Dakhla, or ad-Dakhla (formerly Villa Cisneros under Spanish rule), is a city in the south-west of Western Sahara, built on the Rio de Oro peninsula on the Atlantic Coast. With its approximately 58,000 inhabitants (according to the Moroccan population census of 2004), it is an economically important trading port.
In fact, the main economic activity of the city, fishing, is linked to the seaport (recently built and currently widening). Every year, Dakhla alone produces about 40% of Moroccan fish and its seaport used to host the 120 European fishing boats that were authorized to fish in the territorial waters of the occupied Western Sahara according to the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement (2006-2011).
In addition to seaport activities, the agricultural sector is developing more and more thanks to the fruit and vegetables production. It is the second largest economic activity of the city but, like fishing, it is closely related to bilateral trade with the European market. In fact, in the vicinity of Dakhla there are two European farms that produce cérise tomatoes for the European market thanks to the EU-Morocco Agriculture Free Trade Agreement(2012), exploiting fields and water resources of the Western Sahara occupied territories. The French farmTawarta, of the Idyl group, currently works on 60 hectares of land, while other farms linked to the French groupAzura are spread on a total surface of 76 hectares. The tomatoes produced will eventually be exported and, once in France, they will be distributed to the other European countries with the label “Produit du Maroc” starting from next September (because of a delay of Morocco in signing the Agreement). At the moment, Morocco uses 1000 hectares of land in the occupied Western Sahara, but as the Moroccan Ministry of Agriculture expects larger trading incomes in the future, a big expansion of the cropped soil (which hasn’t been quantified yet) is planned within the end of 2013.
In this framework of extreme developmentalism and radical “Moroccanisation” that concerns the city of Dakhla and the main urban centers of the occupied Western Sahara, Lilia Blaise (Réalités ONLINE) explains how, during her stay in Dakhla, she could observe the strategic approach of authorities, institutions and local community to the “Saharawi question”.
For example, during her visit to the Dakhla Regional Radio, Blaise tells that the director of the radio station talked complacently about how they had recently treated the theme of the Moroccan government withdrawing its support to Christopher Ross (UN Secretary-General Personal Envoy for Western Sahara), and that he boasted about their ability to involve citizens and politicians in debates about culture, politics and religion, which are important but very delicate issues. Nevertheless, when Blaise asked about the possibility of participating in the debate for those in Dakhla who demand independence, the director only answered: “I don’t know any independentist or separatist Saharawi in Dakhla”. This seems to be a customary refrain, as the tourist guide of Blaise, Meimouna, on the first day of her visit stated without hesitation: “Everyone here wants to be Moroccan, and those who don’t, leave to the camps [the refugee camps near Tindouf, editor’s note]. Even the citizens of Dakhla that Blaise met during her official visits to the various citizenship associations (for women and development, for children, for the elderly, etc.) always introduce themselves as “pure Moroccan citizens.”
The Museum and the Multimedia Library of Saharawi people, then, seem to be set up with the sole purpose of legitimizing the annexation de facto of Western Sahara to the Kingdom of Morocco. Here, documents of the Spanish and French colonization are kept together with photos of the visits of King Mohamed VI to the “Southern Provinces”, and with the “peaceful” event of the Green March with which the King wanted to “regain the southern provinces occupied by the Spanish”. No reference to the fight of the Saharawis against the Spanish domination, to the Polisario Front, to the proclamation of the birth of the RASD, to the conspicuous and unequivocal legal production of United Nations about the military invasion by Morocco… The “Saharawi question” and the long history of what we call today the “Saharan Morocco” seem to be reduced to a brief historical hint about the Saharawi population:
“composed of two clans: the Ouled Dhims and the Rguibats (…) Therefore, the tribal structure of the Saharan Morocco’s society makes independence totally impossible, because if these tribes became independent, they would start a bloody war for power”.
(interview by Lilia Blaise, Réalités ONLINE, 06/28/2012)
Neither do the words of (Wali) Hamid Chabar, governor of the Oued Ed-Dahab-Lagouira region of which Dakhla is the capital, open the way for a reflection about the complex problem of self-determination for Saharawi people:
“the conflict in Western Sahara today is just a diplomatic question, an ideological conflict that surpasses all the rest (…) In Dakhla I would like to build a wealthy regional center, at the edge of Sub-Saharan Africa, a crossroad of very important trade flows”.
(op. cit.)
Wali Chabar imagines a wealthy regional pole at the forefront of technology, also thanks to the use of “sustainable energy”. In fact, it is no secret that the EU is investing huge capitals in the development of wind power and photovoltaic factories in the whole Maghreb region, and in particular in Morocco and Algeria. In such context, even the United Nations promoted the Foum El Oued Farm Project, in the framework of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) defined in the Kyoto Protocol. The Foum implies the installation of 44 wind turbines of 2,3 Megawatts in an area included in the city of El Ayoun, in the occupied Western Sahara.
If the United Nations actually gave their financing to NAREVA Holding, which promotes the project together with Siemens, once more we would see the paradox of a situation of military occupation and exploitation of national resources that has been judged as illegitimate many times, but is endorsed de facto by the international community and by the western powers. The European Union and, in this case, even the United Nations, historically committed to the promotion and safeguard of human rights and international law, would be once more (un)consciously responsible for the economic exploitation of a militarily occupied land.
Furthermore, NAREVA Holding is controlled by the Moroccan royal family; this means that the business would be once more to the benefit of King Mohamed VI and his inner circle of friends and relatives. For this reason, too, apart from the sanctioned prohibition to continue the exploitation of a non-autonomous territory’s resources, many famous people intervened to ask the Secretary of UNFCCC to revise the political and financial support to the project.
Translation by Lucrezia De Carolis
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