It's already spring in the Cabildo de Gran Canaria

In recent weeks, there has been a succession of news items in the Canary Islands linked to the eternal question of the opposite shore. All of them, as usual coming from local politicians and institutions, with a similar and unidirectional sieve.

In the first instance, we had the presence on the islands of the Polisario delegate in Spain, Abdulah Arabi, who, it seems, after not being received in Madrid by similar state bodies, sought refuge in those communities where it is relatively easy to find him, at the time those with a strong pro-independence or nationalist base. Arabi landed in the Canary Islands, where he was received and praised by the corresponding authorities.

As is obvious, the Polisario leader repeated the usual mantras that are usually put forward at this type of meeting, all to conclude that Spain "is the administering power of a territory pending decolonisation", an issue which, due to the alleged war situation, has been insisted on ad nauseam in recent times in almost all the forums where the Polisario and its supporters speak, but which is impossible to fit in practice, however much they try to shoehorn it in. What is more, the Saharawi leader bordered on the absurd, stating that the warning announced by the Spanish authorities advising against flying over Western Sahara "is clear and obvious proof that Spain is the administering power". Squaring the circle. That is nothing.

Arabi also stated that "we do not understand that in today's world human rights are subordinated to the pursuit of economic interests". A phrase of enormous audacity indeed, and one that they could literally apply to themselves. The issue of human rights violations is one that both they and their Spanish friends and acolytes tend to deny or omit here, taking advantage of the widespread ignorance of public opinion on the matter, and on which the Polisario has been winning the battle in Spain for decades.

In this regard, and in case anyone has not yet heard, we repeat: in the Tindouf camps, human rights violations are happening and have been happening for as long as the camps have existed, by those who govern them against their own dissident population. But they will never find out, because the construction of the narrative on the Sahara issue in Spain prevents them from assuming this reality, where the framework on this issue is well delimited on the other side, something that prevents them from even suggesting that those who have historically presented themselves as victims are also executioners. This also makes it easier for the media and Spanish public opinion in general to even wonder about something that would sound like Mandarin Chinese when they hear it. But that does not mean it does not exist.

And, on the other hand, because the refugee camps in Tindouf are opaque to scrutiny on this issue (Amnesty International: 2014, 2020), despite the insistence of their leaders in denouncing transgressions by others. Double standards, double standards. An issue, moreover, widely denounced by all those former Polisario leaders and Saharawis in general who, now freed from ties, have been able to express themselves freely on this issue once outside the orbit of Tindouf.

A direct consequence of Abdulah Arabi's visit was the declaration a few days later in the Canary Islands Parliament of a non-legislative motion brought to the plenary session by all the groups represented there. Among other issues, the bill - as quoted in the media - "urges the United Nations to promote without further delay a just and definitive solution to the conflict in Western Sahara, which it considers involves putting the Saharawi people's right to self-determination into practice through a referendum".

Of course, the petition should be addressed to the United Nations and not to the central executive, lest the party colleagues who govern in Madrid become angry. The responsibilities of the regional or local administration in foreign policy matters are null and void. And we look great in the eyes of the gallery.

In the height of absurdity, while the political class of the Canary Islands positions itself in favour of the Polisario, all unwaveringly united, its Canary Islands victims await, in the midst of their weariness, justice and reparation through the often-promised draft of the autonomous Law on Victims of Terrorism. A law that is suspiciously delayed after empty promises by previous presidents or repeated and dilatory non-compliance by the political parties in the Canarian parliament. A law that has been postponed up to six times, for no less than a decade of delay, even though these victims have already been recognised by a national law. A regional disgrace.

It is undoubtedly a surrealistic exercise to place sympathy and solidarity with those who at the same time perpetrated these execrable acts against Canarian workers. While pro-Sahara demonstrations are held in island institutions, the fishermen's funerals are a wasteland of local memory. Fallen in disgrace, in the greatest of collective oblivion, with the most absolute impunity of the victimizer, in turn protected and supported, in a grotesque paradox, by those who should most care for their memory: their politicians, their countrymen. They are the Polisario's useful idiots, an "Uncle Tom" in the Canary Islands version.

The latest episode in this ceremony of nonsense can be found in the recently inaugurated exhibition on the façade of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria. As if it were the entrance to a shopping centre in the middle of an advertising campaign with the advent of spring. There, behind the windows, under the pretext of the anniversary of the events of Gdeim Izik, a photographic exhibition in support of the Polisario Front has been installed with a great display of means, including the hoisting of the flag. In these times of various anniversaries of the conflict, with the 45th anniversary of Spain's exit from the territory, the Canarian leaders remember this. Perhaps the time has come to honour those who fell at the hands of those who receive so much acclaim. For them, there will be no more springs.