Communicated : against the repression of small peasants and forest professionals

National Syndicate of Small Peasants and Forest Professionals

Communicated

Against the repression of small peasants, the exploitation of their collective lands and the denial of the right of their farmers' union to defend their rights before the authorities and the courts.

We have the honor to inform you that our National Syndicate of Small Peasants and Forest Professionals, affiliated to the Moroccan Labor Union, a trade union organization founded on June 23, 2012 by small farmers and forest professionals. We have accumulated significant experience in this area and we have dealt with several human rights files for this oppressed class in the rural, productive world, considered as one of the pillars of national production, essential to the food security of the people Moroccan. But he exposes to systematic persecution by successive Moroccan governments, which manifests itself in the theft of their lands and their collective and private forests. These inherited riches have been preserved for several centuries, French colonialism recognized them during the colonial era and exercised administrative restrictions which guaranteed their historic and natural rights. But the Moroccan government, through the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Agriculture, Waters and Forests, which since 2012 have established laws by effecting new divisions of dynastic groups and restrictions on new administrative decisions offices to through cadastral registration applications based on illegal documents to occupy the land collective and private of small peasants and forestry professionals, which has dispossessed them of millions of hectares, including dwellings, caves, cemeteries, roads, water sources and forests. Having become foreigners on their own land, the small peasants are prosecuted by the administrative authorities, the gendarmes, the water and forest agents and other authorities. Reduced to a refugee situation in their own country, they are only waiting for death.

The National Syndicate of Small Peasants and Forest Professionals has been subjected to repression by regional and local authorities since the assassination of one of its most eminent militants in the south, the martyr Brahim Saika, on April 15, 2016, and its activists are subject to legal proceedings and arrests, starting with two former political detainees: Zaid Takrayout, arrested because of his defense of the rights of Tamtatoucht peasants against the Toudra Tinghir dam, in Southeast, Said Oba Mimoun because of his defense of the rights of the peasants of Sidi Ayad in Midelt, also in the Southeast and Rahma Bouhajra because of his defense of the rights of the peasants of Ouled Ayade Beni Mellal. Small peasants are the subject of legal proceedings by the authorities and the land mafia, which resorts to false witnesses because of their defense of their right to land and the exploitation of forest wealth. Forest professionals, whom the Moroccan government calls nomads, are also persecuted by the abuses of the authorities and agents of Water and Forests.

We therefore write to you today on behalf of the National Syndicate of Small Peasants and Forest Professionals, after all our unsuccessful attempts to open a serious dialogue with the Moroccan Government represented by the Minister of the Interior and that of Agriculture and Waters and Forests on our file, which we had deposited in the wilaya of Rabat during our protest sit-in on December 28, 2017 in front of the parliament. The only response was the repression against our activists, the arrest of our activists Zayed Takrout and Said Oba Mimoun and Rahma Bouhajra, the non-respect of the right of our syndicate to the receipt of legal deposit after our congress of July 23, 2018 at the headquarters of the 'Moroccan Labor Union. For this refusal we sued the authorities before the Administrative Court of Casablanca.

To continue to abuse our rights, a second syndicate has been created by the National Federation of the Agricultural Sector within the Moroccan Labor Union, which is led by engineers and technicians and who do not allow the independence of syndicates that they founded at the head the National Syndicate of Agricultural Workers, this layer belonging to the community of small peasants and forestry professionals who were expropriated from the land and became Landless peasants are persecuted by the big landowners who have them looted and exploit them on their domains.

All these repressive practices against small peasants and forestry professionals and their syndicates aim to facilitate the exploitation of their lands and forests by large landowners supported by the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Agriculture and Water and Forests with the support of the political parties in government.

Thus, our syndicate produced a detailed request file, which it included in a book with the legal deposit number in the National Library Number: Legal Deposit: 2018MO0194 and ISBN: 978-9920-35-035-8, in order to protect themselves against attempts at liquidation on the part of the National Federation of the Agricultural Sector as it had done with the application files of the syndicates of agricultural workers, notably Sodia and Sogeta.

Having also presented you with the most important points of our file, we ask you to conduct an impartial investigation into it in order to protect the rights of small farmers and forest professionals and their unions.

Agadir January 14, 2020

The Secretary General

Lahoucine Amal

Morocco, Sidi Ifni: against practices unworthy of the authorities insulting the dignity of peasants

The vicious attack of the great imperialist powers against the rights of the small and poor peasants and professionals Forestiers, is to protect the property mafia in Morocco (Compradors and large real estate owners). This mafia occupies the modernized feudal domains (Survivances of feudalism) facing the peasant struggle for the right to land, water and natural resources, in an oppressed nation.

