Journeying south from the exotic souks of Marrakech into a controversially contested region where state oppression and violence has featured may engender trepidation. The region is that what was once called ‘Western Sahara’, a name and sovereignty which is still recognised by the United Nations , but is vehemently refuted by the Moroccan government who insist the former country has been part of Morocco since the Green March and annexation in 1975. On atlases and maps, the country is greyed out which reflects this dispute, its national borders clearly delineated with Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. An astonishing fact is that this is the only country in Africa which remains decolonised.
Whether there is any risk in visiting this region remained to be seen. There are online accounts which suggest that people can travel freely and only the furthest east of the country close to the mud wall which divides Western Sahara between Moroccan administration and Sahawari sovereignty is sensitive, whereas there are others which denote that the whole country resists curiosity. Following 3 weeks of unfettered access to the large cities of Laayoune, Smara and el Dakhla the threat to my health came internally; in el-Dakhla I developed a very serious attack of Shingles with long-lasting damage to my left arm’s radial nerve and a condition known as post herpetic neuralgia. Now after almost 6 months my left thumb and forefinger remain mostly unusable, extremely sensitive and often painful, and most of the brain fog and confusion seems mostly abated. More positively in the Western Sahara I had chatted with and survived the Moroccan occupying police force and military with no sense I was being oppressed.
The Western Sahara’s geographic interest is that it becomes the most western part of the Sahara Desert, where the desert meets the Atlantic Ocean for 1000 kilometres of coastline. The coach journey south eventually, after departing Tan Tan, follows this coast line, crossing the former national boundary into firstly Laayoune before emerging 500km later at el Dakhla. Driving down such distances encourages a gradual visual absorption of transition, where the arid reddish landscape of Marrakesh becomes the undulating sandy, yellowish hue of desert. Any hope of seeing perpetually rolling dunes is replaced by a reality of vast tracts of stone and rock, apparently featureless, with occasional mesas on the horizon, a desert landscape known as Hamada. It is upon this landscape that the Saharawi people long established a rich nomadic lifestyle.
Who are the Saharawi people?
The Sahrawi, or Saharawi, are the people living in the western part of the Sahara desert which includes Western Sahara (claimed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and mostly controlled by Morocco), other parts of southern Morocco and the extreme southwest of Algeria. As with most peoples living in the Sahara, the Sahrawi culture is mixed. It shows mainly Arab-Berber characteristics, like the privileged position of women, as well as characteristics common to ethnic groups of the Sahel. Sahrawis are composed of many tribes and are largely speakers of the Hassaniya dialect of Arabic, and some of them still speak Berber in both of Morocco’s disputed and non-disputed territories. The Arabic word Sahrawi literally means “Inhabitant of the desert”.
This was taken from, and more information can be found at, https://www.atlasofhumanity.com/sahrawi
Marrakech to Laayoune
On 30th March the 15 hour journey to Laayoune began at 6am from the CTM coach station in new Marrakech. As the sun rose the coach left Marrakech and motored its way south via Moroccan towns and cities before issuing into vastly more empty regions of desert. The soporific experience of travel was punctuated by memorable sights of flowing landscape outside, mostly viewed through the opaque and tinted lens of a coach window. Conurbations, humanity and countryside merged into real and hallucinogenic experience. The rhythm of travel and my tiredness moulded the long hours into fragmented memory; internal foundation stones to assimilate the external changes in region and lifestyle. The series of images below catches something of that journey.
Laayoune
Laayoune was formed in 1938 by a Spanish colonialist, and in 1958 became the administrative capital of the Spanish Sahara. On my first day I became overwhelmed with the rich and stark quality of light. Ordinary, everyday things such as doors, gates and street art became transformed into something else. Experiencing this abundance of light, colour and design is a normal response for me to time in Morocco; for the first day or two the mundane becomes something extraordinary and I am entranced by it, and I can do little but respond to and photograph it.
