Hello

I am here to open your eyes a bit about the real situation in Morocco and the dirty strategies that Morocco regime made before the international community and its no respect to Arabian powers and didn't lesson to anyone and do what it want witch make it an unbearable country and put it to such as level of extreme problems with many countries especially it's neighbors Western Sahara in the south, Algeria in the east and Spain in the north. Moroccan regime lead it's people to a very dangerous situation that this regime is responsible for : From the complete absence of democracy and freedom. Before starting i think this nice website for giving me the opportunity to contribute and militaryspot.com deserves the successful continuation in this way.



Freedom, this statement that I summarized in: give the person the right to express his views freely in all sorts of considerations , in my opinion is the key to having a normal human life, able to think and interact with each other and made an effort whether this effort is large or small but seeks to resolve if it encounters problems in his life without depriving others of rights to think freely and live freely. Freedom is a fundamental statement stronger that anyone has to understand and respect.



With all responsibility and objectively, In Morocco imagine that there's no confidence to anyone, here just a very few examples that happens each day!

- Women can't dress up their jewelry, because the perpetrators and the criminals are enormous, I give an example by example in all major cities, the Moroccan police does nothing and some time using these aggressors as they cooperate with them in share there gains. Moroccans guys are very known psychologically with there sexual troubles, i can't determine how mush sexual aggressions made by those wolves and the number of victims ... Anyone is choked of how mush enormous catastrophe in moroccan journals and you have to read them and watch your self what really happens. Some are victims of racism acts made by moroccans over European citizens because some insane moroccans has the ideology that it's Europe who causes there problems i give just a few week one Belgium and his wife was killed after made sexual aggression over it's wife.

Killing of the European Commission official in Rabat

Last week, an American was murdered too, unfortunately i didn't find an article for that on the net.

- In morocco, even what Moroccans call festivals didn't works at all ... Please just read the following :
Morocco: 11 killed in stampede at concert

- CRIME:

Crime in Morocco is a serious concern, particularly in the major cities and tourist areas. Aggressive panhandling, pick-pocketing, purse-snatching, theft from occupied vehicles stopped in traffic and harassment of women are the most frequently reported crimes. Criminals have used weapons, primarily knives, during some street robberies and burglaries. These have occurred at any time of day and night, not only in isolated places or areas less frequented by visitors, but in crowded areas as well. It is always best to have a travel companion and utilize taxis from point to point, particularly at night and when moving about unfamiliar areas. Residential break-ins also occur and have on occasion turned violent, but most criminals look for opportunities based on stealth rather than confrontation.

Women walking alone in certain areas of cities and rural areas are particularly vulnerable to harassment from men. Women are advised to travel with a companion or in a group when possible and to ignore any harassment. Responding to verbal harassment can escalate the situation. The best course of action is generally not to respond or make eye contact with the harasser.

Joggers should be mindful of traffic and remain in more heavily populated areas. It is always best to have a jogging companion and avoid isolated areas or jogging at night.

Taxis in Morocco are generally crime-free, although city buses are not considered safe. Trains are generally safe, but theft, regardless of the time of day, sometimes occurs. Avoid carrying large sums of cash and be particularly alert when using ATM machines. In the event you are victimized by crime or an attempted crime, or experience any security-related incident during your stay in Morocco, please report the incident to the local police and the U.S. Consulate General in Casablanca as soon as possible.

Fraud in Morocco may involve a wide range of situations from financial fraud to relationship fraud for the purpose of obtaining a visa. If you believe you are the victim of a fraudulent scheme, you may wish to consult with an attorney to best determine what your options are under Moroccan law. Since fraud can involve a wide range of circumstances, it is difficult to provide general guidelines on how to pursue criminal charges in these issues.


- INFORMATION FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME: The loss or theft abroad of a U.S. passport should be reported immediately to the local police and the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate. If you are the victim of a crime while overseas, in addition to reporting to local police, please contact the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate for assistance. The embassy/consulate staff can, for example, help you find appropriate medical care, contact family members or friends and explain how funds could be transferred. Although the investigation and prosecution of the crime is solely the responsibility of local authorities, consular officers can help you to understand the local criminal justice process and to find an attorney if needed.

For US citizens there is a call center a some attention, but alas bump to moroccan citizens who didn't get any help or attention from moroccan police.


Al-Qaeda thrives in the Sahara deadlock

Once only a minor concern, Al-Qaeda's presence in North Africa has grown into a threat with potential consequences for Europe and the United States. The 2006 alliance between Al-Qaeda and the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat led to the creation of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which continues to expand its presence in the poorly controlled border areas of Maghreb and Sahel countries. In 2005, the United States began a largely military initiative, the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership, and called on Algeria, Morocco, and several Sahel countries to combat terrorist networks in their midst. But the effort has borne little fruit. Algeria and Morocco could confront Al-Qaeda by mounting coordinated offensives, but relentless antipathy over the ongoing Western Sahara conflict has dogged their efforts.


What began as a messy postcolonial land squabble after the Spanish withdrawal and the subsequent Moroccan annexation of the Western Sahara in 1975 has turned into a festering 30-year conflict over the contested territory. Today, the area is still claimed by both Morocco and the Polisario Front, a rebel movement exiled in and supported by Algeria, and it has become a liability for both countries.


Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb thrives in the lawlessness of the isolated desert regions of southern Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, northern Mali, and the Western Sahara. The loose alliance appeals to disaffected youth and sustains itself by smuggling drugs and other goods and by kidnapping people for ransom. The 2003 Casablanca bombings, the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the attempted 2007 bombing of the United States Embassy in Morocco, and attacks later that year targeting the Algerian president and prime minister have all shown that the stakes are high and rising for Morocco and Algeria alike.


The international community is beginning to recognize the importance of North African security. On March 19, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos urged greater international involvement in resolving the Western Sahara dispute, calling on France and the United States in particular to help mediate. In January 2009, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed an American diplomat, Christopher Ross, as his new special envoy for the Western Sahara, a job formerly held by the Dutch diplomat, Peter Van Walsum, and the former US Secretary of State, James Baker, both of whom ran into familiar patterns of intransigence. Ross inherits an unenviable portfolio; Morocco remains as unlikely as ever to agree to a referendum that offers independence for the territory, and the Polisario and Algeria will settle for nothing less.


To date, the United Nations proposals have all been unsatisfactory to at least one of the three parties. The proposed UN referendum on independence signed in 1991 died when the Polisario and Morocco disagreed over who in the Western Sahara should have the right to vote. In 2001, Morocco signed on to the first version of the Baker plan, under which the Western Sahara would become an autonomous region of Morocco, but Polisario and Algeria predictably rejected the plan. In 2003, Baker revised the plan to include autonomy and a referendum of the entire Western Saharan population, including the Polisario-aligned refugees in camps in Algeria. Algeria and Polisario signed on, as did the UN Security Council, but without Morocco's cooperation the deal fell through. Today, Morocco offers "greater autonomy" for Western Sahara, but without any concrete details.


A fifth round of UN-sponsored negotiations is expected, but promises little immediate progress. In a recent interview with an Algerian newspaper, Polisario leaders threatened to return to armed resistance if Morocco tried to obstruct UN efforts. Yielding to Algerian and Polisario demands would be extremely unpopular among Moroccan nationalists. Similarly, Algerian moderates find themselves in a game they cannot win; giving in to Moroccan demands would make them appear complicit in a colonial enterprise, not to mention losers in a regional power play.


UN envoy Ross' prospects seem poor unless he can bring Algeria to the negotiating table by making the Western Sahara part of a broader deal that would include reopening the borders between Morocco and Algeria, and even economic cooperation.


Although a solution for Western Sahara seems as far away as ever at present, the international community's need to control the rapidly degenerating situation in the Sahel and resulting terrorist threats might eventually change the dynamics. With their internal sovereignty already in question, Algeria's leaders should be mindful that it is not in their interest to have a failing state on their border. And Morocco should realize that the Polisario challenge to traditional notions of territorial integrity might no longer be the greatest threat facing the monarchy.


Intissar Fakir is assistant editor of the Arab Reform Bulletin and was previously program coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa program at the Center for International Private Enterprise. This commentary is reprinted with permission from the Arab Reform Bulletin. It can be accessed online at: www.carnegieendowment.org/arb, (c) 2009, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.


Source : Daily Star 15.04.2009


For any questions or suggestions, feel free to share and I will try up to be here to participate.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Achly,

Not sure of what the expectation is with this posting?

Advocation of the use of our military force to intercede with this countries issues and or current methods of governing itself?

the gunny, I am not sure what he is saying, I have went over this a couple of times and I don't understand what he is venting about other than the acts of some Muslims doing some weird things, I guess I am dense.

hence my response. The call for UN Forces or other forces for normal events (i.e.. people being stupid by committing suicide by train) is more than a little on the extreme side as far as I am concerned. That sort of event has to be handled internally, much like we do here when they happen. Use of force to change a culture doesn't work at all as proven by history repeatedly.

