Help Matala Magluf a slave in captivity

My name is Matala Magluf X. I am a slave, my mother is a slave, my sisters are slaves, my entire family are slaves in Tindouf ( Algeria ) camps . I am asking the international community to help us. We don't care about the political situation anymore. We have the right to be free.

BORN ON CAPTIVITY

Daniel Fallshaw and Violeta Ayala go to the Saharawi refugee camps in the Algerian desert to make a film about the human price of the long lasting political conflict in the Western Sahara , and find a society where slavery still exists.
Fetim was three when the western conflict start with Deido a woman who wasn't her real mother. Together with ''160,000'' Saharawi people they reached the Algerian desert and became refugees. Ambarka, Fetim's mother, was left behind with the remaining 200,000. In less than 48 hours their entire nation was divided.
Now thirty years later Fetim, a mother herself, meets her own mother through a UN sponsored family reunion program, which allows refugees living on both sides of the wall to meet for a total of only five days.
A week before the reunion Leil, Fetim's oldest daughter, reveals that black people are still slaves in the camps, admitting that her own cousins are slaves. Their master doesn't want to liberate them and refuses to allow them to get married. Matala, their brother, a strong man with a lot of charisma, works in construction like most of black men within the camps. He is unwilling to accept his destiny as a slave and wants to change the situation for him and his sisters. He is very angry hat Polisario, the Saharawi political representatives, have allowed this to be unacknowledged for so long.
On the eve of the reunion everyone is excited and the preparations begin in earnest. The camel has to be bought and killed. Someone has to go to get drinks and other food. The tent has to be organised. There is a lot to do and the tension within the house is rising by the minute. Deido, the `white' woman who took Fetim to the refugee camps 30 years earlier, starts to become very controlling and uneasy. Fetim is caught between the idea of having a real mother and her role in Deido's family.
Over the next few days the black Saharawis grow in confidence and begin to believe they can speak out how slavery has become an institution within their society – in particular how black women are sexually abused by their `white' Moor masters, how they don't have the right to get married without the masters consent, how many black people work for their masters for free, and how slaves are passed from family to family.
It's estimated there are several thousands of black Saharawi slaves who live in the refugee camps in Algeria . They live trapped between their country's fight for independence and their own right to freedom. Is it possible that a liberation movement the Polisario seems to condone this state of affairs?
It's the day of the arrival of Fetim's mother, Ambarka. Fetim works until the last moment while Deido and her daughters are dressing themselves for the big occasion. In working so hard Fetim has forgotten to invite her close friends, Deido hasn't forgotten to invite hers. The reunion is chaotic. The tent is filled with `white' women, and there is a party atmosphere all around. Deido is the first to push to hug Ambarka, who is looking for her own daughter. Once inside Deido's tent Ambarka faints. However nobody seems to care about her except Fatma, Fetim's sister. The racial divide in the family – implicit up to now, suddenly becomes manifest
It's at this point that the filmmakers become unmasked. The very process of discovering the presence of slavery in the camps suddenly makes their personal safety problematic. Their hosts, the Polisario officials, become aware that they are capturing material that is politically sensitive. They detain the filmmakers and interrogate them. The UN intervenes and provides them with a safe passage out of the country.
The Wall of Shame unfolds in one of the longest running refugee camps in the world, sustained by hundreds of aid organizations, accessible to the world's press and monitored by the UN. Ironically slavery remains an institution in this supposedly socialist society, hidden behind the word `culture'.
"Evidently, we are fully committed to help with all our will and belief this enslaved human community and are calling on the international community to join our struggle to free all these children, women and men. They are now concious that the world outside the Tindouf ( Algeria ) camps where they are parked in worse conditions than their masters' camel herds, masters who themselves and their families, nomads since immemorial times, are prisoners for the last 35 years, forced to sedentarization by the POLISARIO leadership.
The leaders of this so called "liberation movement" who claim their attachment to democratic principles to gain the sympathy and support of the world community, concentrate all power without sharing and alternance since 1974. They have been skillful enough to conceal their true principles and practices, slavery, totalitarism and systematic deceipt, from the, benevolent (?), scrutiny of their host country Algeria and the United Nations, and the donor community. This is how they justify their claim that there is a largepopulation of free people, a real nation, that took refuge in camps and whose determination to "return" to their land (half of the Sahara has always been their land!) is so indomitable that they are ready to remain in camps another 30 years…which, translated means another 30 years of black slaves serving their white masters, thenmselves prisoners of a handful of immoral dictators."

Madrid le 4 Juillet 2007

L'Association le Sahara Marocain informe que suite aux différentes réunions qu'elle a eu ces dernières semaines avec les deux journalistes australiens Daniel Fallshaw et Violetta Ayala, reçue des preuves documentées concernant l'existence du phénomène de l'esclavage dans les camps de Tindouf a décidé de mener conjointement avec les deux journalistes une campagne internationale pour dénoncer cet énième drame humanitaire dans ces camps et militer avec de concert avec les instances internationales pour faire pression sur le gouvernement algérien dans le but de libérer toutes les personnes qui vivent en esclaves au le sud de l'Algérie.
L'Association le Sahara Marocain dénonce ce drame humanitaire et accuse le pouvoir algérien d'encourager l'esclavagisme dans les camps de Tindouf dans le but de maintenir en ''captivité'' plus de vingt mille personnes et ce pour ''gonfler'' devant les instances internationales le nombre des soi–disant ''réfugiés sahraouis''.
Plusieurs personnes qui ont vécues l'esclavage dans les camps de Tindouf et réussies à s'enfuir et rallier le Maroc ces derniers mois, contactée par l'ASM, ces derniers comptent prendre part à la campagne internationale que l'ASM et les deux journalistes mèneront ainsi qu'elles œuvreront pour que justice leur soit rendue.
Pour rappel : les deux journalistes australiens réalisaient un film documentaire sur la vie dans les camps de Tindouf quand ils furent interpellés par un groupe de familles sahraouies dont la couleur de la peau était noire et leur demandèrent de leur porter secours en alertant les instances internationales pour les secourir et les libérer de l'esclavage dont ils sont victimes.
Aussitôt stupéfait et consternés par l'ampleur du phénomène de l'esclavage qui sévit dans les camps, ils décidèrent d'orienter leur film documentaire sur ''l'esclavage dans les camps de Tindouf en Algérie''.
Quelques jours après, ils furent arrêtés par la sécurité militaire du ''Front Polisario'' interrogés pendant plusieurs heures, confisqué leur matériel et n'ont pu s'en sortir que grâce à l'intervention de la MINURSO qui les avait protégées.
Acheminé par la sécurité militaire Algérienne à Tindouf où ils furent séquestrés durant trois jours dans un petit hôtel jusqu'à ce que le ministère des affaires étrangères australien n'intervienne et d'un ton menaçant exigea leur libération immédiate d'où leur expulsion d'Algérie vers la France.

NB:

Aujourd'hui, les deux journalistes, l'ASM et deux organisations internationales dont les noms seront dévoilés lors d'une prochaine conférence de presse en Espagne et pour des raisons purement humanitaires font de la question de l'esclavagisme dans les camps de Tindouf en Algérie une priorité et ce afin que plus de 20 000 ''esclaves'' puissent retrouver leur liberté et mener une vie normale et décente.