Life should have been more or less back to normal by now as it has been four days since we returned from 27th February (an administrative camp not to far from where we live) where we spent two days on a religious conference on human rights in the bible and the qu'ran, enjoying the luxuries of electricity and internet access. Also, seeing as Id Adha (an Islamic holiday in remembrance of Abraham's sacrifice of Ishmael. Same story as in the bible, but with the other son, and supposedly taking place in Mekka, where the Kaba is standing today) is coming up next week, the camp should be teeming with life and expectation. This, however, is not the case. Although people go about their business as usual, and preparations for the feast are being made, most are thinking more about their relatives and friends in the occupied areas than on whatever is going on here.
Last night Morocco made it pretty clear that their attendance at the informal meetings arranged between the two parts in the Western Sahara conflict, is nothing but an attempt to keep the UN happy. During the night before the last day of negotiations Moroccan forces attacked the tents set up outside El Aiun using (according to a friend of mine who just started working in the Saharawi media handling information coming from outside of the refugee camps) teargas and hot water, driving military vehicles through the tents, setting them on fire, and firing real ammunition, not rubber bullets as is sometimes used when police try to break up violent demonstrators. Until now, the demonstrations of the Saharawis has, according to our sources, been completely nonviolent, but as they were forced back into the El Aiun, many took to the streets rioting. Shops and banks has been set on fire, as has the local TV-station, and the city is in chaos. We have been told that between 20 and 30 Saharawis were killed, including a young boy that was hit by a car, and several hundred wounded (this was on tuesday, the 9th). The number of dead will probable rise in the next few days as wounded Saharawis keep away from the hospitals for fear of being arrested. The situation is, to put it mildly, out of control, and the pressure on Polisario to do something else than talking is growing. A lot of people were shocked when the Saharawi representatives decided to continue the meetings in the US after hearing about what the Moroccan military had done.
Most of the people living in “our” refugee camp now wants war, and even if Polisario is able to calm them down temporarily, there is no telling what will happen next fall, when the congress is to decide the future politics of the government. Last congress, the majority wanted war, but the leaders asked for just a little more time (originally they asked for just six more months) to try and find a peaceful solution. Four years has passed since then, and nothing has happened. After 35 years in limbo people no longer have faith in the UN and dialogue. For most, war seems like their best, if not to say only, chance of ever winning their independence.
Thursday 11 November 2010
Friday 5 November 2010
Basicly what I wanted to mention!
This is from another blog (http://www.codapso.org/en/node/1728) writing about some of the stuff I had written about myself. The post is a week old, and the number of people living in tents outside El Aiun is said to have passed 20 000. I would really like to know if anyone has heard about this in Norway. Polisario is c...alling on the UN to protect the people in the area, and to secure access to medicin, food, water and clothes, and to force Morocco to let the mediq in, but nothing hqs been done so far. The demonstrations has been going on for almost a month.
27 October 2010: Amnesty
International is calling on the Moroccan authorities to immediately
investigate the fatal checkpoint shooting of a 14-year old boy outside
a camp set up by Sahrawi protestors.Since 10 October 2010, thousands of Sahrawis have collectively left Laayoune to set up a camp in the desert about 10-13 kilometres east of the city. Some Sahrawi human rights defenders say that the camp
population has reached the tens of thousands; official sources reported
that there were 5,000 people last week in the camp.
Western Sahara is a territory contested between Morocco, which
annexed it 1975, and the Polisario Front, which calls for its
independence and runs a self-declared government in exile in the
Tindouf refugee camps in Algeria.
According to his relatives, Al-Nagem Al-Qarhi was shot dead on 24
October by Moroccan military officers, while in a car bringing supplies
to a camp set up by Sahrawi protesters demanding an end to their
economic marginalization by the Moroccan government.
“The disturbing details of this killing that must be
investigated immediately and transparently”, said Amnesty
International. “Morocco needs to show that it has not violated UN
standards on the use of firearms, or used excessive force as it chokes
off access, supplies and communications to the Sahrawi protest
camp.”