And if people want to be Muslim, let them be Muslim. Folks want to be part of a terrorist organization, let them. They'll surface or pop up in front of a gunsight at some point.

Think you for participation

Crime and Terrorism: The Role of Moroccan Immigrants In Holland, Belgium and Spain



September 25, 2008 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Bus drivers in the Dutch city of Gouda feel frustrated. They are afraid of Moroccan youths who have caused serious problems for years now. On September 14, local bus drivers decided not to drive busses through the problematic “Oosterwei" city district any longer after one of them had been robbed by a Moroccan youth who threatened to kill him with a knife. Other bus drivers had been spat at. Many bus drivers are scared to death.

There have been incidents where young Moroccans refused to pay for the bus ticket. On other occasions busses cannot pass through because the road is being blocked by Moroccans. And during the month of Ramadan Moroccans use to park their cars in front of a local butcher around 6 p.m. to do their shopping. Busses cannot pass through either. Parking prohibitions are not enforced by the police, because they do not want to upset the restive Moroccan community. Moroccans complained that the decision of the bus drivers “discriminated" them.

Quite a number of Moroccan youngsters display an extremely arrogant attitude. They tell local native Dutch living in Gouda-Oosterwei “to get the hell out of there." “You don’t belong here!" Or: “I’ll kill you, you ****ing racist!" “They act as they own the country," a local Dutch inhabitant told the Dutch newspaper “De Telegraaf." We don’t feel at home here any longer."2 Many local inhabitants are terrified. Other complain that garbage is being dumped in the streets. There is a feeling that not all Moroccans care about clean streets or the environment.

Police often fail to intervene quickly, as was clear when a camerateam was attacked after a 19-old Moroccan had been arrested. A journalist and photographer from the daily newspaper “De Telegraaf" was also attacked by an angry Moroccan mob. Native Dutch feel that the young criminals have free rein. A retired couple in the Oosterwei district says they are now living in a no-go area. Especially at night, they say, it is dangerous. “These criminals have created their own ghetto," 67-year old Willem says.3Some native Dutch are so terrified that they want to emigrate.

There are now forty officially designated “urban problem districts" (“probleemwijken") in the Netherlands. The real number of urban problem districts is much higher, though. The high crime rate in these urban districts is largely due to young Moroccans and Antillians from the Netherlands Antilles who sometimes operate in criminal gangs.

Today, Moroccan youths are even causing serious problems in smaller towns like Ede, a town with up to 40 percent Christian people. Young Moroccans were dancing in the streets when Al-Qaeda attacked America on 9/11. The most notorious urban problem district of Ede is “Veldhuizen." Here, 78-year Mrs. Hartman, a native and slightly handicapped lady, was attacked by Moroccan youths who kicked her and forcefully took her handbag away. She fell to the ground and broke her arm. It happened on September 15, 2008. The old lady is still shocked. 4 She will now leave Ede, a place where she has spent most of her life. The city authorities’ belated response was an announcement that the city would soon install cameras in Velduizen. But the authorities do not dare to take tougher measures against these criminal youths – they are afraid of being labeled as “racists." “Riotous assembly" (“samenscholing") is officially prohibited but this regulation is hardly enforced. Like elsewhere, Moroccan youths have caused problems for years in Ede. They set cars on fire, mugged people, harassed native Dutch. They frequently enjoy challenging the police.

Dutch Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst (from the Labor Party) was severely criticized after she proposed to register the ethnic origin of crime perpetrators. This still a taboo subject in the Netherlands, especially in the minister’s own Labour Party. Ter Horst, however, does not care about such sensibilities. She told a newspaper reporter that when she was doing dental research back in the 1970s she discovered that Turkish and Moroccan children had much more dental problems than other children. She wanted to introduce some kind of inquiry form. But then she was told this was "discrimination," because she was singling out a certain group. Ter Horst: “This is outrageous, don’t you think?"

Native Dutch citizens forced to leave their homes by angry Moroccans youths

There are several cases of native Dutch who were forced to leave their homes in Amsterdam and move to another part of the city after groups of Moroccan youths had frequently intimidated them. The weak city authorities hardly intervened. They should have taken tougher measures because these native Dutch people were and still are the real victims of discrimination. It was in 2003 that Ger Laan and his Dutch girlfriend decided to move to the Amsterdam district “De Baarsjes," a part of Amsterdam West where Moroccan immigrants are in the majority. One of their neighbors was a divorced Morrocan mother having five children (four boys and one girl). One of those boys served a prison sentence in 2003 but was free again in June 2004. Two of the Moroccan boys were extremely noisy. Ger Laan decided to complain about it. Another Dutch lady named Mary who was living nearby was intimidated by these Moroccan youths: “We’ll cut you throat," they told her in February 2005. Mary’s five year old son was so upset that he started crying. “They don’t mean it," Mary tried to reassure the young boy. “We do mean it, you ****ing bitch," the Moroccan youths said. Four months later, Ger Laan’s girlfriend was also intimidated. A group of Moroccan neighborhood youths tried to steal her bicycle. They showed her pornographic pictures and said: “This is what we are going to do to you. We know where you are living." Fourteen year old Murat was among them. He was one of the four sons of that divorced Moroccan mother.

Two years later, Ger’s car was stolen. The young criminals who did it needed his car, a Peugeot 106, for a burglary and subsequently dumped it in one of Amsterdam’s canals. Ger Laan reported the car theft to the police saying he suspected his neighboring Moroccan boys were responsible. It took him a great deal of trouble to convince the police that it was important to write down in the official police report that Moroccan youths were probably responsible. Later that day, another neighbor told Ger Laan that he had seen himself how 15-year old Zakariya, one of Murat’s brothers, had driven away in Ger Laan’s Peugeot. This was also reported to the police, but it took three months before Zakariya was arrested. He was free again in November 2007. In January 2008, a window of Ger Laan’s new car was smashed. Once again, Ger Laan believed Zakariya had done it. In February 2008, a group of six Moroccan youths, Zakariya among them, intimidated him right in front of his house. The police now told him they could no longer guarantee his security. In March 2008, Ger and his girlfriend moved to a safer area in the city. They deliberately informed nobody about their new address.6Terrified “refugees" in their own country, terrorized by Moroccan hoodlums.

Mrs. Bronbeek, an elderly native Dutch woman, has lived in Amsterdam West (“Geuzenveld") since 1956. She complained about Moroccan youths who misbehave during the Ramadan festivities. She claimed these youths take the sausages away from Dutch fellow schoolchildren, because Moroccans are not allowed to eat in daytime during Ramadan. Therefore, they want Dutch children to be hungry, too. Mrs. Bronbeek knew a 12-year old Dutch pupil who was called “a Christian dog" because she was wearing a cross necklace.

Robbing old ladies and attacking ambulance staff

The Amsterdam-Geuzeveld district is notorious. There were several cases of Morrocan youngsters who intimidated or even robbed defenseless old ladies. They managed to enter a local nursing home for the elderly and mentally deficient, intimidating those who lived inside as well as some of the nurses. They robbed a number of these eldery people and also tried to set the place on fire. Stolen goods from the nursery home were later sold to others – a clear indication that this youth gang had evolved into an organized crime network. Female nursing staff had been intimidated as well and they were quite terrified. As one of the nurses left the nursing home at 11:15 p.m. a man approached her and made a throat cutting gesture saying: “I’ll kill you!" It happened three times in just one week.8 (The throat cutting gesture is very common among aggressive North African immigrant youths in major European cities.)

These are not the only problems caused by Moroccan youths in Amsterdam-Geuzenveld. On Wednesday September 3, 2008, someone had stuck a knife in the body of a 15-year old Moroccan boy. After the ambulance arrived and a paramedic tried to help the heavily bleeding victim, the victim’s brother and some other Moroccan youths suddenly threatened the paramedic, saying: “You are touching our little brother. If he dies, we’ll beat you to death, too." The ambulance team quickly took the wounded Moroccan boy into the ambulance car and left. “They threatened to kill us," one of ambulance team members later said. “They are lashing out at us, calling us ****ing bastards. They are capable of killing us. We are scared. They may have had a knife." Another team member later said that someone had bitten him. “And they are our Moroccan fellow citizens," he added sarcastically. “It’s time to stop pampering them." “We were trying to safe someone’s life, and then they threaten to kill us," another ambulance team member said. One of the witnesses said it was “a Surinamese man" who stuck the knife in the body of the 15-year old Moroccan boy. “He did so three times."

Ambulance teams in Amsterdam were utterly dismayed. They decided to organize a demonstration right in the city hall where they complained to mayor Job Cohen. They said they wanted to go on strike but Cohen advised them not to. Cohen, normally a self composed and friendly man, was furious. He knew it was not the first time that angry Moroccan youths attacked ambulance crews as they were attending those who urgently needed medical help. After having talked to the demonstrating ambulance crews, Cohen said: “It is a fact that most acts of aggression against ambulance staff are primarily committed by Moroccans." “This is outrageous," the mayor continued. “It goes beyond all bounds." With these Moroccan youths in mind, he added: “Don’t you ever dare to touch those who provide assistance."

