Red Pepper » Stefan Simanowitz

Determination in her heart, justice on her side

admin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:48:59 +0000

On 19 December 2009, a 32-day standoff that had been playing out on the island of Lanzarote between the Moroccan government and the hunger-striking human rights activist, Aminatou Haidar, reached its dramatic conclusion. A day that had begun with Haidar’s hospitalisation ended with the 42-year-old mother of two being flown home on a Spanish plane equipped with medical equipment. She had made no concessions, and her homecoming represented a significant victory for the Saharawi people, who have been struggling for self-determination in their native Western Sahara for more than three decades – and for the power of nonviolent protest.

Known as the ‘African Gandhi’, Aminatou Haidar staged her hunger strike very publicly in the Lanzarote airport terminal in protest at her unlawful deportation to the island by the Moroccan authorities. Flying back to Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara, from New York, where she had received the Train Foundation’s Civil Courage human rights award, she had written her address on her landing card as ‘Western Sahara’ rather than ‘Morocco’. As a Saharawi, she has never recognised Moroccan sovereignty over her native land, which has been occupied by Morocco in breach of international law for 34 years.

In the past Morocco has chosen to overlook her numerous landing-card protests, but on this occasion she was interrogated, stripped of her passport and expelled to Lanzarote, which lies less than 80 miles off the African coast.

Spain offered to give Haidar refugee status or Spanish citizenship so she could be allowed to return home, but she rejected both options on the grounds that she did not want to become ‘a foreigner in her own land’. According to Human Rights Watch, her forced expulsion breached Article 12(4) of the international covenant on civil and political rights (ICCPR), ratified by Morocco, which makes it clear that no one can be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter their own country.

In addition, by preventing her return to Western Sahara, Spanish authorities may have breached both Spanish national law and Article 2 of Protocol 4 of the European convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Article 12 (2) of the ICCPR also stipulates that everyone shall be free to leave any country.

Morocco’s hard line

Morocco took a firm line on the issue, with foreign minister Taieb Fassi Fihri insisting that Haidar had ‘disowned her identity and her nationality’ and ‘must accept, on her own, the legal and moral consequences which result from this behaviour’. The Moroccan authorities also demanded that she offer an apology for questioning Morocco’s claim to sovereignty over the former Spanish colony, a claim that has not been recognised by a single nation and was rejected by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Indeed it was the ICJ’s decision in 1975 that precipitated the mass mobilisation known as the Green March, when hundreds of thousands of Moroccan civilians crossed into Western Sahara.

With Franco on his deathbed, the Spanish had hurriedly signed the Madrid Accords, in which they agreed to divide Western Sahara between Morocco and Mauritania in exchange for continued fishing rights and partial ownership of their valuable phosphate mining interests. In February 1976, when the Spanish withdrew from Western Sahara, the Moroccans and Mauritanians occupied much of the territory, while the Western Saharan independence movement, the Polisario Front, declared the creation of an independent state. A 15-year war ensued between Polisario and the Moroccans, with the Mauritanians withdrawing in 1979. The fighting was brutal, with the Moroccans using their well-equipped army and air force to full effect but the Saharawis conducting an effective counter insurgency. In 1991 a ceasefire was declared and, under the terms of a UN agreement, a referendum for self-determination was promised.

Despite efforts by the international community, the referendum has been repeatedly obstructed by the Moroccans, who have remained in occupation of roughly three-quarters of Western Sahara. An estimated 165,000 Saharawis still live in exile in four large camps in the inhospitable Algerian desert, separated from their homeland by a 2,500-kilometre fortified barrier known as ‘the wall’.

Haidar’s deportation to Lanzarote was condemned by governments, civil society groups and human rights organisations across the world, and her hunger strike managed to raise awareness of the forgotten injustice perpetrated against her people. But as the weeks went on it seemed increasingly likely that her action might cost her life. In the early hours of 18 December, she was taken to Lanzarote general hospital after a bout of severe abdominal pain and vomiting blood. Doctors who examined her said she was severely dehydrated and expressed fears that she could be nearing an irreversible deterioration that could result in her death, even if she were to abandon the hunger strike.

