MOROCCO: Cleaning Up Tangier

One by one they were disappearing or going straight—those worldly cities that make so glamorous a backdrop for TV thrillers. Now it was the turn of Tangier.

Along the gleaming Boulevard Pasteur the luxury shops were empty, and the innumerable stalls of the city’s moneychangers were closed in protest. Unexpectedly Morocco’s King Mohammed V had issued a dahir (royal decree) revoking the charter he had granted Tangier in 1957 after his government took over the international free city from its eight-nation administration. At the time, the King had promised that the “free market in foreign exchange”—the source of all Tangier’s material blessings—would go on as before. Now, it seemed, Tangier was scheduled to become, economically as well as politically, just one more Moroccan city. In the cafés of the North African seaport last week, gloomy Tangerines discussed the latest calamitous rumors.

Falling Pillars. In all its flamboyant history, Tangier (pop. 180,000) had never been “just one more city,” no matter what the nationality of its masters. It was here that Atlas stood, and Hercules formed his great pillars. Trade flourished under Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman, Visigoth and Byzantine alike. The city was “the brightest jewel” in the crown of England’s Charles II. It was coveted by the Portuguese, ruled by the Moors, shelled by the French, invaded by the Spanish—and fought over by just about everyone. When it was finally internationalized in 1923, it was the Mediterranean haven for money-changers and smugglers, bohemians and titled idlers.

The Moroccans at first left the uninhibited economy essentially alone. Tax evaders from all over the world continued to pour their furtive millions into Tangier’s banks. More dummy “Tangier corporations” sprang up to shield actual corporations from paying taxes back home. Legitimate banks, as well as companies that called themselves banks, and a host of money-changers could still offer currency bargains unsurpassed anywhere.

With an ever ready supply of hard cash, Tangier’s wily Indian merchants could buy in the world’s cheapest markets, reexport to the most expensive. Sometimes the transactions were legal, often they were not. In recent years the smugglers alone have been netting about $100 million in sales. Biggest customer: Franco’s Spain, whose fumbling economy is supplied with vital products by Tangier’s smugglers.

Closing Doors. Last week, faced with economic integration within six months, even such conservative banks as the Moses Pariente were advising their panicky clients: sell Moroccan francs for safer currency and get it out of the city at once. All week, capital was in flight. Of the city’s 300 banks and masquerade banks, only 15 are expected to survive.

Who was behind such misfortune? Some Tangerines blamed the King’s act on jealous Casablanca merchants. Others insisted it was a British plot to divert trade to Gibraltar, or a French plot to force Tangier into the franc zone. The explanation accepted by most Tangerines was simpler. To the passionate, doctrinaire leftist politicos of Morocco, Tangier is a monument to foreigners, a corrupt, unclean, anti-Moroccan place that must be cleaned up and cleaned out. Let moviemakers find sinister backdrops elsewhere.