King Hassan of Morocco: world leaders mourn a ruthless despot - World Socialist Web Site World Socialist Web Site Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) King Hassan of Morocco: world leaders mourn a ruthless despot By Jean Shaoul 28 July 1999 King Hassan II of Morocco, who died at the age of 70 last Friday after 38 years on the throne, was the second Middle Eastern puppet of US and European imperialism to die in the last six months. Delegations and representatives from more than 60 countries flocked to the Moroccan capital, Rabat, to pay their respects to such a loyal servant. That more than a few put aside their public differences with each other and Morocco to attend speaks volumes for the unstable character of international relations today. The US delegation included Bill and Hillary Clinton, who broke off a fund-raising trip to Colorado to attend, former president George Bush and two former Secretaries of State that have played key roles in earlier Middle East peace processes—James Baker and Warren Christopher. "King Hassan worked tirelessly for the welfare of his people," Clinton gushed.

"He had taken important steps to deepen freedom in his country", he added, in an apparent reference to the release from prison of political and militant opponents. President Jacques Chirac represented France, which ruled Morocco under the Treaty of Fez from 1912 to 1956. "We have lost a man who loved France and the French people—we feel immense pain," Chirac said. King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia represented Spain, which also once ruled part of Morocco. Prince Charles and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook represented Britain. Yassir Arafat came from Palestine. Hafez el-Assad, the Syrian President, pulled out at the last moment but sent his deputy, Mohammed Zuhair Masharqua. President Hosni Mubarak represented Egypt. All these leaders had, publicly at least, opposed Hassan for maintaining friendly relations with Israel, represented at the funeral by Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Secretary David Levy. Shimon Peres, a former Israeli Prime minister, said, "With his passing we lose one of the most experienced and wisest leaders that this region has enjoyed in the last half century". Hassan's relations with his North African neighbours had been far from amicable, yet they too came.

Mohamed Abdelazziz, the president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), whose territory is controlled by Morocco, joined the mourners. The Polisario Front fought a bitter war against Morocco for more than a decade over Western Sahara, which Morocco claims as its territory. President Mohammed Bouteflika came from Algeria, the first official visit in two decades between the two countries, which had closed their borders to the movement of goods and people as a result of the dispute over the Western Sahara. Colonel Muammar Gadhaffi ordered Major Khouildi Hamidi, a member of the country's revolutionary council, to cut short his visit to the Gambia in order to represent the Libyan government. Three days of national mourning were declared, despite relations between the two countries having roller-coastered over the last three decades. Libya is technically at war with Israel. High level delegations came from all the Middle East states, including Iraq, and other Moslem countries. Heads of state came from 14 African countries. The Organisation for African Unity (OAU) sent condolences, even though Morocco left the OAU more than 20 years ago when it recognised the SADR.

The various politicians portrayed King Hassan as some kind of elder statesman in Middle East affairs, like King Hussein of Jordan who died earlier this year. Yet Hassan has had a substantially lower public profile than Hussein, and ruled a country that was nearer to London than Jerusalem, and poorer than any other in North Africa. Known as the "great survivor" by his political opponents, Hassan became the longest reigning monarch in the Arab world after the death of Hussein. He became king in 1961, after the death of his father. His crown remained in place while those of Libya, Egypt, Iran and Iraq toppled. He survived half a dozen coups and assassination attempts. In the 38 years of his despotic rule, he played a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the Zionist State at the expense of the Palestinians. He suppressed the Polisario in phosphate-rich Western Sahara and Islamic fundamentalism in Morocco itself. He opened up the Moroccan economy as a platform for cheap mineral resources and manufactured goods, particularly clothing for the European market. His death comes at a crucial time not only for the Middle East peace process, but also for the Maghreb countries of northwest Africa that are seeking to breathe life into the Arab-Maghreb trading union.

Within Africa, rivalries between the US and the former colonial powers are destabilising economic and political relations. It is for all these reasons that the world's leaders came to Rabat. While officially they were there to mourn and pay tribute to Hassan, more than a few made use of the opportunity for formal and informal talks with those they have not spoken to for years. Most came to inspect the new King, about whom little is known, and see if he is a man they can do business with. A puppet of the French The official eulogies to Hassan's statesman-like qualities conveniently omitted any mention of his brutal suppression of his political opponents, gross abuse of human rights, the conditions that have left the Moroccan people the poorest in North Africa and the isolation and betrayal of the Palestinian people. Born Moulay Hassan in 1929, he was the oldest of the six children of Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef—who claimed descent from the Prophet Mohammed. At that time, Morocco was a protectorate of France except for sections governed by Spain in the northwest and the southern coast, and the city of Tangier, an international zone. As Sultan, Sidi Mohammed was responsible for local and religious affairs.

