Sidi Ayad: under the feet of poor peasants, silver mines

Sidi Ayad, an Amazigh tribe in southeastern Morocco is completely marginalized. Ruins of the concentration camp built by the French army are still standing at the foot of the mountain: it aimed to control the workers of the mine at the top of the hill. It is now sheltered by poor peasants, who are looking for stones in the mineral waste of the mine.

Sidi Ayad is home to one of the great mineral resources of Morocco, already exploited by the French in the colonial era, like all regions of south-eastern Morocco. It has a large body of water, a dam was built to supplement the electricity production of the solar panels of the Noor 4 power plant.

Noor 4 is a solar power station intended to supply electricity to the projected mining industry factories. France returns to recover the resources left behind after the Second World War and the Moroccan national liberation movement.

The Moroccan regime is engaged in new colonial projects on the land of the oppressed poor peasants of Sidi Ayad. An intervention of the SNPPPF must be realized in the coming months: from Tamtatouchte to Sidi Ayad, a new peasant struggle is engaged.

To attack the movement of small and poor peasants Sidi Ayyad, led by peasant activist Said Obamimoun, to intimidate them and dissuade them from claiming their rights, a sham trial was held against him. He was arrested on 18/04/2018 by the gendarmerie following a complaint by a state agent, put to the prosecutor's office of the court of Midelt, followed by a false bag of indictments approved by false witnesses, and sentenced to 4 months in prison.

The methods of repression and state trials adopted by its courts aim at blocking their movement, creating conditions conducive to the exploitation of natural resources and making the SNPPPF a detriment of the interests of the oppressed. On the contrary, they reinforce their determination to carry out their struggle to meet their demands.