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Exiled Western Sahara campaigner enters fourth week of hunger strike

December 6 2009





Western Sahara human rights campaigner Aminatou Haidar entered the fourth week of her hunger strike at Lanzarote's Guacimeta airport today.


by James Tweedie in Tenerife


Doctors and supporters feared for her health after 21 days on nothing but sugared water. Lanzarote Hospital director Domingo de Guzmán Pérez Hernández said that her blood pressure is fluctuating dangerously.


42-year old Ms Haidar is said to suffer long-term health problems from her 'disapearance' and alleged torture at the hands of the Moroccan agents between 1987 and 1991. 


Hopes for Ms Haidar's return to to her homeland and two children were dashed on Friday after the Moroccan government apparently withdrew permission for a special flight organised by the Spanish government.


A Spanish foreign ministry spokeswoman said that the Moroccan government authorised the flight on Friday only to withdraw it just before take-off.


But the Moroccan government said that it had not given permission for the flight and that it's position had not changed.


Also on Friday, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres and African Union (AU) Commission Chairman Jean Ping joined calls for Ms Haidar to be allowed to go home.


Ms Haidar began her protest on November 15 after Moroccan immigration officials at El Aaiun (Laayoune) airport in the occupied Western Sahara seized her passport and deported her to Lanzarote in the Spanish Canary Islands.


Ms Haidar was returning from the USA on November 13 where she had been awarded the Train Foundation's Civil Courage Prize. Her supporters in the Canaries said that her arrival date was common knowledge.


The prominent Sahrawi national liberation campaigner gave "Western Sahara" as her nationality on her immigration form. 


The Kingdom of Morocco later claimed that Ms Haidar had thereby renounced her nationality, and that she was free to return if she declared herself a Moroccan citizen.


But Ms Haidar instead began her sit-in and hunger strike, camping on seats in the airport lounge.


The Spanish government has offered the exiled activist refugee status or citizenship in an attempt to resolve the highly-publicised crisis.


Meanwhile airport owner AENA began legal proceedings against Ms Haidar, seeking a fine under public order legislation.


Protests and a star-studded pop concert have been held in Spain in solidarity with the homeless exile.


The sparsely populated but mineral-rich former Spanish colony of Western Sahara was annexed by its northern and southern neighbours Morocco and Mauritania in 1975 following Spain's withdrawal. The yellow sand on some of Tenerife's beaches was imported from Western Sahara.


The Polisario Front began a guerilla campaign against occupation and Mauritania retreated in 1979, only for Morocco to seize the rest of the territory. Ms Haidar is not a member of Polisario.


The United Nations helped negotiate a ceasefire in 1991, on the basis that Morocco would hold a referendum on Sahrawi independence.


But the vote was stalled by disputes over the size of the Sahrawi population and whether Moroccan settlers should be entitled to vote.


Present King Mohammed VI of Morocco has backtracked on the promise and is now offering only limited regional autonomy, saying: "We shall not give up one inch of our beloved Sahara, not a grain of its sand."


On the recent anniversary of the 'Green March', as the annexation is called, King Mohammed declared that citizens were either "Moroccan or traitors."


Most nations do not recognise Morocco's claim to Western Sahara, but the European Union has nevertheless negotiated fishing rights in Sahrawi waters.


Control of Western Sahara is split between Morocco and the Polisario Front government of the self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.


Neighbouring Algeria supports Polisario and shelters tens of thousands of Sahrawi refugees.

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