Ahmed Aboutaleb: “Send those (Moroccan) offenders who commit serious crimes to Morocco"

This is just the tip of the iceberg. What is worse, the undermanned Amsterdam police force and the indecisive city authorities are incapable of really tackling these huge problems. They refuse to take tough measures because they fear such a policy might “upset" the ethnic Moroccan community and disrupt “multicultural harmony." There was a feeling after the “ambulance incident" that mayor Cohen was just talking tough without acting tough. Many native Dutch now say that those second or first generation immigrants who are directly responsible for the process of social disintegration must be cut out. This is precisely what well integrated Dutch Moroccans like Ahmed Aboutaleb and Ahmed Marcouch are recommending as well.

All Dutch Moroccans also have Moroccan nationality. Morocco regards Moroccans living elsewhere still as Moroccan nationals, even after they have adopted the nationality of their new country. Most of these Morrocans have two passports and two nationalities. Aboutaleb, who is currently Deputy Minister of Social Affairs in the Dutch government, says that those Moroccans who commit serious crimes against the rule of law must be deprived of their Dutch nationality and sent back to Morocco. His view is not very popular in the Dutch Labor Party of which he is a member.10 Some of his fellow Dutch Moroccans call Aboutaleb a traitor. He is anything but a traitor. Ahmed Aboutaleb is an excellent example of those Moroccan immigrants who work hard and serve their new country quite well. Aboutaleb’s philosophy is simple: Those youngsters who do not want to work (and many of them are Moroccans), are not entitled to welfare money.

Another example is Ahmed Marcouch, a close ally of Aboutaleb in the Dutch Labor Party. Marcouch said in an interview that Moroccan frequent offenders (“onverbeterlijke Marokkaanse lastpakken") should be sent to Morocco for a certain period of time to be taught discipline there.11 Marcouch does not hesitate to rebuke Dutch Moroccan fathers, saying: “Why are you staying here when you don’t like the Netherlands and infect your children with all those anti-Dutch sentiments?"12

Another Dutch Moroccan, Farid Azarkan, says: “The time of pampering is really over now." 13 Finally, Dutch Moroccan Labor Party MP Samir Bouchibti says that Dutch Moroccans should now stop to just blaming others. “It is necessary to complain about discrimination, but let this not be an excuse for escaping responsiblity for your own actions." 14 Those voices must not be ignored. These well integrated Dutch Moroccans know their own culture. They know that a soft approach - “pampering" does not really help, on the contrary such an approach will make the problem much worse.

Behaving as if they are above the law

About 42 percent of the Dutch Moroccans are unemployed. Many second generation Moroccans (62 percent!) in Amsterdam do not finish school. A high percentage of them are involved in crime. 15 The costs of integrating these people into society are enormous. The Dutch government plans to spend some two billion euros to deal with the so-called “urban problem districts." But it will take ten years before any results can be shown. 16 In Amsterdam alone millions of euros were reportedly wasted on all kinds of Moroccan “youth-projects" which never produced any results.17 This so-called “pampering" of criminal youths had an adverse effect on their behavior. They increasingly begin to behave as “little princes" feeling they are above the law and do not need to care about the authorities any longer.17

An increasing number of these young Moroccans now evolve into seasoned criminals. The Amsterdam police are worried about those who started as petty criminals some five years ago, but are now operating on a nationwide scale and have joined the real underworld. “They are used to huge amounts of money and violence," says Willem Woelders, former chief of the Amsterdam criminal police. Woelders describes these Mococcan criminals as successors to Willem Holleeder, a leading figure in the Dutch underworld. He fears they could become the new leaders of the underworld. 20

Former Amsterdam police chief Joop van Riessen writes about a criminal network of young Moroccans in Amsterdam who were involved in 50 robberies and 24 other major crimes. They were operating on a nationwide scale for at least ten years until April 2006 when eight members of the gang were arrested. All of them were not older than 30, some of them were still in their early twenties.21 In his memoirs Van Riessen complaints about local politicians and judges who naively underestimate what is known as the “multicultural underworld." There was a tendency to see so-called “ethnic criminals" as victims of discrimination (“slachtofferdenken") who needed help. They should not be punished, on the contrary, society must have pity for such victims (“zieligheidscultuur").22 The first to launch the term “multicultural underworld" was Dutch criminologist Frank Bovenkerk who also published a major study on the Turkish mafia. Bovenkerk, an authority on crime and migration, claims that the “multicultural societal project" is successful at least in one area, namely the underworld.23

In April 2008, Amsterdam police rounded up a network of young Moroccan criminals who were involved in drug trafficking, car theft, armed robberies and picket pocketing. Members of the gang did not even hesitate to intimidate individual police officials.

Intimidating police officials is not an isolated case. Other Moroccan youths also intimidated Amsterdam policemen by damaging their private cars, harassing them when they were shopping or calling them at home.

Most hard-core Moroccan criminals are involved in drugs, prostitution and armed robberies. In the city of Maastricht, the capital of the southern province of Limburg, Moroccan “drug runners" harrass foreign tourists by aggressively trying to sell drugs to them. Between October 2007 and May 2008 police confiscated 67 vehicles and lots of cocaine and cash money. Most of the “drug runners" live in Rotterdam, Utrecht and Gouda. In these cities Moroccan mafia families run the criminal drug market of Maastricht. They hire those young criminals known as “drug runners." They operate in Maastricht and Limburg because this is a border region visited annually by some 4 million “drug tourists," 4000 per day, that is. The local overburdened police force is incapable of really tackling this huge organized crime problem. Those drug runners who are arressted are quickly replaced by others. And all to often these people possess arms. They ussually ignore the police’s prohibition order to enter certain city districts and display an arrogant attitude. They are not at all afraid of the authorities and in court they invariably deny they were involved in any crime.24

The same applies to those young Moroccans who are involved in prostitution. You can easily recognize them near the Red Light districts of Dutch and Belgian big cities where they often drive expensive cars. Many of these pimps are known as “lover boys." A “lover boy" seduces a young (sometimes minor) native Dutch woman by giving her presents and pretending to be her friend. Once his victim has fallen in love with him and is dependent on him, he will begin to make a special request to his “girlfriend": Would she now be willing to make some money for him? Sooner or later the “lover boy" forces his female victim into prostitution. He usually does not hesitate to intimidate, beat and threaten her if she refuses to comply with his wishes.

Some 40 percent of the “lover boys" are Moroccans. Nearly half of the “lover boys" are Caribbeans from the Netherlands Antilles or the Dominican Republic. Most of these criminals operate in big cities like Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Groningen. A native Dutch family in Rotterdam wanted to move to another city after highly aggressive “lover boys" had successfully targeted their teen-age daughter Patricia. For some reason, police often fails to arrest these “lover boys." Meanwhile, their victims sometimes have to flee to other cities or city districts because they are terrified of these criminals.

In July 2007, a Moroccan lover boy named Abdessamad was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He frequently tortured and raped his victim, a Dutch teen-age girl. One of the cruel things he did to this defenseless girl was causing small knife injuries and then pouring vinegar and chlorine into the wound. When she became pregnant he subjected her to forced abortion. She was not his only victim. Abdessamad was not in Holland during the trial, so he was sentenced in absentia.25 He is probably in Morocco now. The fake of Moroccan government didn't made anything to stop crimes over people in this country and everyone remain afraid at home and outside, because the head of government knew that crimes is the only way those moroccans can do because there's nothing else and because the families of the richness people in moroccan government are not in danger because they're secured so bump to other people... this is how this dirty regime think.

Involvement of young Dutch Moroccans in radical movements or terrorism

The radicalization of young Dutch Moroccans, especially their interest in so-called “Salafism" (ultra-orthodox Islam), is a matter of growing concern. At least 15 percent of the Moroccan mosques are visited by Salafist preachers and each time hundreds of susceptible young Moroccans are listening to these hate clerics.26 Dutch anthropologist Martijn de Koning wrote a highly interesting study on the “search for ‘pure’ Islam" by young Dutch Moroccans. In the city of Gouda, for example, many young Moroccans now identify themselves with this kind of Islam. Some of them reject “Western democracy" and believe in violent jihad (holy war).27

Amsterdam, with its Moroccan immigrant community of 65,000, is considered a hotbed of Muslim extremism. 28 It was in Amsterdam that the so-called “Hofstad Group" originated. It was in Amsterdam, too, that a Dutch Moroccan named Mohammed Bouyeri, founder and leader of the Hofstad Group, killed Dutch columnist and film maker Theo van Gogh on November 2, 2004. The Hofstad Group largely consisted of radicalized young Moroccans some of whom were illegal immigrants. The members of the group frequently met in Bouyeri’s small house in Amsterdam West.

After the killing of Theo van Gogh there were major terrorist trials against Bouyeri, the Hofstad Group and another group called “Piranha." I was present at all these trials. Bouyeri got a life sentence in July 2005. Nine members of the Hofstad Group were convicted in March 2006. Defense lawyers argued that the group was not a terrorist organization but simply “an innocent group of friends" who enjoyed having cosy chats with each other in Bouyeri’s house. But five members of the group possessed arms, and one does have arms just for the sake of innocent friendships or cosy chats.

