A repatriate's plight

This is one of a collection of seven short stories from inside the Moroccan Occupied Territory. These are ordinary Sahrawi people who responded to Konstantina Isidoros’ request for every-day examples of the difficulty of living under an occupying power. She has retained their anonymity.

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Salama is 39 years of age. In 1976, he moved from Dakhla with his family of five, to set out towards the region of Tindouf in southern Algeria for fear of war, a period known by Sahrawi as "الانطلاقة " , ‘the launch’ [the beginning of a diaspora fleeing war">.

Many years of frustration and dead-end waiting have followed. It was not until after the ceasefire in 1999, that he eventually decided he had enough of United Nations’ broken promises and lies to the Sahrawi people. He decided to seek employment and he moved to Mauritania where he spent three years trying to move to Europe from there. After several futile attempts he gave up trying and a year after that and having failed to obtain a respectable means to earn an honest living he said he received a call from the Moroccan consulate in Nouadibou, inviting him to move to Morocco.

He was told that he would be welcome back to his homeland but that he has to repent to be able to return under what is known in Morocco as a political slogan of ‘The homeland is Forgiving, Merciful’, which was launched by the King Hassan II.

Salama repatriated to his birthplace and the authorities granted him a new house and provided him with a monthly salary of $100. After 11 years of his return to his birthplace, which is under Moroccan administrative rule, he confirms that he regrets his return for these reasons. Salama describes his suffering in the following aspects:

Security: Salama emphasises that State Security considers the Sahrawi as enemies and that the State apparatus perpetuates marginalising the Sahrawis through the State’s internal media which spur the Moroccan people against Sahrawi rights. The implication of this is that a Sahrawi becomes at risk of being arrested, tortured or raped for trivial reasons.

Economically: Salama adds that repatriation for Sahrawi returnees is not economically feasible since the amount designated as monthly salary is one hundred dollars. This sum of money barely covers the payment of electricity and water bills for those who have a house, and he estimates that approximately 87 per cent of Sahrawi families residing in Al-Amal neighbourhood are living under the poverty line and that these families end up struggling at least for ten days of each month to get by without consuming any food due to their low income.

Legally: There are no laws protecting Sahrawi rights. The settlers enjoy rights that Sahrawis are deprived from in their own land and homeland, we suffer discriminatory and racist acts to alarming degrees. It is an occupation and apartheid.

Salama feels that the difference between those living in the Tindouf refugee camps and those residing in Dakhla is that in the camps you can eat and drink without fear of persecution … the struggle is limited to finding the material means of survival but under Moroccan occupation you have no future at all it seems that you are at a dead-end. You become a breathing person without a soul… you are dead in the sense that you feel that in your everyday existence you are either unconscious or absent.

Salama adds that the Sahrawi have no future, everyone has lied to them.

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