The meeting in Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa

Next the Friends of Iligh repaired to the municipal building for a meeting during which different presentations would be given. As the 'Reunion' was financed by the Governate of Tiznit Aisha and Bert had to comply with certain demands from high up. One of them was that the Alderman for culture of Tiznit Ahmed Boumzegou would also give a presentation. Apparently he had done his phd on 'Iligh'. Boumzegou had not been particularly helpful when Aisha and Bert had ran up and down the stairs in the Governor's palace in search of support. They both had taken a dislike to him. However in the morning before we set off for Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa word came that Boumzegou suddenly had to go to Rabat. In his stead came a man in a baseball cap. This man insisted that he gave the first presentation right after the introduction by Bert and by the Mayor. His talk was about documents from the archive of Iligh that had proven beyond doubt that Morocco's claim on Western Sahara the former Spanish colony was legit. The claim was never recognized by the international community. The take-over was engineered by General Franco just before his death and king Hassan II. The story goes that one day a helicopter landed in Iligh with people a.o. a minister who demanded of Houcine Aboudmiaa the then ruler of Iligh to hand over the relevant documents. It is unclear to me when this took place and how the authorities in Rabat knew the documents existed. Did Houcine tell them or did they know from El Soussy the historian who died in the mid sixties and who wrote extensively about 'Iligh' in Arabic (never translated). One thing is certain: the documents never came back.I didn't know all this when I made this sketch otherwise the usurper would have been prominent in the drawing. From left to right: Paul Dahan, Manoubi Abdelmjid the Mayor, Bert, Aisha in Hajib and on the phone, Abdullah El Mountassir, and the two Sufi dignitaries from the Zaouia: Moulay El Mahfoud and Moulay Houcine El Ourari.In the background a very large poster of king Mohammed VI.