Ahmed Barack Allah: “El Frente Polisario debe saber que en 2022 las sociedades tienen derecho a ser representadas por diversas fuerzas políticas”
In the latest edition of "De cara al mundo" on Onda Madrid, we had the participation of Ahmed Barack Allah, Secretary General of the Movement Saharawi for Peace, who analysed the current situation in Western Sahara.
Are you concerned about an increase in violence in the Sahara caused by the Polisario Front and the drones that your Minister of the Interior was talking about?
We are indeed very concerned. Not because of the possibility of a further escalation following these statements that supposedly spoke of the possibility of obtaining new weapons, but because of the fact that every day there are victims as a result of this conflict that was unilaterally unleashed by the Polisario a couple of years ago, breaking its commitment to the ceasefire decreed by the United Nations. Our concern about the bloodshed is what makes us constantly insist through letters to the United Nations to re-establish the ceasefire and to continue the political process.
We are aware that it is an unequal battle. We have already experienced these clashes and they have gone nowhere. It is a totally asymmetrical war, it cannot be won militarily and, therefore, what common sense cries out is that a political and peaceful solution should be sought, taking advantage of the fact that the international community is still paying attention to this issue. This is, in a way, the essence of the Saharawi Movement's position and I believe it fits in with the feelings and hopes of the Saharawi population as a whole after 50 years of confrontation and war, in which we have been mere objects in an eternal confrontation between Morocco and Algeria. Now, to top it all off, they can once again insert themselves into a kind of Cold War, reminiscent of the past, in which we have also been a kind of guinea pig.
The Movement Saharawi for Peace made public at the Las Palmas International Conference, in a speech you made, a document with the specific issues to be negotiated with Morocco in order to achieve autonomy for the Sahara under its sovereignty. This is perhaps what really needs to be done now: to specify this autonomy and seek a concrete solution for the thousands of Saharawis who are looking for a future and a horizon.
The definitive formula, which can be achieved through dialogue and a political process, cannot yet be given a title. What the Sahrawi Movement is trying to do is to take advantage of Morocco's proposal to grant autonomy in order to try to broaden it and achieve a point of convergence that can be the result of a compromise.
We believe it is possible, and this is what the Sahrawi Movement wanted to propose at the Las Palmas conference. We believe that a solution is possible, especially if it contains elements that guarantee that the Saharawis can exercise their power through institutions with international guarantees and through an agreement with the King of Morocco, which is inevitable.
The last UN resolution renewing MINURSO's mandate spoke above all of negotiation. It called on the parties to sit down again at the UN negotiating table in Geneva. Do you, as the Movement Saharawi for Peace, claim to have a presence at that table when it is convened?
Yes, indeed. We believe that this is the only way to break the vicious circle we have been in for 30 years. Morocco, the Polisario and Algeria, as well as Mauritania, have been seeing each other for almost three decades since the UN peace plan for Western Sahara was approved and MINURSO was set up. We cannot wait another 30 years for gentlemen to see each other, take a photo and go home. In the meantime, a population is living in appalling conditions, mostly in refugee camps.
We believe that the time has come to move towards a solution. The involvement of the Sahrawi Movement as the protagonist or author of a third way, of a compromise proposal, can break this vicious circle. We believe it is important for the United Nations to change the format it has maintained until now because 30 years have shown that it leads nowhere. It is essential that it moves towards a more open format in which there are more than two or three protagonists. We believe that this is the key.
How much representation does the Movement Saharawi for Peace currently have among the Saharawi people?
Although the Movement has only been in existence for two years and has emerged at a difficult time such as the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a reaction and an impact on the population due to its moderate, realistic and peaceful discourse. It has generated reactions that have exceeded all expectations. We believe that at the moment a silent majority is being generated around his proposal, which is eager for a peaceful solution as soon as possible. Indeed, here the other party representing the Saharawis, the Polisario, has been using the armed option to achieve its aims for 50 years. This option cannot lead to any military victory and, therefore, what common sense dictates is that a peaceful solution be sought as proposed by the Saharawi Movement.
At this stage, although this can only be corroborated at the ballot box, we believe that we represent a silent majority of Saharawis who are scattered all over the world, but mainly in the current territory, in the territory administered by Morocco, who want a peaceful solution to be found as soon as possible. A solution in which there are neither winners nor losers. We believe that this is the way forward, and we will continue to pursue it, even though we have only been at it for two years. We will continue to insist and we hope that we will find a listening ear from the United Nations, and especially from the current mediator, the Italian-Swedish diplomat Staffan de Mistura. If not, we will continue in much the same vicious circle and we will never get out of the current impasse in the process.
We wanted to clarify a few questions: are you paid by the Moroccan secret service?
Up to now I have not received any payment, apart from the non-contributory pension I receive from the Spanish Social Security. That is absurd. It is the cliché that the Polisario has been using for 50 years. Every time it wants to destroy a political adversary or a dissenting or opposing opinion, it applies the propaganda manual that it has been able to extract from the Cuban system and applies the typical cliché of a traitor or a spy. And it really is a cruel situation as well as being absurd.
At this moment, the Polisario has just acknowledged that it has committed crimes in the territories of the refugee camps, which is even inside Algeria, crimes against humanity that have involved the murder and execution without trial of hundreds of people. And all of them have been branded as spies without any evidence whatsoever. I believe that Polisario must close this path if it really wants to get out of the situation it is in. It has to come down from the clouds and realise that in 2022, societies have the right to be represented by various political forces.
The scheme of party, leadership and single discourse is a thing of the past and it cannot maintain this scheme. To take refuge in its arguments about the external enemy and the espionage services, which are sometimes the French, sometimes the Spanish and lately the Moroccans, is simply to seek a way to survive in difficult conditions in which it will either adapt politically to the new times, or it will end up as a figure from the Jurassic park and become extinct.
In a report in El Independiente by Francisco Carrión there from the Tindouf camps, young Sahrawis claimed that they were led by dinosaurs and called for a generational renewal.
The fact that El Independiente says so, with those responsible with their pro-Polisario stance, implies that it is the visible head of the iceberg, it is a reality. It is a leadership that has been in power since the 70s of the last century and frankly they have not left, but thanks to the laws of biology, when they die a natural death. I think it is a demand of all Saharawis that there should be a generational transition in the leadership of the Polisario. We hope that they will pass this test at the next congress, although personally I am very pessimistic about the possibility of an opening in the Polisario.
And that they respect other political options such as the Movement Saharawi for Peace.
The failure at this stage to recognise political diversity and to accept the democratic game is to condemn oneself before achieving a political solution to the problem of Western Sahara. To try to impose on a society the existence of a totalitarian political formation, such as the one that reigns in North Korea or Cuba, is, I believe, to impose the absurd.