Disappearances

The Western Sahara conflict has resulted in severe human rights abuses. The darkest phase was unquestionably during  Morocco’s occupation in Western Sahara between 1975 and 1991, when the practice of ‘disappearances’ was widespread. Men, women (including pregnant ones), children, and the elderly were targeted if they had either any known Polisario relatives or were suspected of harbouring pro-independence or pro-Polisario views. Major human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch believe that at least a thousand Saharawis were ‘disappeared’ in that period. The main Moroccan agents responsible for the disappearances have been the Forces of the Royal Army, the Department de Securite Territorial, the Gendarmarie Royale, and the Judicial Police. Following the large-scale wave of disappearances in the early years of the occupation, the last major one took place in 1987, when mostly Saharawi youth staged the first demonstration since Morocco annexed the territory in 1975.

In 1991, the 350 officially recognized Saharawi disappeared were released by Hassan II in a royal pardon. Until then the Moroccan kingdom had vigorously denied holding any Saharawi prisoners of conscious, much in the same way it had denied the existence of notorious secret detention centres such as Agdz, Kalaat Magouna, and one in Al-Auin, where hundreds of prisoners are known to have died under terrible conditions. Determining how many disappeared were released before 1991 has been problematic. What is known, however, is that at least 250 disappeared are still unaccounted for. Between 110 and 130 of them are from families that live in the occupied territory, and another 100 or so are from families who only have relatives in the refugee camps. The number is constantly being revised as more and more Saharawi families have begun to break the silence and speak about their disappeared relatives.

After 1991, the Moroccan authorities considered the question of disappearances a closed chapter. But the persistence of various campaign groups and organizations, such as AI, Bureau des Droits de l’Homme au Sahara Occidental (BIRDSO), and Asociación de Familiares de Presos y Desaparecidos Saharauis (AFAPREDESA), finally led to a small breakthrough in 1998 when the Moroccan government provided a list of 112 names of Saharawi disappeared. In no way did it admit to any wrongdoing or explain the reasons and circumstances for their disappearance. It was also wholly unsatisfactory in providing information about what had become of them. More recently, because of the efforts of a small group of Saharawi human rights activists in the Occupied Territories (OT), who are all former political prisoners, over 200 names were adopted by the UN agency Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) in 2002. Due to its rigorous standards, it had not previously taken up many Saharawi cases for lack of precise information. This channel has been yielding some results in getting more substantial responses from the Moroccan government about the fate of the Saharawi disappeared.

In 1998, Morocco pledged that forced disappearances would not recur. Indeed, since the new king, Mohammed VI, took the throne in 1999, there have been signs of positive developments in regard to Morocco’s willingness to address the claims of former disappeared Saharawis and to disclose as much information as possible on past cases. In the wake of setting up the Arbitration Commission of the Royal Advisory Council on Human Rights to provide preliminary compensation payments to affected Saharawis, the king approved the creation of the Justice and Reconciliation Committee on 6 November 2003. This is a non-judicial body to pursue out-of-court settlements of human rights abuses related to forced disappearances and arbitrary detention prior to 1999. The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), the more progressive of the two national Moroccan human rights organizations, also included in its latest report the names of 118 Saharawi disappeared who remain unaccounted for. This figure only takes into account those persons whose families live in the OT.

Presently around 520 Sahrawi civilians remain politically ‘disappeared’, according to human rights groups; some estimate that the total number of “disappeared” could be as high as 1,500. Since Morocco’s release of some hundreds of prisoners in 1991, there have been no further releases of “disappeared” prisoners. Amnesty International stated in a 1999 report that:

“The men, women and even children who “disappeared” in Western Sahara came from all walks of life. Many were detained because of their alleged pro-independence activities, support for the Polisario Front, and opposition to Morocco’s control of the Western Sahara. Others, including elderly people and children, “disappeared” because of their family links with known or suspected opponents to Moroccan government policy in Western Sahara.”

(Amnesty International report 1999)

In May 2005, the remains of 43 Sahrawi “disappeared” were exhumed from secret prisons on the south of Morocco (Kalaat Maguna, Tagunit). They were detained in Western Sahara (Laayoune, Smara) & southern Morocco (Tan Tan, Assa) in the 1970s & 1980s.

In 2008, the head of CORCAS and former leader of the PUNS Khelli Henna Ould Rachid declared:

“Some Moroccan army officers have made what might be called war crimes against prisoners outside the scope of the war … Many civilians were launched into space from helicopters or buried alive simply for being Sahrawis.”

The same year (January 4) construction workers uncovered a mass grave with approximately 15 skeletons in Smara, in former military barracks built during the 1970s, the period during which many Sahrawis disappeared or were murdered by Moroccan authorities.

Resulting from the “Reconciliation tribunals” in Morocco in 2005, some graves of political dissidents of Hassan II regime (Sahrawis & Moroccans) were uncovered, although the responsibles of that crimes have never been judged or their identities revealed. Also, the testimonies of witnesses haven’t been published yet

In March 2010, a new grave was found by Bou Craa workers on a phosphate mine with 7 corpses, supposedly Sahrawi nomads killed by Moroccan forces during the mid-1970′s

Human Rights Abuses (after 1991)

After 1991, the pattern of human rights abuses in occupied Western Sahara shifted from long-term imprisonment and disappearances to one of repeated arrests and shorter-term prison sentences. Indeed, no more than three cases of disappeared Saharawis have been reported since 1992. Nevertheless, the practice of torture during detention is still known to take place on a regular basis, and according to AI, the number of reported incidents appears to have risen sharply between 2002 and 2004. Many human rights abuses are believed to take place during the period of garde-a-vue (pre-arraignment detention). Human rights activists, both in Morocco and occupied Western Sahara, assert that the Moroccan state practices the policy of criminalizing all political activity.

Hundreds upon hundreds of Saharawis have been arrested since 1991 as a result of staging protests against high-level Moroccan visits to the territory or demanding improved economic conditions, which then became political in nature. The most prominent instances were in 1992, 1995, 1999, and 2001 and 2005. In many cases, Saharawis have been tortured in order to extract false confessions and have been given prison terms of one to ten years. Vigorous international campaigning, especially by AI and other campaign groups, have often been effective in pressuring Morocco to release Saharawi prisoners well before the end of their terms. In 2001, the longest-serving Saharawi prisoner of conscious (for twenty-three years), Sidi Mohammed Daddach, was released and awarded the Norwegian Rafto prize in recognition of his sacrifice to the Saharawi cause of independence.

More subtle forms of human rights abuses, such as the lack of freedom of expression, association, and movement, are a constant feature of the Saharawi experience under occupation. Numerous Saharawis who are considered troublemakers, such as known human rights activists, are deprived of travel documents. The US State Department Country Report on Human Rights acknowledges that Saharawis are under much heavier surveillance than the rest of the population, and that access to the territory and to Saharawis remains highly restricted in many instances. Also, there is substantial evidence to suggest that Saharawis are systematically discriminated against in the workplace and in terms of obtaining job opportunities.

Morocco has consistently accused the Polisario of holding the Saharawis hostage in the refugee camps in south-west Algeria and to knowingly overestimate the number of people living in the camps to acquire more foo rations from the UN World Food Program to then resell the food for profit. The Polisario deny this, and no organization that has worked in the camps has corroborated this claim.

For more information please view the reports below: