Brisk business at "closed" Morocco-Algeria border

By Tom Pfeiffer

OUJDA, Morocco (Reuters) - On the last stretch of Moroccan highway before the Algerian frontier, an end-of-the- world atmosphere appears to confirm the message of travel guides and government officials: the land border to Algeria is shut.

Spacious roadside cafes once packed with travelers lie empty. Where the road ends, weeds push through wide cracks.

The only sound is the wind in the trees, the fluttering of Moroccan flags and the heels of two mustachioed border guards as they emerge from their office.

Their faces hold a look of faint surprise: "Yes, the Algerians are out there somewhere," says one, glancing back beyond a huddle of disused customs buildings.

"But we never talk to them. We hardly ever see them."

Rusty barriers and spiked chains crouch as a warning that travelers venture further at their peril.

But follow one of the beaten tracks over the hilly frontier and a different picture emerges.

No fences, searchlights or passports here. The way is clear for a steady stream of cars, donkeys and carts that furtively criss-cross no-man's land weighed down with contraband goods.

Smugglers pay border guards to look the other way as fuel, food, household appliances, rugs, tools and CDs are ferried to and fro in a triumph of everyday necessity over politics.

The heroes are the "warriors" -- beaten-up old Renault and Peugeot cars without number plates, tax discs, insurance or lights that hurtle through the border zone at night, their trunks and back seats laden with Algerian fuel. When border police decide to make arrests, the owners abandon their vehicles and flee.

Much of the fuel winds up in Beni Drar, a small town near the border city of Oujda that is growing so fast from the profits of contraband that local people call it "Beni Dollar".

The economics are irrefutable. You get 30 liters of Algerian diesel for 140 Moroccan dirhams ($18.29), compared with around 240 dirhams for the Moroccan version.

DIESEL, CANNABIS, AMPHETAMINES

Legal filling stations lie abandoned but the smell of diesel still wafts over Beni Drar. On the road into town, young men point their thumbs to the ground, a sign to passing drivers that bootleg Algerian fuel is for sale.

A car stops and a vendor dashes into the trees and hauls a plastic 30-litre bottle of pink gasoline from a hole in the ground hidden under leaves and twigs.