After the riots Tunisia and Algeria, we can not count the dead, let alone the wounded during the demonstrations that took place in both countries. If the direct causes of these events are not the same, the responses of the two governments are similar and cons are summarized in one word: repression. Lack of work, increase prices, housing crisis, people especially the youth of both countries come together around the same conclusion: the situation is untenable and can not continue like that. If we add to the alchemy a corrupt regime that refuses to give way and a flagrant lack of respect for basic rights such as freedom of expression, this wave of protest is not only lighter, but legitimate and inevitable.
And Morocco in all this? Some see the kingdom as immunized against the popular protests. Yet mention the protests against the cost of living or the freedom of association as in Tinghir last December. Protests that were quickly suppressed by the authorities and whose members often end up in jail.
More importantly, there are just two months, took place in Western Sahara the largest demonstrations in years. Saharawi civil population, as the Tunisians and Algerians, decided to say no to lack of work, housing and rising prices. No racism to state, not to discriminate in hiring, not the lack of civic freedom, in short, not a system that has lasted too long. Sahrawis demonstrate peacefully for years and this time they did not come out in the street, but, instead, left the cities to meet in the desert, in what has become a protest camp: Gdeim Izik. After a few weeks, the camp consisted of tents and 10,000 between 20 and 30,000 people.
The response of the Moroccan occupation was the same as in Algeria and Tunisia : Repression by the destruction of the camp and a reaction of police and military forces of great violence. Arbitrary arrests, torture, rape, forced disappearances, all with complete impunity and without any foreign observer, journalist or NGOs, have been allowed to set foot on the land. The organization reports that have examined these events are unanimous. Amnesty International reports that all persons who were interviewed reported having been mistreated or tortured during their arrest.
was November 8, 2010. And if the claims of many Sahrawi were also political, finally asking their right to self-determination is implemented, the protest denounced an economic situation that can not go against an unjust regime and derogatory against any system that forces them to live in poverty and with nothing to hope or better in the coming years, or for future generations.
It ignites the whole Maghreb. A popular and legitimate protest to which the international community must make echoes. Tunisia. Algeria. Morocco. And also: in Western Sahara.
APSO, January 13, 2011
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