Morocco: Western Sahara's Struggle for Freedom Cut Off By a Wall

By Hannah McNeish

Nothing but silence surrounds the "Berm" - a sand wall surrounded by millions of land mines. It has isolated the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara for decades and it is barely heard of.

Youth representative Habiboulah Lamin, who like tens of thousands of other Sahrawis was born and raised in nearby refugee camps in southern Algeria, said looking at it makes him feel like "the saddest person in the world".

"To see this wall in the 21st century and overlooked by the international community, rarely reported about, frustrates me to the bottom of my heart," said Lamin, his voice breaking.

Squinting his eyes, he looked at the wall 100m away, manned by Moroccan soldiers who were filming the rare journalists filming them.

"My dream is that day when I can cross this wall, like what happened in Germany with the Berlin Wall, and I can meet my relatives who are behind this wall whom I haven't seen my entire life," Lamin said.

But spanning 2,700km, the Berm is 12 times the length of the Berlin Wall and four times that of the West Bank wall.

It is second in length only to the Great Wall of China, yet has remained practically invisible to the outside world. An estimated 120,000 Moroccan troops keep busy manning the massive wall.

Unlike other notorious barriers that regularly make headlines, the existence of this "Wall of Shame" has been buried in the desert, along with the 40-year-old plight of the Sahrawis to regain a free Western Sahara, dubbed "Africa's last colony".

Hours of driving are required to reach the wall from the Sahrawi refugee camps set deep in an area of the southern Algerian desert known as "The Devil's Garden". Daytime temperatures at these camps in the middle of desert regularly reach 50 degrees Celsius.

Morocco built this wall shortly after its forces occupied Western Sahara in 1975.

No sooner had the Sahrawis freed themselves from colonial Spain that troops from neighbouring Mauritania and Morocco marched in to claim Western Sahara.

Mauritania withdrew in 1979, but Morocco kept its occupation of this area, which is the size of Britain, by sending in settlers, digging up the phosphate-rich land, and trawling waters teeming with fish.

The invasion was followed by a 14-year guerrilla war between Morocco and Polisario Front fighters operating out of Algeria. A ceasefire was established in 1991 when the Sahrawis were promised a vote on self-determination.

Morocco has proposed wide autonomy for the disputed territory under its sovereignty, but this is rejected by Polisario, which has campaigned for independence since 1973, and insists on the right of the Sahrawi people to determine their own future in a UN-monitored referendum.

A peacekeeping mission called the United Nations Mission for a Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was formed. But many say it has failed to live up to its name.

Meanwhile, whereas the political sands have not shifted, the millions of land mines surrounding the Berm have wounded at least 2,500 people.

Only MINURSO peacekeepers can cross the barrier, an act that Lamin said shows them "participating in an occupation process".

Maria Carrion - director of the FiSahara human rights film festival held each year in Dakhla refugee camp, about 200km southeast of Tindouf in Algeria - organises media visits to expose what she called "an unbelievable act of cowardice".

"Nobody knows about this wall and it was built with the help of the United States and Israel, who are key players in this region, so we want people to know about it," Carrion said.

American lawyer Michael Ratner dismissed Morocco's claim that the wall is to defend against Polisario, which in 2012 abducted several aid workers.

Ratner, who has taken on cases involving Guantanamo detainees versus the US government, Julian Assange, and WikiLeaks, said this is a simple case of "taking someone else's territory".

He said Western Sahara's case is similar to that of the Palestinians as it constitutes "an invasion of a country completely illegally".

People here have stopped believing that the outside world and a "peaceful resistance" will win it back.

Teenagers spout revolutionary mantras, young men discuss taking up arms, hunched widows talk of martyring their grandsons, and children regale visitors with independence success stories of fellow underdog liberation movements in East Timor and South Sudan.

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