Newspaper article 13, Contraband Modern in the Fes Medina

From Fnidak to Casablanca: Smuggling and bribery are complicit in the decline of the national economy

By Mohamed Shamssi
Bayan Alyawm, No. 3198, 25 October, 2000

An unemployed graduate: obliged into smuggling.

The trip from Fnidak towards Casablanca is neither always innocent nor legitimate. It is done by some people for the sake of a family visit or summer entertainment or work opportunity. But for the majority it is a quest for bread that is made illegitimate. Its illegitimacy may not be apparent to the naked eye. Its poison flows in the veins of the economy, little by little, and weakens it day in, day out, till it falls into total decline.

The trip from Fnidak to Casablanca gives lessons about the law and its violations, a trip of complicity between smuggling, bribery and many other things.

Fnidak: here everything is sold

At about 5 o’clock a.m, the bus arrives, running out of energy, and enters the town of Fnidak where sleeping seems alien. The noise of the engine cools down and gives lets up for Fkih’s call for the dawn prayers. Some passengers remained in their seats and used them as beds. How strange is the scene of a human being sleeping while sitting in his or her seat! Some others, on the other hand, get sick of staying within the bus and seek refuge in the cold weather of Fnidak and its refreshing breeze.

Near the bus station, the voices of clothes and second hand shoes sellers get louder and you are surprised at the incredibly very low prices. The visitors start a arduous quest amid piles of goods. Once darkness clears away, the town becomes visible. It is a small town, very close to the quiet Mediterranean Sea. Prosperity, over-crowdedness, and non-stop activity are here similar to that of an international stock exchange bourse. Nearby is the occupied town of Sebta. This is why Fnidak has become the capital of smuggled goods par excellence and the final destination of smugglers. Smuggling is the job for the jobless. From the gate of Sebta, a group of women come and carry with them boxes, bags and many other things. They walk unevenly and very slowly. Mrs Fatima, who is about 50 years old, wears her local dress. It is hard to understand her northern dialect. She says that “contraband” has been her job for a long time and that her husband himself has the same job. Their children pursue their studies, but when they are on holidays they can work with their parents. This while Massoud, who is about 40, complains about the lack of work opportunities other than smuggling and says in a dialect idiom “he who has found a drink sweeter than honey can drink it”. This is as far as the inhabitants of this region are concerned, whose task is to provide the Fnidak market with goods. As for the visitors of the market, most of whom come from Casablanca and its surroundings, they start to buy necessities in large quantities: varied foodstuff, blankets, baby clothing, cars tyres, insecticides, electronic devices, shoes, accessories, all types of alcohol, hashish, drugs, smuggled cigarettes, and even medicines. No one would talk about the date of expiry for goods and the list continues.

ALLAH is The Almighty; your brother is obliged to be a smuggler

It was worth-asking these smugglers whose replies were sad and painful. Here is a young man from Casablanca called Said, 31 years old, a graduate in economics. He justifies his resort to smuggling in this manner: “I got my Bachelors degree in economics in 1992 and I have not found any job ever since. I was made to choose between either being frozen into marginalisation or work in smuggling.” He adds “I know the threat of smuggling to the national economy, but your brother is obliged to be a smuggler.” He concludes “The same conditions give the same outcomes. What do you expect from a person who finds all doors shut in his face but to do what is forbidden and illicit?”

As for Mrs Aicha, on the other hand, it is difficult to make her understand the illegal aspect of her work because she states that “trade is right” and adds, “The prophet, peace be upon him, said ‘teach your children to trade and do not teach them to borrow’”. Then she goes on “My husband died and left 5 children on my neck. Life is very hard. I sell and buy so that my kids can survive. I do not want to do something wrong that will arouse the indignation of Allah, the people and my kids.” Since, for any smuggler, there is an excuse, and what is in common between all of them is the force of circumstances, there is another cause that that can be added, which is that of sizeable incomes from smuggling mainly in the initial phase. Al Hajj Maatii, who considers that smuggling by no means violates Islamic law im matters of the goods traded confirms that he has practised trade for very long and admits that his trade has resulted in huge benefits and he has managed to make two big shops from it in one of the Kaissariats (trade centres) of Casablanca, but this was, according to him, before the launching of the anti-smuggling campaign.

The rituals of smuggling: the penguins and the attacks

Once the Moroccan authorities have decided to fight smuggling and passed laws and decisions for that, smuggling practitioners began to create new ways of hiding and concealing goods, setting up their own rituals. In this way, one woman can wear about 100 pyjamas or 70 towels draping them around her body by paying someone specialised in this task. Women look like tropical bears or bigger creatures. Women move like a group of penguins and can not enter the door of the bus except by pushing or breaking into it by force.
This is as regard minor smugglers. As for major ones, they have their own rituals in that lorries loaded with straw or vegetables at the core of which there are tons of smuggled goods and hence billions of dollars. There are some who on purpose load more than one car whose numbers are faked and without any official documents, are headed by an empty “rabbit-like” car, whose task is to secure the passage either by buying it from the authorities at check-up points often represented by gendarmes or customs officers or through fooling them or by escaping, the last sometimes requiring counter-attacks and confrontations when authorities use their weapons with some of such operations ending in casualties. Some other smugglers, on the other hand, take secondary non-paved roads amid mountains .It is a style which is not safe taking into account the difficult terrain of valleys and the danger from highwaymen who keep their eyes on such moments to seize the opportunity. Others take their smuggled loads in a quiet manner in front of the eyes of the official authorities as they hold the “cards of power” that say “let him pass, let him flee”.