Resistance to colonial rule mounted over the next decade. After the fall of France during World War II, President Roosevelt for the USA, Winston Churchill for Britain and Charles de Gaulle of France met in Casablanca and promised independence within 10 years if Morocco would cooperate in the war against the Axis powers. This was a promise the French proved unwilling to keep. After an education in France and service in the French navy aboard the battleship Jeanne d'Arc, Moulay Hassan became a playboy frequenting Europe's casinos and sporting the typical accoutrements of royals, with or without their crowns: racehorses, sports cars, aircraft, and film star girlfriends. As demands for self-rule grew, the Sultan put himself at the head of the movement. In 1953, the French exiled him and his family, firstly to Corsica and then to Madagascar. As the rioting and guerrilla warfare increased, the French, by this time already embroiled in the Algerian war of independence, were forced to concede. Making the calculation that their interests would best be served by heading off the working class and pan-Maghreb nationalism by granting independence, they accepted Sidi Mohammed as ruler of Morocco.

The sultan changed his title to King and proclaimed himself Mohammed V to give his new throne an air of legitimacy. His son became commander in chief of the Royal Moroccan Army, which was divided between those who had been loyal to the French and the former rebels. Moulay Hassan reorganised the army, doubled its size and put it to work on civilian projects. But the monarchy was far from popular in the squalor and misery of the shantytowns of Rabat, Casablanca and other cities. He became King in 1961, after the unexpected death of his father following a minor operation, and assumed the title of Hassan II. A measure of the "success" of his regime may be seen from the following statistics. The two chief problems faced by the country in 1961 were unemployment and illiteracy. After nearly 40 years and a trebling of the population to just under 30 million, official youth unemployment is 25 percent, but the real figure is probably double that. At least 55 percent of Moroccans are illiterate and 40 percent of children have never attended school.

Infant mortality has halved to 64 per 1,000, but is still the highest in North Africa and more than double that of Algeria. Only half the rural population has access to proper healthcare and less than one fifth have access to sanitation and clean water. In 1997, Morocco ranked 119th on the United Nations human development index, very little above Iraq (126th) after years of sanctions. The bodies washed up every month on the coast of southern Spain, as desperate would-be migrants take to the Strait of Gibraltar in flimsy boats, are a powerful testimony to Hassan's legacy. The venal monarch himself owned ten palaces and 20 percent of the agricultural land. How Hassan overcame opposition The appalling social conditions gave rise to continual opposition throughout his reign. As early as 1965, there were violent student riots in Casablanca and elsewhere over plans to cut higher education. Arrests, imprisonment, exile and execution of opposition leaders followed. Mehdi Ben Barka, a prominent nationalist and opposition leader of the Union des Forces Populaires, who had taught the King mathematics for four years, was kidnapped in Paris and assassinated.

Israeli intelligence experts have said that Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, helped with the assassination. The King's right hand man, the Minster of the Interior, Mohamed Oufkir, was widely believed to have been responsible but charges were never pressed. Hassan dissolved Parliament and instituted a state of emergency, wielding absolute power until a new constitution was adopted in 1970. For much of his reign, he suppressed opposition with an iron hand and sought help from the West in maintaining his rule. The CIA had him on their payroll for years. In 1971, at his 42nd birthday banquet for 800 guests at the summer palace, 1,400 armed cadets invaded the palace, shooting indiscriminately. They killed more than 100 people, including the Belgian ambassador and wounded some 200 others. Hassan hid in a bathroom until the firing died down. Loyal troops crushed the revolt, killing more than 150 rebels and capturing 900 others. A dozen high ranking, conservative officers were later executed. The king appointed General Oufkir as Minister of Defence.

A little more than 12 months later, four Royal Moroccan Airforce F-5 fighters attacked the King's aircraft as it came into land at Rabat after a visit to Paris. The fighters continued strafing the runway after it made an emergency landing, until Hassan seized the radio and told them that they had been successful and the King was dead. The rebels broke off the attack and within hours, the leaders were arrested and shot by a firing squad. One of these was General Oufkir, who had also been involved in the earlier attack on the palace. According to official reports, the General committed suicide, but his body was found with several wounds. After razing their Rabat home to the ground, Hassan had Oufkir's widow and six children banished to the desert where they were placed under house arrest and not released until 1991. Suppression of the Polisario During the 1970s, Hassan took several steps aimed at damping domestic turmoil. In 1973, he put through measures to increase Moroccan ownership and employment in companies doing business in Morocco and redistributed farmland owned by foreigners to local peasants.

In this way, he tried to manoeuvre a path between the national bourgeoisie and the masses, at the expense of foreign capitalists. In 1975, Hassan asserted Morocco's claim to Western Sahara, a region claimed by Morocco in the north and Mauritania in the south, but still officially under Spanish administration, by marching 350,000 Moroccans armed only with the Koran and banners across the frontier. Western Sahara covers an area of 100,000 square miles with fewer than 75,000 residents, mainly nomadic pastoralists. Although the land was largely desert, it was rich in minerals. Spain withdrew and ceded control to Morocco and Mauritania. This ignited a brutal and expensive war against the Polisario Front, which had been fighting for independence from Spain and did not want to be ruled by the Moroccans. With Libya and Algeria supporting the Polisario against Morocco and some 70 governments worldwide recognising the Polisario Front, their victory seemed assured. But Hassan brushed aside international protests and occupied the contested territory. If anyone dared to speak out against the Moroccan takeover, the King's response was unfailingly brutal. Opponents disappeared in their hundreds.

