A Founder's Account of Polisario, the Green March and Algeria

We were the ones who founded the Polisario, a group of young Moroccans.

El Ouali had Moroccan citizenship. He studied in Rabat.

I had Moroccan citizenship. He studied in Agadir.

We came and contacted the Moroccan parties, Allal al- Fassi and Ali Yata, and Abderrahman Bouabid. We told them, “We are a group of young Sahrawis, sons of Liberation Army members.

Give us what we need to liberate our land, please, for your parents’ sake.”

They laughed at us and said, “Go on, keep politics far away from you.”

They wouldn't deal with us. We went to Tantoura.

We held demonstrations in Al- Majrash— Majara, because the whole desert was coming.

They came to the desert from the Spanish Sahara, from Tindouf and Mauritania.

We held demonstrations in Tanta. “The Sahara will be free.

Spain must get out through struggle and arms.”

“We want the Sahara, even if it costs our lives.” That's what we asked for.

Our dealings with the Moroccan authorities: they arrested us and gave us a real beating.

They said, “Go to the Sahara.” We came here to Morocco, and we didn't cause any trouble here.

Then we left, and from there we left and founded the Polisario.

Gaddafi came with enormous sums of money.

He said to us, “Welcome, brother. You need money? Here’s the money.”

And we launched a revolution against Morocco and against all the reactionary regimes in the region.

Then Algeria became afraid that Gaddafi would become an influential force.

He said, “No, no, don’t go to Gaddafi. Come to me. I’ll train you and arm you.”

If our founding of the Polisario was a mistake for the Moroccan regime, and a mistake for Morocco’s political elite, then they were the ones who pushed us toward the Polisario, because we weren’t all Moroccans, with Moroccan citizenship that cannot be revoked with time,

but you laughed, and we founded the Polisario.

That’s how we founded the Polisario. We fought Spain in 1973, 1974, and 1975.

Then came the march. The march changed everything.

I was in Rabat and heard Hassan II’s speech during the march.

May God have mercy on him. We said, “This guy’s crazy. He can’t pull off the march.”

Who’s going to bring 350,000 people? Here come the trains, they’re just about to arrive. There are no more left.

And the road between Tiznit and Tan- Tan has nothing at all.

And the road between Tan-Tan and Tarfaya has nothing at all.

Who could get these people to him? We said Abdullah’s game would make him laugh and get him moving.

But in reality, Hassan II set it right and founded it.

The participants in the Green March advanced to the border between Morocco and Spanish Sahara.

It was an issue that changed all the facts on the ground.

Why? Because Spain was ready to build a state in coordination with Algeria in the Sahara, as France had done in Mauritania.

The Green March turned everything upside down and changed everything.

As a result, it led to an agreement of November 14, 1975 through which the Sahara was divided between Morocco and Mauritania.

But we in the Polisario, along with Algeria, exploited this division for propaganda against Morocco, claiming that Morocco’s Sahara wasn’t its own, since it had divided it with Mauritania.

Have you ever seen Mauritania divide up its own territory?

So, the propaganda was that Morocco’s Sahara wasn’t its own, and we used it for propaganda, and so people would join us, there was the propaganda and we made a huge propaganda campaign.

And we struck Morocco, attacked Morocco, and waged a war against Morocco that lasted sixteen years.

Thousands of people from the same family were killed in it.

From the same family. This is the result of this policy.

The wali, may God have mercy on him. Remember that we consider the wali to be a Moroccan rebel and resistance fighter, like Ibrahim Sefrioui like Basri, like all the others.

They can't deny that they saw we had gotten involved in an issue bigger than us.

That's why he said, “We dared to do this to our people,” to set an example for people.

He went and died in the operation, striking the Magno, and died in the operation.

To tell them, “I didn't dare do this on your behalf. I knew I'd die for what I led you into.”

What happened after the wali? Algeria took Mohamed Abdelaziz, a man from Tindouf, a Tindouf man, and put him in charge of the Polisario.

That's why Algeria stole our revolution and turned it into a leadership that serves Algerian intelligence's interests before serving Sahrawi interests.

And that's when the revolution lost its value and lost its sanctity, nobility, and purity.

It became a pawn in the hands of Algerian intelligence.

And Gaddafi exploits him with the millions of dollars he gives him.

I was one of those who refused to accept this reality.

And I declared my opposition. As a result, they took me away and buried me.

In an underground grave for six years. The torture marks only appeared forty years after I got out of prison.

The torture marks are still here. What’s on my hand is also a torture mark.

Why? Because I said I couldn’t go down this road.

