a special feature the Sunday daily by daniel zwerd"-7 Number 53 Night Editor: Sara Fitzgerald Sunda, Nove t er 21, 1971 Mlorocco Poli ics Of police state IT DIDN'T TAKE me .long to learn about Moroccan politics. First, I noticed all the police who stroll down the streets twirling ma- chine guns instead of billy clubs. Then three times in one week, I couldn't buy my favorite newspaper L'Opinion, which I read every morn- ing munching croissants and sipping cafe au lait in a cafe. The govern- ment had seized it. * One day the paper was censured because it reported a riot at the Uni- versity of Rabat, where police shot 15 students protesting final exam sched- ules. Another day L'Opinion was seized because the government didn't approve, its coverage of a massive political purge trial in Marrakesh. The third day it was seized because- I never did find out why. But my friend Mohamed told me, "L'opinion is seized any time it prints the truth about politics." L'opinion didn't reach the newsstands many Daniel Zwerdling, Daily Magazine Editor in 1970-71, enrrenitl'j writes for the New Republic. This is the second in a series of five articles he is u riting for The Daily on con- fenPorary life in North Africa and the Middle East. said. "Everyone wants to it's impossible." leave. But know about Greece, Vietnam, and hear vague hints about our oblique support of South Africa. But Moroc- co? Most of my friends ask: Is Mor- occo one of those countries at the top of Africa? and I tell them it sits at the northwest corner, bound by the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, Algeria on the east and the Mauritanian Sa- hara on the south. Little has changed in Morocco for one thousand years. The French nev- er invaded and directly controlled Morocco as they did Algeria. Long after Algeria had been burned to the ground and reconstructed in the French architectural and cultural tradition, Morocco maintained its cultural and social heritage and its sultan. He was a puppet, but Moroc- ing for a routing into Morocco, be- tween Spain and Greece. RUT MOROCCANS hate their coun- try, and fear it. "All the young are dissatisfied," says a young stu- dent whom I met south of Marra- kesh, in an old town called Tarou- dant. He wouldn't say that in public, but we are walking outside the an- cient town walls of mud and straw, which flow over the southern bad- lands like lava. We were alone except for the Atlas mountains filtering through the haze, some women washing their clothes in an irrigation ditch, and an old man digging holes in the earth and mak- ing mud bricks. "There is no work, "no factories. no jobs, no money, not nothing," he said. "All the young despair. If I could vet the money I would leave Morocco and lve forever in another country. And if I could get the passort." It is virtually impossible to ob- tqin a passport in Morocco, except for the few who attend foreign schools or work in other countries. Only the rich can attend foreign schools; if you find a foreign iob you must usually leave a wife and kids back home as collateral which as- sures the government you will re- turn somedav. Domestic students have no chance for a passport. They can't even visit Algeria. A photo of King Hsssan II and his late father. Mohamr'ed. hne In every shon and cafe in Morocco. So I asked shopkeepers "What do you think of the King?" Some smiled and said no+hin. Others told me. "He is our kine," and fell silent. Only voinnr Mroc- cans stuidertz will seak honestly, but like my friend in Taroudant only in absolute private. Do you remember the movies in the Fifties about life behind the Iron Curtain? In the towns, like Fz. or Rabat, or Teto'nn or Marrakesh. I would act out the same script with different faces, different friends. "ir' are thins in Morocco9" I ask. Their faces drain white. They look ouickly over each shoulder. "Shhh." one whisners. "There are eyes and eqrs in the shadows. You understand?" Another walks more q u i c k 1 y through the twisting bazaars of Fez. "Tasan II is the glorious soverein,. kne of our nation," he nroclaims loudly, then leans to my ears and says softly. "For vou there is no risk talk- ing nolitics. You are a stranger. But if T sneak about Morocco. it will be very bad. They will arrest me and . . ." he stonned and drew a finger across his throat. Melodramatic stuff, but it happens. Thev take me to their homes, we close the door, their mothers or sis- ters bring, us silver trays and pots of mint tea and cookies, and we speak alone. "Morocco is terrible," they IF THE students won't speak out loud, who will? The political par- ties spar a bit, but the government muzzles them, too. Communists were banished long ago. A student group, the Union Nationale des Etudiants Marocains, protests from time to time but can't muster any strength. A student in Rabat wanted to tell me, as we munched sardines in a cafe, one night, what organization organized the student protests at the University. He wrote the name on a slip of paper, showed it to me, then tore the paper into shreds and burned it. Istiglal, the remnants of the old independence party, offers some lib- eral criticisms but the party paper L'Opinion can scarcely get to the stands. The last hope is the leftist Union Nationale des Forces Ponu- laires (UNFP)-and it's a dying one. I went to the purge trials in Mar- rakesh - the latest government ef- fort to liquidate the UNFP opposi- tion. Every so often the government drags scores of radicals into- jail and accuses them of subversion. The last time was 1964. when eight persons were executed. This round, the government accused 193 lawyers, merchants, farmers, me- chanics and students of plotting to overthrow Hassan II and establish a "socialist and democratic republic." The government arrested the first few in December 1969, then grabbed the others (except for 32 who fled the country, and were tried in ab- sentia) the next spring. They all lan- Royal palace at Rabat A farmer spilled the beans. He said that some of the accused sent him a correspondence course in revolution (the Guevara manuals?), and he got frightened reading the materials and called the police. The defense pointed out that the farmer can't read or write, but the contradiction slipped by. There was more convincing evi- dence, such as secret passwords ex- changed at revolutionary rendezvous: "Is the muzzein at the top of the It didn't surprise me to learn that the United States