A new fierce war has recently been launched against the small farmers to evacuate them from their land under new methods of modern slavery and rituals of servitude practiced in the literature on power and repentance.

For decades, the Makhzanian leadership in the well-equipped Ait Ba'maran area practiced methods of repression aimed at violating liberties and rooting large property owners (Survivors of feudalism) and empowering "power venders" and their agents extended powers, in order to favor the holders of funds and excessive use of power.

In Sidi Ifni, since June 07, 2008, the small and poor peasants are subjected to multiple unworthy practices (violence, insultassions, harassment, torture, repression ...) in the offices of the authorities for only reason: manifested their legitimate rights!

Only one bag of indictment is always in the hands of the agents: insult the agent at the time of his work!

The Amalou Tangarfa Caid (Sector Chief of a number of rural communes) is the most respectful of these practices of flagrant violation and clear normalization with the corrupt lobbies of the region, violating the ethics of morality and the style of the administrative dialogue at the closure of the annexation activities. He combines his daily efforts with the practice of insulting and unworthy administrative practices against small and poor peasants and forest professionals.

Therefore, we declare the following:

- Our condemnations of its unworthy authoritarian practices that aim to violate the legitimate rights of small and poor peasants and forest professionals.

- Our condemnations of the exhibition of the regional general secretary of our union in Sidi Ifni "Yousef Al-Khomsi", to this kind of outrageous practice, for only reason: its provocative defense of victims of real estate mafias involved in incendiary cases.

- Our condemnations of the alliance of the holders of the power and the money in the region by exposing all the projects aiming at capturing our rights to the land, the water and the natural resources.

- Our intentions to take all the judicial and administrative procedures and defend these legitimate rights against the practices unworthy of the head of the Caida Amalou Tangarfa.

Sidi Ifni the 07/03/2019

Provincial Office

Collective land grabs and exploitation of the children of Sidi Ayad.

Open letter to

 Ambassador of Germany in Rabat

Object: grabbing of collective land and exploitation of children of Sidi Ayad.

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 Ahouli mine at the top of the hill. It is now sheltered from the poor peasants, their children seek stones in the mineral waste of the mine to survive their families. The mines mafia supported by the Midelt Gendarmerie exploit these children who risk their lives instead of being in school.

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. Morocco is engaged in new colonial projects on the land of the oppressed poor peasants of Sidi Ayad.

Sidi Ayad is devoid of any sign of a dignified life: no school, no health center, no electricity, no drinking water ... nothing but torture, especially after their demonstration for their right to land, water and natural resources in 2017.

The authorities are suing the peasants who are trying to build a house, and the agents of the water and forests are condemning them to heavy lawsuits, they are strange on their land.

They fight in the National Union of small farmers and forestry professionals for their right to 4500 hectares of their land by the Moroccan State without compensation, these farmers are in sit-in open since February 22, 2019.

See this link:

https://www.facebook.com/lahoucine.amal.5/videos/10217283796539769/UzpfSTEwMTc5NDY3Mjk6MTAyMTcyOTE4Mzg3NDA4MTk/

A portion of these lands are set aside for the construction of the Noor 4 solar power plant of a credit fund of the German Development Bank of 70 million euros following official statements.

See the link:

https://lenergeek.com/2017/04/06/projet-noor-iv-maroc-energie-solaire/

Our union considers your Bank, as a stakeholder, an important member in this dispute.

We ask the Ambassador to take our letter into consideration, to transmit it to the German Federal Government and to inform the German Development Bank of its commitments in this type of project which does not respect the standards of the rights of the populations.

Germany, through its association agreements with Morocco, is involved in the conflict between the Moroccan regime and the peasants. It therefore seems urgent to us that the Federal Government of Germany adopt a demanding resolution, which it recalls as the member of the German Development Bank, as a member of this project, of its commitments to respect human rights and democratic principles.

Solidarity with Rahma Bouhajra leader of the fight of the peasants of Ouled Ayad in the center of Morocco

Ouled Ayad, a community in the suburbs of Beni Mellal, central region of Morocco, in the plain of Tadla, at the foot of Mount Tassemit (word Amazigh means cold) altitude 2240 m, between the High and Middle Atlas, populated since millennia, the spreading of the caves confirms it. It is one of the great regions of Morocco that has conquered by the agro-food industry and irrigated agriculture in the plains.

