NEWS & LETTERS, Janurary-February 2010
Haidar returns to Western Sahara
Aminatou Haidar, the Western Saharan activist who was expelled by the Moroccan government to Spain, finally returned to her hometown El Aaiun on Dec. 18, after 32 days of a hunger strike in Lanzarote's airport in Spain. Greeted by the people of the village, she was put immediately under house arrest.
Haidar was deported to Spain for defending the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara, which has been occupied by Morocco since 1975. In returning, she gave thanks to all the NGOs, Human Rights Watch, Spanish writers and personalities who visited her at the airport, the Spanish Parliament, the city hall of Lanzarote, and specially to the people of Lanzarote who supported her struggle, even against the local government, who fined her more than one hundred euros ($140) for squatting at the airport.
She went on a 32-day hunger strike which brought international pressure on Morocco's government to allow her to return home. She said on her return: "The battle that we started is not over. No to continuous repression of the innocents and defenders of Saharans' human rights charged by the military court for collaborating with foreign intelligentsia. No to the death of Saharans who die silently from chronic pains and chronic sickness in the prisons of Morocco. It is 30 years since a tragedy converted the aspiration of the people to a nightmare of the Diaspora and the disappeared."
The aspiration of Aminatou Haidar was invisible to U.S. foreign policy makers. Hillary Clinton avoided the issue altogether when reporters confronted her. It all started with determination of a woman activist and support of a people to reach for self-determination.
--Manel
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