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Friday, March 29, 2024
Written Press

 Khalihenna: Polisario in front of historic choice: autonomy or remaining in Tindouf forever

 



He embodies the Moroccan autonomy solution in the "Southern Provinces". From the Spanish colonization to the UN Security Council, through the dark years of the reign of Hassan II, portrait of a Reguibi dignitary. 


The man who receives us with Moorish tea in a villa at Souissi neighborhood in Rabat, has the appearance of an officer of the Guardia Civil: his Sahrawi accent, Hispanic before speaking French, eloquence of a camp storyteller and a calendar marked with the seal of the emergency. By 30 October, Khalihenna Khalihenna Ould Errachid, president of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS), will make a decisive copy. The statute of internal autonomy of Western Sahara, which Morocco will present before the UN Security Council and intend to apply right away.

   This great 55 year-old dignitary is an asset, the joker and the "Saharan solution " of Mohammed VI. Minister during the reign of Hassan II for fifteen years, he managed not to be involved in the repressive policy applied at that time in the territory. He represents until today the third option - neither independence or integration - which is now the official project of the monarchy for its "Southern Provinces". Contrary to the phraseology of use, he has never described as "mercenaries" leaders of the Polisario Front. "They are brothers," he said. Sometimes I understand why, until recently, Sahrawis sympathize with the Polisario. For twenty years they have repeatedly heard by the administration and the media that we cost a lot to Morocco, that we are assisted, that we should be subdued and that all we have to say is thank you . We have never mentioned what the Sahara has brought to Morocco: the unity around the throne and renewed geopolitical dimension. His Majesty has understood it, thank God. " 

 We can see that the language has nothing to do with that in force under the previous king, when Driss Basri, the omnipotent Minister of the Interior, made his emergency law reign from Tan-Tan to Dakhla; when Corcas was an empty shell, and when the mere expression of dissidence cost to its author ten years in prison. "Today, he assures, we can be with the Polisario with referendum and with independence and say it. In short, we can make mistakes and live unmolested in the Sahara. Under one condition: no violence. "

   To convince "the other side" that we can now have confidence in Morocco and that autonomy, as opposed to independence, is not an illusion, " M6 Sahrawi” is willing to visit Tindouf camps to debate publicly with Mohamed Abdelaziz, the leader of the Polisario. "What I’ll say is so simple: Sahrawis have no future as refugees. They must go home, head held high. "

   Judging the reactions of separatist leaders, to whom Khalihenna is a devil dressed as a seducer, more dangerous as he holds a language of openness, such a prospect is not imminent. "They are worried because they know I know them well that we share the same blood," says the man who sees himself as the future president of the Saharan autonomy. "Everyone knows that the history of my life is intertwined with that of our pastures, our camps, our tents and our common ground ... >>

   Khalihenna was born November 24, 1951 in a tent of West Reguibat tribe (Reguibat Sahel), not far from Laayoune, the capital of Spanish colony of Rio de Oro and El Seguiet Hamra. His father, a respected figure in the Reguibi community and former veteran of the Saharan tribes revolt against colonial rule in 1937, is a breeder with many talents (he used to lead prayers and heal the wounded). He taught his children the spirit of Siba: no person shall submit to an unjust law.

With the outbreak in 1957 of the uprising of the Southern Liberation Army (ALS), which becomes  master of almost all of Western Sahara outside towns of Laayoune and Dakhla, the old man naturally sided with the insurgents. In February 1958, French and Spanish armies jointly initiated the Hurricane operation and crushed the ALS. The Khalihenna camp was bombed and the  community scattered in the desert. Some of them, including the family of Mustapha Sayed el-Ouali, the future founder of Polisario and close cousin of Ould Errachid, decided to  take refuge in the south of independent Morocco. The family of Khalihenna chose to stay in Laayoune, under Spanish domination. A choice that would not be without consequences.

   Educated at the age of 9 years, but rather a gifted student, the young Khalihenna was quickly remarked by the Franco colonial administration, eager to promote local elite to his devotion. He attended primary school and high school in Laayoune. But the model student is also, if only by family tradition, a budding nationalist. In the late 1960s, he passionately attended clandestine meetings organized at Ould Errachid’s home by Mohamed Bassiri. This 30 years-old journalist and activist was one of very few Reguibis to have studied abroad - in Cairo, Damascus and Rabat. It was he who founded the beginnings of a resistance movement: the secret organization.