Crackdown to backdown

Later the same day, news came through that the Moroccans had backed down from their demand that Haidar recognise their sovereignty over Western Sahara and apologise to Morocco’s king for having questioned it. At around 10pm, Haidar was taken on stretcher to a waiting ambulance and driven from the hospital to the airport. She boarded the aircraft with her sister and her doctor. On her arrival in Laayone her passport was returned to her and she was taken home by relatives, including her two children, where she tasted her first food for more than a month. In an interview on her arrival she told journalists, ‘I will never apologise to King Mohammed. I am waiting for him to apologise to the Sahawari people for their suffering and their torture.’

Ultimately, a combination of diplomatic pressure and the mobilisation of civil society groups around the world was responsible for persuading the Moroccans, normally inflexible on matters concerning Western Sahara, to allow Haidar to return home without making concessions. Morocco had come under increasing pressure with the involvement of UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon, France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Ironically, it had been Clinton’s visit to Morocco in November, during which she appeared implicitly to endorse Morocco’s ‘autonomy’ proposal for the Western Sahara, that might have encouraged the Moroccans to crack down on Saharawi activists, including Haidar.

After her visit, King Mohammed VI branded as ‘traitors’ anyone who questioned Moroccan sovereignty over its ‘Saharan provinces’, and days later Haidar was deported. Quiet diplomacy by the Obama administration avoided what might otherwise have been seen as a foreign policy embarrassment.

While Haidar’s return is a significant victory, the dust will have to settle before independence campaigners can assess whether it has taken them any closer to the long-awaited referendum for self-determination in Western Sahara. While the increased level of awareness will undoubtedly push the matter up the international agenda, the bitterness of the dispute will not have done anything to create the atmosphere of trust and mutual respect that the UN special envoy to Western Sahara, Christopher Ross, had hoped to foster when he met the parties for talks-about-talks in August.

In addition, the personal health and safety of Aminatou Haidar is far from guaranteed. Doctors treating her remain concerned about permanent damage to her health as a result of her hunger strike and say it will be at least two months before she regains her strength and the 10 kilos she lost in weight. There are also fears that the Moroccan authorities might dish out some form of punishment now that Haidar is back under their control. Haidar has endured more than four years of imprisonment and torture in the past. Her situation and that of other human rights campaigners remains precarious.

Yet activists around the world can take strength from Aminatou Haidar’s victory. It has shown that powerful governments, so used to using violence and repression to try to resolve conflicts, do not have a response to a solitary woman with determination in her heart and justice on her side, sitting in an airport terminal on a bench.

Stefan Simanowitz is a journalist with a special interest in human rights. He is chair of the Free Western Sahara Network and spent time with Aminatou Haidar in Lanzarote

The ones that stayed behind

admin — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:58:04 +0000

Six years ago, as the first bombs rained down on Iraq, Robin Banks, a 49-year-old music journalist from London, paced the makeshift dormitory at the Doura power station, southern Baghdad. Someone played the mouth organ in an attempt to drown out the sound of explosions while others huddled on their beds or in corridors covering their ears.

These temporary residents of the power station were among the 80 human shields who, having travelled to Iraq to try to forestall the outbreak of war, carried out their commitment to place themselves in civilian infrastructure sites in an attempt to ‘shield’ essential electricity, water and food supplies. While most people remember the story of the human shields who travelled to Iraq before the war, very few heard the stories of those shields who remained in Baghdad throughout the bombing.

The human shield movement attracted massive publicity in the months of phoney war prior to ‘operation shock and awe’. For the media the human shields added flavour to an otherwise bland diet of factual news, providing a wealth of much sought-after ‘human interest angles’. The shields ranged from retired clergymen to eco-activists and grandmothers to former Big Brother contestants, ex-diplomats and hairdressers. Indeed the only thing that the shields had in common was a yet-untested personal bravery and belief that an attack on Iraq would be a tragic mistake.

‘Call me when one of them gets killed’

The departure of a convoy of three double-decker buses from London in January 2003 was covered by every major news network in the world and even prompted White House chief of staff Andrew Card to release a statement condemning the action. Media coverage continued as the buses crossed Europe, picking-up more shields en route, and hundreds of others prepared to fly directly to Iraq.

The arrival of the convoy in Baghdad and the deployment of the shields attracted substantial media interest but as war drew nearer, it was clear that the western media were becoming more critical of the human shields. The list of sites where the shields were to be deployed were frequently described as ‘military installations’ and, while stories of shields leaving Iraq were widely reported, the fact that a large number remained and that new shields were joining them daily, was ignored.

