See How Much I Love You

Brief background to the Conflict in Western Sahara and information about Sandblast

WESTERN SAHARA IS AFRICA’S LAST REMAINING COLONY. Since 1975, it has been the site of a little known conflict for territorial control between Morocco and the Polisario Front, the Saharawi independence movement. The disputed territory is wedged between Morocco to the north, Mauritania to the south and Algeria to the east. Roughly the size of Britain, it enjoys a coastline over 1000 km long and is legendary for its rich fishing waters. For many centuries, this coastal desert patch was home to the Saharawis, a nomadic and tribal people.

The closest Canary Island lies only 80 km away from Western Saharan shores. This strategically important archipelago provided the pretext for Spain’s colonial interests in the region, at the end of the 19th century. The colony later became incorporated into Spain as its 53rd province, in 1958, after abundant phosphate deposits were discovered near the capital of Al-Aauin. But by then, anti-colonial winds had begun to blow strongly across the continent. With the rise of the armed Polisario movement, in 1973, Spain felt the pressure to decolonize. However, when it finally withdrew two years later, the Saharawis faced a double invasion rather than the freedom they had expected to achieve through a promised referendum vote.

Politically weakened by Franco’s imminent death, the metropolis had opted for a rapid withdrawal from its colony. It signed a secret but illegal accord to hand administrative control over to Morocco and Mauritania, who also claimed Western Sahara as theirs. In return for thirty-five per cent rights to the phosphate deposits, Spain had gone against the Saharawi will and the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, which on October 16th 1975 had firmly rejected the above sovereignty claims. Determined to be a free people, the Polisario forces resisted. This sparked a war that carried on with Morocco for sixteen years, but led to Mauritania’s defeat and withdrawal in 1979.

The conflict divided and dispersed the Saharawi population. Over half fled the invasion and the Moroccan aerial bombardments of napalm and cluster bombs to become refugees in the Hammada, a notoriously inhospitable part of the Algerian desert. Tens of thousands more remained stuck under the rule of their neighbours. Then in the mid-80s, at the height of the war, Morocco built a 2,500km long Berm in Western Sahara to defend its occupation against Polisario attacks. This reinforced sand and stone wall, protected by over 5 million landmines and 100,000 Moroccan soldiers divided the territory as well as every Saharawi family. West of the Berm, under Morocco’s occupation, the Saharawis endured systematic human rights violations and were largely outnumbered by Moroccan settlers, the army and security forces. East of the Berm, in the area known as the ‘liberated zones’, the Polisario military forces controlled the remaining 1/5th of Western Sahara.

In 1991, both sides put down their arms in favour of a Settlement Plan which sanctioned the UN to organize a referendum in Western Sahara for the Saharawis to vote for either independence or integration with Morocco. Scheduled for early 1992, it has yet to take place, although the cease-fire still holds. Saharawi Art and Culture and the Historical Struggle

In their nomadic past, rich oral traditions were the primary means by which the Saharawis transmitted their culture and history. Expressing a cultural fusion of Berber, African and Arab-Islamic influences, this transmission was largely done in Hassaniya — an unwritten Arabic dialect which became dominant after invading Yemenite tribes successively conquered the Western Saharan region in the 11th and 13th centuries.

Poetry was by far the most highly respected of the oral traditions and poets were held in great esteem for their prodigious language skills and memories. With the rise of the Saharawi anti-colonial movement in the early 70s, this medium was harnessed to mobilize the still largely illiterate masses. Many Saharawis today will recount how they were moved by the power of a poem or a song, to join and fight with the Polisario Front.

When the Polisario emerged, its founding members (a group of university students studying in Morocco, influenced by radical ideas of the times), aspired to eradicate tribalism and all forms of inequality in their quest for independence. They regarded the realm of art and culture as prime terrain for expressing these aspirations and forged a new Saharawi identity that bridged the past with the future. But sadly, the tragic turn of events which unfolded at the end of Spain’s rule, meant this vision would only be implemented in the context of a refugee existence and not in an independent country.

Ironically, the intensely isolated state of exile brought on by the war years bred new cultural and artistic developments. In this period, the arts played a primary role in rallying the spirits and emotions, with the struggle and its political aims as central themes. Saharawi music groups, for the first time, formed to sing to the world about the injustices they faced. Drawing on their musical tradition of el howl, they innovated through the use of new instruments, such as the electric guitar and keyboard-synthesizer and modernized their rhythms. The stigma of being associated with the caste of professional artists, known as iggawen in Mauritania, was overcome by the fact that they were singing for the struggle, not for money. Money, in fact, played no part in the first twenty years of camp life and relations between the refugees and the Polisario leadership operated on the basis of an exchange: the movement secured their basic needs and provided free access to health and education; the refugees gave their labour and skills.