Belgium

What has been said about the problems caused by a relative high number of Moroccan immigrants in Holland also applies to Moroccan immigrants in Belgium who are over represented in the crime statistics. Here, too, many young Moroccans turn to radical Salafist Islam. Moroccan and other North African youths in Brussels and Antwerp harass and intimidate native Belgian women and female tourists. Some of them are also involved in drug trafficking, prostitution and violent muggings. Native Belgians are now a minority in some urban problem districts of Brussels and Antwerp and often they are scared.30 In order to prevent major violent riots police are often afraid to arrest these youths who have actually taken control of whole neighborhoods. In Belgium, too, North African youth gangs evolve into seasoned criminal networks causing a great deal of damage to society. There is, for example, a trigger happy Belgian Moroccan named Nordin Ben Allal, an extremely dangerous and armed criminal who escaped from prison four times. The last time was in October 2007 when four other armed criminals hijacked a helicopter and landed on the prison’s interior square. In court Ben Allal always denied he was involved in violence, even when there was conclusive proof that he had gunned down two policemen in 2004. Ben Allal was involved in at least sixty burglaries and armed muggings.31

Muslim radicals and Salafists are on the march, too. There are now parallel societies where sharia law is being enforced and polygamy accepted as a normal pattern of behavior. During Ramadan, imams call on the believers to donate money for the jihad, the armed struggle against the unbelievers. It looks as if the Afghan Taliban and their totalitarian fascistic ideology have taken over certain neighborhoods. Women are forced to wear Saudi Niqabs or even Afghan Burka’s. Radical Salafist Muslims want to establish their Islamic Kingdom in Belgium here and now.32

Moroccan youngsters have been recruited for the jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2005/2006, 13 members of the Al-Qaeda linked “Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group" (GICM) were on trial in Belgium. Prosecutor Bernard Michel said this terrorist cell supplied other jihadists with forged identity papers and money, thus enabling them to travel to Iraq or Afghanistan. Other Moroccan immigrants in Belgium were involved in the preparation of terrorist attacks in Europe. One of them was Abdelmajid Bouchar, a prominent GICM member who was involved in the commuter train bombings in Madrid on March 11, 2004. Moustapha Lounani, a GICM member in Schaarbeek (Brussels), Belgium, had been trained by Al-Qaeda and was also connected to the Madrid bombings.33 Schaarbeek is a hotbed of extremism and crime. In Lounani’s home police found a “testament" saying he left 5000 euros to those who fight. Lounani was also in touch with Hassan Al-Haski and Youssef Belhadj who were equally linked to the Madrid bombings.34

The first female suicide bomber in Iraq was a Belgian Muslim convert named Muriel Dugauque (“Oum Abderrahman"). She and her Moroccan husband Issam Goris traveled to Fallujah, Iraq, in 2005 where they were contacted by members of the Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi network (“Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers").35The man who coordinated the suicide trip to Iraq was a Tunisian immigrant named Bilal Soughir. A Belgian court sentenced Soughir to ten years in prison in January 2008. The court said: “Soughir created one of the most dangerous terror groups known in Belgium. Using all means at their disposal it was their intention to wage civil war in Iraq. With indiscriminate force they sought to help a Sunni minority to attain power. They meddled into a conflict which was not their own. They want to go to paradise. In their view, this is only possible if they die as martyrs."36 Defense lawyers lamely claimed that those on trial were “liberation fighters" who fought the “American occupation" of Iraq.

Spain

Moroccan criminal networks in Spain primarily focus on illegal immigration, drugs and passport forgery. Northern Morocco is still a major producer of cannabis. Whole village populations are involved in cultivating cannabis. In 2003, the United Nations estimated that the total amount of money involved in Morocco in the year 2002 was about 37.3 billion dollars.38 There has been a steady increase in production since. The government is unwilling to really stop the cultivation of cannabis because they also profit from this officially illegal activity. Spain is a major transit route for illegal transfer of Morrocan cannabis to other European countries.

Moroccan mafias heavily depend on a support network provided by Moroccan immigrants in Spain. More than one third of those arrested in connection to the illegal cannabis/hashish trade in Spain are Moroccans.39 In April 2008, Spanish police confiscated 16,000 kilos of hashish. The number of arrests made was 63, one-third of them being Moroccans. 40 In 2007, some 390,000 kilos of hashish were confiscated. Police suspect that the drug mafia organizations developed a new strategy: they now send huge numbers of illegal immigrants in small boats so that the police and the coast guard are too busy with handling these immigrants and can no longer focus on the illegal transfer of drugs to the Spanish mainland. Anti-narcotic police officials now even have to admit they are fighting a lost war.40 In Italy police are facing the same kind of problems.

In Spain 31.4 percent of the imprisoned Islamists proceed from Algeria and 39.7 percent are of Moroccan descend.41 These are staggering figures. Spanish police and security services are worried about the growing influence of radical movements like “Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" and other so-called “jihadist Salafists" who seek to “liberate" the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in North Morocco as well as Southern Spain (“Al-Andalus") or even the whole Spanish peninsula.

The bulk of those who were involved in the terrorist attacks on commuter trains in Spain on March 11, 2004, were Arab and Moroccan immigrants. A keyrole was played by Jamal Zougam who was one of the terrorists who laid the bombs in the commuter trains bound for Madrid during the morning rush hour of March 11. He also provided the cell phones used to detonate these devastating bombs (nearly 200 people were killed). Zougam was born in Tangiers, Northern Morocco, in 1973. He was twelve years old when his mother left Morocco for Spain. He grew up in Spain and adopted a Western lifestyle. It was around around the turn of the Millennium, however, that he began to befriend radical Islamists. During visits to his home town of Tangiers, Zougam came under the influence of Mohammed Fizazi, a notorious hate cleric who also preached in the “Al-Quds Mosque" in far away Hamburg, Germany, a mosque which was frequented by Mohammed Atta (the 9/11 operational suicide commander). Fizazi’s movement of “Salafist Jihad" would play a key role in the attacks in Casablanca in March 2003. Zougam also befriended Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas (“Abu Dahdah"), a Syrian immigrant who was the leader of Al-Qaeda in Spain. In the Madrid district of Lavapiés, Zougam run a telephone shop which specialized in manipulating stolen cell phones and providing forged identity papers to illegal immigrants.42

A key role in the March 11 attacks was further played by Hassan el Haski (“Abu Hamza"), the leader or “emir" of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), which was also very active in Belgium. The March 11 attacks were partly carried out by GICM members. El Haski was handling vast amounts of money.43 Morocco requested Spain to temporarily hand over El Haski to try him in Morocco for his possible role in the attacks in Casablanca. In 2004, Spanish National Court judge Baltazar Garzón had El Haski arrested because he, too, believed the latter was involved in those attacks. Various key witnesses then described El Haski as “a top leader."

Concluding comments

Certainly not all Moroccan immigrants in Europe are involved in crime or sympathize with radical Islamist groups. Many Moroccans are loyal citizens of the country they emigrated to. A relatively high proportion of Moroccan immigrants, however, are not very well integrated into Western society. Even after twenty or thirty years, many first generation Moroccan immigrants still do not speak any European language. Some of them are still illiterate. It is relatively often that their children get involved in (petty) crime or begin to embrace radical Salafist Islam. In addition, quite a lot of male Moroccans prefer to marry family members or a woman from their village in Morocco. Marriages between niece and nephew are not uncommon. These Moroccan brides arrive Europe in vast numbers, posing a new burden on society. The new immigrants are not integrated and do not speak the local language. Many of these marriages end in divorce. The most problematic group are North Moroccan Berbers. Northern Morocco is also an area where most of the cannabis is being produced.

This kind of continuous immigration must be stopped. Moreover, those Moroccan immigrants who seriously and frequently misbehave must be sent back to Morocco. This is not a viewpoint embraced by just a few “xenophobes" or “racists." Well integrated Moroccans in Holland now say the same thing – and they know their own culture better than anyone else.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Achly,

Hmmmm, change in that nation must come from within. In short, it isn't going to happen in internet forums.

Achly

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5431.htm

99.99% is Muslim. Jewish 4000 and Christian less than a thousand. To cap it off Morocco is a Constitutional monarchy. I wouldn't bank on the UN for anything except collective idiocy. This is just a Military boardroom.

Western Sahara : Is for Morocco! Post Edited 07/28
The state of Western Sahara or Sahrawi Republic lies along the coast of West Africa between Mauritania to its south and east, and Morocco on its northern border, and forms part of the West African region.

