Generation gap haunts refugees in Sahara

TINDOUF, Algeria - When Youssef told Hafez that he was not a real Saharan, the eldest son al-most exploded. He leapt into the air and cried out that his father was denying his roots, the revolution and everything that the Polisario resistance movement has been trying to achieve for three decades.

His father responded calmly, saying it was the Moroccans who had developed the land; built highways, banks and the new airport; printed money; and provided running water and electricity.

“The Moroccans built our country. It is part of Morocco, and an independent Sahara has no right to exist. Revolution is out of date. You and your friends can dream about independence and freedom, but reality dictates another story,” Youssef, 67, said calmly, apologizing to the visitors for the fuss between father and son in their presence.

From conquest to march

The Arabs conquered North Africa in the seventh century. Four centuries later, indigenous Berbers based in Morocco ruled much of the southwestern Mediterranean coast and most of Spain.

The nascent U.S. Navy vanquished the “Barbary pirates” — named for the Berbers of Algiers; Morocco; Tripoli, Libya; and Tunisia — who had preyed on American shipping early in the 19th century. Soon, colonial France took over Algeria and seized Morocco, while Spain took the Spanish Sahara.

Morocco became independent in 1956 after sultan Mohammed V returned from exile and the international port of Tangier was ceded to the new state.

The sultan died in 1961 and was succeeded by his son Hassan II, born in Rabat in 1929. King Hassan II needed to increase his popularity among the Moroccan people.

In 1975, Hassan organized the Green March, in which 350,000 unarmed Moroccans walked into the former Spanish Sahara. A guerrilla-style conflict ensued because the 100,000 or so inhabitants of the desert seized by Morocco wanted independence.

They named their movement the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia El-Hamra and Rio de Oro — two former sultanates on the Atlantic shore — “Polisario” for short.

Since then, a long, sad and mostly ignored guerrilla war has been sputtering along.

At first, the Polisario was backed by Libya and Algeria, but because of a heavily armed defensive wall inside the territory bordering Mauritania and Algeria, the Polisario’s room for maneuver became limited.

Libya eventually withdrew its support and Algeria basically said: “Why don’t you come over here and live in our desert?”

Morocco quickly developed the southern parts of Western Sahara and integrated it into its economic and political spheres of interest, to the delight of more elderly nomads.

Now, 175,000 Western Saharans live in camps in southern Algeria, near Tindouf, and peacekeepers for the United Nations do their best to keep the conflict out of the news. Residents of the Polisario camps receive a basic diet costing the international community $14 million per year.

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