The first 2 galleries explore similar material; the first I have tried to capture the street art which resembles unfinished paintings. There is frequently a streak of paint which drips down through the remainder of the design which lends a tragedy, or a vibrancy, to the image. Also the melange of colours and designs, the mixture of paint, colour and architectural designs, for me create rich tapestries.
The second gallery I respond to a wider environmental subject matter, often incorporating form with the colour and design of the image.
Late that night I booked into the hotel Sao Mau Sahara conveniently adjacent to the Gare Routiere ( bus station ) on the western edge of the city. The following morning I walked around just several buildings and began walking along Ave Hassan 11, the main street for this old residential area. I spent a large part of my time in this region, enjoying the mix of poorer housing, cafes and shops. It seemed little different than Moroccan towns in the far north; there was little visible evidence of Saharawi.
One of the goals for the visit was to try to discover remnants or figments of the culture of the Saharawis, and I planned to visit the cities of Laayoune, Smara and Dahkla, the largest towns in Western Sahara. Some 80% of former Western Sahara is ‘occupied’ by Morocco, and the remaining 20% Freezone ( land where the Saharawi continues to govern ) exists beyond a 2700 kilometre containing mud wall, described as a berm, one of the most heavily land-mined regions in the world as it butts up to the Algerian and Mauritanian borders.
The history and issues of the dispute are described below by Sidahmed Jouly, a Saharawi writer living in a refugee camp in Algeria, who draws parallels with another ‘settler colonial state’, that of Israel :
The conflict in Western Sahara is one of the oldest running conflicts in Africa, which has resulted in the longest refugee crisis in the continent. Western Sahara used to be known as “the Spanish Sahara,” as it was colonized by Spain from 1884 to 1975. Unlike many European countries, Spain left this former colony without decolonizing it. Neither did the Spanish State enable the Saharawi people of their right to self-determination, as the United Nations (U.N.) has constantly had asked for since the territory was listed as a non-self-governing territory since 1963, pending the decolonization process. Instead, in a move that goes against international law and legality, Spain decided to divide the territory between Morocco and Mauritania who both claimed state sovereignty over our country. These claims were refuted by the International Court of Justice(ICJ), whose advisory opinion on Western Sahara in 1975 called for the viability and implementation of U.N. resolutions that underscore the right of the Saharawi people in self-determination and independence.
After its illegal partition, the Saharawi territory became a battlefield for the indigenous Polisario Front — recognized by the U.N. as the political representative of Western Sahara — which is forced to push back new invaders. In 1979, Mauritania relinquished its occupied southern lands to sign a peace treaty with the Polisario in Algiers, recognizing Western Sahara as an independent country. However, the territory that Mauritania had withdrawn from was subsequently invaded and annexed by Morocco, further escalating military confrontations.
Since then, about two thirds of the territory has been occupied by Morocco and the rest is under Polisario control, which is considered by Saharawis as liberated territories.
After 16 years of war, the UN brokered a ceasefire in 1991 and the two parties, namely Morocco and the Polisario Front, signed a peace agreement for which a referendum of self-determination was the ultimate goal. For these purposes, the U.N. set up a peace mission under the acronym of MINURSO (U.N. Mission for Referendum in Western Sahara). This mission has been tasked to monitor the ceasefire and, as its name suggests, to organize a free and democratic referendum through which the people of Western Sahara would decide on their future. Under James Baker’s tenure as the U.N. secretary general’s special representative to Western Sahara, the list of eligible voters was finalized and the voters were ready to cast their votes in the referendum ballot boxes. Fearing an overwhelming vote in favor of independence, Morocco began setting up a series of obstacles, in order to abort all attempts to hold the promised referendum.
The Polisario then decided to self-proclaim its republic in 1976, known as the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), declared in order to fill the political vacuum after the Spain withdrawal. The SADR now enjoys full membership within the African Union and is widely supported by countries that endured the atrocities of European colonialism and anti-communist Cold War attempts of destabilization, who had fought back with their own anti-colonial movements, such as South Africa, Algeria, Venezuela, Cuba, and others.
Despite its fight for self-determination, Western Sahara does not often make the world media headlines. However, on December 10, 2020, the issue of Western Sahara has gained a lot more international media coverage after Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the country in exchange for Morocco normalizing its relationship with Israel.
