20 FMR 16 Western Sahara and Palestine: shared refugee experiences by Randa Farah Still Pictures/Julio Etchart Polisario 27th s a student in 1977 I attended abandoned them, forgotten their exis- Spain’s colonial mandate in February February camp, a meeting at which the tence or sided with their enemies. 1976, both Morocco and Mauritania Western Sahara A Polisario representative urged made territorial claims which were students to assist yet one more strug- Headed by the Frente para la rejected by the International Court of gle for liberation and self- Liberación de Sagiau al-Hamra and Rio Justice (ICJ) in its verdict in October determination. Although at the time de Oro (Polisario Front) and the 1975. A UN Inquiry mission that visit- most Arab students supported the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic ed the territory in May-June 1975 Sahrawi cause, a minority, invoking (SADR1), the refugees of Western reported that the Sahrawi population notions of ‘Arab unity’, denounced Sahara are efficiently and highly had overwhelmingly expressed their Polisario as a ‘separatist movement’. organised, have democratic institu- wish for independence and that Today, the Moroccan regime relies on tions and processes and a high level Polisario appeared as a prominent similar slogans to deny the Sahrawi of participation in decision making. political party in the territory. On the people the right to self-determination Laws and institutions guarantee social same day, Morocco’s King Hassan II set out in a 1975 ruling by the equality, including women’s rights, led a ‘Green March’ during which International Court of Justice. provide free education and health approximately 350,000 Moroccans services and the right and duty to crossed into Western Sahara, carrying Twenty five years later, as I flew to work. In general, the level of democra- a bizarre briccolage of white banners, Tindouf in the Algerian desert to visit tisation I encountered in the camps is American flags and the Holy Koran. the Sahrawi refugee camps, I won- unmatched elsewhere in the Arab dered why I – as a Palestinian refugee world. Could the experience of the In 1991 the Security Council mandat- researcher – had not made the jour- Sahrawi refugee-citizens and their ed a UN peace-keeping force ney earlier. As I pondered the mini state-in-exile provide a beacon of (MINURSO)2 to oversee a referendum question I felt that the silence of the light amidst the bleak despair engulf- to decide whether the Sahrawi people sand echoed the disturbing silence in ing the Arab world? wished to integrate with Morocco or the Arab world on the urgent conflicts opt for independence. Morocco’s role in Western Sahara and Palestine. Historical background in obstructing the referendum has Indeed, all those I met in both been amply documented. The latest Palestinian and Sahrawi camps bitter- In 1884 Spain colonised Western Moroccan autonomy proposals were ly complained that the Arab world has Sahara. Prior to the termination of aborted in July 2002, when the FMR 16 Western Sahara and Palestine: shared refugee experiences 21 Security Council adopted Resolution traditions is its institutionalisation of (Jerusalem) and al-Khalil (Hebron), or 1429 "underlining the validity of the women’s rights. Traditionally, women significant events and symbols in the Settlement Plan" and expressing its have total autonomy in managing the political history of Palestine. In both readiness to consider any approach daily activities in and around the tent. cases, the names of original places in which provides for self-determination. Any form of violence against women, the country of origin had been granted verbal or physical, is condemned and to the places of exile as a form of pop- The democracy of the desert: the man is usually ostracised by soci- ular resistance against ‘forgetting’ and ety. Consequently, these incidents are an affirmation of the inseparable rela- SADR and its citizens so rare that the issue of domestic vio- tionship between those exiled and lence against women or children is places in their homeland. The Moroccan takeover of Western almost non-existent. Sahara led to the displacement of Over time most tents in the wilayas approximately 150,000-200,000 However, the Sahrawi people are nei- have been replaced with brick homes. refugees. Many carry the memory of ther ‘primitive’ – as some orientalists The adobe huts have basic furniture, the American napalm and phosphorous would argue – nor ‘communist’. They blankets and kitchen utensils. Despite bombs dropped indiscriminately on have developed livelihood strategies to the lack of public electricity in the them by the Moroccan army as they adapt to the physical and political envi- camps, some families have acquired TV fled in 1975. Four refugee camps and ronment and respond to the Moroccan sets powered by solar energy in order one unofficial settlement have been occupation by maximising what little to access the outside world. In established in what is referred to as resources they