The recently re-elected Polisario Secretary General Brahim Ghali is no stranger to scrutiny. He assumed leadership of the Sahrawi militant organization in 2016 and was nominated for a third term at the Polisario’s 16th Congress at the beginning of January 2023.
Coupled with its not-so clandestine links to Iran and the Polisario’s Hawala-based money laundering mechanisms in Europe which were exposed by a leading German paper last week, Ghali’s reelection is not just bad news for Sahrawi refugees, but also bad news for Western interests in the region.
The Polisario is strongly backed by Algeria, which recently signed a massive weapons deal with Russia despite global sanctions, and also supported by the Iranian regime which provided the Polisario with armed drones via its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah. Following the publication of the Polisario’s money-laundering operations in Europe, experts fear that these mechanisms may be used by terror groups and Putin-aligned oligarchs to circumvent sanctions.
Ghali may not be a known name in Africa, let alone the international community, but his political track record without a doubt lives up to that of dictators and totalitarian rulers whose power rests on human rights abuse, terror and kleptocracy. In 2021, Sahrawi activist Khadijatou (Jadiyetu) Mohamud drew Western media’s attention to her plight for justice against Brahim Ghali whom she accused of raping her in 2010 when she was just 18 years old.
As the Polisario’s representative in Algiers, Ghali abused his power and raped Mohamud when she came to his offices to request a visa. She has since led a legal battle against this powerful man ever since despite the Polisario’s attempts to silence her voice and efforts to bring him to justice.
Mohamud was recently invited to share her story at the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) on October 13 2022, pointing to the Western world’s growing lack of tolerance for human rights abuses by authoritarian leaders, who as in the case of Ghali benefit from substantial financial support by the EU. Ghali has further been sued by the association of victims of the Polisario Front, led by Dahi Aguai, who himself was a victim of the organization. This association accuses Ghali and several other Polisario members of “genocide, injury, terrorism, torture and disappearances“.
Trying to avoid legal prosecution, Ghali secretly travelled to Spain’s Logroño hospital in 2021 for Covid-19 treatment, using a fake passport under the name Mohammed Benbatouche.
His deception, known and ignored by members of the Spanish police, is still under legal investigation. It did however already disrupt his power base and infuriate Sahrawi refugees back in Tindouf. Due to the Polisario’s embezzlement of humanitarian aid, the latter lacked basic medical and sanitary means to cope with Covid, while the Polisario leader granted himself VIP medical treatment in Spain including transport with a private airplane.
Even though these lawsuits have yet to bear fruit, facing obstacles at every turn by an aggressive and politically influential Algerian-funded digital and physical army of activists, the fact of the matter remains that there is too much evidence of Ghali’s and the Polisario’s criminal activities to treat them as legitimate political representatives of the Sahrawi people.
European leaders, the main financiers of the Polisario-ruled refugee camps, should hold the leadership accountable, condemn their human rights abuses, and demand an immediate halt of criminal and other destabilizing activities. Beyond the moral obligation vis-à-vis Sahrawi refugees, the protection of Western interests should motivate policymakers to act.
