Refugee camps in the Palestinian and Sahrawi national liberation movements: A comparative perspective

Journal of Palestine Studies

Volumn 38, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 76-93

  Farah, Randa ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COMPARATIVE STUDY; GEOPOLITICS; LIBERALISM; POLITICAL ORGANIZATION; POPULAR PROTEST; REFUGEE; STATE BUILDING;

AFRICA; ASIA; EURASIA; JORDAN; MIDDLE EAST; NORTH AFRICA; WESTERN SAHARA;

EID: 63049124158     PISSN: 0377919X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/jps.2009.38.2.76     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. There are approximately 1.7 million refugees in Jordan registered with UNRWA; 329,150 of them live in ten UNRWA camps. Three other camps are administered by the Jordanian government. Most of my research was conducted in al-Baqa' and Marka camps. Al-Baqa', located 20 kilometers northwest of Amman, has 90,575 refugees registered with UNRWA, while 44,198 refugees live in Marka, 10 kilometers northeast of the capital. I visited all other camps for shorter periods of time and conducted interviews in camps such as Suf, al-Husayn, and al-Zarqa. During a short research trip to Jordan in 2007 I conducted interviews in al-Baqa', al-Zarqa, and Jarash camps. I also draw on the experience of having lived in the West Bank and Lebanon, during which time I conducted research or volunteered in camps. For details on refugee statistics and location of camps, see UNRWA's official website at www.un.org/unrwa/ refugees. In Western Sahara, I conducted research in all five camps, which are located east of Tindouf, a small Algerian military town.
2. There are important contextual differences in the histories of the PLO's presence in camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and in Palestine under Israeli occupation. Regardless of the different consequences of the PLO's presence, in each case these were shaped by the organizational forms and ideological underpinnings of the PLO's factions and by the PLO's overall national politics and shifts in tactics and strategies. Moreover, Jordan is the host of the largest refugee population outside Palestine, and even after the PLO was ousted in 1971 its cadres continued to mobilize underground. Thus, Jordan is representative of factional ideologies and the larger historical trends and ruptures in Palestinian politics and strategies.
3. On a similar topic, see also Pablo San Martin, "Nationalism, Identity, and Citizenship in the Western Sahara," Journal of North African Studies 10, nos. 3-4 (2005), pp. 565-92;
4. Jacob A. Mundy, "Performing the Nation, Pre-figuring the State: The Western Sahara Refugees, Thirty Years Later," Journal of Modern African Studies 45, no. 2 (2007), p. 293.
5. Morocco and Mauritania invaded the Western Sahara in violation of the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) advisory opinion stating that neither Morocco nor Mauritania had any "legal ties of such a nature as might affect the application of General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) ... of the principle of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory."
6. See www.saharawiembassy.co.za/shame_wall.nt.
7. The name is a French acronym for Mission des Nations Unies pour l'Organisation d'un Référendum au Sahara Occidental.
8. Tony Hodges, Western Sahara: The Roots of a Desert War (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1983), p. 164.
9. In 2000, Badil Resource Centre for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights estimated the number at 8,454,000. See www.badil.org/Statistics/ population/02.pdf.
10. Unlike the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which assists refugees around the world and has a protection mandate, UNRWA, which began its operations in 1950, provides humanitarian assistance exclusively to Palestine's refugees and lacks an explicit protection mandate. UNRWA is also distinguished by the fact that the vast majority of its employees are Palestinians, many of them refugees, while Westerners comprise the majority of its executive strata.
11. Figures for 2008 are available at UNRWA's Web site, www.un.org/unrwa/ refugees/.
12. Mundy, "Performing the Nation," p. 278.
13. A 1974 Spanish census put the number at 76,425 Sahrawis. Today, census statistics are uneven and politically charged. In my interviews in 2005, estimates provided ranged between 180,000 and 250,000 refugees, this range is consistent with the literature on Western Sahara.
14. William B. Quandt, Fuad Jabber, and Ann Mosely Lesch, The Politics of Palestinian Nationalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 96-98.
15. The Houston Agreement, signed by the Polisario and the Moroccan government, was supposed to lead to a referendum to be held in 1998 that would allow the people of Western Sahara to express their support for self-determination, possibly leading to full independence or integration within Morocco. The referendum did not take place.
16. See Yahia H. Zoubir and Karima Benabdallah-Gambier, "Western Sahara Deadlock," Middle East Report Online, no. 227 (Summer 2003), at: http://www.merip.org/mer/mer227/227_zoubir.html
17. See also Sabri Jiryis, "The Palestinian Position," JPS 24 (Summer 1977), pp. 150-58.
18. See Hakim Darbouche and Yahia H. Zoubir, "Conflicting International Policies and the Western Sahara Stalemate," International Spectator 43, no. 1 (2008), pp. 91-105.
19. This is illustrated in the title of Rosemary Sayigh's book Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries (London: Zed Press, 1979).
