August 18, 1980 – 2010 Thirty Years of an Unspoken Crime

August 18, 1980 – 2010 Thirty Years of an Unspoken Crime
By ,Gaici Nah Translation :Tim kustush

On July 18, the UN General Assembly celebrated International Nelson Mandela Day for the first time. Last November, the 192 member countries of the UN approved an historic resolution, authorizing the annual commemoration of Mandela’s birthday in order to honor the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s contributions to the resolution of conflicts, to the promotion of human rights and to reconciliation.


Unfortunately, at the same time those very rights and powers are monopolized by the Security Council and the western powers, bastardizing such ideas in the pursuit of a variety of interests.

Such was witnessed on November 9 of last year, when the world gathered to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many presidents and political personalities were present, glorifying the event as if they had triumphed and the era of the wall had ended.

When the Berlin Wall was torn down, one of the most infamous symbols of the Cold War was erased and a door was opened to a new focus in international relations. From its construction until 1989, the wall appeared in the headlines of the majority of major newspapers around the globe. Its destruction was not only the result of the end of a political model, but also of repeated and constant condemnation by worldwide public opinion.

Nonetheless, in that same era, other conflicts – such as the one raging in the Western Sahara, which is undoubtedly one of the oldest and most forgotten conflicts in the world – were at their peak. The wall in the Sahara has not received nearly as much attention or fame as its German counterpart. The inattention of international institutions and the media has only worsened over time, resulting in a perpetual state of abandonment.

Forcefully erected by Morocco beginning in 1980, the wall is the most notable symbol of the Moroccan occupation, dividing the Western Sahara and its people in two. Stretching more than 2,000 km, the wall is guarded from end to end with the most sophisticated weaponry, turrets, trenches, ditches, fences, armored vehicles, tanks, soldiers and even dogs. Each day, while the impotent MINURSO stands by, the Moroccans strengthen and rejuvenate the wall.

The wall’s grave social, political, ecological and environmental effects have had a negative impact on all aspects of daily life.

Its most devastating elements are millions of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, as well as cluster bombs, which cause terror, panic, fear, injury and death among the civilian population. Thousands of Saharawi landmine victims – many of them small children – fall into oblivion, while the international community ignores their cries for help.

The Moroccan government, instead of denouncing the situation, staunchly refuses to prohibit the use of anti-personnel mines or cluster bombs, as outlawed under the Ottawa (1997) and Oslo (2008) treaties, respectively. And it further persecutes the Saharawi mine victims with political and moral abandonment.

From a military perspective, the wall is merely a copy of other such walls, whose engineers manage to fool their subordinates into believing that these structures provide additional security and peace of mind.

The Moroccan wall’s supposed effectiveness is questionable, at best, considering that its 2,600 km clearly point to not only the disillusion of the Moroccan army, but also the decay of the makhzen political system, marking once and for all the sterility of its expansionist appetite.

Beyond the stated goals of the construction of the wall, it has also served as the curtain behind which the Moroccan government hides its illegal injustices, including plunder, pillaging, torture, persecution, oppression and harassment.

The continued presence of the wall serves as an impediment to the social, cultural and geographical continuity of the inhabitants of the Western Sahara and all peoples across the globe.

Despite numerous denunciations from international bodies and condemnation by the global public, many European Union countries and a handful of Arab petro-states continue to support the existence of the wall with different forms of protection. The lack of enforcement of their moral and political obligations has only served to bolster Moroccan stubbornness.
Today, more than 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, all signs suggest that the values that led to the demolition of the wall collapsed with it. While the western countries, their secret services and their media outlets conducted the “symphony” that surrounded the Berlin Wall’s destruction, many of us believed – with hope and good faith – that this orchestra would not finish its tour until it had torn down all of the barriers across the globe that create barriers between peoples. Today, witnessing that many of these walls still stands and new ones are being constructed, we must admit that we were guilty of either excessive optimism or naiveté.

Judging from the facts, it appears that the propaganda wave that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall was guided by political interests, while human rights – when not providing any political benefit to the western powers – are transformed into a matter of mere discourse.

Was it not the French President Nicolas Sarkozy who, standing at the very Brandenburg Gate during the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall last November, demanded the destruction of all the walls of the world? But is in not the same Sarkozy who supports and sustains the Moroccan wall in the Western Sahara, which divides the Saharawi population between the refugees – forced to sit and wait in Algeria for more than two decades – and those subjected to the Moroccan occupation in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara?

France theatrically sells its empty slogans abroad by supposedly campaigning for the dignity of women by banning the burka, while it unjustly imposes an air-tight and impermeable veil over human rights violations in the Western Sahara, contradicting both UN resolutions and the principles of the French Revolution.

After 34 years in exile, the Saharawis no longer buy into these overused catchphrases, which are all but drained of meaning. While the Saharawis will never lose hope, they have lost confidence in worn-out ideas like human rights, freedom, democracy, equality and the innumerable slogans that are thrown around as if they were the latest fashion in Europe.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the existence of the Moroccan wall, representing 10,957 painfully long days of separation and exile, of refuge and expatriation, of pillage and torture, of severe human rights violations, of unfulfilled needs and wants, of oppressive heat and bitter cold, of deception but also of a willingness to continue pursuing prosperity, liberty and well-being.

Illegal walls are like any other crime: no matter how vociferously their perpetrators defend them, they are shameful and inexcusable. Whatever arguments they may use, there is no religious, economic, political or social justification for the construction of such walls, in any corner of the globe. But if there is one wall on this planet whose existence cannot be justified or defended, it is the barrier built by the Moroccan army in the Western Sahara.

Some countries defend themselves by insisting that their walls constitute a legitimate means of defense against a myriad of threats. However, Morocco and its secret services can hardly convince the world by selling the idea that the wall was constructed to impede drug trafficking, illegal immigration, and terrorism. Have the Saharawis ever been involved in any of these activities? What other pretexts can the makhzen come up with to defend its claims? Without a doubt they lack the courage and the evidence to try to truly convince the international community of such claims.

As history – including recent history – has shown, authoritarian regimes and the walls that sustain them wind up broken and dejected.

Victims of injustice throughout the world were moved and inspired when the Colombian singer Shakira gave life to the 2010 FIFA World Cup with her song “Waka Waka”, singing together with the South African chorus:


[“The time has come; the walls are falling.
The only just war is about to begin.
Its strike does no harm; there is no fear...”]

From these words an important lesson can be learned: that material interests, contempt, humiliation and the postponement of the rights of others will inevitably come to an end. Just as the South African are now free, so will the Saharawis one day be free.

Exactly one month ago, the international community celebrated the first Mandela Day to inspire every person from every corner of the world to unite behind the values that Mandela’s life and philosophy promoted – freedom, equality, reconciliation, diversity, maturity, respect and self-determination – and thus preserve his legacy to the human race.

It is appropriate to remind the international community that the Saharawi people have spent 30 years divided by a series of walls that to this day restricts freedom of movement between the two populations.

We ask that you be fair and just! To avoid being guilty of ignorance of the magnitude and the effects of this crime, it is time that the international community come look in order to see and listen in order to hear what is happening in the Western Sahara.

Most importantly, the international community must boycott the sale of landmines and weapons to Morocco, and must completely and eternally dismantle the wall and the landmines that divide the Western Sahara. The era of the wall must come to an end.