This resulted in the development of a rank-and-file current that fought bureaucratization led by USFP activist Omar Benjelloun. He did not want to form 1. Under Spanish colonial rule up until 1975, the Western Sahara was claimed by Morocco. Polisario, the Sahara Liberation Front, which had waged a struggle against the Spanish, demanded the independence of the territory after 1974. The Spanish withdrawal gave rise to a war between the Moroccan troops, who had invaded Westem Sahara, and Polisario. This conflict is still continuing. 2. Mehdi ben Barka, secretary of the National Union of People's Forces (UNFP), the future USFP, was sentenced to death in absentia by the regime of Hassan II in May 1963. In October 1965, he was kidnapped in Paris and has never reappeared. Omar Benjelloun, a leader of the USFP, was assassinated in 1974 by an Islamic fundamentalist in the pay of the regime. 3. It was called the Communist Party up until 1959, when it was banned for the first time. Then, it was called the Socialism and Liberation Party up until the end of the 1960s, when it was banned for a second time, until 1976. 4. The name "March 23" is a reference to the workers' struggle of March 23, 1965.
revolutionary Marxist activist.
AN YOU give a general picture of the political forces present in Morocco?
The main bourgeois party is Istiqlal, which led the national liberation struggle against France from 1940 to 1956, when the country became independent. There are also a series of parties created by the regime since the start of the "democratization" process in 1975, when there were elections. They include the Independents' Party, the National Democracy Rally and the Constitutional Union.
But even the regime does not have confidence in them. It wants Istiqlal to take part in the government, but in a subordinate role, with very narrow margins for maneuver.
You have to be aware that there is really a difference between Hassan Il's policy and that championed by Istiqlal. After taking part in government from 1977 to 1985, Istiqlal was sidelined in the parliament and now finds itself in opposition. In 16 16 fied. The seats are allotted before the vote, • Morocco, election results are always falsiInternational Viewpoint #186 • June 4, 1990 sometimes weeks before. Even the press reports this!
The programs of the bourgeois parties are not clearly distinguished from that of the regime. They, above all Istiqlal, consider that the priorities today are the recovery of the Sahara and the unification of the national territory. In the last analysis, they tail-end the king.
The Istiqlal party, however, has a mass influence. It even has a base in the workers' movement, through yellow unions. The other parties of the right are groups of notables or technocrats.
On the left, the main formation is the Socialist Union of People's Forces (USFP), which comes from a split in Istiqlal in 1959. It has a petty-bourgeois composition, with transmission belts in the mass organizations, especially in the Democratic Labor Confederation (CDT), a union formed in1978 under the impetus of the USFP. The party's program does not go beyond the limits of bourgeois populism, and it remains timidly reformist. The USFP also puts territorial integri-
another union, but after his death his comrades organized the split. The CDT also rapidly became bureaucratized.
Another left organization, the Democratic People's Action Organization
(OADP) arose in 1983 as a continuation of the old March 23 Marxist Leninist
Organization 4, which came out of the same current as the two USFP fractions.
The OADP publishes a legal journal, and lines up with the rest of the reformist left, notably by participating in the national the Saha- consensus on ra. It is BREAD!
WE ARE HUNGRY an organization with little influence.
As for the far left, the underground organization Ial Amam (Forward), the result of a split in the CP, was officially founded in August 1970. It then developed a rather superficial critique of the
CP with Maoist populist coloring. It quickly ran up against repression. The great majority of its activists were arrested at the beginning of the 1970s. Those arrested in the repressive waves of 1971-
73 and 1984-86 are still in prison.
Ilal Aman remains a revolutionary current, active mainly among students. It continues to declare the need for a revolutionary communist party. But this organization is not developing theoretically, and has no journal in Morocco. The political and theoretical education of its activists remains on a low level, which is a general feature in Morocco. Ilal Aman exists today only in the student movement and in the cultural associations in the big cities given impetus by veterans of the National Union of Moroccan Students (UNEM).
Ilal Amam activists have a sectarian attitude toward the workers' movement. They do not involve themselves in trade-union activity on the pretext that the unions are opportunist and reformist. • What is happening today in the workers' movement? The CDT in general is more militant than the UTM. It is mainly based in the public sector (education, health), while the more bureaucratized UTM is in industry. In the mines, the influence of the two unions is equal. Besides holding back struggles, the UMT does not even function like a union. 1 It is a bureaucracy with links to the state,
MOROCCO although it remains independent, especially if you compare it with the Algerian union movement, which is closely tied to the government. Nonetheless, struggles take place despite the union bureaucracy and not under its leadership.
