MOROCCO'S WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630028-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: March 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT I I
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630028-3
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGY
Morocco's War
WASHINGTON POST
17 March 1985
King Hassan Strengthened and Threatened
By 10-Year Conflict in Western Sahara
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Foreign Service
RABAT, Morocco-A 10-year
guerrilla war in the Western Sahara
has reinforced the authority of Mo-
rocco's King Hassan II among his
people but also has created new
strains that could threaten the long-
term stability of his nation.
As evidence mounts that the Mo-
roccan Army is succeeding in con-
solidating its control over the dis-
puted former Spanish colony, the
thoughts of Moroccan intellectuals
and western diplomats here grad-
ually are turning to the problems
that could lie ahead when the sol-
diers return from the desert.
"The king's real problem is not
the war but the peace," commented
a western diplomat in Rabat, an
opinion echoed by many in Moroc-
co, which serves as the linchpin to
The struggle to "recover" the
Western Sahara has provided Mo-
roccans with a national rallying
point and endowed King Hassan's
reign with a sense of purpose after
U.S. security interests in northwest
Africa.
Independent military analysts
attribute Morocco's gains in the
desert war against the Algerian-
backed Polisario Front to a strategy
of fencing off ever more extensive
areas of the Western Sahara with
sand walls bristling with electronic
listening devices. Stretching across
a distance of more than 1,000
miles, the walls have robbed the
Polisario guerrillas of the crucial
element of surprise in their hit-and-
run attacks on Moroccan govern-
ment positions.
two narrowly thwarted coup at-
tempts in the early 1970s. This
week the 55-year-old monarch paid
his first visit to the Western Sa-
haran capital of El Ayoun to an en-
thusiastic welcome by a crowd es-
timated at 50,000.
Official posters and photographs
of Hassan are invariably accompa-
nied by the title "The Unifier," a
reference to Morocco's historical
claim to the territories of the Sa-
hara long before the period of Eu-
ropean colonization. Portraits of his
father, Mohammed V. who nego-
tiated the country's independence
from France in 1956, are labeled
"the liberator." ,
The preoccupation with the con-
flict in the Sahara has diverted at
tention. from a gathering economic'
crisis attributable to a variety of
natural and man-made causes such
as drought, rising oil prices, mis-
management and corruption. De-
velopment funds have been poured
into places such as El Ayoun, once a
i run-down village but now a city of
100,000, with magnificent new ho-
tels, two-lane avenues and brand
new government housing provided
free to Moroccans willing to colo-
nize the desert.
The cost of the war-which in-
cludes keeping a 110,000-strong
army permanently deployed in the
desert-is estimated conservatively
at $1 million a day. Morocco's for-
eign 'debt is now about $13 billion,
approaching 100 percent of annual
gross domestic product.
The debt burden has led to un-
rest that has become almost en-
demic in cities such as Casablanca
and Marrakech, where slums adjoin
fabulous royal palaces and villas
belonging to the elite. The govern-
ment's attempts to satisfy its for-
eign creditors by raising prices and
cutting food subsidies have led to
riots that have been put down with
heavy loss of life.
It is estimated that 200 people
were killed in protests against food
price increases in Casablanca, Mo-
rocco's largest city, in 1981. Last
year the unrest spread to Mar-
rakech in the south and towns in the
Rif region in the north-an area
with a long tradition of defiance of
the central authorities. The official
death toll was 29, but diplomats put
the death toll at around 100.
Despite Algerian claims to the
contrary, most Moroccans do not
seem to have' made the connection
between the war and the economic
crisis. The campaign in the Western
Sahara has broad national support.
The left-wing opposition, which is
critical_ . of the government's eco-
nomic policies, is a noisy supporter
of the war.
The Western Sahara conflict be-
gan in earnest in 1975, when the
Spanish Army pulled out of what
had been known as Spanish Sahara,
leaving it to be divided between and
controlled by Mauritania and Mo-
rocco.
A more serious concern, accord-
ing to independent analysts here, is
that an end to the war eventually
might lead to an unraveling of the
national consensus that has been
created so skillfully by Hassan.
Many intellectuals attribute a mod-
est relaxation of restrictions on free
speech to the fact that the king can
count on the unqualified support of
his people for the Sahara campaign.
"It may sound paradoxical, but
the war has led to greater democ-
racy here," said an economist in
Rabat, citing parliamentary elec-
Coni
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630028-3
 II
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630028-3
a,
tions last September and debate in
the press about the causes of the
country's economic ills. The left-
wing opposition denounced the
elections as rigged in favor of the
government parties-but the cam-
paign was relatively free by Moroc-
can standards.
The war effectively has removed
the threat of another attempted
takeover by the military-the most
obvious alternative to the king.
With half the Army deployed in the
Western Sahara, it is difficult to see
who would mount such a coup at-
tempt. Soldiers on active duty in
the desert are well cared for and
receive twice their normal pay.
The king. who is his own minister
of defense, has taken care to pre-
vent any single officer from gaining
unified control over the Army since
the former armed forces chief of
staff, Gen. Ahmed Dlimi, died in a
mysterious car crash in lanuary
1983. Dlimi's functions. which in-
cluded chief of military intelligence,
were split up between several of-
ficers.
A measure of the king's new-
found confidence in the armed
forces was provided earlier this
month when he promoted five of-
ficers, including the commander of
the troops in the Sahara, to general.
Previously, the highest rank that a
career officer could expect to reach
was "colonel-major."
Politically acquiescent at the mo-
ment, the Army again could become
a threat to the monarchy in peace-
time. The problem .of finding em-
ployment for young soldiers return-
ing from the desert is exacerbated
by Morocco's high birthrate. Half
the population is under age 20.
There is a history in Morocco of
new dynasties emerging from the
desert and, armed with a:fundameri-
tal faith in Islam, sweeping away a
regime that has grown corrupt and
soft. Established monarchies have
been overthrown within the last
generation in other Arab countries
such as Libya and Egypt, and it is
possible to imagine a similar up-
heaval in Morocco.
Hassan's strength is his awareness
of the dangers facing him. After 25
years on the throne he has accumu-
lated enormous experience in the art
of governing, and even his critics
concede that despite a reputation for
high living and autocratic whims, he
has proved himself one of the wiliest
rulers in the Arab world.
"The king is much more intelligent
than most Third World leaders. He
has his own sources of reliable infor-
mation. The regime cracks down
hard against the smallest sign of dan-
ger but is, also trying to find ways to
let people express themselves," said
a Moroccan- political scientist critical
of many of the government's eco-
nomic policies.
As a descendant of the prophet
Mohammed, the king derives part
of his legitimacy from the fact that
he is regarded by the mass of or-
dinary people as a religious as well,
as political leader. Islam provides
his regime with a pillar of support,
rather than a source of major op-
position, as in Iran under the shah.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630028-3