The Duke of York was upstaged last week when the feudalist monarch King Hassan of Morocco marched 350,000 unemployed and seasonal workers into the Spanish Sahara - and then marched them back again! The only people to benefit from this exercise have been international capital and the tottering Francoist regime in Spain.
ing won in the Spanish Sahara by Frente Polisario, the Saharan independence movement, the Moroccan 'peace march' and subsequent withdrawal became a face saving diversion for the Spanish regime. As for King Hassan, he merely ended up with egg all over his face. PHOSPHATES But the causes of the crisis remain unsolved and could erupt again, despite Hassan's mystifying claim that the marchers had obtained the anticipated re sults and attained the desired objectives' presumably most went for the walk!
Morocco is the world's largest producer of phosphates, supplying 40 per cent of Western Europe's phosphates. DurIng 19/3-14 creasing the world price of phosphate from $ 14 to $68 per tonne by controlling output. Today prices are slumping as a result of a world phosphate surplus of 10 million tonnes and a continuing decline in demand.
Canary Is Faced with the increasing support beEl Aaiun• SPANISH Cisneras The crisis is actually about phosphates.
Hassan succeeded in inof the phosphate market phate market.
Atlantic Cauta Ucean A RABAT res Casablanca MOROCCO • Marrakech Agadir Bu Cras БЕРОБНАТЕ MALI MAURITANIA It is therefore no surprise that the Hassan regime has been greedily eyeing the Bu Craa deposits across the border in the Spanish Sahara. The Bu Craa phos phate deposits are estimated at 1.7 billion tonnes - the world's largest. Control of these would effectively allow Morocco to maintain its domination The Spanish ruling class was not alone in feeling threatened by this. The USA has also been desperately competing with Morocco for control of the phosBoth also had their ever fixed on the safety of their military bases in the nearby Canary Islands.
Other factors were also at play. The Boumedienne regime in Algeria also had its eyes on the phosphate - and on tne threat to the port of Tarfay in Spanish Sahara which is the only export route for Algeria's iron ore mine at Tindouf. As a result of the Boumedienne regime has been overflowing with demagogic support for Polisario, and threatened to cut off gas supplies to Spain if the latter made a acal with hassan REAL LOSERS The real losers in this episode have been the 350,000 poor Moroccans who stumbled into the desert on a wave of religious fervour whipped up by the reactionary Hassan regime. This nicely averted attention away from Hassan's reaction ay poncies - two opposition attempts on his life have already been made and from the growing militancy of the working class in the face of declining living standards, International capitalism - and part icularly Spain's new dictators - will be well pleased with the Moroccan withdrawal. It could well, however, pave the way for a negotiated carve-up of the Spanish Sahara. Revolutionaries worldwide must fight such moves by demanding the immediate withdrawal of Spanish troops from the Sahara and giving full support to the Frente Polisario.
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o Tarfaya Tindout • ALGERIA