Last December, a company of its owner, businessman, real estate speculator who lives in Rabat had ravaged their land, she became owner of 107 hectares of land of small farmers Ouled Ayad, at a price of 3 dirhams meter 0,27 euro, on the basis of an official act. The 366 families that made up the entire community had appropriated these lands more than 150 years ago, each family owns one hectare. Today, they struggle against a new colonization that turns them into poor peasants. The police and the repressive forces had driven them from their land and society had ravaged their wheat culture to implement the project of a great gentleman from the capital Rabat.

Rahma Bouhajra, a peasant woman from Ouled Ayad, leader of the peasants' struggle for their right to land, was tortured, relaxed after breaking her teeth by the police, prosecuted and sentenced to 4 months in prison.

She fought against the violation of the lands of Ouled Ayad, the authorities of Beni Mellal have tried several times to liquidate this case, but Rahma Bouhajra is a peasant woman who prefers to starve rather than betray the peasant women of her tribe.

The only bag of indictment, always the same, is to insult the state agents when they complete their task. His comrades had organized sit-ins in front of the Bani Mellal court, claiming his freedom and their due to the land. A curious way of application of the resolution announced by the Moroccan State of "the restitution of a million hectares of collective land irrigated to small farmers".

Real estate speculators in Rabat know how to chase prey, new predators in financial crisis, who find in the lands of small farmers the only solution to get out. A class policy that must be projected and combated on the path of peasant struggle at the national and international levels by strengthening the organization of poor peasants in Morocco.

Testimony of a farmer:

 https://www.facebook.com/lahoucine.amal.5/videos/10217206803054980/

Cholera of the peasants of Taliouine: how the saffron becomes a source of misfortune

Taliouine, between the Anti Atlas and the High Atlas, two large water reserves (Jbel Siroua at 3,304 m altitude and Jbel Toubkal at 4165 m altitude), is a purely agricultural region. The cultivation of saffron is one of its characteristics, quality harvest of organic agricultural products: the red gold of Morocco! That's what it's called in the field of tourism.

 Each year in the fall season, the rural women of Taliouine have a specific activity in the collection of this product, it is a socio-cultural activity that has deep roots in the agricultural history of the region. The season of this harvest is a harmony that brings us back simultaneously to the songs and to the work of the women: at dawn, their basket in hand towards the fields of exploitation close to slavery. The violet-colored flower must be torn off before it is closed by the heat of the sun's rays. A heavy job awaits her at home after the harvest: she spends the nights awake to separate the stamens from the flower: the saffron.

The work of the peasant woman is an activity like other activities during her life, she has taught it to her daughters who are preparing for marriage and working without salary. Many of the rural women who work in the saffron fields do not receive a penny and remain throughout their lives dependent on the exploitation of their sweat and blood for man. The latter takes part of the harvest each week to the souk (market): a small income that barely arrives to pay the expenses of the family's food for a week, but that depends on the decision of the big saffron merchants who set the sale price in each day of souk. Double exploitation of the work force of peasant women in the fields and in the home, as well as an added value to the pockets of the big merchants to increase their capital.

For millennia the natural saffron creates its own conservation to survive. It has the ability to multiply in the land of Taliouine, preserve its specific genetic traits and constitute a characteristic Moroccan species

Give saffron (the house of saffron)

Dar saffron (the house of saffron) was built in Taliouine in 2011 by local buying capital supported by international capital. Give saffron is a product marketing market, the opening of this establishment on November 10, 2011, is the beginning of an era in the life of Moroccan saffron. The mafia formed in the region since 1956 at the dawn of formal independence / new occupation, to serve the interests of the buyers' regime, now reaches its highest level. After having gotten into Taliouine's public assets, the finances of the municipality and the 13 rural communes are subject to systematic theft by a group that constitutes the mafia installed in the communal councils. Cooperatives and peasant associations are led by the protagonists of this group that has influence over the life of the poor peasants of Taliouine.

An association is formed to organize the robbery in the so-called Casa del azafrán by the mafia bosses, after having stolen the money from the Souktana cooperative every time its board of directors was restructured since the 70s. Several other cooperatives have been formed today by the intervention of the buyer capital: a wide margin of theft of the goods of the peasants is open to this mafia to not give opportunity to any flight of money that can be recovered by the peasants. The peasants are now forced to take their products to Dar azafrán and wait months and months for the proceeds of the sale. From 30 dirhams (2.7 euros) a gram of saffron in 2011 to 12 dirhams (1'10 euros) the following years. It is truly a catastrophe for the economy of the poor peasants who are subjected and controlled by the saffron mafia.