   On June 17, 1970, Bassiri organized in Zemla, a district of Laayoune, a large protest demonstration. Khalihenna took part. But events turned out badly. Faced with stone’s throw, Tercio Legionnaires used guns. Result: a dozen Saharawis killed. Bassiri was arrested by the police at night in front of Khalihenna and his comrades. No one will ever see him. And no one knows until today the fate of that man considered a martyr by his fellow Sahrawis.

   Somewhat traumatized Khalihenna hid in Laayoune. Arrested three days later, he was quickly released upon the intervention of his Spanish teachers. After the 17 May drama, he became convinced that the confrontation with the colonial administration led to nowhere, that it was better to negotiate, sweeten and wait.

 Graduate and with scholarship, the son of old Ould Errachid flew to Madrid, where he enrolled in a school of industrial engineering. But his studies in Madrid did not make him forget politics, let alone the tribulations of his cousin al-Wali, with whom he corresponded regularly. Mustapha Sayed El Ouali did not leave Morocco, where he continued his studies at the Law Faculty of Rabat and was active in the National Union of Moroccan Students (UNEM) along with other future leaders of Polisario such as Mohamed Ould Salek, Mohamed Sidati and Mohamed Lemine Ould Ahmed. Nationalist and resolutely left-wing, the small group of Sahrawi students was not, until then, separatist. It advocated the liberation of Spanish Sahara, sought the help of the kingdom’s parties and administration, and some of them wanted openly the attachment of the territory to Morocco, once the decolonization is completed. 

 But for Hassan II and General Oufkir, his right arm, and indeed for almost all of Moroccan left-wing party, such a prospect is not a priority: there is no question of tolerating anti Spanish activities on the territory. March 1972 marked the break. Sahrawi demonstrators, some of whom carried placards calling for ... integration of Western Sahara to Morocco, were violently dispersed by police in the town of Tan-Tan. The ringleaders were arrested, tortured and then released. Among them, El-Ouali, his brother Bachir Mustapha Sayed, Mohamed Sidati and two students in medicine from the Faculty of Rabat will have an opposite fate: Maalainine Benkhalihenna, future Governor of Larache and current Secretary General of CORCAS, and ... Mohamed Abdelaziz.

   Reguibat fokra (East), born in Marrakech and son of a member of the Royal Armed Forces, who will be after the death of al-Wali the head of the Polisario Front. " It is the repression of Tan-Tan which was behind the creation of the Polisario said today Khalihenna. If the Moroccan government had been able to listen to what the protesters were saying the Front would never have existed. "

   One evening in December 1972 Khalihenna received in his dorm room in Madrid, an envoy with a long letter from his cousin al-Wali. The latter informed him about the creation of a liberation movement of Spanish Sahara and invited him to join him. Goal: independence. Means: armed struggle. Since Morocco refuses to serve as a rear base, "we will act from Mauritania and Algeria," said el-Ouali.
         
   Khalihenna told the envoy: no question of resorting to violence and fighting from a neighboring country. So without him, May 10, 1973 on the side of Zouerate, Mauritania, the Polisario was founded. But it is with him that the Spanish government, eager to start her colony towards controlled independence, created one year later, the Sahrawi National Union Party (Puns).

   Like Polisario, but with a markedly more conciliatory tone towards Spain, which, incidentally, managed barely to hide its financing, the Puns is a separatist party hostile to any foreign claim for the territory. "Purely tactical concession, says Khalihenna. We had to appear as such if we wanted to exist: the Spaniards left us no choice. For now, the man who, a year later, will dramatically announce his union with the kingdom, is spreading hostile statements to the "Moroccan expansionism." He is 23 yearsold and Franco’s governor in Laayoune continued to tell him that his future as president of the Saharawi future state is guaranteed. "I was young and I must admit it was tempting," he says.