Many were never accounted for. Amnesty International's reports are littered with incidents of torture and ill treatment by Morocco's security forces. In 1979, following a coup, the new government of Mauritania relinquished its claims to Western Sahara. But Morocco simply used this opportunity to extend its administration to cover the whole of the country. In 1984, after standing by and watching the Palestinians slaughtered at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, Colonel Gadhaffi applied the same treatment to the Saharan rebels. He signed a deal with Morocco that ended Libyan backing for the Polisario and paved the way for their defeat. Hassan built a rampart several hundred miles long to protect Morocco's mining interests in Western Sahara against incursions by the Polisario. Algeria, increasingly beset by its own internal problems, provided little effective support to the rebels. With the Polisario isolated, Morocco eventually gained control of most of the region and agreed to a UN brokered cease-fire in 1991. The UN were supposed to hold a referendum to resolve the conflict, but with no agreement as to who had the right to vote, this failed to materialise.

The 16-year war is estimated to have cost $20 billion, about equal to a national debt that is among the highest of any Arab country. Hassan isolated the Palestinians Above all it was Hassan's prominent role in supporting the Zionist state of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians that won him the support of the US. Nearly all of the quarter of a million Jews living in Morocco were encouraged to leave for Israel, which depended upon immigration for survival. Despite sending a nominal number of troops to support Egypt and Syria in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, Hassan kept his informal channels open with Israel. Israeli history is studded with accounts of high-level secret visits to Morocco that proved pivotal for the peace process. Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres were among the Israeli leaders who, in elaborate disguises, flew in Hassan's private planes at crucial moments. Israeli newspapers said that Hassan allowed Mossad to set up a station in Morocco and develop close ties with Moroccan security forces.

As Joseph Alpher, a former Mossad official and director of the American-Jewish Committees's office in Israel, said: "For Morocco, it provided the King with additional intelligence and know-how to stabilise his regime. For the Israelis, it was good as a window into the Arab world." Dayan's visit as Foreign Secretary to Fez in 1977 established the foundation for the Egyptian-Israeli peace accord and paved the way for Anwar Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem. Peres' first secret trip, in 1978, laid the groundwork for a dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organisation; a subsequent one brought him together with Yassir Arafat, the PLO leader, to overcome a moment of crisis in 1995. In 1982 Hassan hosted a meeting of Arab leaders in Fez where he pushed through agreement on a peace plan that called for the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, but implicitly recognised Israel's right to exist. The plan, although rejected by Israel, laid the groundwork for the King to meet Prime Minister Peres in 1986.

In 1993, the King gave de facto recognition to Israel by welcoming Prime Minister Rabin, marking the first official visit by an Israeli leader to an Arab nation other than Egypt. He played a crucial role in the Oslo agreement in 1993 and the peace deal a year later with Jordan. Despite ritual protests, other Arab nations encouraged Hassan's relationship with Israel because it allowed Morocco, geographically distant from the immediate conflicts, to play a key role in brokering deals with the US and Israel on their behalf. Morocco's unstable future Formal political independence, within the framework of continued imperialist domination and the monarchy, has failed to resolve any of the economic, social and political problems that are the legacy of colonialism and precolonial backwardness. Hassan's 38-year rule leaves behind a country seething with social problems. On the economic front, the European Union agreement that opens up Morocco's market to European products will leave many native companies bankrupt and exacerbate unemployment. The US last year launched its own initiative to build economic ties with North African countries. On the political front, the long running dispute with the Polisario over Western Sahara has still to be settled.

One by one, as the elderly despots that have held together increasingly polarised states for decades come to the end of their days, they leave behind a Middle East and North Africa teetering on the precipice. It was in a vain attempt to shore up one such state that the world leaders gathered in Rabat. Hassan II of Morocco Dies at 70; A Monarch Oriented to the West Hassan II of Morocco Dies at 70; A Monarch Oriented to the West By JOSEPH R. GREGORY King Hassan II, who ruled Morocco for 38 years, acted as a go-between in Egyptian-Israeli efforts to make peace and prolonged the life of his 300-year-old dynasty in an era when monarchies in Libya, Egypt, Iraq and Iran fell to socialist revolutions or the force of militant Islam, died yesterday in Rabat. He was 70. The cause of death was a heart attack, Crown Prince Sidi Mohammed, the King's eldest son and successor, announced on state television.