On 3 March 2003, BBC television news ran a story on the double-decker buses leaving Baghdad, ‘filled with last disillusioned human shields’. In reality, there were a total of four people on the buses and more than 150 shields still in Baghdad. Approached with a story about shield volunteers taking up residence in a food storage facility, one newspaper journalist responded: ‘Human shields? We’re bored of them. Call me when one of them gets killed.’

At its peak the total of shield volunteers in Baghdad numbered about 500 but they were by no means a cohesive group. Stormy clashes of personality between the shields and growing tensions with their Iraqi hosts meant that the atmosphere was far from united. Sites for the shields’ deployment had not been determined prior to their arrival and it soon became clear that they would be selected by Iraqi government officials wary of infiltration by western spies. After two weeks of heated discussion, the shields were given a list of five sites and an ultimatum to ‘start shielding or start leaving’.

The sites were all civilian infrastructure facilities fully in keeping with the expressed objective of the shield group but some felt that the list compromised their autonomy. Others felt that they would rather be deployed in schools, hospitals, and orphanages. The growing realisation that war was imminent persuaded some shields such as Godfrey Meynell MBE, a former colonial officer and High Sheriff of Derbyshire, to leave out of ‘cold fear’.

Whatever their reasons, many shields departed Baghdad amid much media coverage. In contrast, the remaining shields got little coverage. A list of the deployment sites was sent to the joint chiefs of staff, together with a request that they recognise that targeting these sites would be in violation of the article 54 protocol additional to the Geneva convention. There was no response to the letters and in the early hours of 19 March, the Doura power station, home to 23 shield volunteers, was showered in shrapnel from an incoming missile.

After the war

Fortunately, none of the shields who stayed in Baghdad throughout the war were killed or injured. None of the sites where they were residing, targeted in the 1991 Gulf war, were destroyed. By contrast, the water and power plants in Basra, where there were no human shields, were hit in the first days of the war. In an ironic and tragic twist, 21-year-old human shield, Tom Hurndall, who had left Baghdad for Palestine before the bombing for reasons of safety, was shot in the head soon after his arrival by an Israeli sniper while working with the International Solidarity Movement.

Life as a shield was uncertain and terrifying. ‘There were 12 days of intensive bombing,’ recalls Banks. ‘Unless you have been in that situation before it’s hard to know how you will react to it, but you find strength in one another. We all supported each other.’ The shields emerged from their deployment sites after the end of the bombing campaign, some suffering from mild post-traumatic stress symptoms common to those in war zones. While most headed straight home, others stayed on in Baghdad to help with the reconstruction. Uzma Bashir, a college lecturer from Bradford, set up Our Home, a charity for children orphaned by the war.

Some human shields heading back to America had a further surprise. On arriving home three shields, Faith Fippinger, Judith Karpova and Ryan Clancy ,found letters from the US treasury department informing them that they were liable for fines of between $10,000 and $1 million or 12 years in prison for violating US sanctions. The sanctions prohibited US citizens from engaging in ‘virtually all direct or indirect commercial, financial or trade transactions with Iraq’. Clearly the tiny purchases made by Fippinger, Karpova and Clancy were not the type of ‘trade’ envisaged by the legislation, but this did not prevent the treasury department taking action.

Rumours of remobilising

These legal repercussions faced by the US shields demonstrate how the US government was keen to send a message to those thinking about engaging in similar forms of dissent. In a similar way the human shields who stayed in Baghdad knew their staying would not prevent the bombing but felt it was important to send out a message. By placing themselves in harm’s way the human shields forced their way into the consciousness of the world and compelled military planners to take account of a new type of collateral damage. A new generation of human shields is currently talking about mobilising for an action to Iran.

The human shield movement arose in response to a frustration at the efficacy of traditional forms of protest. Marches, petitions and candle-lit vigils remain crucial devices but are easily disregarded by politicians. New forms of protest, fuelled by the internet and social networking sites, are constantly emerging. Human shields were not an entirely new concept, but the scale and impact of the action in Iraq was unprecedented. Combining the idealism and solidarity of the International Brigades with Gandhian principles of non-violent direct action, the human shield movement is the latest in a long tradition of protest whose power lies in people’s willingness to sacrifice everything for their beliefs.

Stefan Simanowitz was a co-founder and coordinator of the human shield movement