A Moroccan in Mijek

Front Polisario has, as usual, celebrated the anniversary of May 20, 1973. It was on that day that Polisario carried out its first raid against Spain's colonial forces, in El Khanga. A seven-man barefoot army under El Ouali's command, who had marched straight from the group's founding congress ten days earlier, assaulted a post staffed by Sahrawi troops in Spanish service. It nearly ended in disaster, with El Ouali briefly held prisoner, but in the end, the rebels made off with a handful of guns -- and no one was hurt, on either side.

[picture: polisario leader mohamed abdelaziz]

After that, the movement grew at rocket speed: by mid-1975, Spain had been routed from most of the countryside, and the cities were also starting to slip. A visiting UN mission recorded mass demonstrations in favor of Polisario throughout the territory (albeit somewhat less organized in the deep south), and concluded that it was unudoubtedly the dominant political force in the territory. But then, well, you know.

This year, May 20 was celebrated in Mijek, a command post close to the Mauritanian border in Río de Oro. Despite the Mauritanian diaspora popping by for a thumbs-up, it seems to have been a rather unexceptional event -- lots of speeches, photo ops, parading, and celebratory declamation -- which is perhaps understandable after 34 years of repetition. But in fact, the celebrations this year had one brand new feature: Moroccans.

[picture: abdelaziz menebhi speaking in mijek]

Yes, for the first time in the history of the Western Sahara conflict, a Moroccan delegation joined in the congress. Abdelaziz Menebhi, a grizzled veteran of the Marxist Ilal Amam ("Forward") movement (relegalized in 1995 as Annahdj Addimouqrati, or "Democratic Path"), and the former leader of Morocco's student organization UNEM, took the podium, dressed in traditional Sahrawi costume. But he didn't stop at the fashion statement: instead, he declared his full support for Polisario and Western Sahara's self-determination, and in no uncertain terms affirmed that he saw the "monarchic regime" as the main villain of the conflict. Going back in his exposé to point out that Hassan II had (repeatedly) agreed to the holding of a referendum on independence, he now noted that the regime of Muhammad VI had backtracked and would now only offer an autonomy proposal designed to "indefinitely prolong" the conflict, whereas he considered Polisario's proposal for a referendum consistent with international law. More on the trivia side, he mentioned that he had first made contact with a certain Mohamed Abdelaziz in prison in Morocco in the early 1970s (when both did time for political agitation, albeit of different kinds), and has supported the Sahrawi struggle ever since. Seems it's not just today that Moroccan prisons serve as incubators for Western Saharan nationalism.

The significance of Mr. Menebhi's presence shouldn't be overstated. It is not the beginning of a sudden Polisario vogue among Moroccan citizens. Quite the contrary, support for the annexation remains solid among most Moroccans, and Ilal Amam/Annahdj Addimuqrati was and is a contrarian far-left movement of little political significance in Morocco, even if it has influence in the human rights-community (Driss Benzekri was formerly a member) and on some university campuses. It's support for Western Sahara's right to self-determination is not new, and Mr. Menebhi himself has met with Polisario leaders before; most recently in Brussels, where he stated that "the Sahrawi and Moroccan peoples fight a common struggle".

[picture: saida menebhi, 1952-1977]

But the visit to Mijek is still important -- for Sahrawis, and, not least, to the visitor himself. In the bad old days, Mr. Menebhi counted among the "disappeared", saw his sister Saida hunger-strike herself to death, his other sister Khadidja arrested and abused, and was later exiled for over 18 years. He may be in for a few more years of pain yet. Remember that Ali Lmrabet was handed a ten-year professional ban just for visiting the refugee camps as a journalist, a couple of years ago. For Mr. Menebhi to go there and give open and unabashed support to Polisario will hardly meet with better treatment.

To be continued, I suppose.