Western Sahara’s wealth of natural resources has turned from a blessing to a target for imperialist extraction: these include phosphate mines, fishing resources as well as potential oil reserves that belong to a small indigenous population. In addition to receiving support from France at the level of the U.N. Security Council, the Moroccan regime has always felt emboldened to move forward with its occupation. They gradually consolidated it through involving many international companies to take part in the plundering of Saharawi people’s natural resources and lands in order to legitimize its de facto occupation. Meanwhile, the indigenous Saharawis live in extreme poverty either in refugee camps that are dependent on humanitarian aid or in the occupied territories under brutal oppression and blockade.
On November 13, 2020, the Moroccan army carried out a military operation against some Saharawi civilians who were protesting in the buffer zone of the Guerguerat region, thus violating the ceasefire agreement and causing the war to break out again in Western Sahara, despite 29 years of truce between Saharawi and Moroccan armies. Nevertheless, Morocco still denies the war for political and economic reasons, such as concerns around uprisings in the occupied territories, also fears that the dozens of foreign companies operating illegally in Western Sahara will leave.
The situation in Western Sahara under the Moroccan occupation has always been vehemently criticized by human rights organizations and public demonstrations, which are generally being led by Saharawi women. These forms of dissent have always been met with Morocco’s police brutality, trying with all means to keep the territory closed in front of journalists and international observers. Moreover, the MINURSO is one of few U.N. missions in the world that does not have the mandate of monitoring and reporting human rights violations. This is due to the role played by France within the security council, to obstruct any action that may harm Morocco’s image. France’s complicity, therefore, leaves the Saharawis under the mercy of Moroccan occupier forces.
The people of Western Sahara have been divided for more than 40 years. Whilst some continue to live in the occupied territories as a minority amongst a majority of Moroccan settlers who flooded their country after the military invasion, the other portion of Saharawis are scattered between five refugee camps that were set up during the 1970s in the middle of the Algerian desert, near Tindouf. These two groups of people are separated by the longest active military wall in the world known as the Berm, described by the Saharawis as the Wall of Shame. This wall is surrounded by millions of landmines that still claim the lives of many Saharawis and their animals.
The illegal exploitation and extraction of Western Sahara mineral, fishery, and other resources has been criticized by many international institutions including U.N. legal top counsel, Hans Corell in 2002, and the European Court of Justice in 2016 and 2018. These institutions, in illustration, have publicly rendered their judgment in considering Morocco and Western Sahara as distinct and separated territories. Consequently, any exploitation of occupied Western Sahara’s resources must take into account the approval and the benefits of the Saharawi people or their legitimate representatives. However, many companies and the E.U. itself still deliberately takes part in this illegal plundering and ignores the verdicts that their own courts have issued before. Their interests are undoubtedly driven by economic and strategic benefits with Morocco, showing what is prioritized above the international law and the lives of Saharawis.
As a Saharawi who spent most of my life living in refugee camps in exile southwest of Algeria, I have always felt that our struggle is linked to other struggles against injustice and occupation around the world, such as in Palestine and West Papua. There are many similarities between the two causes of Palestine and Western Sahara, and although the occupation in Western Sahara draws considerably less attention than the Israeli occupation of Palestine, these two causes have much in common. This is in spite of the tireless attempts by Morocco to paint the Saharawi struggle as a separate issue, whilst proclaiming support for Palestine (see Rana B.Khoury, Western Sahara and Palestine: A comparative study of occupation, colonialism and nationalism, 2011). Palestine and Western Sahara are connected as clear cases of occupation in international law, as well as in the ways both colonizing occupations in these lands utilize the same tactics in order to assert their legitimacy. Separating walls are one of these tactics used on both occupied lands to divide people from each other. Both occupiers are also defended by imperial powers that make sure to remain unpunished. Israel and Morocco both use media propaganda, foreign investments, and settlers to create a de facto occupation that the rest of the world normalizes, whilst the rightful owners — Saharawis and Palestinians — continue to suffer on a regular basis in refugee camps, in exile, or on their occupied lands. However, I still believe in international solidarity and people’s power to push for change and support the Saharawi fight for our lands and self-determination, to raise more awareness about Western Sahara such as through academia and the media. Much can be done in order to help shed light on this neglected struggle issue.
