{"id":3691,"date":"2020-12-24T13:02:46","date_gmt":"2020-12-24T13:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=143125"},"modified":"2020-12-24T13:02:46","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T13:02:46","slug":"western-sahara-a-rare-look-inside-africas-last-colony-as-u-s-recognizes-moroccan-occupation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/24\/western-sahara-a-rare-look-inside-africas-last-colony-as-u-s-recognizes-moroccan-occupation\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Sahara: A Rare Look Inside Africa’s Last Colony as U.S. Recognizes Moroccan Occupation"},"content":{"rendered":"
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.<\/p>\n
AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Today, a Democracy Now!<\/em> exclusive: \u201cFour Days in Western Sahara: Africa\u2019s Last Colony.\u201d<\/p>\n Western Sahara, where peaceful protesters, led by women, are beaten in the streets. Thousands have been tortured, imprisoned, killed and disappeared while resisting the Moroccan occupation.<\/p>\n SULTANA<\/span> KHAYA<\/span>:<\/strong> [translated] He jabbed right at my eye with his baton. I was yelling at him, \u201cHey, you Moroccan! You pulled out my eye!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Where natural resources are plundered, from phosphates to fish.<\/p>\n HMAD<\/span> HAMMAD<\/span>:<\/strong> [translated] I say that our damnation comes from the natural resources we have here. If it wasn\u2019t for these natural resources, Morocco never would have invaded Western Sahara.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Where a massive wall divides a people, the Sahrawi, the native population, denied a vote for self-determination.<\/p>\n ELGHALIA<\/span> DJIMI<\/span>:<\/strong> [translated] If we don\u2019t speak out, especially us, as victims who have suffered all of this, if we don\u2019t speak out and defend our cause, this problem will remain.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Western Sahara \u2014 the center of a four-decades-long struggle for independence from Morocco, its neighbor to the north. Morocco has occupied the territory since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and the international community.<\/p>\n The story of Western Sahara is one of colonialism, plunder and resistance. It\u2019s also a story rarely told in the international media.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s here in Western Sahara where the scholar Noam Chomsky says the Arab Spring first began in late 2010, before the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.<\/p>\n NOAM<\/span> CHOMSKY<\/span>:<\/strong> The Moroccan forces came in, destroyed tent cities, a lot of killed and wounded and so on. And then it spread.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> But the struggle in Western Sahara dates back much longer. For nearly a century, Western Sahara was colonized by Spain. But the Spanish occupation ended in 1975, setting off a regional fight. On October 31st, 1975, both Morocco from the north and Mauritania from the south invaded Western Sahara as Spain withdrew.<\/p>\n Days after Moroccan troops invaded, King Hassan II ordered hundreds of thousands of Moroccan citizens to enter Western Sahara in what became known as the Green March. Mauritania would withdraw less than four years later, but Morocco has remained to this day.<\/p>\n Just days after the Moroccan invasion, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger privately told President Gerald Ford he hoped for a, quote, \u201crigged UN vote\u201d at the Security Council to confirm Morocco\u2019s claim over Western Sahara.<\/p>\n About half of the Sahrawi population fled the invasion to neighboring Algeria, where they settled in refugee camps in the middle of the desert. The Moroccan invasion set off a 16-year-long war with the Sahrawi liberation movement known as the Polisario Front. Morocco\u2019s army, with the help of U.S. military aid, drove the Polisario to Western Sahara\u2019s Eastern Desert. Morocco then created the world\u2019s longest minefield and built the second-longest wall on Earth, with the help of U.S. weapons companies Northrop and Westinghouse.<\/p>\n The nearly 1,700-mile wall divides Sahrawis who remain under occupation from those who fled into exile.<\/p>\n The Moroccan government began decades of torture, disappearances, killings and repression against pro-independence Sahrawis living in the occupied territory.<\/p>\n In 1991, the U.N. sponsored a ceasefire and promised Sahrawis a referendum on self-determination, organized by its peacekeeping mission known as MINURSO<\/span>. Since then, Morocco has blocked attempts to organize the vote, and the U.N. Security Council has refused to implement its own referendum plan or allow MINURSO<\/span> to monitor the human rights situation in the territory.<\/p>\n And the international media has largely ignored the occupation, in part because Morocco has routinely blocked journalists from entering Western Sahara.<\/p>\n But in late 2016, Democracy Now!<\/em> successfully broke the news blockade. We were in Marrakech, Morocco, for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. With U.N. credentials and U.S. passports, we decided to take a chance and attempt to do what no foreign television crew has done in years: report from Africa\u2019s last colony.<\/p>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> I\u2019m Amy Goodman. This is Democracy Now!