The King, who had been in fragile health since he was hospitalized in the United States four years ago for lung problems, had been admitted earlier in the day to the Avicenne hospital in Rabat, the capital, with an acute lung infection, according to a statement by the palace. Moroccan television said the funeral would be Sunday. The White House said that President Clinton planned to attend. As King, Sidi Mohammed is expected to continue his father's policies, including close ties with Washington and active pursuit of peace in the Middle East. The United States and its allies considered King Hassan one of the most Western-oriented of Arab leaders, a ruler who outmaneuvered Islamic militants in his country and stood out among his peers for his openness to rapprochement with Israel. Through the years he acted as an intermediary in Middle East diplomacy, helping to arrange a visit to Jerusalem in 1977 by Egypt's President, Anwar el-Sadat, and during the 1980's, meeting with the Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres when other Arabs shunned them.

A master at managing Morocco's complex quilt of ethnic and ideological forces, he maintained a hold on power that was by turns iron-fisted and deftly offhand. He survived half a dozen assassination attempts and uprisings. On one occasion, he intimidated the leader of rebel troops by looking him in the eye and reciting the first verse of the Koran. Another time, when pilots of his air force attacked his Boeing 727 jetliner, the King, himself a pilot, seized the radio and shouted, ''Stop firing! The tyrant is dead!'' -- fooling the rebels into breaking off their attack. The heir to the Alawite dynasty, which claimed direct descent from the Prophet Mohammed and ruled the Sharifian empire of the Western Sahara, Hassan II was the author of Morocco's first Constitution. But he was at heart an autocrat, and democracy waxed and waned at his pleasure. He tolerated opposition parties and a relatively free press that could offer opinions on policy matters. But criticism of the monarchy was forbidden, and his ruthlessness in crushing opponents was criticized by human rights groups. Economic and political reform proceeded steadily through his years in power.

Though the pace was slower than his critics would have liked, said William Zartman, director of African Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, many would agree that the country was better off during the final years of his reign than it was when he came to power. His success lay in an ability to be different things to different people. He kept Morocco's elite content with royal patronage and instituted market-oriented reforms that improved the lives of the urban middle class. He used his position as ''Commander of the Faithful'' to woo the rural peasantry, quadruple the number of mosques and build the world's largest, the Great Mosque of Hassan the II. Completed in 1993, the 54-acre complex was built on the edge of the sea near Casablanca, with a tower more than 650 feet tall and equipped with a laser that beamed at night toward Mecca. ''He had deep understanding from the early days of the tribal mentality of Morocco and the importance of the throne as a unifying force,'' said Robert H. Pelletreau, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, who knew the King well.

''He was a superb student, and he could be exceedingly charming.'' Moroccans said of King Hassan that he had ''baraka,'' or ''blessedness,'' an Arabic expression for a charismatic person blessed with divine protection. Yet when he ascended the throne on Feb. 26, 1961, most observers expected him to fail. Worked With Father To Buttress Monarchy Moulay Hassan ben Mohammed Alaoui was born on July 9, 1929, the oldest of six children of Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef. Most of Morocco was then a protectorate of France, except for sections governed by Spain in the northwest and southern coast and the city of Tangier, an international zone. As World War II unfolded, resistance to colonial rule grew. After the fall of France, the Free French forces promised independence if Morocco would cooperate in the war against the Axis, a promise that Paris proved unwilling to keep. After the war, tension rose between the Sultan and the French, but the young Prince Moulay Hassan was educated as befitted the heir of two traditions: He attended the imperial college at Rabat, where instruction was in Arabic and French.

Later he earned a law degree from the University of Bordeaux and served in the French Navy aboard the battleship Jeanne d'Arc. But his father's agitation for Moroccan self-government continued, and in 1953 the French forced the Sultan into exile. In 1954 and 1955, as rioting and guerrilla warfare increased, Prince Moulay's father regained his title, and the following year, Morocco won independence. Prince Moulay worked with his father, now Mohammed V, to maintain the monarchy's authority during a time of social discontent and the conflicting expectations of those who fought for Moroccan independence. In 1957, he became the commander in chief of the Royal Moroccan Army, which was splintered between officers who had been loyal to the French and the former rebels. Prince Moulay kept the military occupied with civilian projects, and led it to victory against rebel Berber tribesmen in the Rif mountains in 1958. But in the shantytowns of Rabat, Casablanca and other cities, opposition simmered against the royal house. Though the monarchy looked to Paris and Washington for financial support, it needed to placate the leftist opposition.

Declaring neutrality in the cold war, the Prince made overtures to Moscow and accepted Soviet military aid. ''As an Islamic people,'' he told The Associated Press in 1961, ''we have the right to practice bigamy. We can wed East and West and be faithful to both.'' Such comments caused consternation in Western capitals. So did the reputation of the young Prince, whom the Western press often portrayed as a playboy who liked gambling and actresses and was overly concerned with his wardrobe. After Mohammed V died of heart failure following what was expected to be a minor operation, Prince Moulay, who had been named Prime Minister in 1960, moved quickly to establish his rule. His Constitution, which was ratified in 1962, guaranteed freedom of the press and of religion, and created an elected legislature. But the new Parliament, fractured by bitter rivalries, proved ineffectual. The new King retained the power to name the Prime Minister, disband the legislature and control the army. In the mid-1960's, student agitation led to a wave of rioting and arrests. Opposition figures fled abroad or were imprisoned; some were executed.

