Sidi Daddach: "On death row one smiles during the day"

Afrol News
Oslo, 5 November 2002
By: Pablo Gracia and Rainer Chr. Hennig


25 years in Moroccan prisons. 14 years on death row. One week in
Norway. Which is the longest? Sidi Mohamed Daddach, awarded this
year's Rafto human rights prize, finds no answer to this question.

Grand Café, Oslo. A quick interview before the ex-political
prisoner is to meet with the Norwegian parliament's Committee of
Foreign Affairs; then PM Kjell Magne Bondevik. How do you speak
about ill-treatment in Moroccan prisons in circumstances like this?

Mr Daddach has become the symbol of Western Sahara's liberation
struggle during some short days of the northern autumn. After
almost an entire life in slow motion, the last days have been full
of impressions: His first trip abroad, prestigious receptions and,
most of all, the first encounter with his mother for 27 long years.

In some hours, it will all be over. This afternoon, he will fly
back to Western Sahara and contemplate what he has been through
during the last week. At this moment, it is difficult to trace any
feeling in his controlled face.

- On death row one smiles during the day, Mr Daddach explains the
essence of those 14 years during which he expected to be executed
any day. "During the day, you understand that you have survived
just another day. In the evening, the smile disappears. That is the
time for executions and you never know if you are next in line."

Mr Daddach was detained in the beginning of 1976, only 19 years old
and with severe injuries. He was a member of the Sahrawi liberation
movement Polisario, which is prohibited in Morocco. After
attempting to escape, he was sentenced to death in 1980 and was
placed in a solitary confinement cell in Rabat's high security
prison for months.

- I was in the cell without seeing the sun. It was prohibited to
see the sun for those on death row. After several months, however,
they let me out to see the sun for some short moments. The worst,
however, was the fear, he says, the fear of not knowing whether
he'd live to see the next day.

He had to learn to get used to the loneliness. The family lived in
refugee camps in Algeria. The prison was in Rabat, northern
Morocco, and the friends were in Sahara. There was little common
ground with the Moroccan prisoners. "With time, I've become fond of
being lonely," he adds, surprisingly.

And Mr Daddach did not let into the psychic ill-treatment, the lack
of contact with the outside world, the lack of food and the
constant pain from the untreated injuries he sustained as he was
detained. On the contrary. He got involved in the fight for better
prison conditions for the other political detainees, organised
protest, went on hunger strike and smuggled secret reports about
their situation out of prison. This is who he was nominated to the
Rafto Award.

Exactly one year ago, Mr Daddach finally was released from prison,
mostly due to the continuous pressure from human rights
organisations from all over the world. The then 44-year-old man in
a poor health condition travels back to Western Sahara, still
occupied by Morocco.

- Don't you recognise me? I'm Ibrahim, Mohamed, Fatima, and
whatever they were named. I saw grown-up people which I last had
seen as they still were babies. I came back in the same way a dead
person comes back to life.

The year of liberty in Layoune was dominated by reunification with
family members and friends. It was mostly joy. But there was also
political work. The Daddach residence quickly turns into a centre
for Sahrawi human rights activists.

The attention around the man who was forced to learn to enjoy
loneliness increases even more as the Rafto Foundation from the
distant Norwegian city of Bergen announces it will hand this year's
human rights award to Mr Daddach.

- The joy I have experienced this week is totally different from
that in Sahara, Mr Daddach begins his description of his short
visit to Norway. "I obtained a [Moroccan] passport, something I had
not believed could happen. Only on 28 October, I was given a phone
call and told they had issued it."

The Norwegian Foreign Office and the Embassy in Rabat had been
instrumental in achieving a passport for him. According to Amnesty
International, Moroccan political dissidents cannot expect such
services.

- Then, there was the news that I was going to Norway, my first
ourney to Europe. Now, at this old age! Yes, I feel that I have
grown old and now I really notice that I lost a big part of my life
in prison.

Here, he has received the Rafto Award, been received by the Lord
Mayor of Bergen, Kristian Helland, politicians, lawyers, activists,
journalists, etc, etc. "And they all smiled, all the time," he
comments, astonished.

But the real big issue was meeting his mother again after 27 years
of separation. "You can imagine the joy I felt when they confirmed
to me she would come - just one hour before she actually came!"

Mother, Enguia Bakay Lahbib, lives in the Dakhla refugee camp in
the Algerian desert. Last week, she was asked whether she wanted to
come to Norway to see her son. The 89-year-old had no doubts; this
could very well have been her last chance.

On Thursday, Ms Lahbib received an Algerian passport. On Friday,
she had a Norwegian visa. On Saturday, she obtained a ticket that
was going to airlift her Tindouf - Alger - Lyon - Amsterdam -
Bergen on her first-ever travel. Saturday evening, she arrived on
Bergen airport, received by her son and the press corps as the
Queen of Sahara. Tears were flowing.

- Mother said this had been like a miracle for her and that she
felt that her life now had returned complete. Addressing the
situation of more than hundred thousand Sahrawi refugees in Algeria
that have been separated from family members for a quarter of a
century, he agrees with his mother: "More Sahrawi mothers should be
given a chance to experience this."

It is no secret that meeting his mother was the greatest event
during Mr Daddach's short stay in Norway. According to the official
program, he was to meet with the Foreign Office and the Nobel Prize
Committee yesterday. This was cancelled. Mother and son needed just
one, small extra day in total privacy.

The feelings all these impressions during the last, intensive week
must have provoked remain confuse and distant. He is here, but he
is absent. Mother just flew back to the refugee camp and maybe this
was the last time they saw each other. The reactions will surface
when he arrives Layoune this evening.

But, what then, was longest? The 25 years in prison, the year in
liberty or the week in Norway? "There has happened so very much
this week," Mr Daddach says. We can not arrive at any conclusion,
only that time becomes a terribly relative matter when you have
lived a life such as the one of this 45-year-old Sahrawi.

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Forwarded by:
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Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara
wsahara2@...

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