The impact of the Moroccan occupation on Saharawi identity had another unforeseen dimension. Speaking Spanish transformed into an expression of resistance rather than a symbol of colonialism and so very soon after the Saharawis became refugees, Spanish began to be taught in primary schools as a second language. In exile, the Spanish language has become one of the most important legacies Spain left the Saharawis and has been integrated comfortably into the Saharawi identity — a trend reinforced further by the large number of young Saharawi refugees who studied in Cuba. The education of thousands of young Saharawis abroad also meant new influences were being introduced into the lives of the refugees — new forms of creative expression such as painting, photography, theatre and film. But these new interests also meant facing prevailing social and religious taboos, especially when it came to figurative painting.

Since the cease-fire in 1991, the Saharawis have entered a new phase. No longer rallied around the call of war they have been waiting in frustration for a long overdue referendum. The arts, in this context, have had to search for a new direction and meaning. The camps have not been immune from the forces of globalization either and growing consumerism has placed pressures on the arts to meet economic ends. The once collective nature of artistic expression is also seeing erosion by individualistic trends. But on the positive side, waning of political interest and support for the arts has freed them from existing only to serve the cause. Introspective, personal and sometimes critical tones have begun to emerge. However, it is always shaped by the reality of the harsh conditions the refugees live in and by their longings and anxieties of what the future holds. In the absence of war, art and culture are vital in affirming their existence and the evolving complexity of their identity. The Refugee Camps

The Saharawi refugees are based in South West Algeria near Tindouf in four large camps. Each camp — Al-Auin, Smara, Ausserd and Dakhla — is named after a hometown in Western Sahara. Locally referred to as wilayas they are run like provinces of a state. Each wilaya is further divided into six or seven districts called dairas, also named after places in their homeland. The four wilayas together are home to almost 200,000 refugees who are living in an extremely hostile and barren landscape.

The Polisario-run refugee camps provide a temporary base for the Saharawi government in exile — the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), self-proclaimed on February 27th, in 1976, as the last Spanish soldier withdrew from its former colony. Although no Western government recognizes it, the SADR enjoys full diplomatic ties with over seventy countries. In exile, the government has sought to develop a democratic system and involve a high percentage of female participation. Of its nineteen ministries, three are headed by women. A third of the elected members of parliament are women, reflecting their prominence in public life and the central role they have in running the camps.

This role began from the first days of exile. With the men away fighting at the war front, it was the women who were primarily left with the huge responsibility and task of setting up the camps. But promoting the women’s position in the society also fitted with the movement’s progressive ideals and the National Saharawi Women’s Union was formed to ensure women’s rights were advanced. By 1978, the first women’s vocational school was set up, a residential school known as February 27 and now a woman’s vocational school exists in each camp.

The educational achievements of the refugees are by far the most remarkable aspect of their experience. Again here, the Saharawi women have made impressive strides. When the exodus began less than five per cent were literate. Today more than ninety per cent can read and write. This fact is largely due to the goal of the nationalist Polisario Front’s to equip the Saharawi population with the knowledge and skills to run an independent Western Sahara in the future.

While education is compulsory and free in the camps, it cannot be provided beyond primary school. Further education is possible through scholarships offered in the main by Algeria, Libya, Cuba and Syria. For the thousands of Saharawis who received their education in Cuba, many left as children and did not reunite with their families until adulthood, sometimes being apart for periods of twenty years or more. A proportionally high number of the young Saharawi adults hold university degrees, including PhDs. But widespread unemployment in the camps and the lack of opportunities, means few are able to apply their hard won university training and knowledge.

Healthcare in the camps is also universally accessible. Over more than three decades of exile, the refugees have built four regional hospitals and a national one. These are run mostly by Saharawi doctors and nurses. Not surprisingly, prevailing diseases are related to the extreme climate and poor nutrition.

The harsh and extreme desert climate of the Algerian Hammada, has made it impossible for the refugees to survive without critical dependency on food aid. But the persistence of this long-term humanitarian situation has exposed the Saharawis to aid-fatigue and assistance in recent years has often being irregular and insufficient, at times covering but a mere 1/3 of the nutritional requirements. Human rights

The darkest phase of the Moroccan occupation in Western Sahara was unquestionably between 1975 and 1991, when the practice of ‘disappearances’ was widespread. Men, women (including pregnant women), children and the elderly were targeted if they had either any known Polisario relatives or were suspected of harbouring pro-independence or pro-Polisario views. Major human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch believe that at least a thousand Saharawis ‘disappeared’ in that period. The last major wave of disappearances took place in 1987, when mostly Saharawi youth staged the first demonstration since Morocco annexed the territory in 1975.

