The secret hospital visit that is agitating Spain-Morocco relations
Get this: an elderly individual entered Spain last Thursday and was immediately rushed to a hospital in the northern city of Logroño in order to receive covid-19 treatment.
“That’s a good thing, right? No news here. A few months back, the Spanish health system was on the verge of breaking, and today it’s already open for foreigners…”
That’s true, I get that. But that’s not the story here.
This guy entered Spain under a false identity “Mohamed Ben Battoush”, carrying an Algerian diplomatic visa. Perhaps in order to avoid triggering outstanding arrest warrants that hadn’t been fulfilled. He was accompanied by a group of people, including two members of the Algerian intelligence, and five Algerian doctors. And was received at Zaragoza International airport by someone attached to the Algerian Embassy in Spain.
“That’s more interesting. Who is this guy? Where is he from?”
Nice! I mean, you know… not nice, but at least now I got your attention. This guy is Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, and I believe that the best way to present him is by stating that a few years back he was investigated in Spain for genocide.
“What?”
Yes, genocide. The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular ethnic group or nation with the aim of destroying that group.
“I know what genocide is…”
Never questioned that, just wanted to make sure that we’re not talking about a regular old fella.
“Yeah, yeah, I already got that… genocide of whom?”
His own people, the Sahrawis. We’re talking about a nation of roughly 200,000 people living in the western part of the Sahara Desert. Most of the Sahrawis live in Tindouf, Algeria, in five refugee camps on the tripoint between Mauritania, Morocco and Algeria. And although Ghali’s organization mentioned earlier, the Polisario Front, is considered by the UN to be the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, the story is much more nuanced. To be honest, it’s a mess.
So let me acquaint you with the different parties: The Polisario — which you already know. Keep in mind that these guys are brutal. They hold close ties with Iran, Hezbollah and several other African militias and smuggler networks, and they are backed by Algeria, just in order to spite its neighbor Morocco. Their operations range between enriching themselves through exploiting the legitimate struggle of the Sahrawi people for self-determination, to abducting dissidents, keeping them imprisoned without due process for long periods of time (sometime years).
And there’s more… They are also known for enforcing underage marriage, in many cases of girls not even 12, and a large — undisputed — number of women accused its leaders, Ghali included, in rape.
“That’s a lot. Corruption, political tyranny, violence against their own people, especially women, especially rape… all in one paragraph.”
And the plot thickens… There is a lot more. One atrocity — there is no other word — that I can’t continue without mentioning is their wide-spread, systematic, use of child soldiers. Yes, we’re talking about these kinds of people, those who don’t spare the lives of young children, who separate them from their parents and put a gun in their hands instead of sending them to school.
So these guys are fighting Morocco because the Moroccans are claiming sovereignty over Western Sahara. Both the Polisario and Morocco are claiming so. The dispute over this piece of land has rather short roots. Until 1975, Western Sahara was a Spanish territory. The Spanish left and the Moroccan took over, or at least tried. And at that point in time the conflict arose! Keep in mind that the area is sparsely populated. It’s a dispute over territory, not people.
And hey! The Moroccans are no angels as well, they’re known for use of force, harsh sentencing and even harsher living conditions in their prisons, but at least — and that’s kind of a big but — they have some accountability — they can be held responsible by the international community. We can say with confidence that Morocco is doing exactly what any other state would do if a separatist group would rise from within itself and demand independence. Not to say that’s good, but that’s the nature of armed conflicts, right?
A couple of months ago — almost 30 years after a ceasefire was observed by the parties — the fighting in the area was resumed, after the Polisario declared the ceasefire nill. The renewal of the fighting attracts some international attention (e.g. this post), but not a lot of hope: The Polisario Front is still considered to be the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people. The voices of its victims, their stories, and the issues that matter to this people — are not heard.
Moreover, not a lot has changed for the Sahrawis since the ceasefire was signed in 1991. The fact that they are still living in refugee camps attest better against their corrupt leadership than anything I am capable of writing. Not to mention that the Polisario used the sudden disappearance of aid workers from the scene, due to covid-19, to gain even more control over Tindouf’s population (which translates to more violence against Sahrawi women, deeper regulation on the passage between the camps, and enlisting even more child soldiers.) And — there is the scarcity of covid-19 personal protective equipment (PPE), not N95 masks, gloves, goggles etc. but surgical masks — the bare necessity.
Under these unfortunate circumstances, isn’t it our moral obligation to raise questions about the treatment given to the Polisraio leader? The fact that we don’t even know how many coronavirus cases there are in Tindouf, or how many Sahrawis died, is a blunt indication that the good of the Sahrawi people just is not interesting Brahin Ghali.