In 1965 Mehdi Ben Barka, a prominent nationalist and opposition leader, was kidnapped in Paris and never seen again. The King's right-hand man, the Minister of Interior, Mohammed Oufkir, was linked to the disappearance, but the case was never pressed. In June of that year, Hassan dissolved Parliament and instituted a state of emergency, wielding absolute power until a new Constitution was adopted in 1970. The Constitution restored limited parliamentary government, but discontent simmered amid continuing poverty and official corruption. How He Overcame Two Deadly Coups On July 10, 1971, King Hassan invited some 400 prominent Moroccans, diplomats and other guests to his seaside palace of Skhirat near Rabat to celebrate his 42d birthday. The festivities ended in a burst of gunfire as more than 1,000 mutinous troops attacked the palace, hurling grenades and spraying the grounds with small-arms fire. Nearly 100 guests were killed and more than 125 wounded. The King hid in a bathroom. When the firing died down, he re-emerged to find himself face to face with one of the rebel commanders.

Keeping eye contact, he recited the opening verse of the Koran, and the rebel knelt and kissed his hand. Loyal troops crushed the revolt, killing more than 150 rebels and capturing 900 others, many of them young military cadets. A dozen high-ranking, conservative officers were executed. Mohammed Oufkir was named Minister of Defense. A little more than 12 months later, on Aug. 16, 1972, the King was returning from Paris aboard his private Boeing 727 when it encountered an unscheduled escort of four Royal Moroccan Air Force F-5 fighters. As the Boeing approached Rabat's airport, the fighters fired on the plane, knocking out an engine and scoring other hits. The Boeing landed safely, but the renegade pilots continued to strafe the runway until Hassan radioed them, saying the King had been killed. The rebels broke off the attack. Within hours, key participants in the coup were arrested and shot. One of their leaders proved to be General Oufkir, who apparently had been secretly involved in the earlier attack on the palace. According to official reports, the general committed suicide, but his body was supposedly found with several wounds.

His widow and six children were placed under house arrest and were not released until February 1991, in an amnesty marking the King's 30 years in power. Uniting Moroccans Over Western Sahara As the 1970's unfolded, the King took several steps to damp domestic turmoil. In 1973 he put through measures to increase Moroccan ownership and employment in companies doing business in Morocco and also redistributed farmland owned by foreigners to rural peasants. ''He alternated very cleverly between the kinds of reforms that would be popular with the people and the kinds of reforms popular with the ruling elite and in doing so was popular with both,'' said Mr. Pelletreau, the former American diplomat. In November 1975, in a move that would unite Moroccans against a common foe, Hassan reasserted his country's authority over the Western Sahara, a region claimed by both Morocco and Mauritania but still officially under Spanish administration, by trucking some 350,000 civilians under army escort to the region, where they staged a march. The move help secure Morocco's claim but ignited a war with guerrillas of the Polisario Front, who had been fighting for independence from Spain.

Libya and Algeria supported the guerrillas in their war against the Moroccan Army. In 1984, the King signed an accord with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi that ended Libyan backing for the insurgents. Algeria, plagued by its own domestic problems, could give them only minimal support. Militarily, Morocco eventually triumphed, agreeing to a cease-fire with Polisario in 1991 that left the country in control of most the region. The Polisario Front continues to hang on, but the United Nations is scheduling a referendum in March to determine the future of the region's 300,000 people. Seen as Bridge To the Israelis King Hassan was adept at managing Arab-Israeli relations, and he liked to say he viewed Morocco's Jewish population, which numbers around 8,000, as a bridge between Israelis and Arabs. During World War II his father, Mohammed V, had defied the Axis and protected his country's Jews. In 1956, the year of Moroccan independence, there were about 275,000 Jews in Morocco. Most were allowed to emigrate to Israel, Europe and elsewhere.

During the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, King Hassan contributed a nominal number of troops to support Egypt and Syria. Nevertheless, he kept his channels open with Israel. In 1982 he was the host of a meeting of Arab leaders in Fez where he pushed through agreement on a peace plan that called for the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital but implicitly recognized Israel's right to exist. The plan, though rejected by Israel, laid the groundwork for the King to meet with Prime Minister Peres in 1986, a meeting that caused the King to be criticized by Arab leaders. He responded by saying they had neither the ability to make war on Israel nor the willingness to make peace. In September 1993, Morocco gave de facto recognition to Israel by welcoming Prime Minister Rabin, marking the first official visit by an Israeli leader to an Arab nation other than Egypt. Despite such bold gestures, he was careful to play both sides of a conflict when necessary. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, he sent 1,300 troops to Saudi Arabia, a gesture that pleased the West.