After the 1981 general strike, the CGT, which led the struggles, was practically dismantled. But struggles resumed after
1985. The Jerada miners waged a monthlong struggle, but suffered a defeat because of the policy of the union leadership, which thought that priority had to be given to the Sahara war
TERRORIST and that therefore you
PROPAGANDA! have "to be responsi-
Able." At the start of 1986, the biggest struggle in thirty years in the phosphates industry was waged in the mines in Khormka and Youssoufia, the two biggest fields. In Youssoufia, the struggle, led by the UMT, lasted two months. The CDT, which organizes the workers in the other mining center, did not even call for a solidarity strike, and limited itself to a 24 work stoppage!
This defeat created a climate of demoralization among the miners.
Once again, in the name of the "national interest," the CDT took the same attitude toward the new struggle of the
Jerada miners in December 1988 and January 1989, which lasted two months and was very militant. It should be said that the mine proletariat is young, recently unionized and lives and works in very difficult conditions. The 7,000 miners won a partial victory, even if the union leadership once again did everything possible to halt the conflict.
The workers' families, especially their wives, took part in the struggle, and the high-school students demonstrated in the streets. This gave rise to a nation-wide solidarity movement, but did not manage to touch off other solidarity strikes.
The Jerada mines continue to be organized by the CDT. Of course, the local leaders are militant, because they are under strong pressure from their base, which counterbalances that of the national union leadership. To give you an example, the mines were occupied when the union leadership called for an end to the strike after a week, and the union had to go along with the workers in their struggle. The lack of self-organization in Morocco is linked to the fact that the revolutionary left plays no role in these conflicts. • Most of the opposition parties oin in the national consensus on he Saharan question. What is the attitude of the Moroccan working
1 Cassan popular strata toward this " orald toward this problem?
The masses make a direct link between the deterioration of their living conditions and the Sahara war. Among the political organizations, only Ilal Amam has courageously supported the Saharans' struggle, a position for which it has paid very dearly with prison terms as long as 20 and 30 years. Hassan II has said, moreover, that he could accept anything except a challenge to the "Moroccan character" of the
Sahara.
In the unions during the upsurge of struggles between 1978 and 1981, USFP activists champed against the bit imposed on them in the name of the Sahara question. They said that the fight for the liberation of the Sahara had to go through battles against the bourgeoisie. Since then, the USFP has abandoned this position.
Among the people of southern Morocco, there is sympathy for Polisario's cause. But in other regions, the demagogy of the regime and the reformist parties has led to the masses seeing Polisario as no more than a body created by Algeria for expansionist aims at Morocco's expense.
• What is the state of the conflict in the Sahara today?
With the building of the walls in the
Sahara, the war is being conducted in a different way. The conflict has subsided, and there has been a resumption of diplomatic relations with Algeria. But nothing has been settled. The two protagonists are sticking to their positions. Polisario is not inclined to give in, and Hassan II isn't either. With the renewal of relations with
Algeria, the masses cherished the hope of seeing an end to the war and its expenses.
• Can you describe the economic situation and its effect on the standard of living of the masses?
Since 1977, the economic crisis and the foreign debt have accelerated the decline in the standard of living of the population. With the 1978-1983 five-year plan, the debt problem grew, and in 1983, the regime agreed to apply all the IMF's recommendations - an austerity policy, attacks against the already weakened buying power of the masses and their social gains (spending on health and education has been cut respectively by 42% and 25% since 1983).
The state is no longer hiring people, while up until 1983 it was the main employer. We are seeing rising unemwhich above all affects the prices of the ployment and unremitting inflation, main foodstuffs. This explains the explosive events of 1981 and 1984.5 5. In June 1981, Casablanca was the scene of popular riots and a general strike against price rises. According o official figures there were 66 deaths, hundreds of wounded and more than 2,000 arrests. In January 1984, the north of the country saw further uprisings 'gainst inflation. This time there were 29 dead 121 a turner upring
June 4, 1990 • #186 International Viewpoint wounded and many arease there were 29 dead, 124 17 wounded and many arrests.
MOROCCO / COLOMBIA The only area where the state is still hiring people is the police and the army. To deal with popular discontent, the police apparatus has been beefed up to keep all the mass organizations under surveillance. The cultural associations in the big cities have been virtually dismantled because of the involvement of far left activists in them. You have to realize that, unlike the Algerian regime, the Moroccan monarchy has conceded no reforms after the riots. • Does that have anything to do with the different weight of the Islamic fundamentalists in the two countries? Over the summer of 1983, there was a wave of arrests in fundamentalist circles that led to people getting up to 30 years in prison. In Essfi prison alone, there is a group of 71 fundamentalists. But in general, the fundamentalists in Morocco are weaker than in Algeria. Nonetheless, they have been stepping up their activity in recent years in student circles (the bulk of the activists arrested in 1983 were students) and in the poor neighborhoods.