Regarding the recent events of utmost global importance

Sometimes we have the feeling that the world is coming to an end while we sit here and sip on deadly sweet cups of tea.

TV and news is not something we enjoy every day, and whenever we get a glimpse at BBC or CCN another country has been shattered by an earthquake or nuclear disaster, or is simply about to tear itself apart from within. And if no new country has been put on the verge of ruin, one of the ongoing events seems to have suddenly escalated way out of proportion.

It all started with the revolt in Tunis: TV pictures of crowds surging through the streets and a pressured president that finally let go. After Tunis came Egypt. More crowds, more videos of bloody demonstrators and police cars crashing into crowds. Next time we switched on the TV we saw New Zealand literally in ruins. The next time revolts had started in all Arab countries, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya seemed to be in some serious trouble. After Mubarak had to hand over power to the army, attention shifted and we realized that Libya was in a civil war. Just then another earthquake attempted to wipe Japan off the map, with partial success. This all led to a new Chernobyl. In Libya Gadaffi orders his soldiers to perform genocide when they reach Benghazi, and suddenly all of NATO (including Norway) is waging a war with our neighboring country. To the south, more than a million people are fleeing from stubborn presidential candidates in the Ivory Coast.

Here everything is normal, and people are oblivious to all that does not concern them directly. And only two things affect us here; “Is this our moment to move on Morocco?” And “what about Libya?” A nuclear explosion in Japan could not bother people less.

At first there was a spark of hope that the wave of unrest in the Arab world would spread to Morocco too. This would mean new hope for the Saharawis. However this little spark died quickly.

Secondly there is Libya. Gadaffi has been a friend of the POLISARIO before, and before the war many young Saharawis studied there. POLISARIO evacuated the students just before things turned very bad. Now the question is how they will finish their education?

The general opinion here is very pro-Gadaffi. Primarily because he has been kind to the Sahrawis. However, they also say that the people in Libya have nothing to complain about: They have houses, electricity and food. Everything they need. Furthermore, people condemn the international intervention. When we inform that Norway also sends planes, many people are disappointed. There is an understanding why France and the Mediterranean countries have a justification for acting; this is basically in their neighborhood. This is not exactly the case for Norway. “What is such a respectable and peaceful country doing meddling with other countries business?”

Rollercoaster!

Written by Mariu

You wake up.

Your first thought is: ”The end is near”. The freezing night has strengthened your cold, and removed all physical defence installations. As you head towards the breakfast table for a treat consisting of tea, bread, local super duper medicines and other skulduggery, you realize that all contents within are determined to exit as at fast as possible. Wise from experience, you change the current course and rapidly trudge towards the room of relief. Meanwhile the sun is rising, without a cloud in the sky to cool your day and mind.

After barely conquering the endless road to school, you are met with impatient student and annoyingly healthy colleagues. Overnight the students seem to have forgotten everything, the chalk breaks more than it writes, and between “to be” and “to have” you are constantly interrupted by interrupting interrupters.

The evening Arabic lesson feels like Greek, and as a military cargo plane roars overhead you wish you were an ammunition box flying away. Today you are less productive than a stone. Back home in the tent, you don’t even feel like socially lurking around, it is too exhausting. Eventually stumbling to bed, to the toilet and back to the bed, you wonder why on earth the earth has decided to fall apart today. You fall asleep, and dream about how you drowned in that something you had for dinner.

You wake up.

Your first though is: “Hellyeah!” You have slept like a baby, ignorant of everything but your own sweet dreams. They were something about swimming in chocolate after becoming the president of the world. The breakfast table welcomes you with freshly baked bread, nice coffee and smooth tea. Your stomach handles all this deliciousness with ease. Meanwhile the sun is rising, while the heat is blown away by a cool breeze.

After strolling to school, listening to a hyperactive one-bird bird choir and greeting the local merchant, you are met with enthusiastic students. One colleague is sick, but it could be worse. Yesterday’s test results show that your students have learned more than you have taught them, someone brought coloured chalk, and you feel that this is exactly why teaching is rewarding.

The Arabic letters are dancing in your mouth, Fathathain and Dammathain and Kasrathain jump into place almost by themselves, the UN plane buzzing overhead brings Sahrawi families together (temporarily) and perhaps some of those good WFP cookies as well. Back in the tent with your family, you watch Algeria beat Morocco in football, and the dinner is delicious couscous and camel meat. After learning new Hassaniya phrases, explaining the greatness of Gudbrandsdalsost, and playing with the kids, you are so tired that you are half asleep when you realize that toothbrush action might be advisable after 14 cups of tea.