   Shrotly after being appointed head of Puns, Khalihenna traveled to Mauritania by an old Land Rover to meet his cousin al-Wali. He wanted to convince him of the correctness of his strategic choice, since the goal - independence - is common. Both men met twice September and December 1974 in Nouakchott, in the house of a wealthy merchant, Fettene Ould Reguibi and with dozens of notables. Between Khalihenna who thought in purely nationalist terms ("Saharawis First") and Mustapha Sayed al Ouali, who spoke of revolution across the Maghreb and mentioned his talks with Muammar Gaddafi and Houari Boumedienne, no agreement was reached. Following their last meeting, al-Wali told his young cousin, "If I don’t give you a sign within a month, consider that we are no longer united." They will never meet again.

   Back to Laayoune, Khalihenna attempted to establish the PUNS throughout the territory, with the help of the Spanish administration. He didn’t succeed, while Polisario was steadily increasing its power. The young leader of Puns secretly entered into contact with the Moroccan authorities. "By conviction, because my father always taught me the real links between Sahrawi tribes and the Sherifian throne," he says. "By simple political expediency, because he realized that his ambitions had no chance of success" say his opponents.

   In March 1975, while he was touring Europe and the Middle East to explain the objectives of his party, the Spanish intelligence services, which suspected he was playing a double game, became convinced he had had a telephone conversation from Paris with Hassan II. On June 18, 1975, during a visit by a UN delegation in the Sahara - in which Polisario managed a show of strength at the expense of Puns - Khalihenna took his decision without telling his party fellows He left Madrid for Laayoune through Geneva, then Paris, where the King sent him plane. On 19, he came to Fez and gave ("Allegiance") to Hassan II, before qualifying the Polisario of "communist organization." "It was the language of the time, he says today as if to apologize. The reality is that during my audience with His Majesty, the same day, attended by the adviser Ahmed Bensouda and General Ahmed Dlimi I told Hassan II that the only viable solution to the Sahara was autonomy. I never changed my mind since. " 

   1975-1980: Morocco occupied its "recovered provinces " in the middle of what remains of the Saharan population – the one that the Polisario Front failed to take to Algeria. Khalihenna joined the Green March, returned to Laayoune in December 1975, participated in the development of an embryo of directors while the Front’s katibas were besieging cities. April 11, 1977, he joined the government as Secretary of State for Saharan Affairs. He had 28 years old, which made him, says he, the youngest member of a Moroccan government since independence. Even if the man that Polisario leaders call "service Saharawi "  benefitted from "positive discrimination", he is proud of this distinction.

   Quickly appointed minister and elected deputy mayor of Laayoune, the Reguibi of Majesty had to confront the powerful interior minister. "I knew nothing about interanl struggles and balance of power in Morocco, says he. So, faced with Basri, I had little chance of winning. He will stand ten years, until his dismissal in 1992. "I was in total war against Basri," he says today. He wanted to exploit the Sahara to conduct his own policy. It was his estate, his stronghold. For  Saharawis, it was time of the contempt and lies. From Laayoune to Dakhla, Basri was the king. Everyone came to express him allegiance. Except me, never. "

   Khalihenna said he talked to Hassan II on four occasions during the 1980s, to free Sahrawi prisoners from the prison at Kalaat Ngouna - they were about three hundred, imprisoned in vile conditions because of their sympathy for the Polisario. "Every time, the King said yes. And then, Basri intervened so that nothing would change. " the same for autonomy that the minister, according to him, would have "systematically sabotaged."

   In the late 1990s, while Khalihenna was a deputy mayor of Laayoune with virtually no power, the situation in Western Sahara was on the verge of implosion. Tribes against tribes, Sahrawis against "settlers" from the north, the omnipresence of the police: the territory was under state of emergency. The divide between local and central government was profound. The pressure and exasperation were so strong that on, July 23, 1999, with the death of Hassan II, the storm broke out. In September-October, there was a true spontaneous intifada sweeping cities under Moroccan administration. Everyone, even Polisario, which had nothing to do with it, was surprised by the magnitude of the challenge. Rioters rejected the Basri system. Incipient civil war between Sahrawi and Moroccan residents from the north was narrowly avoided. Khalihenna held forty meetings in two weeks, during which he openly denounced the Minister of Interior. But it was not until the minister's dismissal, November 9 that things calmed down. "for Sahrawis, Basri's departure was seen as a liberation, explains Khalihenna. His Majesty measured the whole extent of the problem: Morocco was on the verge of losing its Sahara. "

   Everything changed with the enthronement of Mohammed VI. Voices raised, the administration underwent a complete change and the Sahara revised its dark past. Through the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER), where public meetings were well attended, but also through NGOs that were present everywhere, the Internet and cell phones that allow to communicate with the brothers in the Tindouf camps, The Moroccan Sahara experienced its first "happy life." But there was a setback. If the old order was gradually disappearing, the Kingdom did not have a future project for its "Southern Provinces". Result: the separatist ideas rushed into the vacuum left by the departure of Basri.

