MOROCCO: Drive for Independence

French Morocco (pop. 9,000.000) is booming. Huge hydroelectric projects are transforming the barren land into a fertile country, new industries are drawing thousands of people into the cities. But a political conflict threatens to tear Morocco apart. The French, who govern with a firm colonial hand, offer administrative reforms. The Arab population demands full independence. The Arabs look to the U.S. American interest in Morocco as an Atlantic bastion (TIME, Feb. 19) has raised Arab hopes.

Arab faith in America goes back to November 1942, when the U.S. Army went ashore at Casablanca against Vichy

French opposition. Urged to flee, the Sultan of Morocco said then: “The Americans are my friends. I will greet them here.” General George S. Patton gave the Sultan a jeep with chrome fenders which is still the pride of his 58-car garage. Two months later, the Sultan met Franklin D. Roosevelt, was deeply impressed. By January 1944, an independence party, underground since the 1930s, emerged as theIstiqlal (Arabic for independence), broke out with a manifesto which quoted the Atlantic Charter. Independence seemed a splendid idea, even to old Hadj El Glaoui, Pasha of Marrakech, leader of some 4,000,000 Berber tribesmen.* Sometimes called the French Sultan, El Glaoui had acquired wealth and power as a result of past loyalty to the French.

The French cracked down hard. General Jacques Leclerc’s troops occupied Fez. Istiqlal leaders were imprisoned. The French labeled the Istiqlal as an Axis agency. It was a rude awakening for the nationalists.

Continuing Dialogue. Under the 1912 Treaty of Fez, Morocco is a French protectorate. French administrators rule through local pashas and caids. This system was founded on Moslem feudal tradition by France’s famous Marshal Louis Lyautey. It works, but it makes no provision for ultimate Arab self-government.

Wise old Marshal Lyautey singled out Mohammed Ben Youssef from among his brothers and made him Sultan at the age of 17. Although Sultan Sidi Mohammed, now 40, still signs the country’s dahirs (laws), he has no administrative or military power. A French official stands beside him at all meetings with foreigners. But as a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, the Sultan wields great influence among the world’s 300 million Moslems. In his youth he was fond of fast automobiles and purebred Arab horses, seemed an ideal stooge. But in his late 205, Sidi Mohammed became a semi-invalid from an intestinal ailment, took to reading English constitutional history and books about the past glories of Morocco.

French policy after the war was to conciliate the Sultan. He was invited to Paris, got the red-carpet-and-gold-plate treatment. Diplomat Eirik Labonne was sent out as Resident General. Said Labonne: “Economy first. Politics later.” Labonne freed the Istiqlal leaders. His favorite remark: “We must continue the dialogue.”

Labonne’s liberalism, approved in Paris, was not liked by the Morocco-born French colonials. In April 1947, Senegalese soldiers from French West Africa, provoked no one knows exactly how, ran amuck in the Medina. (Arab quarter) of Casablanca, killed 80 Arabs. The Sultan was shocked, announced that the time had come for Morocco to “acquire its full rights.” The words hit Paris like a bomb. “Send 20 divisions or General Juin,” a deputy shouted. Socialist Premier Ramadier, who did not have 20 divisions, sent General Juin to replace Labonne.

Algeria-born Alphonse Juin, among the first French generals to join the Allied forces in North Africa, was one of the Allies’ ablest combat commanders (Tunisia and Italy) in World War II. Said he, as he landed at Casablanca in 1947: “Morocco has a right to be independent. That is normal. But independence must wait until Morocco is ready.” His plan for readying Morocco: i) a school to train Moroccan administrators, 2)3 council including members of the Moroccan Chamber of Commerce to advise the French on budget matters, 3) a delegation from the viziers to sit with top French administrators, 4) recognition of the Berber tribal councils.

These reforms came too late. The Sultan refused to sign many of Juin’s dahirs. When Juin proposed municipal elections based on a 50-50 representation of French and Moroccans, the Sultan objected that this would recognize the voting rights of 350,000 French residents, whom he regarded as foreigners.

