The Sahrawi Movement for Peace (MSP) denounced the “police” intervention of the Polisario which ended with warning shots and the arrest of at least a dozen demonstrators who were protesting against the hijacking of fuels by Polisario leaders, this Saturday in Tindouf.
Since last Wednesday and consecutively throughout the week, the Polisario has not stopped intervening to disperse groups of young people who were demonstrating in Rabbouni, the organization’s administrative headquarters located about thirty kilometers south-east of the Algerian town of Tindouf. These young people had come together to peacefully protest against what they call corruption in high places.
They took it badly because the separatist movement reacted badly and behaved aggressively to disperse them. Indeed, they paid the price for their bravery the day they had immobilized several tanker trucks dedicated to fuel traffic to Mauritania, at the exit of the camps. They then alleged that these tankers were part of a network managed by certain leaders of the movement. Also, to free the oil tankers, the Polisario intervened on Friday, brutally attacking one of the young men who were protesting peacefully, Ehnini Ould Burki Ould Sidi Labeid, whom he seriously injured.
On Saturday, riots continued to protest against the intervention of the separatists, which resulted in another attack which culminated in the midst of warning shots with the arrest of a dozen demonstrators who were transferred to the “Dheibiya” prison. The relatives of the young person attacked consider themselves victims of unjustified abuse and demand accountability from the Polisario leadership, which they hold responsible for this blatant aggression.
In addition, a group of young people belonging to this tribe attacked, the same day, an element of the “gendarmerie” in Rabouni, whom they accused of being behind the attack on their cousin. In reaction, a hundred members of the Rguibat Labouihat tribe in the Tindouf camps, demanding the immediate release of those arrested, gathered towards the end of the afternoon at the level of the “gendarmerie” checkpoint. , located at the western entrance to the “Aousserd” camp, where they continued their action.
The action was a sit-in in front of the headquarters of the so-called “Ministry of Defence” in Rabouni, as a sign of protest against the violence exercised by elements of the “Polisario” security services against one of their own. . For several weeks, the refugee camps have been the scene of riots and violent clashes with the Polisario. In the Dakhla camp, groups of young people set fire to a barracks and several vehicles to protest against the lack of employment opportunities and the abuses and restrictions imposed by the Polisario authorities.
These facts were vehemently denounced by the first secretary of the MSP, Hach Ahmed Baricalla, in a letter to the UN special representative for the Sahara, warning him that a wave of repression was coming to silence critical voices and protests. in the Tindouf camps where we are no longer angry with the leadership of the polisario and who comes there, to take a new tyrannical step in his dictate against the sequestered in these camps of shame and who are under the aegis of Algeria.
These facts come after that the demonstrators recently set fire to at the headquarters of the gendarmerie ofcamp Dakhlawhen they had intercepted a tank truck carrying around 40 tonnes of fuel bound for the border with Mauritania. This country being sovereign with regard to the importation of its hydrocarbon energy, it is hard to imagine that the smuggling made official by the Polisario is intended for it.
Especially since the fuels are offered by Algeria to cover the daily life of the Polisario. Also one can doubt the destination of these cargoes which most certainly end up in the reservoirs of the terrorist groups and small groups which abound in the regions of the Sahel and which Algeria and its cherub willingly make a living.