Canarian Show Of Solidarity With Western Sahara

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Thursday November 11 2010

Demonstrators marched in Santa Cruz on Thursday night against the week-long assault on a protest camp in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.

by JAMES TWEEDIE

Over one thousand people, many Sahrawis but the majority Spanish Canarians, marched through the city centre to a rally at Plaza Candelaria to demand an end to the police and military operation.

The streets were filled with fluttering Sahrawi flags, while demonstrators chanted: “Free Sahara” and: “The crime is Morocco's, the responsibility is Spain's”.

Others protested outside the Moroccan consulate on the neighbouring island of Gran Canaria, on what was the 92^nd anniversary of the end of the First World War.

Further protests were planned in the towns of La Oratava on Friday and Playa de Las Americas on Saturday, when there will also be a major demonstration in Spain's capital Madrid.

More than 20,000 people had been camped outside Western Sahara's largest city El Aaiun (or Laayoune) for a month in protest at a lack of employment opportunities and discrimination under Moroccan occupation.

Police and military forces laid siege to the camp two weeks in. On Sunday November 7, thousands of people from El Aaiun marched to the camp to show their solidarity with the protesters.

But the next day the government forces moved in to remove the occupants. Dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries have been reported by the Sahrawi national liberation movement Polisario Front and the Moroccan authorities.

The streets of Santa Cruz – just 200 miles (330 Km) from El Aaiun – were filled with fluttering Sahrawi flags, while demonstrators chanted: “Free Sahara” and: “The crime is Morocco's, the responsibility is Spain's.”

Sunday November 14 will mark the 35^th anniversary of the signing in Madrid of the tripartite accord between Spain, Morocco and Mauritania, which agreed that the two north-west African states would annexe Western Sahara upon Spain's withdrawal.

The accord was one of the last acts of Spain's fascist dictator General Francisco Franco, who died six days later.

Spain still has major business interests in Sahrawi phosphate mines, fishing grounds and tomato farms.

At Plaza Candelaria, Mariam, a young Sahrawi girl, read a statement on behalf of all Sahrawi children, demanding recognition of their human rights.

A young woman named Jaduali then read the protest manifesto, insisting that despite 35 years of Moroccan maltreatment, “We are not anti-Moroccan nor anti anyone.”

Solidarity campaigner Conchita Reyes said: “Countless Sahrawi men and women have been murdered in recent days. Morocco could not commit this crime without Spanish complicity.”

Local Sahrawi leader Hamdi Mansour (pictured) thanked the crowd for their “great gift” of solidarity, adding that this was the biggest wave of protest in favour of the Sahrawi struggle for self-determination that he had ever seen.

He said: “The imperialists trying to enter the camp cannot hide this injustice, this crime.”

Mr Mansour told the Moroccan police and military: “Keep killing, keep torturing. We will keep on fighting for peace and justice.”

Protesters then sat upon the flagstones of the square to mark a minute's silence for those killed in the assault.

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