents flapping in the wind stretch as far as the horizon.

Harwache and the thousands of other people in this camp amount to be the biggest protest in three decades in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1975 and now the subject of Africa's longest-running territorial dispute.

Negotiators from the Moroccan government and the Polisario movement, which wants independence for Western Sahara, will meet near New York this week for talks mediated by the United Nations in the latest attempt to unblock the conflict.

Protesters at the camp, on the outskirts of Western Sahara's main city, Laayoune, steer clear of the status question and focus instead on bread-and-butter issues: they say they want the Moroccan government to provide more jobs and better housing.

'We have been patient for 35 years but we cannot wait any longer. We have seen nothing from the state,' said Harwache, who chose to leave his home in Laayoune to come to the camp.

But while the demands are social, the scale of the protest—the people in the tent camp represent a sizeable chunk of Western Sahara's native population—is testing the Moroccan government's tolerance for dissent, and its nerve.

In the past, anti-government protests by indigenous Western Saharan people, known as Sahrawis, have been broken up by Moroccan security forces.

Dozens of Moroccan police and military vehicles are deployed around the camp, and it can only be reached by passing through at least four checkpoints. At night, a military helicopter flying overhead rattles the silence of the camp.

'They are taking aerial pictures of the camp to try to gauge the number of people in the tents,' said Hamadi Khiya, a member of the camp's own security patrol.

There has been one violent incident in the month since the camp was set up, when a Sahrawi boy was shot dead at a checkpoint nearby.

Moroccan security forces said they came under fire from a car that the boy was travelling in, and shot back in self-defence. Sahrawi activists reject that account.

INVESTMENT

Nevertheless, supporters of the Moroccan government have praised its restraint.

'The state has been very responsible in dealing with the protest,' said Hassan Maoulainine, head of the Rabat government's Regional Investment Centre in Laayoune.

'They deployed security forces to guard against ill-intentioned types who might enter the camp by stealth and cause a fire or do some other harm and blame the state,' said Maoulainine, who is Sahrawi but supports Moroccan rule.

He said the government had poured billions of dollars into Western Sahara to improve living conditions, provide better education and health care, and create jobs.

The government had invested 'more in the region in 35 years than it invested in Morocco in 50 years', he said. 'The state subsidises 50 percent of the prices of sugar, cooking oil, semolina and gasoline, and people pay no taxes.'

The tent protest, he said, was an act of political opportunism. 'The enemies of Morocco are seeking to put salt in the wound of the conflict. They are trying to embarrass the kingdom ahead of the negotiations in New York,' he said.

Moroccan officials have said their handling of the protest shows the country is democratic and respects human rights. They say that contrasts with the Polisario which, they allege, deals harshly with dissenters in its own ranks.

SECURITY PATROLS

The camp has about 8,000 tents housing around 20,000 people, according to estimates by a Reuters reporter, who was among the first foreign journalists allowed access to the camp by the Moroccan authorities.

That figure compares to a total population of Laayoune of 200,000, many of whom are not native Sahrawis and have settled there from Morocco since 1975.

The camp appeared to be well-organised, with teams of young Sahrawis patrolling it night and day to enforce security, collect garbage, and supply water and food.

Many of the protesters leave the camp at night to return to their homes in Laayoune and come back in the morning with supplies of milk, bread, tea, sugar and other necessities.

Representatives of the protesters have held at least four rounds of talks with Moroccan officials, including the interior minister, but have so far not reached agreement.

Absent from the camp were symbols of the Polisario, which has its headquarters in neighbouring Algeria and is a rallying point for many Sahrawis who oppose Moroccan rule.

Mohamed Ailal, one of the activists at the camp, said the protest's focus on bread-and-butter issues was a deliberate calculation. 'The social issues hide the other issues,' he said.

'We keep it social because it is our only shield against Morocco's crackdown. We do not want to fly Polisario flags here, otherwise Morocco will find an excuse to storm the camp.'

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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