Enter the Communists. As Juin’s proposed reforms failed to reduce Moroccan tension, a situation developed that was wide-open to the Communists. Although forbidden to join unions, 55,000 Moroccan workers signed up with the Confédération Générale du Travail, dominated by French Communists. The Communists had been against the Istiqlal in 1945, but by 1949 they were jumping on the nationalist bandwagon. More & more Arabs started taking part in Communist demonstrations.

In 1950 the Sultan was allowed to form his own private cabinet. He made a speech frankly stating his aim: independence. El Glaoui, still a devoted servant of France, paid the Sultan a visit, warned him that his Berbers did not like his anti-French attitude. The Sultan ordered El Glaoui out of the palace.

Last January a U.S. military mission under Brigadier General Pierpont Morgan Hamilton arrived in Morocco to build five U.S. air bases. The Istiqlal intensified its independence drive. In the government council, Moroccans stood up, read documented reports aimed to show “the policy of the protectorate in its statistics.” Some of the figures: only 7% of Moroccan children go to school; only 9% of top administrators are Moroccans. Juin curtly dismissed the council. Said he: “When the general peace is menaced, the time is not ripe for interior agitation.”

Juin planned to visit Washington to discuss his appointment to a key NATO command. “I would like to have things in order before I leave,” Juin said. He demanded that the Sultan renounce the methods of the Istiqlal, approve the proposed French reforms. When the Sultan refused, Juin threatened to depose him. This report alarmed Paris. Foreign Minister Schuman, denying that the French planned to depose the Sultan, said that only a “reform of structure” was being considered. Said Schuman: “The dialogue is continuing . . .” Said Soldier Juin: “Nuts to old Schuman.”

When Juin visited Washington in January, the U.S. State Department asked him to take it easy in Morocco. But when Juin returned, his negotiations with the Sultan broke down again. The general decided to get tough.

The Berbers Ride. On Feb. 25, thousands of pro-French El Glaoui’s Berber horsemen, wearing their war medals and flying the French tricolor attached to spears and old muzzle-loading guns, descended from the Atlas Mountains, headed for Fez and Rabat. Nervous townsmen bolted their shops; Arab women were kept indoors.

In the green-and-white royal palace at Rabat the Sultan was worried. In the rear courts of the palace and in the harem, there was the subdued sound of women’s voices. The rare animals in the Sultan’s private zoo grew restive.

Towards evening the Sultan weakened. He signed a paper renouncing both the Istiqlal and the Communists. Result was that within a week the Istiqlal leaders were jailed, the Sultan’s private cabinet dissolved.

To a TIME correspondent who visited him a few days later the Sultan explained: “They told me the tribes were coming against me. Menaced by this trouble, I signed.” He added: “The duty of a sovereign is to search for the general interest and welfare of the people without entering into the struggle of the parties. But I cannot forbid my people to think.”

Summoned to Paris, Juin stepped off the plane at Orly Field with the remark: “All is calm in Morocco.” Outside Morocco, the Moslem world was in an uproar. Juin’s strict press censorship encouraged wild rumors. An Egyptian newspaper reported that Fez had been bombed, sacred mosques destroyed. Diplomatic notes began pouring into the French Foreign Ministry from the Moslem countries.

To quiet the uproar, General Juin last week postponed taking over his command of the Western European land forces under General Dwight Eisenhower at SHAPE. Juin, planning to fly back to Morocco, was still confident that he could bring the Sultan around, hold Morocco for France, avoid a national insurrection which would be a danger to the Atlantic pact. The dialogue would continue.

*Berbers are the indigenous race of North Africa, distinct from and lighter in color than the Arabs who have invaded their lands. Warlike and industrious, the Berbers have never been fully subjugated. Though Mohammedans, they eat wild boar’s flesh, drink fig brandy and reverence female saints. Monogamous Berbers buy their wives, but give them more freedom than Arab women enjoy.