Tahar, a telecommunications engineer in Morocco, was one of the first Sahrawis to be taken to Cuba “for military and academic instruction.” Held for 13 years on Cuba’s Island of Youth, Tahar was taught several lessons. He learned to hate Americans and fearfully await the impending US invasion of his island jail. He learned that “his gun was his father and the revolution was his mother.” Although he learned electrical engineering while in Cuba, today he struggles to recapture his identity and how to share love with his reunited family.
Sadaani, who now coordinates an organization dedicated to improving the lives of the Sahrawis in the refugee camps, recalls that when she was chosen to go to Cuba, she was naively excited. “My mother told me that I was going to summer camp and I was so young, I didn’t know any better. But, I noticed that as she helped me pack my suitcase she was crying. When I asked her why, she wouldn’t answer. It was years later that I understood that she was afraid to even speak against the POLISARIO out of fear that I would be mistreated when I arrived to Cuba.” (Upon Sadaani’s return, she learned that her father was tortured to death in the POLISARIO prisons shortly after she had arrived in Cuba.)
Ghalli, who was deported to Cuba when she was 9 and is now a doctor in Morocco, recounts that her awakening came in an Algerian airport. It was the day that she was allowed to return to the refugee camps after having finished her studies. As she got off the plane, she passed a group of small children boarding a plane on their way to Cuba. In those young eyes, she saw herself and vowed to make sure that what happened to her should not happen to the next generation. She joins many others to speak out about their stolen childhood.
