Ten years ago, a new representation of the conflict that has been going on for 45 years lived on the outskirts of the town of El Aaiun, in the occupied Western Sahara. On 8 November 2010, the Moroccan security forces violently tore down the Gdeim Izik camp in eastern Morocco. The camp, consisting of hundreds of haimas, claimed the economic and social rights of the Sahrawi people, some of those rights that have been systematically denied them since Morocco took control of the territory of Western Sahara by force. Experts such as Noam Chomsky consider this peaceful mobilisation to be an antecedent of the Arab Spring.

Morocco’s reaction to the Saharawi civil society organisation made clear its position in the conflict: harsh repression, arrests, torture, uncertain trials with guarantees, long sentences, political prisoners. Occupation versus resistance. Against dignity, force.

Today, ten years away, it cannot be said that much progress has been made in resolving the conflict. Since 2010, nineteen Sahrawi activists have been serving 20 years of life for participating in the Gdeim Izik mobilizations and claims

They are still failing to do so. Meanwhile, the rights of the Sahrawi people continue to be violated and Morocco controls most of the territory of Western Sahara, enriching itself with its natural resources and ensuring the support of an international community that offers only humanitarian aid and a mission of very limited competence to the Sahrawi people. On 30 October, the United Nations renewed its mission to Western Sahara (MINURSO), a mission without competence for the defence of human rights, which, after 28 years in the territory, has not fulfilled its mandate: to organize a referendum on self-determination.

However, as all these years show, the Moroccan strategy has not influenced the determination of the Sahrawi people. On the illegal catwalk of Guerguerguerat, which links Morocco and Mauritania and passes through the territories governed by the DSS, the Sahrawi people have since the end of October organized a new camp to demand that the United Nations organize once and for all a referendum that will make it possible to decide on its present and future and thus compensate for a debt that has become historic. An organization that has found no time to appoint a new special representative for Western Sahara in one and a half years.

Thus, 8 November is a new mandatory signal in the calendar of memory and solidarity. In particular, in one month the seed of violations of rights was sown, which still lasts for almost half a century. 1975, Green March. On 6 November of the same year, Morocco brought the civilian population to the Sahrawi territories to reclaim sovereignty over this land. 1975, signing of the Madrid Agreements. A few days later, on 14 November, Spain, Morocco and Mauritania distributed the management of the territory, against the order of decolonization of the Spanish State as an administrative power of a territory without autonomy.

These two dates gave rise to an ever longer list of anniversaries that we would not like to remember. But we see ourselves in the need to remember again and again these days so that they don't fall into a specific oblivion. So that the memory does not coincide with the vast collection of betrayals of the Saharawi people, and so let us celebrate one day the triumph of dignity.