After the drying up of Western aid sources, the Polisario Front tries to change its direction towards the rich petroleum countries of the Gulf. The leaders of the separatist movement find themselves in a non-enviable situation since the death of the former Libyan leader Mouammar Kadhafi, assassinated by his people during the Libyan revolt. Their public image abroad especially in Europe, was seriously tarnished by the revelations by the media of the scandals of misappropriation of aids intended for the refugees in Tindouf camps, the sending to the Libyan front of mercenaries from the Polisario and the involvement of the latter in the last kidnappings of European citizens in the Rabouni camp, the county seat of its HQ. These elements added to the serious financial crisis which treats roughly the economy of the old continent, have pushed many associations and humanitarian NGOs as well as the States which have been till lately, supported the Sahrawi refugees and their leadership, to turn off the taps. Loss of profit as regard the humanitarian aid and the financial and political support for their cause, the leaders of the movement for independence have believed right to return towards the Gulf emirs. But, many people think that the Sahrawis have knocked at the wrong door taking into consideration the excellent relationships between Morocco and the Gulf monarchs.
Khadija Hamdi, the wife of the Chief of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), Mohamed Abdelaziz, has recently lived a bitter experience of all this. She went on a tour to the Middle East so as to collect aid and seek support for their cause, but she has returned empty-handed. From our Sahrawi resources in Tindouf camps, the finds from this tour were so small that Khadija Hamdi was the subject of suspicion from the surrounding of Mohamed Abdelaziz. Many members of the leadership did not believe one word of the sayings and justifications of their culture minister, Khadija Hamdi. They thought on the opposite, that she put the collected money and checks in her personal accounts abroad. The initiative of Mohamed Abdelaziz wife has only made worse the tension prevailing already among the young Sahrawi refugees just before the holding of the 13th congress of the Polisario front planned for mid-December in Tifarity. Besides, Mahjoub Salek, one of the Polisario founders and chief of the Sahrawi dissident movement “Khat Achahid” has intervened to call the Sahrawis in Tindouf camps, to boycott the PF.
For Salek, it concerns a fortuitous meeting which concerns only the Polisario leadership and would not bring anything new to thousands of Sahrawis in Tindouf camps. The executive committee of Khat Achahid proposes the holding of a parallel congress in Tindouf camps. Considering the tension prevailing in the camps, the armed militia of the Polisario are since many days on the go. A group of a dozen of young Sahrawis has ventured last Sunday, to distribute leaflets calling for the boycott but they have immediately been arrested and taken to Rabouni to be questioned. But if the mouths were firmly muzzled in the past in Tindouf camps, today and with the presence in the camps of foreign delegations and journalists from the international press, invited to the PF congress, instructions were given so that there would be no demonstrations or protests whatever their nature, whether individual or collective, with a political or social character.