   Tracts and Polisario flags appeared, cells of young radicals were organized more or less directly with the camps of Tindouf. In May 2005, a handful of pro-independence activists openly organized riots in Laayoune, during which the Moroccan flag is burned. The punishment was severe. For Mohammed VI, this was a warning: it is urgent to provide a political alternative to Sahrawis - which can only be autonomy - and a representative body was charged with developing its form and substance. This will be the Corcas, the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs, created last March 25. 

 To chair this body composed of one hundred forty-one members from all parts of Saharan society, the name of Khalihenna emerged immediately. Surely, the man does not make the unanimity : his sometimes sinuous history, property attributed to him, his "control" over Laayoune are among the criticisms heard here and there. He defends himself with vigor: "I'm not a businessman, I have no fishing license or sand pit, like some people. Admittedly, my brother, who is an MP of Laayoune, is a trader, but he is far from being the richest man in the Sahara. All this are lies peddled since the time of Basri. "Financially very comfortable, Khalihenna would, according to him, have never touched the" business ". Duly noted. But the important thing is not there. The man is a great dignitary from a "great tent" of the Saharawi largest tribe. Above all, he has been for thirty years in favour of the autonomy proposal which is now the Moroccan solution to the puzzle of Western Sahara. So many reasons that make him necessary.

Indeed, when insisting a bit, Khalihenna is no longer asked to become the future president of the Sahara autonomous region - a type of Catalan autonomy which would leave to the central government only national defense, foreign affairs and currency. Turning of events, must think the man that the Spaniards had chosen, 25 years ago, to become head of state ...

 

Which autonomy? And with whom? Chairman of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs answers Jeune Afrique.

JEUNE AFRIQUE: why are you against a self-determination referendum in western Sahara?

KHALIHENNA OULD ERRACHID: because it would be necessary to organize one not only in Moroccan Sahara but also in Algeria, Mauritania and Mali, wherever Sahrawi tribes live. We are a bit like the Kurdish people. We live at the crossroads of four countries.  Otherwise, the region’s frontiers would change to set up a Sahrawi land from Tan-Tan to Tindouf and from Zouérate to Taoudenni.

How do you consider Polisario Front activists?

Like brothers and cousins. They are people whom I respect. They are authentic Sahrawis. The reasons why Polisario was founded are mainly based upon the behaviour of the Moroccan administration then. Therefore, they were understandable and sincere. Nowadays, Polisario should make a historic choice: whether to come back to the country within the framework of a genuine autonomy or to stay in Tindouf camps forever.
 
Would you accept to govern with Abdelaziz, SADR chairman?

Absolutely, Abdelaziz is welcome here. His father is a member of CORCAS and his brothers live in Laayoune. He himself was born in Marrakesh. Let him preside autonomy, why not? He should know that this project is the maximum that Sahrawis can get.

Which autonomy?

We are working on it, but I can tell you that it will be specific to Sahara, i.e. not applicable to the rest of Morocco. Sahrawis themselves will deal with political, economic, social and cultural affairs without breaking the link, the umbilical cord which has always linked us to the throne.

Do not forget that, for Sahrawis, the attachment to the king has always transcended and, in reality, surpassed the law, i.e. the administration.

Is Algeria an obstacle?

Some people approve it, but I cannot permit myself to believe it. I believe Algeria when it says that it doest not interfere in the conflict. When it says that has nothing to claim and nothing to give, I accept it. I thank it for having taken care of our camps brothers for all these years. It is up to us today to help our great neighbour resolve the problem, with required dignity.

In other words?

Sahrawis living in refugee camps should come back after being convinced that all their legitimate claims are satisfied. All, except one: independence. Neither independence under foreign trusteeship nor simple and mere integration with Morocco, but an enlarged autonomy within the framework of a modern democratic project. There is no other solution.

 

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