The Polisario Front moved around 4,700 people from the so-called “liberated areas” on Algerian territory to Tindouf, Algeria, after breach of the 2020 Sahara ceasefire to obtain more food aid from the World Food Programme which it could then divert to other countries and purposes, wrote Moroccan journalist/writer Taieb Dekkar in a stark opinion piece today.
The Polisario adopted a strategy, according to Dekkar, to magnify the number of people confined in the Tindouf region to justify the Polisario’s presence in the “liberated territories,” considered part of the Moroccan Sahara, and qualify for a much larger amount of aid than it would otherwise have qualified for with only the original Saharawi population. That food items from international aid have been found in Algerian street markets in the east, heightens longstanding concerns about the Polisario’s improper diversion and distribution of food aid.
The journalist highlighted a shift in the language used by the Polisario particularly in the Algerian press, abandoning terminology tied to the “liberated territories.” He said that the Polisario’s claims of people being “voluntarily” evacuated from the buffer zone are not credible given the impracticality of evacuating such a large number from a supposedly inaccessible area.
The author said this corruption explains much of what is behind Algeria’s 50-year opposition to census efforts for the populations confined in Tindouf living in “deplorable conditions,” and that the UN humanitarian bodies continue to provide aid based only on rough estimates.
Dekkar said that although refugees worldwide have the right to leave camps with appropriate legal cause, the Tindouf population is prevented from doing so, surrounded by the Algerian army that “has no hesitation in shooting” those who try to flee.
He went on to say that Spanish intelligence has estimated that the authentic Sahrawi population in Tindouf camps would be below 10,000: consequently, the inflated estimates reflect an influx of foreigners from Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Sudan, and even Cuba.
“No country in the world . . . is opposed to the census of refugees on their territories,” Dekkar wrote. Algiers’ hostility “only hides its serious lies about the amplified figures of the populations held against their will in the Tindouf camps.”
Beyond the pure corruption incentive, a possible geopolitical motive behind Algeria’s resistance to accepting a census, Dekkar posited, is that if the UN Security Council adopted the autonomy plan, Morocco would only agree to take people of actual Sahrawi origin. Algeria could then establish a small republic there for the remaining foreigners, “realizing a longstanding aspiration.”
Finally, Dekkar highlighted the irony of Algeria’s General Chengriha visiting China seeking encrypted telecommunications systems to thwart Morocco’s deployment of Israeli-provided, advanced technologies in the kingdom, as Algeria’s massive $21 billion military budget for 2024 reflects another unprecedented increase for the second year in a row, while the country “struggles to guarantee lentils to the poor Algerian people.”