Al-Nagem died almost immediately after being shot in the kidney at
close range by Moroccan military forces as he sat in a car with six
others at a checkpoint, the victim’s sister Sayida has told
Amnesty International. The Moroccan Ministry of Interior has claimed that the car
“attacked a checkpoint”, and that the checkpoint was fired
on, but from another vehicle. Family members say the passengers
were seated when they were shot, and that they were bringing supplies
to relatives living in the protest camp. The other passengers in the car with Al-Nagem were also injured in the shooting, and then beaten by Moroccan police, according to Sayida’s testimony. The surviving victims were transferred
to a military hospital in the nearby city of Laayoune, where they were
found handcuffed to their beds when family members visited them the
next day. One has since been detained, and two taken in for
questioning. According to his family, Al-Nagem was buried the next evening by the Moroccan authorities, who have refused to allow his mother and siblings to see the body or tell them the location of the burial site.
The Moroccan military has kept a heavy presence around the camp,
established on 10 October by Sahrawis who left the city of Laayoune and
other Western Sahara cities en masse to demand improved job
opportunities and housing.Today a group of about ten Spanish journalists were prevented from entering the camp by the police. Last week, Moroccan officials are
reported to have used batons and teargas to prevent over a hundred
people travelling in cars from reaching the camp with supplies.
Amnesty International has called for the respect of Sahrawi
protesters’ right to freedom of assembly and warned that no
excessive force should be used to disperse protestors, in a letter
addressed last week to the Moroccan Minister of Interior.
Thanks to Codapso! (http://www.codapso.org/en/node/1728)
27 October 2010: Amnesty
International is calling on the Moroccan authorities to immediately
investigate the fatal checkpoint shooting of a 14-year old boy outside
a camp set up by Sahrawi protestors.Since 10 October 2010, thousands of Sahrawis have collectively left Laayoune to set up a camp in the desert about 10-13 kilometres east of the city. Some Sahrawi human rights defenders say that the camp
population has reached the tens of thousands; official sources reported
that there were 5,000 people last week in the camp.
Western Sahara is a territory contested between Morocco, which
annexed it 1975, and the Polisario Front, which calls for its
independence and runs a self-declared government in exile in the
Tindouf refugee camps in Algeria.
According to his relatives, Al-Nagem Al-Qarhi was shot dead on 24
October by Moroccan military officers, while in a car bringing supplies
to a camp set up by Sahrawi protesters demanding an end to their
economic marginalization by the Moroccan government.
“The disturbing details of this killing that must be
investigated immediately and transparently”, said Amnesty
International. “Morocco needs to show that it has not violated UN
standards on the use of firearms, or used excessive force as it chokes
off access, supplies and communications to the Sahrawi protest
camp.”
Al-Nagem died almost immediately after being shot in the kidney at
close range by Moroccan military forces as he sat in a car with six
others at a checkpoint, the victim’s sister Sayida has told
Amnesty International. The Moroccan Ministry of Interior has claimed that the car
“attacked a checkpoint”, and that the checkpoint was fired
on, but from another vehicle. Family members say the passengers
were seated when they were shot, and that they were bringing supplies
to relatives living in the protest camp. The other passengers in the car with Al-Nagem were also injured in the shooting, and then beaten by Moroccan police, according to Sayida’s testimony. The surviving victims were transferred
to a military hospital in the nearby city of Laayoune, where they were
found handcuffed to their beds when family members visited them the
next day. One has since been detained, and two taken in for
questioning. According to his family, Al-Nagem was buried the next evening by the Moroccan authorities, who have refused to allow his mother and siblings to see the body or tell them the location of the burial site.
The Moroccan military has kept a heavy presence around the camp,
established on 10 October by Sahrawis who left the city of Laayoune and
other Western Sahara cities en masse to demand improved job
opportunities and housing.Today a group of about ten Spanish journalists were prevented from entering the camp by the police. Last week, Moroccan officials are
reported to have used batons and teargas to prevent over a hundred
people travelling in cars from reaching the camp with supplies.
Amnesty International has called for the respect of Sahrawi
protesters’ right to freedom of assembly and warned that no
excessive force should be used to disperse protestors, in a letter
addressed last week to the Moroccan Minister of Interior.
Thanks to Codapso! (http://www.codapso.org/en/node/1728)
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