The continued oppression of the Saharawi people

Today we had a meeting with a Saharawi human rights organisation, that works with the human rights violations committed by the Moroccan government against the Saharawi people in Western Sahara.

There are over 500 missing Saharawi persons, and many of them are believed to have died in Moroccan prisons. The majority of these were not even political activists, but were abducted simply due to their Saharawi identity.

Many of those detained in Moroccan prisons are tortured and maltreated in overcrowded spaces. We have seen many photographs of those who have been abused, also outside the prisons. We met with a man who had himself been imprisoned due to his political activism. On the 21st of May 2005, Saharawi demonstrations against Moroccan oppression were initiated as a peaceful intifada. The protests were severly cracked down on, and the man we met was one of those detained. That he shared his story with us is one of the stongest things I have experienced. The Moroccan soldiers came to his house, and sexually abused his sister and his mother while he was there. He was then taken to a Moroccan prison, where he was tortured for several days. When he was finally brought before a tribunal, the judge told him that he could have his self-determination in the Moroccan prison. Clearly the tribunals are not independent, and will not give you a fair hearing.

Right now there is a Spanish judge who wants to bring some of the Moroccan responsibles of the human rights abuses to court in Spain. Hopefully, this can succed. However, the Spanish government is not actively promoting the Saharawi cause. While the Spanish people have done very much to support the Saharawi, the government has not yet denounced the human rights abused committed by Morocco. Spain has strong commercial interests in Western Sahara, and has access to 35 % of the phosphate of the occupied territories, as well as gaining from the EU fisheries deal with Marocco, that opens up for EU fishing on the coast of Western Sahara. A group of EU lawyers has deemed this illegal, as international law forbids the exploitation of the natural resources of a occupied territory without the consent of its people.

When it comes to the French government the situation is worse. Due to its close relations with Marocco, it has persitently used its veto in the UN Security Council to stop the MINURSO from getting a mandate to protect human rights. This means that the UN force in place cannot protect the Saharawi people from Morroccan abuses. The MINURSO force was installed to secure the popular referendum over the fate of Western Sahara. However, the referendum has still not taken place. Meanwhile, MINUSRO forces are allocated twice the amount of funding that the refugee camps get in total.

The dire human rights situation in the occupied territories make it even more clear that without a political solution the Saharawi people cannot be free.

Giving birth in the desert

A few days ago one of the sisters in my family told me her story of pregnancy.
Being pregnant in the refugee camps must be so difficult and very dangerous. There is little health care and the risks are many. My sister told me that the first time she was pregnant, she was pregnant with twins. It was one boy and one girl. When the day came that she gave birth to them, she lost her babies. This tragedy repeated itself and the baby boy that she gave birth to a year or so later also died during childbirth. As she told me this I was in shock, but her face didn't show any sign of sadness. As a matter of fact not much emotion at all. It was as if she had talked about the loss of her babies a houndred times before and with time had managed to block out the emotions connected to the memory.
Suddenly her eyes lightened up and she smiled as she looked at Sheyach, her 6 months old baby boy. Sheyach had survived. Sheyach did not get hurt during birth, but his mother lost much blood and she is still recovering.
Sheyach is the centre of attention in our family. Everybody that comes in will hold him, feed him, play with him and talk to him. He is unique and very special. The family believes in his strength and they have even started feeding him camel meat and making him taste the Saharawi tea, so I am sure he will become a strong, intelligent Saharawi.
I have now been with Sheyach's family for 2 weeks and I've only heard him whine once. This baby really never cries. He is never left alone and always surrounded by love and laughter. It is amazing how the family here do everything together. There is no destinction between adult and child. There is no such thing here as "adult time" or "for adults only". The family is one and they share everything. The bonds between the family members and also amongst the Saharawis are very strong.

I want to tell one more pregnancy story. When the grandmother in our family was 9 month preganant, she rode a camel all alone in the Saharawi desert. She was on her way from one place to another when she suddenly had to give birth. She had no choice but to climb off the camel and give birth all alone in the sand. There was nobody around to help her. Luckily it went ok and nothing happened to the newborn baby girl, named Mula. The mother cut Mula's navel chord and rapped her in a blanket. She climbed back on the camel with the baby in her arms and rode to her destination.

These two true stories are examples that show the strength of the Saharawi people. It shows their determination and their resistance. Together it represents both the importance of ceasing the day and the hope for a better future.

Marhaba

The stars in Buccra are the most beautiful I have ever seen, and they have marked the beginning of a wonderful stay. We've been here for less than a week, and already I feel like a part of the family.

These few days have been full of new experiences. Everyday we drink the Saharawi tea, and put on our beautiful melhaffas. We have even had time to get henna for our hands, and I like mine better like this. The family includes us in all parts of their lives, and we have already been to a Saharawi wedding with its traditional dance. We have had two days of teaching and the students are great. In the afternoon we have Arabic lessons with a very good Arabic teacher called Mohammed.

What strikes me most with the people we have met, and the family we live with is their enormeous warmth and openness. The ability to include others the we they do is something I think most Norwegians could learn from. Some of the young people and the children in our family speak Spanish, but many just speak Hassaniya. Still, we communicate well and their warmth shines through.

There are many humanitarian organisations here that run different projects of all kinds, but far too few work with the root of the problem,- the political situation and the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. We are planning to distribute a petition on the illegal fishing outside the coast of Western Sahara, and the fishing agreement the EU and Morocco. We will work with the Polisario, and hopefully distribute it across the different camps. The campaign is run by different European organisations, and you can read more about it on www.fishelsewhere.eu.

Mæesemallah!