Customs and gendarmes are complicit

The crew of the bus is made of four individuals. The task of the first is to arrange goods between seats and empty spaces within the bus. The second is responsible for booking seats or giving tickets and specifying the amount of money to be paid in return for the quantity of the commodities and their types. The third is a mediator or a broker who negotiates with customs officers and gendarmes the business deal to prevent the restraint of goods. Finally there is the driver. Of course, the crew of the bus are the first smugglers. The trip back to Casablanca starts. The overloaded bus reaches the first check-point, which is about 10 kilometres away from Fnidak, where the customs officer with his grey uniform gets onto the bus and hence terrifies the passengers, especially since each of them has their impressive story of seizures at check-points. Al Hajja (a female pilgrim) Yamna, an old woman, says that she has lost 17 million, over a period of time, not at once, ever since the launch of the campaign. This fact has made her diabetic and hysteric. Al Arabi, an inhabitant of El Jadida, is about to go bankrupt due to consecutive seizures. He has spent more than six months in jail for trading in smuggled goods.

The customs officer frowns at the passengers who are overpowered by the terrifying silence. He examines the goods and asks about them while getting hesitant faltering responses. Then he gets off to be alone with the ‘mediator’ who knows the details. He specifies the amount of money to be paid taking account the size of the bus load. The two get into a negotiation process which falls on the ears of the passengers like the fall of snow over a naked body. At last they reach a compromise and the bus starts again while the passengers’ fears abates until the next check point. Only bribery could give legitimacy to the overloads that exceed the bus’s capacity and ‘permits’ smugglers to pass quickly, albeit in a terrifying manner. The desire of the customs officer or gendarme may go beyond bribery (gifts, taxes…) into demanding one of the women passengers to be a gift for him. He threatens (blackmail) to restrain the bus if the targeted woman does not submit to his desire. Talking about this is a real excitement indeed.

The day of the” Trap”

The day of the ‘trap’. What a day! What a trap! During such a day, money can not change anything nor would begging do anything. The answer is “things have come from above”. Some of the customs officers or gendarmes may contact his ‘generous’ customers, drawing their attention to the danger involved in the situation, calling them not to be excessive in their loads. For those who receive no warning, once they submit to the authorities at one of the checkpoints the seizure of goods begins. Women resort to their usual tears, kissing of shoes and feet and thus the calling upon Providence for mercy by panic-stricken hearts begins. Yells, shouts, insults, assaults, grappling and fights start all of a sudden as if there were no nation governed by the laws and the procedures of restraint.

Said’s position, the graduate student in economics, is that the State dealt with smuggling with a sense of rashness and indiscretion as it did not take into consideration the circumstances of those who practised smuggling. The authorities should have fought smuggling at its root, that is, Sebta after all. He poses this question “Why do they allow for the circulation of smuggled goods in Fnidak and restrain them while in their way to other cities?” He views that those who do such things are highwaymen.

Mr Ibrahim, whose patience ran out because of seizures and arrests as a result of this job, from which he can never keep away except to suffer hunger or die, says, “They want to whistle for the desertion of smuggling to open the space for big smugglers.” He wants to know where such restrained goods go. “They announce but a small quantity in their registers. The rest is considered as loot.” He concludes “If smuggling is viewed as harmful for the economy so must be bribery. Therefore it is an absolute must to punish smugglers and potential candidates as well because the law is above all.”

Mrs Aicha confirms that she has not found any alternative for this job and says “Who would love his or her money to be taken away for nothing?” She adds “If she found another work opportunity, whatsoever, she would not face such risks and such humiliations. Work is not found even by graduates,” she said angrily.

Said displayed another attitude when he surprisingly announced, “Smuggling is this and that. There is money which is smuggled as banknotes into Swiss banks by big State officials. There are also golden things, museums artefacts, and national heritage possessions that are smuggled abroad secretly and nobody talks about that. But the poor and the miserable are subject to law and by force.”

Conclusion

In the absence of real legal procedures to fight smuggling, and as long as the perception remains of the line linking Fnidak to Casablanca as an opportunity for fortune-making for State officials who can pay to be appointed there, in the absence of real solutions for the suffering of smugglers, the line remains active in terms of violations and lawlessness; Fnidak remains the source of smuggling and Casablanca the final destination to redistribute smuggled goods.

Translator: Layachi El Habbouch