When the torture was happening… Even during torture in the secret prisons.

They didn’t ask me, “Are you Sahrawi or not?”

They asked me, “Why do you want Morocco over Algeria?”

“Why do you want Morocco, a reactionary monarchy?”

“Don’t you want Algeria, the Algerian Revolution that gave a million and a half martyrs?”

“For God’s sake, you’re holding me and torturing me just to tell me…”

“Between Morocco and Algeria, you’re holding me and torturing me because I…”

“Joined the Polisario and opposed this leadership.”

I realized in the secret prisons that the revolution was no longer a revolution.

It had turned into a dump for opportunists, hypocrites, and profiteers.

Those who live off the suffering, blood, tears, and pain of the oppressed.

That’s why, even when I got out of prison, I continued my opposition at every seminar and conference.

I kept up my opposition. They kept saying, they kept saying, That poor guy’s just stuck there, an opponent ever since he was born.

And some of them marginalized and excluded me.

Then I had just one problem. Someone came up to me and said, “Peace be upon you.”

Get up, my son. Go back to your country. Go to Morocco.

And leave this business with that holy man alone. You’ve got no business with him.

I told them, people, for your parents’ sake, I went to look after my mother and father.

I left them. They beat me up when I was young.

Should I leave my wife and children? I’m not leaving here until I go to my children.

I spent four years in deception, bribery, and hypocrisy to get my wife and children out to Spain.

When I left Spain, I openly declared my opposition and called it the martyr’s line against this leadership that wants to exploit this conflict to live off the suffering of children, women, and the elderly who have suffered under tents for fifty years.

Algeria stood against me. They took away my passport because I had an Algerian passport.

As a refugee on Algerian soil. They barred me from entering Algeria and the camps.

But that didn't mean I stopped. I continued my struggle and fight to expose this issue.

Because the issue wasn't based on anything.

And they announced that there had to be a solution.

And the solution was with Morocco, not Algeria.

Some said, “You're a traitor. You're an agent.”

“You're going to Morocco, telling Morocco what to say.”

I'm certain the solution is in Morocco's hands, not Algeria's.

And we have a solution: to negotiate with Morocco and discuss this solution with Morocco.

And indeed, in 1988, when Hassan II welcomed the Polisario leadership in Rabat, saying, “Welcome.”

He told them, “You and your mother…” I told him, “The Sahara is the Sahara.”

“Leave me just the flag and the dirham, may God have mercy on him.”

“Leave me just the sovereignty.” “What do you want? The Sahara belongs to all the people…”

…who were meeting them. And when they came back, I told them, “Algeria wasn't involved.”

So that means they don't even have the decision-making power.

There isn't even a way for them to decide these people's fate, though they use them.

Algeria is the one making the decisions.

That's why we told them that, after twenty years of opposition, we had confirmed there was no hope of reforming the Polisario leadership, because it doesn't make its own decisions.

That's why we came to Morocco and immediately declared that the only solution is autonomy within the Moroccan state, through which the Sahrawis can manage their economic, financial, and cultural affairs within the Moroccan state.

Because we know Morocco. Historically, we know Algeria.

All the migrations were from north to south. There was no migration from the southwest except ours, the Polisario. We brought it The first migration we made was from west to east.

We, the Polisario, before that, there wasn't— there was none.

It was from the north, from Moulay Idriss all the way to Nouakchott, and from Nouakchott to Fez.

Those were the historic migrations. They were never from west to east.

We, the Polisario, brought that about. In short, Morocco must understand The solution to the conflict is now that... it should be declared that after fifty years, the solution is in Morocco's hands, but not in Algeria's hands,

nor in the UN's, nor Hassan's. The solution is in Morocco's hands, so Morocco must rise to the occasion.

And the solution has two points, not three.

The existing solution to the conflict has two points.

Morocco must be brave and implement autonomy for the Sahrawis it has in the southern provinces, because most Sahrawis are in the southern provinces, not among those in Tindouf.

Those in Tindouf are twenty-five percent Sahrawi, and the rest are not Sahrawi, while more than forty thousand are registered for identification in the Sahara.

If all Morocco has the courage and will to implement autonomy in the Sahara with the Sahrawis, then the conflict is over.

MINURSO has no place. The Fourth Committee need not discuss anything.

The UN need not discuss anything. This is the solution.

If Morocco does not want to implement this autonomy, it has another solution.

He gives Dakhla to Algeria so it can establish its state here.

And the solution will end. The case will be over.

And neither a fourth committee nor the United Nations will remain.

And this is not the entity for resolving the conflict at all.