Genetically modified bulbs

Taliouine's saffron bulbs are being genetically modified by multinationals that, for the last two years, with the help of Taliouine's saffron mafia, circulate fake genetically modified bulbs, which do not contain the genetic character of multiplication: they are sterile for force the peasants to buy their bulbs. The unfortunate poor peasants are surprised by this disaster that condemns their own natural and organic plant material. After having spread the cultivation of saffron in other regions, Oujda, Midelt, Errachidia, El Houz ... saffron is no longer a natural vegetable characteristic of Taliouine. The genetically modified bulbs provoke the wild exploitation of water, land and natural resources of Taliouine, by international capital. The only way to fight is the uprising of peasant women for their labor rights, in the future the exploitation of agricultural workers will multiply what they will need from an organized labor movement.

Saffron Festival: popular response

Since 2008 the saffron mafia organizes the so-called saffron festival supported by the buying capital to promote this destructive program. This is an opportunity to bring together all the components of the system of wild exploitation of natural plant resources, companies, cooperatives and associations have participated to applaud this program. Recipes, dishes and gifts (saffron packets) refer to the actors of this war against the organic: everything is harmony that traces us back simultaneously to the songs of death and to the sacrifice of the work force of the peasant women in the fields of saffron.

On the occasion of each festival, young people from Taliouine try to express their anger at what happens in this isolated area: youth unemployment, illiteracy, especially among women, lack of service at a health center, lack of teachers and classes, isolation from villages (groups of people isolated in the mountains), lack of sanitation ... Fear reigns in the mountains because of the terror of the forces of repression (gendarmes, agents of the authorities), the Court of first instance of Taroudant is systematically a repressive apparatus that sustains this terror.

 On November 9, 2013, on the second day of this year's festival, the anger of the young people was expressed by organizing a rally at the so-called Casa del azafrán. When the protagonists of the theft of Taliouine's public goods sat at the table in the halls of this establishment, the young people have manifested their demands accusing these thieves of the goods of the poor peasants. A follow-up Committee has been created by this group of young people to defend the rights of peasant women to water, land, natural resources and the Amazigh culture.

Case of the detained peasants: tomorrow third judgment and statement of the verdict.

Sit-in of peasants visiting the court of Taroudant

Idaougamad is an Amazigh tribe living between the Souss Valley and the High Atlas Mountains, east of Taroudant in southwestern Morocco, in an area located within the biosphere reserve of the Arganeraie, classified in the World Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 1998.

see the link:

 http://andzoa.ma/fr/andzoa/zone-dintervention/zone-de-larganier/reserve-de-biosphere-des-arganeraies/

The reserve of arganeraie undergoes a massive destruction to allow to implant the citrus fruits. The program called "green Morocco planning" comes to complete what remains of this organized destruction. A program of implantation of the so-called "Israeli argan tree", genetically modified in Zionist laboratories, such as olive trees, saffron and others.

 This program led by Akhenouch, aims at the establishment of 12,000 hectares of this "copy" of argan tree in the Souss reserve. He even formed an association (AMBA) to execute his program and assign Bourahime, a large real estate owner and president of the commune Tinzert a few kilometers from Idaougamad. So he finds a fertile field to start the second phase of the destruction of the argan tree, having ravaged the lands of this tribe who knows the beginning of the men of justice, so Judge Agarram the ex-president of the court of Casablanca in the 1990s.

The small peasants of Idaougamad had expressed their anger against this destructive program by stopping its first work. On January 31, 2019, 5 small peasants of this Amazigh community were arrested by the gendarmerie of Aoulouz and brought before the court of Taroudant.

The prosecutor had played the role of mediator of peasant property predators, he imposed on them one condition to release them, it is to sign the commitment to no longer touch this project. They are elderly men, experienced in the fight for their right to land since 2011, they have experienced the problems of the courts and have nothing to lose, their children are adults. They gave a good lesson to the prosecutor, they chose the path of resistance of their ancestors for the independence of the homeland against treason, they chose the prison.

Inmates are:

- Omar Larabi.

- Hmed Ihihi.

- Omar Azdou.

- Jilali Elgherizi.

- Hassan Boussaid.

On February 1, 2019, a group of young peasants contacted the peasant union (PS) to ask for support for their detainees. They showed their anger by organizing a sit-in in front of the house of the province of Taroudant. A committee has been formed to follow the progress of the judgment, the first hearing will take place on Tuesday, February 5, 2019.