Humanitarian hunger strike

No, not us. As privileged Norwegians, we can (with a few exceptions) travel wherever and meet whoever, whenever. Our basic human rights are very rarely threatened to the extent that a hunger strike is required. It is, however, a completely different case for the Saharawis. As we are writing this, a young Saharawi man, Mohammed Hallab, is on a humanitarian hunger strike which he begun on the 7th of March. You do the maths... The reason? He's being refused to travel to the occupied territories to meet his family. This is not only the case for him, but for 2400 other Saharawis.

Since 2004, the UN has been sending Saharawis in airplanes back and forth between the refugee camps and the occupied territories. The reason is that there are few other ways the refugees here in the camps can meet their relatives who live in the occupied areas. In order to participate in the program, one has to queue for some time – exactly how long seems to vary. People are then able to spend about ten days with their relatives who they may not have seen for years and years, before being sent back to the camps. People are also being sent the other way, from the occupied territories to the camps. Whenever there is a plane arriving, the relatives throw a huge party in the neighbourhood. The result is that you can hear it all over El'aiuun when this is happening. There are parties in every neighbourhood. Family is serious business around here!

The problem for Mohammed Hallab is that although he has been queuing for the program, he is now being refused to go despite not having seen his family since 2003. Hallab is a human rights activist and had to flee from the occupied territories after participating in peaceful demonstrations. Because of this, the Moroccan authorities have threatened to arrest him as soon as he enters the occupied territories through the program. As a consequence, the UN is refusing him to board the planes as they don't want to take responsibility for what might happen to him in the occupied territories.

The situation now is thus as follows; at the premises of the UN, under the open sky, Mohammed Hallab is lying on his bed. The UN refuses to talk to him, and takes no responsibility other than keeping him on the premises. At the demonstration to support him, we were also told that the UN claims to be in daily contact with his family in the occupied territories, searching for a solution to the problem. Hallab himself claims that this is not the case, and that his family has heard nothing from the UN.

That the Moroccans are creating problems is nothing new, but for the Saharawis – who have faith in the UN and their work in the camps (at least to a certain extent) – to have to fight the UN seems somewhat strange.

At the demonstration on Friday, there were Saharawis, as well as people from Spain and France in addition to us, showing their support. Mohammed Hallab is making an example which should not have to be made, and we now hope that the Moroccan authorities and the UN takes responsibility and unites him with his family immediately.

We are not able to log on to Facebook at the moment, but there should be some support-campaigns for those of you who want more information.

DRIVE!

A wise man once told me “Drives Define Nations”. That might have been an overstatement, but the Tifariti drive to the celebrations of February 27th was of the calibre that deserves an account of its own.

Departure was scheduled at 07.15. Needless to say, we were delayed. Three hours and fifteen minutes later, we were off the road, where most of the journey (as with most Sahrawi travel) would take place. After one hour, one car suffered significant health problems. During Sahrawi Land Cruiser first aid, the rest of us had tea in the beautiful desert. The car was beyond repair, and the three remaining jeeps carried 25 persons onwards to Tifariti.

We met another convoy, and the sight of 40 hardcore jeeps speeding through the desert astonished us. Our driver was of the competitive type, whose mindset was “if you are not first, you lose”. After exiting Algeria (and a few kilometres of Mauretania), we entered the territory of Western Sahara. The Algerian military escort stepped aside, and the open desert was an invitation to Sahrawi road race. A few intense minutes later, all the other cars were eating our dust in the horizon. Never mind our leaking fuel tank.
Now, when you have a driver who races ahead of everyone (and believes he is the Schumacher/Bjarte Morten of Western Sahara), you expect him to know the way. This was not so.

After hours of speeding through rocky desert, we found ourselves in dark mountain ranges. Our enthusiasm faded proportionally with the realization that the driver had no idea of Tifariti’s location. He asked shepherds for directions, who were so imprecise that they could just as well have addressed us in Greek. For them there is no need for precise directions, whereas for two Norwegians and seven Germans bound for a national celebration, it would have been useful.
Nevertheless, as we were driving into the beautiful sunset like a poor and lonesome cowboy, we knew we were lost in the Sahara Desert. The complete darkness proved that we were nowhere near any electric light, never mind Tifariti. The small roads kept disappearing and reappearing. At the most memorable instance, we were driving through bushes when out of the darkness a small wall appeared. The car came to a screeching halt, and the second when we all thought we had found the Moroccan military wall left us flabbergasted. I quote: “That was fun – let’s never do it again!”

After three hours of random roaming the Sahara, things were literally looking dark. As we prepared ourselves mentally for spending the night out, we spotted several vehicles on the horizon. Our search party signalled us, and eventually we entered Tifariti after 11 hours of driving. It turns out we had been several miles (two and a half mountain range) north. On the journey home we didn’t see any mountains at all.