20. See James Firebrace, "The Sahrawi Refugees: Lessons and Prospects," in Richard Lawless and Laila Mohanan, eds., War and Refugees: The Western Sahara Conflict (London and New York: Pinter Publishers, 1987) pp. 167-85.
21. See Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern Naitonal Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 182.
22. Joseph A. Massad, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), pp. 12-13.
23. Tariq, a refugee from al-Husayn camp, author interview, Amman, Jordan, 5 February 1999.
24. For a detailed account of Palestinians in Jordan, see Massad, Colonial Effects.
25. Based on interviews in camps and with UNRWA employees.
26. Maria, author interview, Rabouni, SADR, 19 February 2005.
27. For an elaborate analysis and a comparative view on this topic, see Barbara Harrell-Bond, Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
28. Hodges, Western Sahara, p. 158.
29. See SADR, "Proclamation of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic: SADR as a State," 27 February 1976, online at www.wsahara.net/ sadr.html#anchor1001.
30. Hodges, Western Sahara, pp. 163-64.
31. I have often used SADR and the Polisario interchangeably in reference to those areas and functions where the two overlap.
32. Abdati, a Sahrawi refugee and Polisario/SADR official, author interview, al-Ayun camp, SADR, 18 February 2005.
33. Mariam, a Sahrawi committee member, author interview, al-Ayun camp, SADR, 18 December 2005.
34. For example, the increase in marriages across tribal boundaries, and the high education levels achieved. While over 95 percent of the population was illiterate in 1975, today the ratios are reversed.
35. Shaykh Buzaid, an oral historian, author interview, Tifariti, Western Sahara, 17 December 2005.
36. Mundy, "Performing the Nation," p. 290.
37. See Mustafa al-Kuttab and Muhammad Badi, al-Niza' 'ala al-Sahra' al-Gharbiyya:BAyna haqq al-quwwa wa quwwat al-haqq [The Conflict over Western Sahara: Between the Right of Power and the Power of Right] (Damascus: Dar al-Mukhtar, 1998), pp. 12-26.
38. Sahrawis look with disdain on societies that sanction physical or verbal abuse against women, and regard the respect with which they hold women as one of their distinguishing cultural characteristics.
39. Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Critical Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. xxxv.
40. San Martin, "Nationalism, Identity, and Citizenship," p. 569.
41. Union de Periodistas y Escritores Saharauis (UPES), "Polisario Regrets Moroccan Intransigence and Reiterates Will to Negotiate for Peace," 19 March 2008, available online at www.upes.org.
42. Only elementary classes are available in camp schools.
43. From the history textbook assigned to grade six (1993-1994), SADR, Ministry of Education.
44. Mahmud, author interview, al-Baqa' refugee camp, Jordan, 5 June 1995.
45. Samir, author interview, al-Baqa' camp, Jordan, 3 September 1995.
46. Abu Kamal, author interview, Suf camp, Amman, Jordan, 5 November 1998.
47. Omar, author interview, al-Baqa' camp, Jordan, 15 March 1996.
48. Samir, author interview, al-Baqa' camp, Jordan, 3 September 1995.
49. Adnan, author interview, al-Baqa' camp, Jordan, 17 March 1997.
50. According to Massad, the shelling of refugee camps during the armed clashes (1970-1971), indicated that the army looked on all Palestinians as an extension of the guerrilla fighters, and vice versa. Massad, Colonial Effects, p. 244.
51. For example, the late George Habash, secretary-general of the PFLP, said in an interview that the nature of the future state "doesn't seem to me to be in urgent need of definition.... We now have problems that are more important." Quandt, Jabber, and Lesch, Politics of Palestinian Nationalism, p. 102.
52. Nahda Shehada, Justice without Drama: Enacting Family Law in Gaza City Shari'a Court (The Hague: Shaker Publishing, 2005), pp. 26-28.
53. Frances S. Hasso, Resistance, Repression, and Gender Politics in Occupied Palestine and Jordan (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2005), pp. xiv-xvi.
54. Laurie Brand, "Palestinians and Jordanians: A Crisis of Identity," JPS 96 (Summer 1995), pp. 46-61;
55. See also Curtis Ryan, "Reform Retreats Amidst Jordan's Political Storms," Middle East Report Online, at www.merip.org/mero/ mero061005.html.
56. Khalid, author interview, al-Baqa' camp, Jordan, 19 November 1995.
57. Hanan, author interview, al-Baqa' camp, Jordan, 15 October 1996.
58. Hani, author interview, al-Baqa' camp, Jordan, 11 September 1995.
59. See Zoubir and Benabdallah-Gambier, "Western Saharan Deadlock."
60. Al-Salek, author interview, Awsard camp, SADR, 23 February 2005.
61. Mundy, "Performing the Nation," p. 276.
62. Mundy, "Performing the Nation," p. 293.
63. See Toby Shelley, Endgame in Western Sahara: What Future for Africa's Last Colony? (London and New York: Zed Books).
64. See also Maria J. Stephan and Jacob Mundy, "A Battlefield Transformed: From Guerilla Resistance to Mass Nonviolent Struggle in the Western Sahara," online at www.spsrasd.info/sps-e100806.html.
65. Mamdouh Nofal, "Yasir Arafat, the Political Player: A Mixed Legacy," JPS 138 (Winter 2006), p. 23.
66. Azmi Bishara, "Siyasat al-muwajaha mu'akkada... al-harb mumkina" [The Policy of Confrontation Is Certain ... War is Possible], Arabs 48, online at www.arabs48.com.
67. Since 1948, Israel has developed numerous schemes to "dissolve" refugees through resettlement and integration, especially in Arab countries. For an excellent discussion of these schemes, see Nur Masalha, The Politics of Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem (London: Pluto Press, 2003), especially chapter 3.