The country, whose political future is still to be finalised, is Africa's last colony to gain independence after a long struggle. Formerly the Spanish colony of Rio de Oro, Western Sahara was annexed by both Morocco and Mauritania when Spain withdrew in February 1976. After Mauritania withdrew from the territory in August 1979, it was incorporated into and administered by Morocco. However the Polisario Front liberation movement continued its struggle to end all foreign occupation of its country. It formed a government-in-exile in 1976 and declared the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). In November 1984, the Polisario Front's SADR was recognised by the Organisation for African Unity leading to the withdrawal of Morocco from the OAU in protest. In May 1991, the Polisario Front and Morocco ended many years of fighting following a UN sponsored peace settlement. The final future of the state of Western Sahara will be settled when the forthcoming UN-supervised referendum is held in which the country's inhabitants must choose between independence or integration with Morocco.

The capital is El-Aaiun (La'youne) and the official language is Arabic. The local currency is the Moroccan dirham (DH).

The Sahrawi Republic has potential deposits of oil, natural gas, uranium, iron and phosphates.

Agriculture includes fruit, vegetables, camels, sheep and goats.

Fishing holds potential for development.



The Western Sahara Dispute (1983), provides important background information on the territory and discusses the evolution of the conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s and its wider diplomatic ramifications. Tony Hodges, Western Sahara: The Roots of a Desert War (1983), deals with significant people, places, and events in the territory and surrounding areas from prehistory to the early 1980s. John Mercer, Spanish Sahara (1976), is among the only English-language books to extensively research the more obscure aspects of Western Saharan history, concluding its coverage in the mid-1970s, prior to the eruption of armed conflict over the region’s status. Anthony G. Pazzanita and Tony Hodges, Historical Dictionary of Western Sahara, 2nd ed. (1994), describes and analyzes most of the cultural, historical, and economic aspects of Western Sahara. Anthony G. Pazzanita (compiler), Western Sahara (1996), deals with major books and articles on Western Sahara across many academic disciplines, including anthropology and international law. Lynn F. Sipe, Western Sahara: A Comprehensive Bibliography (1984), lists a wide array of books, articles, and media coverage. Virginia Thompson and Richard Adloff, The Western Saharans: Background to Conflict (1980), provides a broad historical and sociological introduction to the region and its people. Michel Vieuchange, Smara: The Forbidden City, ed. by Jean Vieuchange (1933, reprinted 1987; originally published in French, 1932), is a vivid firsthand account of the author’s arduous journey from southern Morocco to Western Sahara just before the establishment of Spanish colonial rule over the interior of the territory in 1934.


boundary dispute ( in international relations (politics): Regional crises )

...than one of some other nationality or race. What was more, the respect shown by African governments for international boundaries began to break down after 1970. Spain’s departure from the Spanish (Western) Sahara was the signal for a guerrilla struggle among Moroccan and Mauritanian claimants and the Polisario movement backed by Algeria. The Somali invasion of the Ogaden, Libyan...

independence movement led by Polisario Front ( in Polisario Front (political and military organization, North Africa);

politico-military organization striving to end Moroccan control of the former Spanish territory of Western Sahara, in northwestern Africa, and win independence for that region. The Polisario Front is composed largely of the indigenous nomadic inhabitants of the Western Sahara region, the Saharawis. The Polisario Front began in May 1973 as an insurgency (based in neighbouring Mauritania) against...
in history of western Africa: The formation of African independence movements )

...way to preserve its interests in Equatorial Africa was to grant independence to its people without preparing them for it. The result was chaos. Potential phosphate riches led Spain to hold on to the Spanish Sahara, however, until the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, and growing pressure from Morocco led to agreements by which, in the...

policy of Hassan II ( in Hassan II (king of Morocco) )

In the struggle between Morocco and Algeria over Spanish Sahara (later Western Sahara), Hassan strongly promoted Morocco’s claim to the territory, and in November 1975 he called for a “Green March” of 350,000 unarmed Moroccans into the territory to demonstrate popular support for its annexation. Western Sahara was in fact...

* mineral resources of the Sahara ( in Sahara (desert, Africa): Resources )

...Algeria possesses several major deposits of iron ore, and the reserves at Mount Ijill, in western Mauritania, are substantial; less extensive deposits have been found in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Western Sahara, and Niger. Near Akjoujt, in southwestern Mauritania, lie substantial quantities of copper ore; extensive manganese deposits occur south of Béchar, Alg. Uranium is widely...

External websites :

After reading the newest website www.gaiahome.com, it appear very clearly that Western Sahara is a part of Morocco

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Achly,

A Brief History of the Territory and its People

The history of the people of Sanhaja Berber and Arab blood who inhabit Western Sahara goes back hundreds of years. In the XIth century, a confederation of tribes, the "veiled Sanhaja", formed the Almoravid State. The Almoravids were pious Sanhaja marabouts , who left the Sahara to go north where they conquered Morocco. Then there was a split; one faction returned south to the desert while the other crossed the Mediterranean, invaded Andalusia, settling in large parts of Spain, as well a in the present Maghreb. They founded Marrakesh and other centres and there was a great flowering of culture during their reign. However they lost contact with the country of their origin and their former way of life.

The direct ancestors of the present-day Saharawis were tribes which came from the Yemen in the XVth century. They crossed North Africa and eventually established themselves in the region of Western Sahara. In the following centuries there were clashes bet ween these tribes and any newcomers, for they have always been fiercely independent. The situation was stabilized in the XVIIIth century when Saguia el-Hamra became known as the "Land of Saints", a centre of learning and holiness, which attracted people in search of instruction from far and wide.

Because of the low, irregular rainfall, the region was inhabited exclusively by nomadic tribes. They lived by pasturing animals and growing crops where possible. Their religion was that of Islam, their law was based on custom and the Koran. Ethnically and culturally distinct from the populations around them, they moved across the desert on more or less regular routes, dictated by seasons, wells, waterholes. They knew no frontiers.
Towards the end of the XVIth century, the Sultan of Morocco, Ahmad al-Mansour, sent an expedition to conquer Timbuktu. His motivation was economics: the desire for salt, with which to purchase gold and silver. This expedition, which followed the regular caravan route, had a great influence in the region. However, it turned out to be ephemeral, the descendants quickly becoming absorbed in the local population. For slightly over a century Timbuktu paid tribute to Morocco, then this came to an end. There were connections over the centuries: religious, cultural and personal ties, but they were sporadic and did not at any time constitute ties of territorial sovereignty between Moroc co and Western Sahara.

This can clearly be seen from the terms of the Treaty of Marrakesh signed in 1767:
«His Imperial Majesty (of Morocco) refrains from expressing an opinion with regard to the trading post which His Catholic Majesty (of Spain) wishes to establish to the south of the River Noun, since He cannot take responsibility for accidents and misfortun es, because His domination does not extend so far... . Northwards from Santa Cruz, His Imperial Majesty grants to the Canary Islanders and the Spaniards the rights of fishing without authorizing any other nation to do so."

Saharawi society, like many others in Africa at that time, was a tribal society, but it had some specific characteristics. For example, it was governed by an Assembly of Forty, each of whom represented one of the Saharawi tribes (this, in contrast with its neighbours, for example Morocco, where there was a hereditary monarch with absolute powers, or Mauritania, where it was the strongest tribe which imposed tribute on the weaker tribes and, in general, dominated them).

Each Saharawi tribe was divided into sub-tribes which had so much autonomy that a colonial historian from Spain described them as living in "complete anarchy".

During the XIXth century, relationships with Spain were mostly limited to questions concerning fishermen from the Canary Islands: in fact Spanish interest in the territory was principally determined by its desire to protect the Canary Archipelago. From tim e to time Spain was forced to negotiate with the chieftains of the area to obtain the restitution of its sailors. In 1884, to ensure its domination, Spain proclaimed a protectorate from Cape Blanc to Cape Bojador. In 1885, the Berlin Conference, which sett led the partition of Africa between the European powers, ratified this proclamation.
The Saharawis fiercely opposed the Spanish forces.

In the meantime, France had become the dominant power in North-West Africa and wished to extend its possessions still further. In 1886, negotiations were started, to define the frontiers between the French and Spanish zones. These continued until 1900, whe n the first Franco-Spanish secret treaty was signed, to be followed by further secret agreements in 1904 and 1912. There was intense resistance, also against the French penetration, which was to drive Ma al-Aineen, a chieftain of considerable prestige, fro m Mauritania into Western Sahara, where he headed a coalition of tribes from Mauritania, Wadi Dahab and Saguia el Hamra. In 1905 he asked the Sultan of Morocco to support the resistance of the tribe in the Djihad (holy war) against the invaders.

Apart from fine words, the help was limited to the delivery of a few arms. Faced with Morocco's weak opposition to the invaders (the monarch was already coming to terms with French imperialism), Ma al-Aineen, renewing the exploits of the Almoravids, turned against the Moroccan king. Marrakesh was taken, but the warriors were stopped on their march to Fez in 1910 by the French army which had already settled in Morocco (in fact the French protectorate was only signed in 1912). France, in control of Morocco, i ntensified its military offensive in Mauritania. Numerous incursions were also made into Saguia el Hamra and France took later its revenge on Sheikh Ma al-Aineen and his son, al Hiba.
The fighting continued until 1936. Since Wadi Dahab and Saguia el Hamra had, for forty years, resisted all efforts at pacification, France threatened Spain in 1934 that it would occupy these territories.

