LAAYOUNE, Western Sahara, 1 November 2005 — Moroccan police were deployed in force yesterday in Western Sahara’s main city of Laayoune, following several days of unrest in the run-up to the 30th anniversary of Morocco’s annexation of the former Spanish colony.
“A large number of police” arrived early yesterday, said Hamoudi Igulid, a local representative of the Moroccan association of human rights (AMDH).
“The situation is calm as it is Ramadan,” he said, explaining this Muslim holy month ended this week. Over the past week, skirmishes have taken place almost daily between stone-throwing teenagers and police wielding clubs to disperse the anti-Morocco protesters, and one person has died, Igulid and local residents said.
The outbreak of violent protests comes several days before the 30th anniversary of the “Green March,” launched by Moroccan King Hassan II on Nov. 6, 1975. On that date, some 350,000 Moroccans marched to the border with Western Sahara in a show of support for Morocco’s claim to the territory.
On Saturday, a young Western Saharan man, Hamdi Lambarki, died of head injuries after probably being hit with a stone thrown by the demonstrators, according to police. Witnesses, however, gave the victim’s family a different account, claiming Lambarki was knocked down by a police car and then hit on the head by the authorities.
Lambarki was taken to hospital in a coma where he died early Sunday, a police source said, adding that the prosecutor had opened an inquiry into his death. Lambarki’s death sparked a new round of anti-Moroccan protests late Sunday, Igulid said.
Police arrested a number of young people while the president of the Saharan association of human rights, Brahim Dahane, has been missing since Saturday, he added. Dahane “was arrested by the police near his home, and since then we have had no further news” about him, Igulid said.
The communications minister for Western Sahara, Nabil Benabdellah, yesterday denied that Dahane has disappeared, insisting to AFP that the state “acts in strict accordance with the law.” He did confirm that arrests were made among the protesters, notably among a “a small group pushing separatist ideas and using violence.”
Morocco annexed the Western Sahara in 1975 but its claim is contested by the Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed independence movement. Rabat dismissed the last United Nations proposal for a five-year period of autonomy followed by a self-determination referendum - the Baker Plan named after US former secretary of state James Baker, who threw in the towel in June 2004 expressing his frustration over lack of progress.
