Newspaper article 1, Contraband Modern in the Fes Medina

About the advertising campaign and smuggling

A hard trip with the smugglers as the smuggling operation discloses in fine details

The war against smuggling requires the eradication of its social bases

By Idriss Elamrani
Sabah, No. 1834, March 1, 2006

While the advertising campaign against smuggling which started lately expresses the state’s desire to protect the national economy, shielding it from any pushing competition, it remains again but another face of an advertising and media policy the vivid events declare to be replete with failure and falsity. Before we provide any impressions about intentions, the truthfulness and reliability of which we could not thus far divulge, we would admit that we do not possess but only very limited information that we gathered after Dar Elbrihi’sinitiation in broadcasting its advertising campaign against smuggled bologna and cheese.

Some of this data that our correspondent collected during his journey from Tetouan to Rabat show that the contrived firmness of the authority conceals in its folds gestures of greed that have nothing to do with the mentioned campaign’s targets and contents; the data proves that while firmness is shown towards some others are conspired with.

The records and the events of the trip

The bus rushed at 10:30 on Monday 21 October 1995, for Casablanca .The bus was carrying passengers, most of whom are women (more than 50), and we shall know later that they know one another. So who are they?

These are the offsprings of this country (both women and men) who work in smuggling to earn a living. These are women who are not supposed to perform these painstaking trades consisting of long trips, vigilance on the roads, fear and terror at surveillance and examination spots (by the state and the police). Life has decided they should face this reality with all its risks and predicaments.

For this bus was going towards an encounter with the customs men in the “out-of-Tetouan inspection point” as they call it, an unprecedented encounter, an encounter that causes the faces of women to wan, their eyes to weep, an encounter that witnessed the transformation of human fortitude and courage in the face of fear and frailty.

The bus came to a halt. The driver’s assistant descended to the customs man and they conversed. The customs man ascended the bus, examined all the goods that were inside it then he went down again. Again, he extended his talk with the driver’s assistant. Upon his departure, a sense of relief descended on the bus that softened the terrible silence that spread over it, a silence that gave voice to only the sound of shuffling feet. After a while, the customs man went up to his friend standing a little away from the bus. They talked for some time then he came back at a rapid pace towards the bus. Seeing his hasty walk the owners of the merchandise knew that something terrible was about to take place.

Once again the whole bus trembled with fear and terror even after the goods (perfumes, pistachios, etc) having been distributed amongst other passengers to avoid entire loss and acquisition. The two customs men mounted the bus and at once started to throw the smuggled merchandise on the ground, the act being accompanied by crying and supplication from the owners. The customs men enacted different behaviors, whereby one displayed a fake firmness and even gestured towards a kind of treatment with a woman that was in sharp opposition to the ethics of his job. The second customs man was “flexible”, solemn and contentedly standing at the head of the bus where he received the impounded merchandise from his friend to then throw it outside on to the ground. 

The passengers of that trip had to lose more than 40 minutes in waiting. Most of the impounded goods were food products (cheese, bologna etc.). No sooner did the bus move than there arrived a Citroen car to carry away all the impounded merchandise. Also seen were two other buses were made to stop in the same place, but they did not undergo the same treatment that befell the first one. This would be confirmed later.

During the second phase of the trip, that is, in the aftermath of the merchandise being impounded, I attempted to collect by speaking to the merchandise owners themselves or from closely listening to the conversation of one expressing the bitterness of loss. The person is a Moroccan citizen (MR) 43 years of age and a father of eight children. This citizen says:

Smuggling is the only thing I can do to eat and earn a living

“After the decrease in job opportunities, and after the increase in daily requirements, the inflation in prices of the consumables I was unable to obtain a job that could guarantee some of the daily requirements and necessities. If there was any then it was simply a seasonal job, and for this reason I opted for smuggling as a last way out to be able to make ends meet for my eight children. In the past I worked in many things, and right now if I found a job that would provide me with food and shelter then I would not work in smuggling. If this is now my state, how can I go home penniless? I am sure my children are awaiting my safe return.”

Smuggling provides job for a many of people and even women expose themselves to this domain, preferring it to serving in house with tiny wages. They consider it a free and independent job, and this feeling is also shared by those women who prostitute themselves to maintain themselves on an income. They substituted this with smuggling.

The advertising campaign and the smuggler’s viewpoint

“We consider the advertising campaign a customary happening, but why is it that they chose this particular time for it? Is it harmful for the citizen’s well-being, the cheese we smuggle? We know that the Moroccan citizen’s craving for the foreign goods basically pertains on the one hand to his humble capabilities and to the perfect packaging on the other.”

This is how transport workers treat their regulars

The smugglers confer about the sort of bus to take, following specific criteria, the most important of which is the kind of treatment meted out by the bus workers to the owners of merchandise, including a price that is premised on a consent between the driver’s assistant and the smuggler, a value decided upon by the nature of merchandise as well as the number of plastic bags being ferried. For instance, the value of tissue goods is more costly than any other merchandise, in addition to the timing of the bus and the check points it guarantees to pass through without troubles.

Negotiations at the “Douane” and points of surveillance

The driver’s assistant often takes upon himself the trouble of negotiating, in his special ways, the customs men and the police at check points. In case they concur (…) the bus proceeds off in safety, and in case the opposite happens (…) a catastrophe befalls the owners of merchandise, whereby the bus gets examined, the merchandise displayed, as happened on Monday 21 October 1995, at the “out-of-Tetouan” inspection point.

There are other motives behind tight security

Sometimes the guard is intense for other reasons that we ignore. We have to cancel our trips and change their dates. We thus have no work on those days. There are even names of some customs men, famous for being tough, who are known to all smugglers, young and old. Consider the customs man (T) who is rumored to possess two shops for merchandise (…?!) in Beb Nawadar, one of hugest markets in Tetouan. This best explains what happens.

Some suggestions about smuggling by merchandise owners

In case merchandise is seized their owners suggest the following:

- All seized merchandise must be provided with vouchers of seizure so that we make sure that the state is the one to benefit from it.

- Keeping of some of the commodities for their owners according to its kind and quantity instead of seizure of everything. 

- Defining quantity and kind of commodities legally allowed for transportation to avoid any possible obstacles.

The revelation of the trip

Upon the arrival of another bus in Rabat, more precisely at Akari’s wholesale market, it deviated slightly to stop next to a for-goods camion that was awaiting the bus. From it were brought down many containers full of smuggled kiwi fruit, around 40 containers. The passengers stood around astounded by this activity, knowing that most of these goods were those seized at that “out-of-Tetouan inspection point”, which revealed to them that some of the big smugglers are privileged while the lowly ones are ripped off their merchandise. 

A last word

We believe at the Anwal office in Tetouan that these events recorded in this article are but a partial manifestation of a grave predicament that goes beyond the advertising campaign against smuggling, in spite of its importance, because the abolishment of smuggling entails the eradication of its economic and social foundations at the national level as well as the local. That is to say, slogans such as ‘improving the Northern regions’ should be concretely translated through creating economic and social projects that are meant to provide employment for this great army of young men and women. We believe that this is the only way to stifle this contraband economy in the northern regions and thus provide the necessary conditions to restore our ravaged cities, Sabta and Mellila, together with other islands. In anticipation, we can but help discover the districts that feed these smuggling dinosaurs as well as put the credibility of this advertising campaign into question.

Translated by Moulay Driss Elmaarouf