What is the argan tree of the argan tree?

It is a tree of the Biosphere that fights against drought and feeds goats, Man is predator he can feed on goats. In the seasons of drought, the tree gets rid of its leaves at once. It is a secret ecological process, which is estimated at two million years.

Today, the invasion of a copy called "the Israeli argan tree" threatens Souss. A recessive, genetically modified copy is manipulated from Zionist laboratories. Zionist scientists think they are more powerful than the biosphere. They made a fake copy of the argan tree, to create the argan illusion of the worst kind.

Akhenouch imagines that he is the most intelligent of Moroccans by integrating into the culture programs of this false copy. He is doing his best to ravage the land of poor peasants in the Anti-Atlas, in cooperation with the president of the Moroccan association bi-professional argan. The two predatory men seek to dominate the argan tree, finding a great land cost easy to harvest.

Poor peasants see this Zionist program as simply another way to extract more and more of their property from these new predators. A class struggle has been declared since Akhenouch unveiled his objectives in the class agricultural policy by putting the execution of Law 13-113 on the agenda.

Case of the detained peasants: tomorrow third judgment and statement of the verdict.

Sit-in of peasants visiting the court of Taroudant

Idaougamad is an Amazigh tribe living between the Souss Valley and the High Atlas Mountains, east of Taroudant in southwestern Morocco, in an area located within the biosphere reserve of the Arganeraie, classified in the World Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 1998.

see the link:

 http://andzoa.ma/fr/andzoa/zone-dintervention/zone-de-larganier/reserve-de-biosphere-des-arganeraies/

The reserve of arganeraie undergoes a massive destruction to allow to implant the citrus fruits. The program called "green Morocco planning" comes to complete what remains of this organized destruction. A program of implantation of the so-called "Israeli argan tree", genetically modified in Zionist laboratories, such as olive trees, saffron and others.

 This program led by Akhenouch, aims at the establishment of 12,000 hectares of this "copy" of argan tree in the Souss reserve. He even formed an association (AMBA) to execute his program and assign Bourahime, a large real estate owner and president of the commune Tinzert a few kilometers from Idaougamad. So he finds a fertile field to start the second phase of the destruction of the argan tree, having ravaged the lands of this tribe who knows the beginning of the men of justice, so Judge Agarram the ex-president of the court of Casablanca in the 1990s.

The small peasants of Idaougamad had expressed their anger against this destructive program by stopping its first work. On January 31, 2019, 5 small peasants of this Amazigh community were arrested by the gendarmerie of Aoulouz and brought before the court of Taroudant.

The prosecutor had played the role of mediator of peasant property predators, he imposed on them one condition to release them, it is to sign the commitment to no longer touch this project. They are elderly men, experienced in the fight for their right to land since 2011, they have experienced the problems of the courts and have nothing to lose, their children are adults. They gave a good lesson to the prosecutor, they chose the path of resistance of their ancestors for the independence of the homeland against treason, they chose the prison.

Inmates are:

- Omar Larabi.

- Hmed Ihihi.

- Omar Azdou.

- Jilali Elgherizi.

- Hassan Boussaid.

On February 1, 2019, a group of young peasants contacted the peasant union (PS) to ask for support for their detainees. They showed their anger by organizing a sit-in in front of the house of the province of Taroudant. A committee has been formed to follow the progress of the judgment, the first hearing will take place on Tuesday, February 5, 2019.

What is the argan tree of the argan tree?

It is a tree of the Biosphere that fights against drought and feeds goats, Man is predator he can feed on goats. In the seasons of drought, the tree gets rid of its leaves at once. It is a secret ecological process, which is estimated at two million years.

Today, the invasion of a copy called "the Israeli argan tree" threatens Souss. A recessive, genetically modified copy is manipulated from Zionist laboratories. Zionist scientists think they are more powerful than the biosphere. They made a fake copy of the argan tree, to create the argan illusion of the worst kind.

Akhenouch imagines that he is the most intelligent of Moroccans by integrating into the culture programs of this false copy. He is doing his best to ravage the land of poor peasants in the Anti-Atlas, in cooperation with the president of the Moroccan association bi-professional argan. The two predatory men seek to dominate the argan tree, finding a great land cost easy to harvest.

Poor peasants see this Zionist program as simply another way to extract more and more of their property from these new predators. A class struggle has been declared since Akhenouch unveiled his objectives in the class agricultural policy by putting the execution of Law 13-113 on the agenda.