At the time he expressed sympathy for the plight of Iraqi suffering under United Nations sanctions and ordered members of the Moroccan royal family to supervise the collection of supplies to ease their plight. Gradual Freedom And Continuing Poverty Despite aid from the West, sporadic reform efforts, and an estimated $2 billion a year sent home by Moroccans working abroad, the economic situation during the 1990's remained difficult for most of Morocco's 25 million people, two-thirds of whom are under the age of 25. In the census of 1994, the urban population exceeded the rural population for the first time. Unrest generally declined in the cities, where most of the economic reforms were concentrated. Although unemployment remained a problem and the strains of a relatively slow pace of development continued, political freedom gradually increased. In the early 1990's, pressure from human rights groups reduced the number of political prisoners and reports of incidents of torture declined. In recent years, the King pushed his version of ''Hassanian democracy,'' which has widened political freedom while retaining the decisive power of the King.

After elections last year, in which leftist parties gained the largest bloc of seats, the King appointed an old leftist adversary, Abdurrahman Youssufi, as Prime Minister, but the new Government has been widely criticized for failing to fulfill election promises to deal with poverty and other social problems. Like his father, the Crown Prince comes to the throne with the reputation of a playboy. At 35, he is still single in a society that emphasizes family ties. He was educated in France, where he received a degree in law and studied international relations. In addition to Arabic and French, he speaks Spanish and English. In recent years, as illness caused the King to withdraw progressively from active public life, the Crown Prince began to take a more active role in public as second in command of the Moroccan military and in helping to direct Government aid to the poor. In February the King sent the Crown Prince as his representative to the funeral of King Hussein of Jordan. With Sidi Mohammed's accession to the throne, his younger brother Moulay Rashid will become Crown Prince. In addition to his two sons, the King is survived by his wife, Lalla Latifa, a commoner who is officially described as the Mother of the Royal Children, and three daughters.

Palace officials say the transition will bring no change in key Moroccan policies, including the longstanding alliance with the United States and strong support for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The aides also said Sidi Mohammed would continue his father's policy of insisting on Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory of the Western Sahara. Nonetheless, the Crown Prince is expected to take his distance from some of his father's closest advisers, principally the Interior Minister, Driss Basri, who in his 20 years in that post has been associated with hard-line policies toward domestic opposition from both the left and the Islamic fundamentalists, who have been excluded from forming parties to compete in elections. Aides to King Hassan said recently that Sidi Mohammed was likely to move hard-liners in his father's entourage aside in effort to accelerate democratic reforms that his father had initiated in recent years. Despite his moves toward democracy, throughout his reign King Hassan remained jealous of preserving the symbols of his monarchy. He refused, for instance, to abandon the practice of having his subjects show their fealty by kissing his hand, even though advisers urged him to end it.

Whether he donned a business suit to meet with Western leaders or appeared in traditional white robes to preside over religious ceremonies, the King was a leader of commanding presence, an eloquent orator in Arabic who spoke excellent French and capable English. ''His golf outings were the picture of an Oriental potentate,'' recalled Mr. Pelletreau, the diplomat. ''He would be accompanied by a vast entourage. If he wanted to sit, chairs would appear, and his guests would be offered sherbet.'' Through intelligence, charm and cunning, he steered an absolute monarchy into the modern world. ''He sheltered Morocco from the various political winds that blew across the Arab world and caused such turmoil in other countries,'' Mr. Pelletreau said. King Hassan II | Jewish Virtual Library Tweet King Hassan II was the King of Morocco from 1961 till his death in 1999. He was the 21st Monarch of the Alaouite Dynasty. Hassan II was born in Rabat, Morocco on July 9, 1929.

From his childhood, he was prepared by his father, the late His Majesty Mohammed V, for the responsabilities he was later to assume as he was the right hand to the King in Affairs of State. To this end, Hassan II received a modern education at a high school in Rabat where he studied alongside young Moroccans drawn from all the regions and all conditions of life in the country. His studies included Arabic language and Literature, but also the normal curicculum of a modern school; in addition, he was given personal training in Statesmanship by the late King Mohammed V. After brilliant studies at the University of Bordeaux in France, he obtained the higher University Diploma in Law. King Hassan II shared his fathers' exile in Madagascar at a time when the French Protectorate transferred the royal family to the Island of Corsica on August 20, 1953, then to Madagascar in Africa in January 1954; during all this period of time he was the political advisor to his father. On the restoration of Moroccan independence, Hassan II played the leading part in the creation of the Armed Forces of which he became the Chief of Staff in 1956.

On July 9, 1957, Hassan II was officially invested as Crown Prince and Heir to the Throne by Late His Majesty Mohammed V, and, in 1960, he was appointed head of the Government. On the February 26, 1961, he was invested as King of Morocco after the demise of his father. King Hassan died of a heart attack on July 23, 1999, and was succeeded by his son 36 year old Sidi Mohammed. Hassan is remembered fondly by Israelis for his constructive role in the peace process. During the 1970s, a series of secret meetings between Israelis and Egyptians were held under Hassan's auspices and helped pave the way to the historic peace agreement . he continued to be a facilitator in later years, hosting Israeli and Arab leaders, and encouraging them to work toward peace agreements. Hassan II had five children.