I spent the first full day exploring this part of the city, walking eventually into the city centre where evidence of the Spanish colonial occupation was most evident. Intrigued by the sight of a large dune in gaps between buildings, and inquisitive whether I could reach the river and coast I knew to be relatively closeby, I walked through those buildings, heading towards the imposing dune. Eventually the roads opened to a large lake, on maps called the Dait Um Saad ( the ‘intermittent lake’, more accurately a seasonal waterway ), through which flowed the Saquia el-Hamra, a wadi ( river valley ) and intermittent river. The wadi gives its name to the Saquia el-Hamra region, a large area in the very north of Western Sahara.
The following images portray that journey and eventually documents the lake, some of the roads and houses which lead down to the extensive riverside of rock hard mud, other signs of habitation and the extensive collection of garbage accumulated amongst the rich foliage on the city side. I traced my way as best as I could along that area. The area felt mostly abandoned and I was a little anxious for my safety so I didnt walk as far along the bank, or down toard the river, as I might have done. An incongruous English statement ‘Til We Die’ written above a discarded pair of shoes outside of a residence suggested I should not walk too much further.
I remember a lone woman in flowing vibrant robes walking over the garbage, making her way strikingly towards the banks of solid mud and the intermittent lake. Disregarding our different cultures we waved to each other and I made my way back as she became smaller in the distance.
The contrast between the beauty of the water and foliage and the extensive garbage scattered everywhere, and the blank, featureless expanse of concrete houses expressing the colour of local stone seemed more reassuring. I returned to this area several times to photograph.
On my final return to the intermittent lake, a length of black plastic was flapping in a strong wind. It resembled a demented jinn, reminding me eerily of previous visits to those Moroccan towns still having association with traditional belief systems.
Resistance
Laayoune has a rich history of Saharawi resistance and I wondered how much of the street art is protest and resistance even 50 years after Morocco annexation. The incongruous and ominous statement found on a house wall ‘Til We Die’ may have been an expression of that resistance; written in English the meaning of the words may have eluded local authorities.
A number of protests ( known as the Saharawi Intifadas ) following the occupation were summarily put down and although a number of protest camps were formed outside Western Sahara cities and towns, the camp at Gdeim Izik, 12 kilometres south east of Layoune, is the most famous. The camp was formed on 9th October 2010 and dismantled 1 month later on 8th November, where an estimated 5,000 Saharawis gathered to protest against ‘ongoing discrimination, poverty and human rights abuses against local citizens’. Thousands of ‘khaimas’, traditional tents, were created often from cloth smuggled in as traditional clothing by women through Moroccan police who initially tolerated the protest. On 24th October a 14 year old child was killed by Moroccan gunfire. On 8th November the camp was dismantled by Moroccan police and 3,000 protesters were arrested.
Following the protests, a ‘group of mainly young Sahrawis were arrested after the protests and were accused of the murder of the 11 Moroccan auxiliary Forces killed before the dismantlement of the camp. They were tried in a military court and 25 of them received heavy jail sentences. Some reported being tortured by the Moroccan DST.’ A list of those people, and more details of the camp, can be found here and Amnesty International explore the trials and allegations of torture here.
Political activist Noam Chomsky has suggested that the month-long protest encampment at Gdeim Izik constituted the start of the Arab Spring, while most sources consider the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia on 17 December 2010 to be the actual start. Details of the First Saharawi Intifada and the Second Saharawi Intifada can be found by clicking on these links.
The following film tells the story of Gdeim Izik.
Smara
I enjoyed my short time in Laayoune; I established a small restaurant where I ate daily, and a number of cafes which were comfortable and served good coffee. I left for Smara on 3rd April.
Al Khadra: Poet of the Desert