This diplomatic menace led to Franco-Spanish military cooperation to destroy the resistance movement north of Mauritania and in the whole of the "Spanish Sahara". Spain thus truly took possession of its "colony" in 1936.

The cooperation between France Spain and Morocco culminated, in 1958, in the military action known as the Ecouvillon Operation. The Saharawi fighters, who had supported the Moroccans (and also the Mauritanians and the Algerians) in their liberation struggl e against France, asked them for support in their liberation struggle against the continuation of Spanish domination. The Moroccans went through all the motions of helping the Saharawis and then betrayed them, cutting off their supplies and munitions. As a result, Spain awarded Morocco the present province of Tarfaya, south of the Moroccan frontier, which up until that time had been under Spanish domination and inhabited by Saharawis.


THE TERRITORY IN THE DECOLONIZATION PERIOD

During the 1950s and 1960s, when so many African countries began to accede to their political independence, the question of the Spanish Sahara was first on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly in 1965. The argument for the liberation of the te rritory was based - as in so many analogous cases - on the UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of 1960, the Declaration of the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. The 1965 resolution set the tone of the many resolutions subseq uently passed on the Sahara question, both by the UN General Assembly and by other international gatherings, especially the Non-Aligned Conference and the Organization of African Unity.

THE SAHARAWIS CONTINUE THEIR STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

The Saharawi people have not remained passive spectators at the invasion and bartering of their land.
After 1958, there were sporadic demonstrations against the Spanish domination, but it was in 1967 that the struggle began to take organized form with the creation of the Movement for the Liberation of the Sahara. An intensive campaign to mobilize the Sahar awi people on behalf of their independence led to a massive demonstration, in 1970, against the efforts by the colonial power to turn the Sahara into a Spanish province. The Spaniards reacted by massacring the demonstrators and dissolving the liberation mo vement.
Having understood that there was no other way out, the Saharawis decided to take up armed struggle. On 10 May 1973, the Constitutive Congress for the Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro, known as the POLISARIO Front, was held.
Shortly afterwards, the first armed action was carried out. Such actions have caused an escalation of bombardments, massacres and torture of the civilian population who have been forced to make a mass exodus to the areas controlled by the POLISARIO Front a nd over the border to Tindouf in Algeria,which has been supporting the struggle of the Saharawis for self-determination.

PREPARATION FOR THE NEW SOCIETY

Like the liberation movements in other parts of Africa, especially the former Portuguese colonies, POLISARIO has had to concern itself not only with the armed struggle, but also with the sheer survival of the population and, as such, has had to organize fo od distribution, medical assistance, the construction of schools and hospitals, literacy courses and, in general, lay the groundwork for the future liberated society.
Recognition that the POLISARIO Front does indeed represent the Saharawi people has led a majority of African States to recognize it. But the Saharawis have gone one step further. On 27 February 1976, the day the last Spanish soldier left the territory, the y proclaimed at Bir Lahlou the creation of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic. Since then the Republic has been recognized by numerous African and other States.
The Republic was proclaimed on 27 February to emphasize that the Saharawi people had affirmed their sovereignty and that it was no longer possible for a new colonisation to take place. Since then, further shape has been given to the institutions of the Rep ublic, in particular at the Third General Congress of POLISARIO, which was held in August 1976.

THE ISSUES AT STAKE

Why has what would have seemed a normal decolonization process turned into a desperate struggle for survival, both of the people and of their country ?
The main reasons are, as so often happens, economic and strategic. Western Sahara is rich in mineral deposits, especially phosphates, uranium, iron, natural gas and oil. The fishing grounds are also very rich. There are large French and Spanish economic in terests in the area, which have important strategic aspects (the oil routes).
Seen in this light it is easier to understand all the obstructions, both open and concealed, that are being put in the way of the Saharawis' struggle for self-determination. Indeed it is important to see this fight in the much broader struggle of the Third World countries for control over their own natural resources.


Geography

The Western Sahara includes Saguiet el-Hamra in the north and Wadi ed Dahab (Rio de Oro) in the south. Its area of 284 000 square Kilometers, is one tenth the size of Algeria, half the size of France and just a little smaller than Italy. It lies between the 20th and 30th parallel straddling the Tropic of Cancer. It is bordered to the north by Morocco, by Algeria to the east, Mauritania to the south-east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.

As with most African states, its boundaries are the result of agreements made among the colonial powers anxious to safeguard their interest in the region. In particular, they were defined in agreements made between France and Spain in 1900, 1904 and 1912.

The topography is mostly made up of plains and some small plateaus that rarely reach 400 meters. On the whole, the Western Sahara can be divided into three regions :

1) The northeast zone from the chain of Atlas mountains to the hills of Zemmour is a rocky desert (hamadas) with steep mountains and a pronounced relief except for a few scattered wells.

2) The second zone is made up of rivers. It includes the wadi Draa to the north and the Jat to the west. These wadis are often depressions where water gathers during the brief rainy seasons, particularly in autumn. Because of the high temperatures the water quickly evaporated and never reaches the sea. In this river zone flows the Saguiat el-Hamra (the Red Canal) whose importance lends its name to the region. Sufficient vegetation for grazing grows along its banks and at Smara, barley and corn are cultivated.

3) The third zone, the Rio de Oro, is inland and consists of flat plains, ergs and sand dunes. The ground is too permeable to retain the autumn waters and too flat to allow it to flow, hence water accumulates in the subsoil forming numerous wells. The inland landscape is quite monotonous and along the coast this monotony is only broken by the peninsulas of Dakhla (ex-Villa Cisneros) and Guera. Inland, the climate is continental with cold, dry winters while summers are extremely hot with temperatures reaching 60° (in the shade) and the coastal humidity causing fog, mist and dew. Dakhla receives a yearly average rainfall of only 45 millimeters. On the coast, vegetation and flora is abundant due to the humidity.Inland, one finds the typical flora of the steppe and desert; some locusts along the wadis and shrubs in the sandy depressions. To the south, there is little fauna and to the southeast, it is mainly fennecs, antelope and gerbils.


Living in the refugee camps

The refugee camps are situated in the western part of the Algerian desert, near the frontier between Algeria and the SADR. The are divided in 4 districts (wilaya) bearing the name of El Ayoun, the capital of Western Sahara; Smara, the sacred town; Dahla, the largest port and Aousserd, a little town in the interior of the country.

Each camp is sub-divided into 6 or 7 villages (daira), each village into 4 quarters. The organization of the camps, is almost entirely in the hands of the women. The majority of the men do not live in the camps, they are in the army.

The men, women and children of Western Sahara live here for nearly 20 years in one of the most inhospitable regions of the world. When they came to these regions, where the summer temperature rises to more than 50 degrees in the shade and in winter it is freezing cold, they did not find anything else than sand. It is solely thanks to the solid organization structure and the large feeling of solidarity, characteristic of these people, that they were able to build an organized society in this desert.

Nearly all the 20 year old youngsters were born in these camps. They did not have a great deal in handling matters and had very little to fall back on. At first, the mortality rate was very high, especially in the case of children. But thanks to a strong input on hygiene, the Sahrawi people was able to prevent epidemics and control the high infantile mortality rate. As a result of the policy adopted for dealing with food products destined for children, there are practically no longer cases of malnourishment. The greatest attention is focused on prevention by the Committee for Health Care, but treatment has also great importance. In the camps the women are trained to become assistant nurses for helping out in the dispensaries, a number of students are already being trained abroad to become nurses or doctors.

The Ministry for Health Care has continued to make progress. A new national hospital just opened. Inside the building, there are operation rooms and possibilities for giving treatments, physically as well as psychologically.

At the time of the Moroccan invasion the illiteracy rate of the Sahrawi's was 95%, a heritage from the Spanish colonisation. At present, after almost twenty years in exile, the Sahrawi's have succeeded in reversing this figure so that the number of people able to read and write is now 90%. In every village, there are creches and nursery schools, and in every province there are primary schools. For secondary education they have built two large boarding schools.

A certain number of students attend courses at universities in Algeria. Higher education has also been offered by a number of friendly countries. It is the constant aim of the Education Ministry to improve the potential of the Sahrawi population, not only to create the best possibilities in the camps, but above all to be better prepared for the reconstruction of the their own country after independence.

A great deal of attention has been concentrated on the campaign for the elimination of illiteracy. The majority of the adults have the opportunity to learn to read and write. Higher level courses result in a greater standard of education. Here it is essentially the National Union of Sahrawi Women which underlines the importance of these campaigns. The future taking part in the reconstruction and the management of their country by these Sahrawi women, depends on the possibilities of capable women. For the women, a certain number of ´schools for womenª were created. The 27th of February school was the first. Each year there are around 300 women who come with their families and their tent to the school. From September onwards, they follow a course lasting ten months: management, teaching, medical care or weaving.

For their children, there are projects for setting up creches, nursery schools and primary schools. For each tent there is a sanitary block and a kitchen which have been built to enable these women to have the possiblity of combining study and family welfare. The Olof Palme school is the first school for women to be found in a province; next year they want to start a second one.