BBC News | Africa | Obituary: King Hassan II Saturday, July 24, 1999 Published at 16:13 GMT 17:13 UK World: Africa Obituary: King Hassan II King Hassan (left) played a key role in the Middle East peace process King Hassan II of Morocco was a leading figure in North African politics after his ascension to the throne in 1961. BBC's Nick Pelham in Rabat: King Hassan held the country together At the time of his death, he was the Arab world's longest reigning monarch. He was born on 9 July, 1929 as Prince Moulay Hassan, son of King Mohammed V, 16th sovereign of the Alawite dynasty. During his rule he survived a series of assassination attempts and developed a reputation as a committed Arab nationalist. He also played an important behind-the-scenes role in the Middle East peace process and is credited with being a key influence in the signing of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Throughout his reign he maintained friendly relations with the US, but his often heavy-handed domestic human rights record came in for strong international criticism.

Commander of the Faithful For almost four decades King Hassan ruled Morocco as a theocracy, taking his authority from his proclaimed role as Commander of the Faithful and deriding his opponents as heretics. In the early years of his reign, he survived repeated military coups and popular unrest, but opposition was stamped out with an iron fist. He sought to unite the country behind him in his campaign to expand Morocco's border south into the Western Sahara and divert attention from the kingdom's gruelling social inequality. King Hassan was determined Morocco would hold on to the barren but phosphate-rich Western Sahara despite resistance from the Polisario Front and pressure from abroad. Abdul Bari Atwan of Al Quds newspaper: "He did not deliberately snub the Queen" In the latter years of his reign, he succeeded in mollifying much of the opposition by moving towards a constitutional monarchy and including former dissidents in the affairs of state. Last year, he appointed the leader of the leftist movement - which had once advocated the overthrow of the king and his replacement with a republic - to be the country's prime minister.

However, some people have asked how well the institutions of the kingdom could cope in the absence of the man who since 1961 has held the country, in a volatile region, together. The swift enthronement of his son as King Mohammed VI signals an intention for a smooth succession. The new king has played an increasingly public role in recent months. But as in the handover of power in Jordan from King Hussein to his son Abdullah, for many Moroccans he is a relative unknown. King Hassan II The Late King Hassan II Morocco's King Hassan II, whose health had been fragile in recent years, died Friday (23/7/99) at a hospital in the capital of Rabat. The all-powerful monarch, who had been an important unifying force in his North African nation, was 70. In a statement Friday, the Royal Palace medical staff announced that the king had been admitted to Avicennes Hospital with "acute pneumonia, which requires a cardiac and respiratory surveillance." State-run television later interrupted programming, without explanation, to read verses from the Koran. Hassan's heir is Crown Prince Sidi Mohammed, 35.

Hassan, the longest serving monarch in the Arab world, ascended to the throne in 1961. He once told his friend, Spanish King Juan Carlos, that many people thought he wouldn't last six months. But Hassan ruled for more than 38 years, surviving military coups, leftist plots and Islamic-based opposition. His personal popularity among Morocco's 29 million people was acknowledged even by political foes, who called him "the great survivor." "Moroccans need a popular monarch that governs," Hassan wrote in his book, "The Challenge." "That is why the king governs in Morocco. The people would not understand if the king did not govern." Hassan's prestige as a descendant of the prophet Mohammed helped contain the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. But in the wake of coup attempts in the 1970s, opponents accused the king of human rights abuses, including harsh treatment of those who opposed him. In the early 1990s, Hassan ordered the release of more than 800 political opponents and commuted 195 death sentences, which helped improve his relations with the United States and Europe.

The country's 1992 constitution made respect for human rights part of official dogma. Hassan was also a discreet but key mediator in the Middle East peace process, whose contacts with Israeli leaders helped lead to the 1978 peace accord between Egypt and Israel. He also sent troops to battle Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, angering some domestic opponents who backed Iraq in its standoff with the West. King Hassan II on His Magnificent Arabian Horse King Hassan II has been on the throne since 1962, when he succeeded his late father, Sultan Mohammed V. King HassanII is one of the few true autocrats in the world. Despite the appearances of a constitutional democracy. Part of his legitimacy is rooted in his family (The Alaouis) historical relationship to the Prophet Mohammed. Hassan is a direct descendant of the Prophet's son in law, Ali Ibn Abi Talib. King HassanII is considered head of the faith, Islamic "commander of the faithful," in Morocco.