The journey fits perfectly into the Sahrawi culture: Do not worry, you will get there eventually. It does not matter if you are late, nobody expected you on time anyways. It was indeed a memorable journey; it’s not every day you are properly lost in the Sahara Desert.

Reflections on a POLISARIO Military Parade

The Celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Sahrawi Declaration of Independence
took place in Tifariti, Western Sahara, on the 27th of February 2011.


After watching approximately 5000 soldiers marching past our VIP podium, we had much fuel for thought. The irony of watching a military parade while working for the Peace Corps is one thing, the fact that we are watching an army eager to go to war is quite another.

The military is important in Western Sahara. Not only do they represent a real opposition to Morocco, but they are also a source of pride and hope. From our students, we hear that war is a good option. A class discussion revealed that the idea of losing a potential war is virtually nonexistent. Of course the POLISARIO will win. This notion is indeed important in order to maintain and strengthen the Sahrawi unity and national spirit, but whether it is realistic or not is difficult to say.

In terms of military strength, it is hard to determine how hard the POLISARIO Front can strike. From our point of view (lacking political and military insight) the army appears somewhat old fashioned. The parade displayed only foot soldiers with AK-47’s, and no vehicles or military machinery of any kind. There is little doubt that the POLISARIO forces know well how to fight in the desert conditions, but they are likely to be greatly outnumbered in battle. We were left with the feeling that if this army was to attack Morocco, a great number of the men and women passing in front of us would die.

The POLISARIO is good at organizing their highly competent armed forces. However, they are even better at organizing and managing their land. The events in Tifariti, despite being organized mostly for foreign guests and not the average Sahrawi, convincingly displayed POLISARIO (and the Sahrawis) as a transparent body fully capable of ruling a country responsibly. Let us hope these abilities will be used in the near future, and not the abilities of those marching in green uniforms.

We are the SDAR, and we are not joking.

A brief account of Tifariti 27/2/2011, the 35th anniversary of the Saharawi Democratic Arab Republic.

The 35 year celebration of the declaration of the Saharawi Democratic Arab Republic was the time for POLISARIO to show their military strength, and make a clear statement that if nothing further happens, POLISARIO is an opponent to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

Furthermore, this was an opportunity for POLISARIO to once again prove themselves as a serious government that would manage their promised land wisely if given the opportunity. A great effort was made to show the foreigners that POLISARIO is a transparent government that plays by the rules.

The anniversary was celebrated in Tifariti, the military HQ of the liberated areas of Western Sahara, 300 or 400 km from the refugee camps in Algeria. There are no roads and the travel takes 7-11 hours in a Land Rover.

The program of the weekend was as follows:

Saturday the 26th: All important guests, foreigners and journalists arrived and settled in their tents, no official program before the next day.

Sunday the 27th: After breakfast people started to move towards the parade square. The president arrived at around 10.00, standing on the back of a jeep together with his generals, then shortly after, the military parade started.

The parade was very long, consisting mostly of regiments of marching soldiers. After the parade the president and other officials held their speeches. The seats on the platform of distinguished guests were almost empty by the time the last speech was over.

For lunch all VIPs (including the the official Norwegian delegation; us) were joined by his Excellency the president.

In the evening there was a concert, theater, and more speeches. The concert was slightly interrupted by rambling soldiers who were not allowed to enter. The concert continued smoothly only when the improvised fence surrounding the stage crashed down and the soldiers were able to join the crowds without much further noise.

Monday the 28th: In the morning there was a conference on sustainable development usage of the fragile nature in Western Sahara. Both conservation of species, the natural environment and clean energy solutions were presented and discussed.

Following the conference it was time for us to witness two mighty explosions in which POLISARIO honored the anti-landmine treaty by destroying a stockpile of landmines. After lunch the official program was over and we raced back to El Aioun in a tightly packed Toyota Land Cruiser.

The essence: This event told us that the SDAR is everything that a state should be, just without a land.

Are we now convinced that the Saharawi war machine will crush all resistance in the conquest of Sahara? And do we believe that the Sahrawis are ready to manage their land? Dear reader, please, read on to discover more of this magnificent story (more will come on this blog, soon!). Inshallah.

To us, the military parades seemed just a little bit too WW2. It consisted only of thousands of soldiers equipped with Kalashnikovs marching by, and displayed no vehicles. It is of course difficult to judge the capabilities of an army based solemnly on a parade, but let’s say that I do not share my students belief that a war can only lead to victory.

However I am much more optimistic about the abilities of POLISARIO to tackle the event of independence. Both my experience from the camps, and what I saw in Tifariti is that POLISARIO is very responsible and knows how to make people move.