What is relatively new, is the importance given to the Ministry of Culture. The Sahrawi people rely on songs, story telling, drawings and paintings to perpetuate their traditions and their history to the younger generations. War and the building of camps have caused a break-up in this cycle. ´Every old person dying is like a library which has dissapearedª. The Ministry of Culture wants to maximise chances given to the younger generation to become competent in this field. The Sahrawi people should be ready, after independence, to carry on the construction work using important elements taken from their own tradition and culture.

All has been done to put into motion a system for living as normal a life as possible under difficult circumstances. All the dispositions have been taken to survive for an eventual long time in the desert. At the same time, all their hopes have been founded on an eventual return to their own country.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Achly,

Q : Where Moroccan regime get money from ?
A : Cannabis, Hashish, drugs, ...

quote:

Cannabis cultivation is booming in Morocco, and European consumers are to blame.

Said Antonio Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

quote:

What are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention. If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues people, it openly arrogates itself the title of kingdom. -- Saint Augustine

Perched on the rocks between the Mediterranean and the base of Jebl Mousa, Morocco's version of the Rock of Gibraltar, is an ornate but almost psychedelic mosque. "It's a drug mosque," says a local taxi driver. "Everything here is from the drugs." Further up Jebl Mousa's cliffs you can look down on the coast and see a steady stream of high-powered boats outrunning the Moroccan authorities. The police don't have the horsepower to keep up with the drug barons' next shipment to Europe.

Driving east from Tangier along the Mediterranean coast, the signs of drug power are obvious: heavily guarded villas with strangely stylized pagodas, frequent roadblocks with police looking for the next payoff and an endless supply of young men going about their workdays in the drug business. Here in northern Morocco lurks a key challenge to the Moroccan state: a potent mix of discontent, drugs, organized political opposition and religion. Morocco's drug barons have steadily made themselves into a serious crime problem and security threat, and also major players in the Moroccan political system.

Nearly everyone outside of Morocco who follows Moroccan politics seems to be concerned with the threat of an Islamist challenge to Morocco's stability. But while the Islamist bogeyman is capturing all the attention, international drug trafficking is relentlessly chipping away at the state's power. Morocco's drug networks operate just below the surface, slowly developing and organizing in unrecognized configurations. The drug barons and the Islamists in the north draw upon the same group of discontented poor, creating possible alliances, sharing of resources and tactics. A confluence of these forces could shake the state to its core.



Image description : A woman farmer extracting cannabis plants from field in Ketama.

A Booming Drug Trade

Morocco is the world's largest hashish exporter. According to the World Customs Organization, Morocco supplies 70 percent of the European hashish market. Although statistics vary widely, hashish production is estimated to be 2,000 metric tons per year, with up to 85,000 hectares devoted to cannabis production, with a market value of $2 billion. In the mid-1990s, due to record rainfalls following drought years, European experts reported that the area under cultivation for cannabis increased by almost 10 percent (the average hectare of cannabis produces two to eight metric tons of raw plant). The rains of late 1995 and 1996 were a blessing for Morocco, ending a multi-year drought. Those same rains were also a boon to the drug trade. In Tangier, this meant more jobs in the drug trade for those who could find no other work, particularly as the tourist trade dried up with the drought. Today, the drug trade continues to grow, with areas used for cultivation spreading beyond the traditional growing areas of the central Rif to the west and south in provinces including Chefchaouen, Larache and Taounate. This growth continues despite a well-publicized campaign in 1990s to eradicate drug trafficking.

The Moroccan government's anti-drug "cleansing" campaign of the mid-1990s is instructive for both its pronounced inability to deter the drug trade's growth and what it revealed about the size and scope of the drug business. Growing drugs was briefly made legal under the French Protectorate, but was declared illegal in 1956, the year of Moroccan independence. As European tourism and drug markets expanded in the 1960s and 1970s, a huge underground market for drugs developed, which was not only allowed by government officials, but encouraged.

In the late 1980s, the situation changed. Tangier became a transit point for cocaine and other hard drugs coming from Latin America and heading to Europe. These transactions infused large amounts of cash into the local drug market. At the same time, the start of the Algerian civil war next door created a black market in small arms passing through Morocco. This mixture of weapons and money spurred intense and violent competition among drug runners in northern Morocco.

Concentration of Wealth

By 1992, a few drug barons had prevailed, concentrating an enormous amount of wealth and valuable international connections in their hands. Morocco's drug barons held a summit meeting in 1992 near the city of El Hoceima in order to coordinate further activities.1 With the stability of decreased competition and a declared truce among the drug barons, they constructed extensive networks of loyal workers within Morocco. These networks drew upon the discontented poor whose economic needs were not being met by the state, and who felt that the traditional opposition political parties were not viable channels of dissent and discontent. The numbers of Moroccans involved in drug trafficking are eye-opening: in 1996 alone, the Ministry of the Interior announced that 18,794 people were arrested for charges related to drug trafficking, surely just a percentage of those working in the drug trade. Of those arrested, only 342 were foreigners.

As the drug trade boomed, drug lords had more money to bribe security officials and corrupt politicians. Corruption does not exist as an exception to an otherwise regulated and transparent system. Instead, it goes to the very heart of the political system, and has been institutionalized by those in power. The drug barons simply availed themselves of an efficient and accepted means of doing business.

Corruption allegedly touches the very highest levels of government. The French newspaper Le Monde famously leveled the charge that drug corruption in Morocco reaches into the palace itself.2 The monarchy, however, has always been able to distance itself from the drug trade. At the same time, it turns a blind eye to the drug economy in the north -- an area King Hassan II had difficulty controlling and to which he sent limited resources. As with the political parties, which the monarchy has simultaneously encouraged and fragmented, the drug trade and accompanying corruption flourished, while the wealth was purposely spread out among many drug bosses.

Hassan II's War on Drugs

When money and power became centralized around a few drug barons, the monarchy moved against them. Too much power in too few hands presented a clear and present danger to the monarchy in a way that the small dealers hadn't. The Moroccan anti-drug trafficking campaign of the mid-1990s was also partly a response to pressure from the international financial institutions and the European Union (with whom Morocco was negotiating a Free Trade Agreement). The campaign soon reeled in two big fish: Abdelaziz El Yakhloufi and Ahmed Bounekkoub, a.k.a. H'midou Dib.

Yakhloufi was arrested in December 1995. His subsequent show trial revealed a sophisticated and massive organization with an international reach. His own organization transported hashish out of the central Rif, stockpiled it in Tetouan, shipped it to Spain by sea and then delivered to wholesalers in Amsterdam. In addition to bank accounts in Morocco, Spain, Gibraltar and Canada, along with a yacht and 15 cars, Yakhloufi boasted of personal, commercial and political ties to the Castro regime in Cuba. These ties facilitated contacts with the Colombian cocaine cartels, which craved Morocco's easily penetrable borders as distribution points into Europe. Yakhloufi was sentenced to ten years in jail and died of an apparent heart attack in 1998. "He was too dangerous -- he knew too much," said one Tangier street dealer of Yakhloufi's death.

H'midou Dib still retains folk hero status in northern Morocco. A former fisherman, he constructed his own port in Sidi Kankouch on the coast north of Tangier, which was an embarkation point for a steady stream of speedboats on their way to Europe with drug shipments. Dib constructed an enormous network of loyal foot soldiers and villagers eager to protect him. He supplied jobs, built mosques, delivered social services and kept the despised authorities at bay. Dib was also involved in complex real estate transactions in Tangier, money laundering operations and other elements of organized crime. Through their wealth and organization, Dib and Yakhloufi had become leaders of a quasi-state in the north. More than the international pressure, this presented a serious challenge to the monarchy.

"Cleansing" in Vain

Despite the high-profile arrests, the drug barons are not separate from the state. Both Dib and Yakhloufi avoided jail time in previous cleansing campaigns in 1992-1993, relying on the protection of key Moroccan officials. Only a few of these officials were investigated in the mid-1990s. Abderrahman Arbain, a member of a prominent family and head of the conservative RNI party in the Tangier neighborhood of Beni Makkada -- ground zero for drug operations in Tangier -- was arrested in March 1996 but quickly released. The Dib trial revealed other links between drug traffickers and government officials, including two advisors to former governors in the Tangier province, three civilian police colonels, the military police colonel in charge of coastal surveillance and three former chiefs of the Tangier urban judiciary and national security police services.3 Some of these officials were fired, arrested and tried, but it is clear that the cleansing campaign of the mid-1990s did little to curb the growth of the drug trade or its ties to official Morocco.