The Alaouis, known for their piety and scholarship, were invited to settle in Morocco in the 1200s A.D., and rose to power in their native oasis district in southeast Morocco, The Tafilalt, in the early 1600s. Hassan is not only a skillful actor in domestic politics and society but is a powerful, behind-the-scenes politician on the world stage. In the picture above, King Hassan appears in an official ceremony marking his accession to the throne, Throne Day, which is a national holiday each March 3. His entourage includes palace guards (in red tunics), national police (gray uniforms), Islamic officials (in white overgarments, of fouqiya), and handservants. Several men are wearing the traditional yellow slipper, or belgha. The King is shaded by a wooden parasol carried by a handservant.

King Hassan of Morocco | The Economist King Hassan of Morocco King Hassan II, the Arab world’s ruthless manipulator, died on July 23rd, aged 70 Jul 29th 1999 Tweet Reuters WHEN King Hassan II came to the throne in 1961, the breed of Arab monarchs was facing extinction. During the 1950s and 1960s, the royal rulers of Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen and Libya succumbed to coups and revolutions. Yet King Hassan died in bed, after a 38-year reign, with many of his near-feudal powers intact. Whenever the royal train careened through a Moroccan railway station, however minor, all the local dignitaries had to stand by the track and bow before the passing majesty. The Arab world's longest-serving ruler remained feared and revered by stationmasters across Morocco. Railway-workers are more easily cowed than revolutionaries. But King Hassan took care of those, too. As crown prince and army chief, aged 29, he put down a rebellion in the Rif mountains in 1958.

The ringleaders, Moroccans say, were packed into helicopters, flown out to sea, and shoved overboard. King Hassan saw off at least ten attempts on his life. In 1971, army rebels raked the king's birthday party with gunfire, killing 98 guests, including the Belgian ambassador. His British counterpart survived by jumping over the palace walls, while the king locked himself in a lavatory. A year later, a faithful minister turned renegade and sent up fighter aircraft to shoot down the royal jet flying home from France. The king is said to have grabbed the controls and radioed “The tyrant is dead”, fooling his would-be assassins into letting him land. Once safely on the ground, he sent the rebels, like so many of their countrymen, to the torture chambers and dungeons of his desert forts. Nevertheless, Moroccans came to believe that Hassan must be a good ruler as he had so much baraka, a kind of God-given mixture of luck and grace. His shrewdness King Hassan was not all iron fists. He displayed shrewdness in staying a step ahead of each new trend in the Arab world.

He countered the nationalist ardour of Nasserite revolutionaries with a burning Moroccan nationalism of his own, annexing the ex-Spanish colony of Western Sahara and going to war with neighbouring Algeria. To guard against Islamic insurgency, he played up his descent from the prophet Muhammad and styled himself “Commander of the Faithful”. He was among the first Arab rulers to embark on market-led economic reforms. He made good friends with America before it was fashionable to do so. He was less polite to European monarchs, perhaps because they have little power, and turned up nearly an hour late to dine with Queen Elizabeth when she visited Morocco in 1980. But where he considered it mattered, King Hassan was a dab hand at manipulating western opinion. On independence from France in 1956, Morocco had 350,000 Jews, a large and influential minority. Within two decades nearly all had been exported, most to Israel, under covert agreement with that country. King Hassan used the few Jews who remained to sell his kingdom as an oasis of pluralism amid the climate of Arab intolerance, a fancy lapped up by pro-Israel lobbies in Washington and Paris.

Having earned trust in Israel, he was often able to act as a go-between for other Arab countries. European dignitaries, plus a present and past American president, came to his funeral to hail him as a peacemaker. But his relationship with Israel was less about peace than the elimination of mutual foes. Israel's secret service, the Mossad, helped the king to abduct his former maths teacher and leftist opponent, Mehdi Ben Barka, in a Paris café in 1965, and subsequently kill him. Israel and the United States supplied the tanks to crush the Polisario Front, a guerrilla force struggling for independence in Western Sahara. United Nations officials say the defensive sand walls in Western Sahara bear remarkable similarity to the Bar Lev line the Israelis once constructed to keep Egypt at bay. The king let the Mossad set up a base in Morocco in 1964, and eavesdrop on an Arab summit called to discuss a united military command on the eve of the 1967 six-day war. In domestic affairs, King Hassan fiddled continually with the constitution to secure power while retaining a whiff of democracy.

His amendments of 1970 banned parliament from debating royal decrees, since that was tantamount to challenging the will of God. The king retained control of internal security, foreign policy and defence. Moroccan law still forbids inquiry into the king's finances. In the mid-1970s, having expropriated the property of French settlers, the king was reported to own a fifth of the country's arable land. The mining of phosphates (Morocco is the world's largest exporter) remains a royal concern. By the time of his death, the king had built at least ten golf courses for his private use, including one in Fez, floodlit for nighttime rounds. Moroccans earn an average of $100 a month. Yet they donated $500m to build the Hassan II mosque in Casablanca, one of the many claiming to be the world's largest. By building the mosque, Moroccans were told, the king “could be remembered as the pharaohs are remembered in the pyramids of Egypt”. He was not the most modest of men.

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Question: In which country did King Hassan II ascend the throne in 1961?
Answer: Morocco