By: Gaithi Nah
Translated by: Timothy Kustusch
Last November, the fall of the Berlin Wall the wall that divided Berlin, Germany, and Europe was celebrated throughout the world, in Europe, and especially in Germany. Other walls, however, remain standing, including the berm erected in the Saharawi territories in the early 1980s by the Moroccan Army.
This enormous project well-fortified, mined and guarded by a formidable army of more than 160,000 soldiers, hundreds of tanks, millions of mines, and thousands of miles of barbed wire is renovated daily. Thousands of Saharawi families remain separated after more than 30 years, living the horror and hardship caused by this terrifying divider.
The basic objective among many of the erection of the wall is to forcefully impose archaic and insatiable expansionist ideals, after improvisation through politics failed. There is no doubt that Moroccos construction of this wall in the Western Sahara violates international law and allows for the committing of human rights violations.
Today, Morocco is focusing all of its energy on strengthening its military capabilities along the wall, where the majority of cease-fire infractions thus occur. All this is happening while the international community maintains its bewildering silence in the face of the consequences resulting from the construction and perpetuation of this shameful wall.
On October 8, the Moroccan government imprisoned seven Saharawi human rights activists for the mere act of leaving the Western Sahara, the occupied zone closed off by the wall.
A few weeks later, in a plot between the Moroccan and Spanish governments, the Saharawi activist Aminetu Haidar was expelled from the Western Sahara against her own will, forcing her to leave her children, her family, and her homeland. And for what reason? To extend total repression throughout the Saharawi territory. This act reminds us of the enormous Moroccan prisons in the Sahara, in which the code of conduct is subject to only one rule: the Sharon doctrine that authorizes the expulsion or killing of those who oppose their oppressors ideology.
Obviously the anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall deserves to be celebrated, but the date should have also served as an opportunity to remind us of the walls that persist and remind those that construct and maintain such walls that one day, these barriers too will be torn down.
Instead, some western countries pretending to be against the erection of walls offer their support to the Moroccan crown to continue its perpetual intransigence, thus giving more life to the Moroccan barrier while celebrating the fall of its German predecessor. Would Felipe Gonzlez, Zapatero, or Nicolás Sarkozy be willing to tell King Mohammed VI, Please destroy the wall that you have built through the Sahara, just as then-US President Ronald Reagans told Gorbachev at the Brandenburg Gate, Tear down this wall!? Would these three have the bravery to demand this? I doubt it.
It would be useful to remind the Moroccan government and its allies that, rather than reinforcing barriers that exist against the will of the indigenous people and the neighboring countries, it would be beneficial for both Saharawis and Moroccans to coexist in peace, with mutual respect and a culture of brotherhood, based upon an agreement that puts an end to the nightmares lived by both peoples.
In this sense, the President of the SADR sent a letter to the mayor of Berlin, expressing the same hopes stated by the mayor upon receiving an award on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and further asking that the celebration serves to inspire the destruction of other walls.
Years ago, during the war, the Moroccan walls never stopped the Saharawis, as proven by the victorious battles of the Saharawi Army. Now, the berm of the shameless is resisted through political and peaceful means. Back then, the Saharawis proved that walls, like mines, hinder but cannot impede. Now is the time for action
