Opinion: Silenced in the Sahara

When a person returns to their homeland, they should not be necessarily escorted by foreign journalists. But should this happen, like what took place with the return of Aminato Haidar to the Sahara provinces, the event becomes worthy of reflection, at least to add an exceptional character to an event that might have remained an ordinary one.

What will further complicate the situation is the fact that Ms. Haidar insisted on her affiliation to the Western Sahara and on rejecting the Moroccan nationality. This means that she imposed two things on the airport authorities: Either allow her to enter as a foreign citizen who does not carry any official documents, or leave her the choice to return to where to she came from. But the problems engulfing this issue go beyond the legal framework that regulates the transfer of people from a country to another. She is not a political refugee and does not want to accept the reality that there is no authority in the Sahara provinces other than the Moroccan administration, and that the current conflict has not led to a final result yet.

Beyond the issues that fuel the situation, the case of Ms. Haidar reveals another sort of predicament that almost sums up the reality of the Sahara crisis. The core of this predicament is that at the time she refuses to belong to Morocco, her relatives in the Sahara provinces tried to make her abstain from this position and announced their adherence to the Moroccan identity. Hence, the origin of the conflict already existed among the province's people before it erupted between a state and other sides. Until now, the complete realities of the circumstances and facts that led to the presence of refugees from the Sahara in Tindov camps, West of Algeria, have not been raised. One day, neutral historians might reveal the circumstances of the outbreak of the Sahara conflict in 1975.

It is not a coincidence that 34 years after the Madrid Agreement - upon which the withdrawal of the army and the Spanish Administration from Al-Saqiya al-Hamra and Wadi al-Zahab became inevitable – voices from inside Spain itself arise calling for canceling this agreement which is recorded in official documents in the United Nations. However, the records of the conflict over sovereignty between Morocco and Spain do not include any other third party in the international organization since the mid-1950s. If it is true that the Mauritanians joined the conflict in the mid-1970s for regional considerations first and foremost - ones that affect the balance of powers and the mobilization - then it is also true that the emergence of the Polisario Front will be linked to the post-Madrid Agreement period and not prior to it.

What is historically confirmed is that the Sahara conflict broke out in conjunction with the spread of a wide wave that nurtured the ethnic and sectarian conflicts in many Arab countries, from Lebanon to Sudan and from Oman to Yemen. If the situation with the Houthis and in Sa'dah is not contained soon, no one knows how the situation of Yemen and other Arab states will develop. It is not the outbreak of the first sparks of the conflicts that lead to divisions and partitions, but rather drifting behind these conflicts while being in complete ignorance of more dangerous scenarios that are brought up every now and then.

Ms. Haidar and other Sahara activists have the right to openly announce their ideas that support the Polisario Front. Morocco had once considered that the rise of other voices from within the Sahara provinces consolidates the choice of freedom and diversity and the rest of human rights. It might have also envisaged that just as it can contain dissidents from the Polisario Front to open a new chapter of reconciliation among the feuding parties, it is fine to overlook "minor issues" at home, only if the issue goes beyond conducting political exercises in the internal and external dialogue.

It should be acknowledged that the longer the conflict is, the deeper the chasm becomes. Today, while the principle of self-determination is the most enticing solution, many overlook the fact that there are Sahara generations which are far from any familiarity bonds. Just as those who have Sahara origins and live in the province cannot be an exception in practicing the citizenship rights, their siblings in Tindov camps have opened their eyes to other circumstances and acquaintances, which reveal to what extent the sense of belonging differs even within the same family.

The reactions alone do not create politics. It was understood that the return of prominent dissidents from the Polisario Front will not pass without a price. The problem is that the people alone are paying - due to the ongoing tragedy and divisions – a price which they did not enjoy. It is thus another picture of an almost uncontrollable tragedy.