have. Their numbers are Palestinian refugee camps, TVs are the ‘uninhabitable’ desert near the few as are their financial and material found in the majority of homes, one of Algerian town of Tindouf. resources. They have to depend almost the few affordable items for entertain- totally on humanitarian aid and a high ment, especially for children. The SADR – currently based in the level of efficiency, organisation and camps – has successfully drawn upon democratic mechanisms to be able to Needless to say, there are important democratic and egalitarian principles wage their political, social, economic differences between the Sahrawi rooted in nomadic, Arab and Islamic and diplomatic battles. wilayas and the Palestinian refugee culture and history. Islam, as practised camps. Not least is the fact that the by the Sahrawis, is tolerant and liberal. Wilayas and camps latter exist within or near urban One of several examples of how SADR centres whereas a massive desert has been able The Sahrawis refer to the camps as separates the wilayas from Algerian Saharawi refugee, to draw wilayas, or provinces, which in turn are urban centres and society. However, Dakhla camp upon subdivided into da’iras, or municipali- the underlying social and economic local ties. Each da’ira is subdivided into imperatives and dynamics in both several hays, or districts. The cases are not as different as may at wilayas and the da’iras are first appear. named after towns and areas in Western Sahara, such as In both cases, the communities are Smaara, al-Ayoun, al- not and never were homogeneous. Dhakle and Oauserd. Sahrawis were never totally nomadic Similarly, most as by the 1960s a sizeable force was Palestinian working in the phosphate industry. refugee camp Similarly, in Palestine, though the econ- areas are omy was predominantly agricultural, a called after the significant number of the fellahin sub- villages of ori- sidised their agricultural resources gin and/or main with mercantile activities, while others urban centres, worked in urban centres as wage- such as mante- labourers. In both cases the initial qat al-Quds years of exile levelled the socio- economic status of the uprooted population and introduced new forms of differentiation. Undoubtedly, humanitarian aid and its management procedures contribute to the emergence of social and economic variance among refugees. Thus some entrepreneurial Palestinians were able to fill a niche in the ‘refugee market’ by mediating between households and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). New small merchants bought and sold rations, as some fami- lies needed cash while others needed more sugar or flour. A few of these UNHCR/A Hollmann 22 Western Sahara and Palestine: shared refugee experiences FMR 16 entrepreneurs succeeded in generat- backs in international aid and stale- The Zionist-Israeli argument that ing capital and expanding. mate in the political situation, a Palestine was not a nation state prior Commercial enterprises began to growing population of Sahrawis may to the establishment of Israel and appear as some shelters were trans- be pressed to look for alternative hence does not have a right to self- formed partially or totally into little social and economic possibilities. determination is invalid. In 1919 the retail shops and today there are large Underlying all these processes is the Covenant of the League of Nations markets in most Palestinian refugee question of how to reconcile the grow- recognised the Palestinian people as camps. Needless to say, there are ing social and economic needs of an independent nation to be "provi- other factors that contributed to dif- individuals with the collective political sionally" placed under the British ferentiation within Palestinian camps, will in order to withstand the Mandate, the British acting as a "cus- such as the size of the household, the Moroccan tactics of procrastination todian" to lead people "not yet able to availability of members with mar- and stalemate. stand by themselves" to indepen- ketable skills and labour markets, dence. remittances from expatriates and The Palestinian case provides insight, social and political relationships. if not answers, to this issue. The Oslo framework for peace Examining the Palestinian movement provided for a form of Palestinian In the Sahrawi community, although over five decades, it is obvious that a ‘autonomy’ or ‘authority’ with the distribution processes of humani- sense of collective belonging and ultimate sovereignty remaining in tarian aid is egalitarian, nevertheless mobilisation appear during some peri- the hands of the Israelis. The conse- some households have economic ods as intense and other times as quences of ‘autonomy’ have become advantages. A few families who subdued. This is due to the fact that clear to the Palestinians: Israeli served the Spanish colonial adminis- the reproduction of identity is a polit- tration receive pensions which give ical and ever changing dynamic that them economic and social leverage.