contri- butes $30 million each year to Morocco ... a miserably poor nation ruled by a royal despot and a corrupt military. King Hassan II: The 'glorious sovereign'? more times last summer, so I can tell you that there were many truths about Morocco which I never dis- covered. But I can report one more inci- dent: two days after I visited the purge trials in Marrakesh, 30 truck- loads of military cadets, led by the nation's 11 top generals and colonels, attacked the King's summer palace and slaughtered over 100 digntaries celebrating his birthday, The king hid in a bathroom and was saved. IT DIDN'T SURPRISE me to learn that the United States contri- butes $30 million each year to Mor- occo-more than the U.S. gives to al- most every other country (Morocco is moderate on Israel). Morocco is a miserably poor nation ruled by a royal despot and a corrupt military. I was surprised that almost no one in America knows either fact. We can nevertheless. After independence in the fifties, the country retained its other sig- nificant features- dictatorship by the monarchy, the military and the landowners (the landowners come chiefly from the military). The rest of the people live and die in miserable poverty. I got used to children sleeping in gutters, dressed in scrap rags, and with maggots crusted around their eyes. The beggars, the cripples deform- ed by malnutrition, and the perva- sive stench of human excrement as- tonishes tourists who flock to this ex- otic mecca where dope comes cheap- er than Coca-Cola, where double ho- tel rooms with persian carpets and private baths rent for $4, and where craftsmen still make brass teapots and silver platters by hand. American tourist agencies tell me that more and more "tour packages" are ask- guished in jail until the trial began this summer. I went to the courthouse, walked past the machine gun sentries with a press pass, and sat down with the business suits on one side of the courtroom in the scorching after- noon heat. ACROSS THE aisles, the 161 men sat in 13 rows, dressed in doomed gray. They looked like sad men, with tired faces. Most of them, probably all of them, had been tortured. They sat passively while the government revealed, bit by bit, their onerous plot. In the front of the courtroom there were two tables with tangible evi- dence: A half dozen pistols, two gre- nades, a machine gun, some Che Guevara books, a duplicating ma- chine, several typewriters and a bot- tle of nitroglycerine. minaret?" Each witness shuffled one by one to the interrogation stand, lis- tened to the court clerk read his con- fession, then disclaims the confession and said he was tortured. Many pull- ed up their shirts or removed their shoes and socks and showed hideous bruises. Finally, the president of the nine- man tribunal (there are no juries) told the defendants to skip the hor- ror stories. "We've heard tor- ture stories before," he said. EVEN sympathetic Moroccans think that the defendants were plan- ning a revolt, but had barely started to talk about the idea when the gov- ernment nabbed them. The defense attorney, Abderrahim Bouabid, a for- mer vice president, is pacing up and down the hallways during a court recess, his black robes with white frills and tassles flailing. "If they want to prove that there is a revolutionary spirit in Morocco, then they are right," he says." The state is trying to prove the accused have gone beyond intellectual dis- cussion; they are stopping a revolu- tion in advance. But I am certain that things will explode into violence any day. The only question is when, and where." Violence exploded a few days later, but not how Bouabid expected. Five top generals, including the chief of the King's Royal Palace guard, six colonels, and 30 truckloads of mili- tary cadets attacked Hassan II's summer palace halfway between Ra- bat and Casablanca. They surrounded the e n t i r e grounds, killing caddies on the golf course and guests on the beach. Even the ambassador from Belgium was killed: one magazine told in a mov- ing account how a government of- The king had somehow escaped to the bathrooms. Some people suspect that he was allowed to escape by generals who promised to take part in the insurrection and then double- crossed. Others think that his moral power conquered the revolt. Govern- ment 'newspapers tried to explain how 30 berserk cadets killed 100 and wounded 130 and still missed the King. Here is the most popular story: First, the military cadets drank some soda spiked with drugs. Then, the at- tack. Several cadets rushed up to the King, intending to shoot him. Sud- denly, they began trembling, dropped their weapons and kissed his hand and asked forgiveness. in any case. the shooting stooned s1ddonl- after 30 minutes and the insurrectionaries piled into their trucks and drove away. Hassan II promised "his government would make a detailed investigation to deter- mine exactly what happened, then two days later, a firing squad execut- ed the ten leaders who could have told what happened-on television. The screen blanked out during the crucial three seconds. but the Picture reappeared as platoons of soldiers left their ranks and spit on the cornses. According to the govern- ment press, "Justice was done." j IFE didn't change much after the revolt. Hssan II gave a brutal, powerful eeneral unpecedented civil- ian and militar controls. I sat late one night watching TV in a small restaurant, where one hundred townsmen were eating bowls of chick pea soup. We watched a two hour musical ex- travaeanza featlring m a r c h i n g troops, large banners of "Vive le ro," photos of the king, and men's chor- uses and orchestras swelling in the background. The next day I passed street ven- dor, who usually sold peanuts, sell- inz banners with. the Moroccan colors. Sparse clusters of men, women and children paraded here and there in the streets in "snonta- neous" jovous thanks that King Has- san II had triumnhed. I suggested that thev were paid to demonstrate, and my Moroccan friends agreed. Moroccans never demonstrate for anything As for the rest of us: Buses, which are intolerably slow, traveled even slower because nolice barricades halt- ed and insnected them everv 30 or 40 miles. All the borders were closed to Moroccans (few could leave before the attemnted couon anyway), and my friends carried their ID cards in their shirt nockets, just like they had done before. THE UNITET STATES government 4- va ,>F S.