Salem was answering questions for foreign guests who were part of a visit by several organizations supporting the struggle of the Sahrawi people for independence from Moroccan occupation. The solidarity visit, which included members of the International Organizing Committee for the anti-imperialist world youth festival this August in Algiers, coincided with the June 9 Day of the Martyrs national holiday and with the fifth Congress of the Union of Youth of Western Sahara (UJSARIO).

The people of Western Sahara have been struggling for independence from colonial domination for more than 100 years. From 1884 to 1975 the territory was a direct colony of Spain. In 1973, The Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro, or Polisario, was formed. The new organization launched an armed struggle against Spain. Three years later, the governments of Spain, Mauritania, and Morocco signed the Madrid Accords dividing Western Sahara between Mauritania and Morocco. Spain continued to dominate the country economically and politically.

Western Sahara has more than 1,000 kilometers of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean and is rich in phosphate. The Madrid Accords guaranteed Spain a 35 percent stake in the main phosphate mine in Bu Craa. Since then, France, Spain, and the United States have poured several billion dollars into Morocco and Mauritania to help prop up those regimes and to aid them in their suppression of the Sahrawi struggle.

By 1978, the war with Polisario absorbed one-third of the Mauritanian government’s annual budget. A year later, with an economy devastated by the increasingly unpopular war, Mauritania renounced all claims to Western Sahara and pulled out. Morocco, which already controlled two-thirds of the country, moved in to occupy the rest.

As a result of a brutal campaign of repression by Morocco, backed by its imperial masters in Madrid, Washington, and Paris, the majority of Sahrawis were driven from their homes into the Algerian desert. Today, close to 200,000 Sahrawis live in camps in the middle of the inhospitable desert in tents and makeshift homes of sandstone, tarps, and corrugated aluminum. Tens of thousands more live under Moroccan occupation, and others live in liberated zones in the western part of the country held by Polisario.

Zorgan Larousi, 36, a volunteer translator in the camps, spoke to this reporter about their anticolonial struggle. "The people are unanimous in our demand for full independence from Morocco," he said. "The Day of the Martyrs celebrations here in the camps are a reflection of that." This Sahrawi national holiday commemorates the June 9, 1976, attack by Polisario against the capital of Mauritania. Many revolutionaries were killed in that attack, including the central leader of the struggle, El-Ouali, who was still in his early 20s. On the Day of the Martyrs, the camp occupants come together to hear speeches, and to sing, dance, and participate in other cultural events.

In 1989, Polisario and the Moroccan government signed a cease-fire. Shortly after, they agreed to hold a United Nations-organized referendum in which Sahrawis in the occupied part of Western Sahara, the liberated territory, and in the refugee camps were to vote for independence or integration with Morocco.

"Soon after the referendum agreement, the Moroccan government put up many obstacles to avoid a vote because they knew what the outcome would be," said Larousi. "Everyone is getting fed up and demanding action toward a vote or a return to the war. We are reaching the boiling point."

Everyone this reporter spoke to made similar remarks. Twenty-five-year-old Metu Moustafa is part of the generations born and raised in the camps. "We hate war, but it is far better to fight with arms than continuing to live indefinitely in camps in the middle of the desert while our land continues to be occupied by a foreign power," he said. The Moroccan government "thinks if they just wait long enough we will give up or go away, but all they have done is to further unite us. The conditions may be very difficult here, but it is better to be free in the middle of sandstorms than to live under foreign occupation." Moustafa is a member of an organization of Sahrawis whose family members were "disappeared" during the guerrilla war with Morocco.

More than 1,000 Sahrawis have suffered such a fate, including Moustafa’s father. The Moroccan government has refused to divulge any information about their status.

Many people also voiced frustration with the role of the UN. "While we are disappointed that the referendum agreement was never implemented, we are not only facing the king of Morocco. We are also facing all the powers behind him, especially the United States," explained Larousi.

Washington has increasingly replaced Madrid as the imperialist power that dominates Morocco, and is the foremost government supplying arms to the regime.

What was most striking for this reporter during a brief stay in the Smara and Dakhla refugee camps was the determination to continue fighting for independence. In spite of the harsh conditions in the desert, where the only natural resource is well water and where the people receive their means of subsistence largely through contributions from international aid organizations, the Sahrawis have made many advances giving them more confidence and strength to continue their struggle for liberation. Those advances have included a literacy campaign, the integration of women into the workforce and the administration of the government, and the expansion of free medical care. Many nurses and doctors have received their university education in Cuba, which offers thousands of students, mainly from colonial and semicolonial countries, the opportunity to study medicine free of charge. Others have studied in Algeria and other countries.  
 
 
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