Several more recent incidents underscore the continued vitality of Morocco's drug trade. Bagged kilos of cocaine worth $2 million -- dumped off a ship being pursued by Spanish authorities -- washed ashore in Morocco. The cargo ship Volga was captured with 36 tons of hashish on board. Increasingly complex money laundering schemes involving many countries, and the use of drug funds by seemingly legitimate banking establishments, most notably Chaabi, have come to light. These revelations are clearly just the tip of the iceberg. The Observatoire Geopolitique des Drogues (OGD) notes that the Moroccan drug trade has gone industrial, integrating itself into large Moroccan firms in agribusiness, fishing, transportation and import-export operations. OGD maintains that this represents a shift away from the Tangier cartels of Dib and Yakhloufi and toward the Casablanca cartels, which are more acceptable to the government because they do not contest state power in the same way. If OGD's analysis is correct, the makhzen is predictably moving against northern interests that had grown too large and powerful to control, all the while lending succor to the industrial traffickers in Morocco's commercial centers. In this light, Hassan II's ineffectual drug war appears to be a simple diversion of the EU's attention.

The palace must have relished its attack on Dib "Dib mean wolf!", the illiterate fisherman and an ideal sacrificial lamb for Moroccans and the West. But the state didn't count on the vehement reaction of Dib's loyal followers. They love Dib because he is illiterate, because he is one of them, a poor boy made good. With no jobs, no future and no meaningful political representation in Tangier, the drug business is the only game in town. Take it away and you have an explosion.

Tangier Fights Back

Tangier's Beni Makkada has been the scene of riots and protests throughout the 1990s. In June 1996, the dislocation created by the drug crackdown and a confluence of other forces led to violence in Tangier. In Rabat, a legally unrecognized organization of college graduates without jobs organized a sit-in to call for government job creation programs. When political comedian Ahmed Snoussi tried to perform for the group on June 4, he was beaten unconscious by the police and hospitalized. The action was condemned by Amnesty International and PEN, the international writers group.

News of the attack on Snoussi quickly spread to Tangier, further inflaming a tense situation. The next day, Morocco's two largest labor unions held an unrelated general strike to press the government to raise the minimum wage. In downtown Tangier, most of the shops and businesses were closed and a boisterous but peaceful rally was held in the old city (medina). Across town in Beni Makkada, an estimated 2,000 youths went on a rampage, destroying one bank, looting another, burning cars, smashing shop windows and attacking the tax assessor's office. In addition, a national guard post was attacked. Police surrounded the neighborhood and subdued the protesters. Ninety-eight were jailed, dozens of rioters and police were hospitalized and there were reports in Beni Makkada that two rioters were killed.

Interviews and firsthand accounts indicate that those involved in the riots in Beni Makkada were young men with no legal jobs and a deep level of resentment against the government, as indicated clearly by their choice of targets -- banks, the national guard and the tax assessor. More importantly, the riots took place in the neighborhood in Tangier best known for the trafficking in drugs and contraband, and therefore hit the hardest by the government crackdown. "Why [crack down] now when we're already hurting?" asked one dealer. Many other residents indicated in interviews that the economic pressure created by the crackdown was behind the riots.

Union leaders who had called the general strike were quick to distance themselves from the rioters. "The protesters had no connection to the general strike the residents of Beni Makkada are suffering from grave social problems, which require urgent solution, but none of our members were among the rioters," said Abdelmejid Bouzouba.4 A local journalist who had previously held positions in the government echoed the theme: "There are problems in Beni Makkada, and the people are frustrated, but these were just young boys temporarily out of control. It does not mean anything more." Other Tangier businessmen and diplomats sounded the same note in conversations. But residents of Beni Makkada, and residents of a similar Tangier neighborhood called Dra Deb told a different story: "The government is hurting our business, while at the same time giving us no alternative. They are cracking down at the command of the West, because the King is their puppet. We are fighting back, and this may be just the beginning."

Drug Traffickers and Islamists

In Beni Makkada, two noteworthy anti-government networks overlap: drug traffickers and Islamists. As the region was enmeshed in the upheavals surrounding the Gulf war in 1990, riots broke out in Beni Makkada protesting the Moroccan government's decision to send troops to support the American-led coalition. Many of these riots were underscored by anti-Hassan/pro-Saddam themes articulated in terms common to Islamist movements.5 In 1996, many lectures given by self-described Islamist sheikhs (islamiyyun) were well-attended by large groups of young men who ply their trade in the drug and contraband sectors. The message from the sheikhs is clear: The monarchy, which is hypocritically un-Islamic, has entered an unholy alliance with the West to oppress the average Muslim.

This author encountered countless young men who were engaged in the drug trade at some level, but also professed close adherence to Islamist ideas, most often the ideas of Sheikh Zamzami of Tangier. Zamzami's philosophy is not so clearly politically motivated as other well-known Islamists in Morocco, but his ideas are attractive to many of the discontented in and around Tangier. He died in 1989, but his views maintain currency through the efforts of his three sons and other followers. A Zamzami theme continually sounded is that of official corruption and the exploitation of the poor by the Moroccan elite. While Zamzami's followers appear to address issues of Islamic purity and behavior in public, the subtext often casts a critical eye on the hypocrisy of the monarchy and its willingness to do the bidding of the West -- all at the expense of the Moroccan people.

Clearly, those who see H'midou Dib as a modern Robin Hood, helping the poor find work and build community in the face of oppression from Rabat and the West, are comfortable with Zamzami's world view. Drug traffickers and some Islamists share tactics -- and a deep distrust of the monarchy. "[The authorities] turned Tangier from the blushing bride of the north into a poor, dirty, homeless widow," said a well-educated but unemployed resident. "Tangier is slowly dying."

Drug traffickers, contraband smugglers, prostitution rings, the chronic unemployed, Islamists and other groups in Tangier have built up elaborate networks based on illegal commerce, political opposition, corruption and violent protest that have infiltrated the local political system and now challenge the state's power in northern Morocco. Periodic attempts to control these informal networks and their participants' activities have largely been unsuccessful, sporadically resulting in riots in Tangier by those most affected by government crackdowns on drug trafficking. Drawing upon a deep reservoir of discontent in northern Morocco, participation in these networks is increasingly attractive to those seeking economic opportunities and/or substantive changes in the current political situation, while participation in formal politics attracts few. Although informal, these networks are highly organized.

The level of organization is critical when examining a network's ability to challenge the state. Waterbury and Richards write that "all [Middle Eastern] cities are full of people who in fact are rootless or, if organized, are so in ways that enjoy no respect or legitimacy: beggars, prostitutes, dope pushers, scavengers, drifters and derelicts."6 As most Moroccans know, these people abound in Tangier. The city is abuzz with tale after tale accusing the Moroccan authorities of shipping petty criminals to Tangier from other areas of the country. In the summer, many prostitutes and street hustlers come to Tangier to seek profits from tourists and Moroccans returning from Europe. However, these elements are often not rootless, but organized through criminal rings overseen by drug barons who, like other organized crime operations around the world, are expanding their business into compatible areas. The criminal rings are seen as legitimate circumventions of an illegitimate state. Hustlers, beggars and petty criminals, when even loosely organized, can turn minor urban protests into major conflagrations, particularly in the absence of any formal political groupings to articulate grievances.

Horns of a Dilemma

King Muhammad VI sits on the horns of a dilemma: If he were to commence another crackdown on the drug traffickers, he will likely engender more violent resistance in northern Morocco in the region of Rif, Riyaffa "habitants of Rif" wants independence from morocco too as well as Saharian's want it . If he does not crack down, he will suffer the displeasure of the West, and will eventually tacitly cede a great deal of power in northern Morocco to the traffickers. He cannot currently create enough jobs in northern Morocco to adequately compete with the traffickers, while the growth of the trafficking economy detracts from the formal economy and government revenues. The use of violence against these networks will certainly cause a violent reaction, yet to allow the networks to flourish will give them further opportunity to create more international connections and gain access to more resources. The new king has made inroads in the north, with several official visits, pledges to carry out renewal projects in Tangier's medina, support projects for the poor of the north and high-profile purchases of property for royal use.

But the drugs keep flowing. In November 2000, Spanish authorities busted a Moroccan, Rachid Temsamani, bringing in 15 kilos of cocaine, 12 tons of hashish, 12 tons of cannabis resin, large quantities of ecstasy and cash. In a pattern now familiar to observers, the major drug ring headed by Temsamani used a network of contacts in Morocco and across Europe to transport large quantities of hashish from Morocco to Spain, then to Holland, where it was distributed all across Europe. More telling than Temsamani's arrest, though, were serious charges of official complicity in his operation: The head of Hassan II's royal security services, Haj Mediouri, was linked to Temsamani by the Moroccan paper Demain. The result? The paper was banned. It all sounds like business as usual.

There is no honor among thieves. The drug traffickers are not a monolithic group, and the threat of open conflict between rival barons is real. For over three decades, the monarchy has adeptly played competing political actors off one another. But Morocco's drug traffickers possess enough wealth, connections, weapons and internal networks of loyalty to render King Hassan's survival strategy obsolete. With the money at stake ballooning each year, the northern drug trafficking networks and their Islamist supporters will be in increasing competition with the industrial drug traffickers and their right-wing supporters. If Muhammad VI cannot neutralize those two factions, he may very well find himself caught in the crossfire.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Achly,

quote:

Hmmmm, change in that nation must come from within. In short, it isn't going to happen in internet forums.

Especially this one. Try Yahoo forums.