In 1991, the 350 officially recognized ‘disappeared’ Saharawis were released by Hassan II in a royal pardon. Until then, the Moroccan kingdom had vigorously denied holding any Saharawi prisoners of conscience, much in the same way it had denied the existence of notorious secret detention centres such as Agdz, Kalaat Magouna and one in Al-Auin, where hundreds of prisoners are known to have died under terrible conditions. Since then, the Moroccan authorities considered the question of disappearances a closed chapter, but according to AFRAPREDESA, a Saharawi human rights organization formed by family members of the disappeared, more than 500 still remain unaccounted for.

After 1991, the pattern of human rights abuses in occupied Western Sahara shifted from long-term imprisonment and disappearances to one of repeated arrests and shorter-term prison sentences. Nevertheless, the practice of torture during detention is still known to take place on a regular basis, and according to AI, the number of reported incidents appears to have risen sharply since 1999. Many human rights abuses are believed to take place during the period of garde-a-vue (pre-arraignment detention). Human rights activists, both in Morocco and the occupied Western Sahara, assert the Moroccan state practices the policy of criminalizing all political activity.

Hundreds upon hundreds of Saharawis have been arrested since 1991 as a result of staging protests against high-level Moroccan visits to the territory or demanding improved economic conditions, which then became political in nature. The most prominent instances were in 1992, 1995, 1999 and 2001. Long lists of Saharawis were tortured in order to extract false confessions and given excessively long prison terms, many of which were reduced thanks to effective pressure from international campaigning groups such as AI. In 2001, the longest-serving Saharawi prisoner of conscience (of twenty-three years), Sidi Mohammed Daddach, was released and awarded the Norwegian Rafto prize in recognition of his sacrifice to the Saharawi cause.

More recently, in the large scale peaceful uprisings of 2005, Moroccan repression was brutal in the extreme. Women, children and the elderly were equally affected, but this time the Moroccan authorities particularly targeted human rights activists. Prominent figures such as Aminatou Haidar, who was beaten within an inch of her life, were caught on camera with a defiant expression covered in a veil of blood. For her tremendous courage and continued advocacy for peaceful resistance she won the Human Rights Kennedy Award in 2008.

More subtle forms of human rights abuses, such as the lack of freedom of expression, association, movement and systematic discrimination in the workplace, are a constant feature of the Saharawi experience under occupation. These ongoing restrictions are coupled with the more sinister Moroccanization policy, which deprives Saharawis from learning their own history and language.

When the UN High Commission for Human Rights finally visited Western Sahara for the first time, in 2006, it expressed its alarming findings in a subsequent report:

‘The situation of human rights is a source of real concern, especially in the territory of Western Sahara administered by Morocco. Currently, not only is the Saharawi population denied their right to self-determination, but they are also being harshly deprived of exercising other kinds of rights…’

Many of these human rights abuses are eloquently expressed in the resistance poetry of the Generation of Saharawi Friendship, largely based in Spain. Writing in Spanish, this group of Saharawi poets have been inspired by figures such as Neruda and Lorca, and they have published numerous books as individuals and anthologies. Aauin, Shouting What We Feel, was published in 2006 to express their outrage at the 2005 Moroccan repressions.

by Danielle Smith, founding director of Sandblast, a London-based arts charity promoting Saharawi rights.

www.sandblast-arts.org

About Sandblast

Sandblast works to empower the Saharawis to tell their own story, promote their own culture and earn a living through the arts. Through its Saharawi Artist Fund (SAF), Sandblast addresses the lack of opportunities for Saharawis to develop artistically and helps them showcase their talents and gain recognition for their culture and aspirations. Through SAF we:

run workshops in the refugee camps to teach art and enhance income generation.

help outstanding talent access residencies, master classes and international platforms.

provide small bursaries for aspiring artists to pursue their creative ideas.

promote and showcase Saharawi arts.

Founding director, Danielle Smith has been involved with the Saharawi refugee community for over twenty years. She taught English in the camps for extended periods in 1993/94 and made two documentaries, including the award-winning Beat of Distant Hearts, on the role of the arts in the Saharawi independence struggle. She was associate producer for Western Sahara: A Forgotten War, broadcast by BBC2 for their Correspondent series in 1998. Danielle Smith has spoken widely on the Western Sahara at universities, for the media, the British Parliament and the United Nations.