<\/em> We\u2019ve just landed in Laayoune, the capital of Western Sahara, Africa\u2019s last colony, hoping to report from here, occupied by Morocco for more than 40 years. We\u2019re at the airport now. We\u2019ll see what happens.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> I\u2019m speaking quietly on the plane because journalists, even Western journalists, are rarely allowed into Western Sahara. We don\u2019t know if this is the moment we\u2019ll be turned back, as so many others have been.<\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s the U.N. press badges around our necks. Maybe it\u2019s our U.S. passports. Or maybe it\u2019s just that our arrival was so unexpected. But after a check of our documents and a few questions, we\u2019re waved through customs.<\/p>\n Outside the airport, we climb into a car driven by Jamal, our translator and guide.<\/p>\n JAMAL<\/span>:<\/strong> It\u2019s very nice to meet you.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> So, who are the plainclothes officers at the airport?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n JAMAL<\/span>:<\/strong> Those are security officers. Some of them belong to different departments.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Jamal says we\u2019ve been observed by local police, the Moroccan secret service and intelligence agents.<\/p>\n JAMAL<\/span>:<\/strong> So, welcome to Laayoune. This is Laayoune. Actually, the airport is so close, so nearby, that you could walk.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> We arrive at the Hotel Salwan, knowing that the receptionist is obliged to inform the police of our presence. We check in quickly and immediately prepare to interview Sahrawi activists in one of our rooms. We don\u2019t know how many hours \u2014 or minutes \u2014 we\u2019ll have to record before the authorities arrive.<\/p>\n Soon, a small contingent of Sahrawis enters.<\/p>\n Our first interview is with journalist Mohamed Mayara. He speaks in hushed tones about the torture and murder his family faced at the hands of the Moroccan authorities.<\/p>\n MOHAMED<\/span> MAYARA<\/span>:<\/strong> My father was among four brothers who were kidnapped directly when Morocco invaded the Western Sahara. So, he was arrested on February 27th, 1976. I was 2 months [old]. He was kidnapped, and then they sent him to a secret jail, well known by the Sahrawis, Agdz in Southern Morocco. He spent one year and six months, and he was killed under torture.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> What kind of risk do you take speaking to a Western journalist like me?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n MOHAMED<\/span> MAYARA<\/span>:<\/strong> I have a daughter who is 7 years old. So, I told her when she asked me about my father. So, I tried to tell her that my father was kidnapped and tortured and etc., but I tried to teach her that one day I will face the same fate. So, I\u2019m always waiting.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Why do you take that risk?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n MOHAMED<\/span> MAYARA<\/span>:<\/strong> Because I think this engagement, this is the duty of freedom.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> The work of Mohamed Mayara\u2019s citizen journalist group Equipe Media is documented in the film 3 Stolen Cameras<\/em>. It shows the gruesome fate of a Sahrawi cameraman who was pushed off a rooftop by police after he was spotted filming a bloody crackdown on a peaceful protest.<\/p>\n SAHRAWI<\/span> CAMERAMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> [translated] Suddenly, an undercover policeman had detected me on a rooftop. They suddenly appeared and pushed me over the edge. As I fell down on the street, I broke my leg. Other policemen dragged me on the ground. A bit further down the street there was a burning tire. They pulled me over it. It was no accident. They wanted to demonstrate their power and show what happens to those who try to break the media blockade.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Facing this kind of violence against those who document Morocco\u2019s crackdown on dissent, it\u2019s remarkable that these Sahrawis were willing to speak with us.<\/p>\n We also meet journalist Hayat Khatari.<\/p>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Can media operate here in Western Sahara? Can you have your own media?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n HAYAT<\/span> KHATARI<\/span>:<\/strong> [translated] We are very much harassed. The most recent episode was when my sister Nazha al-Khalidi had her camera confiscated. And then they arrested her. And she was brutally treated by the authorities over 24 hours in the police station. That\u2019s apart from when she was trying to videotape a peaceful demonstration at the beach of Foum el-Oued.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> It\u2019s now past midnight. Not long after we finish our interviews, we get a phone call. The hotel receptionist tells us the police are in the hotel lobby, demanding to see us. We make our way downstairs. Two men in plainclothes tell us to sit down and warn us against reporting in Western Sahara. We go back upstairs, and, soon after, we learn a pro-Moroccan government website called Sahara Zoom had published details about our trip, including information about the interviews we had done in our hotel room that night. The message was clear: We\u2019re watching you.<\/p>\n\n
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