Stefan Simanowitz
The Polisario Front want to end the unlawful Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara
“What happens when students from opposing sides of a conflict zone come together to look for a better future?” asks the website of Talk Together, an organisation specialising in conflict resolution training. When the conflict zone in question is the disputed territory of Western Sahara, it seems that what happens is the students are marched off an aeroplane, stage a hunger strike and are then beaten and arrested by Moroccan police.
On the evening of 5th August six Saharawi students en route to an EU- sponsored peace workshop in Oxford were prevented from boarding their plane by Moroccan police. The students, aged between 17 and 24, staged an impromptu hunger strike protest in the airport terminal but this was short-lived. On Thursday evening a large group of police arrived, beat the students with batons and drove them away in a convoy of vehicles.
The incident led to not only to fears for the student’s safety but also to fears that the arrests could scupper the past week’s long-awaited talks aimed at resurrecting the negotiations between Morocco and Polisario, the Western Saharan independence movement. Thanks to pressure from human rights groups and attention from the media, the students, dubbed the Oxford Six, were released after a few days. The talks began in the Austrian town of Duernstein last Monday. Read more »
Stefan Simanowitz
Mariem Hassan performs in Wiltshire
Mariem Hassan’s voice soared through the warm afternoon air in the Wiltshire countryside at last month’s WOMAD festival. She started with a “mawal”—a graceful song sung without accompaniment before moving on to the mesmeric desert blues for which she is famed. She sings of love, of heartache but most of all she sings about the suffering and hopes of her people in their struggle for independence in Africa’s last colony. “To be Saharawi is to be political,”she said, her eyes sparkling. Known as “the voice of Western Sahara,” Hassan is the embodiment of the axiom that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. She has lived through war, cancer and over three decades of exile but her spirit remains strong.
Born in Smara, a desert city built of red Saharan sand and decorative basalt stone, she spent the first 15 years of her life living under Spanish colonial rule. She began songwriting at a young age despite having no musical instruments other than a drum. In the early 1970s as the Western Saharan liberation movement, the Polisario Front, grew her music became more politicised as she sang about the Saharawi’s desire for independence. “One time I had to climb through a window at a meeting where I was singing to escape arrest by the Spanish police,” she recalls.
In February 1976 the Spanish finally withdrew from Western Sahara, but instead of allowing the creation of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) they sold the territory to the Moroccans and Mauriatians. A 15-year war ensued between Morocco and the Polisario Front, the Mauritanians withdrawing in 1979. The fighting was brutal, with the Moroccans using their well-equipped army and air force to full effect, while the Saharawis conducted an effective counter insurgency. Mariem, along with tens of thousands of other Saharawis, was forced to flee on foot across the desert to the safety of refugee camps in Algeria. Thirty-four years later 165,000 of them are still living in these camps.
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