Mehdi Ben Barka
Mehdi Ben Barka was a Moroccan nationalist, Arab socialist, politician, revolutionary, anti-imperialist, head of the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces and secretary of the Tricontinental Conference. An opponent of French imperialism and King Hassan II, he "disappeared" in Paris in 1965.
Many theories attempting to explain what happened to him were put forward over the years; in 2018 new claims regarding his disappearance were made by Israeli journalist and author Ronen Bergman in his book Rise And Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations. Based on research and interviews with Israeli intelligence operatives who were involved in planning the kidnapping of Barka, Bergman concluded that he was located by the Mossad on behalf of Moroccan intelligence, who assisted the latter in planning the murder ultimately committed by Moroccan agents and French police, after which the Mossad disposed of his body.
Early life and education
Mehdi Ben Barka was born January 1920 into a middle class family in the Sidi Fettah quarter of Rabat; his father Ahmed Ben M'hammed Ben Barka was a faqih and at the beginning of his career, served as personal secretary of the Pasha of Tangier, before becoming a businessman in Rabat, and his mother Lalla Fatouma Bouanane was a stay-at-home mother and seamstress in her home. His family were originally from the Zyayda tribe before migrating to Rabat. His home was shared with the families of his maternal uncle and paternal aunt and they did not have electricity or running water.He was one of the very few Moroccan children not from the colonial bourgeoisie to have access to a good education. He studied at Lycée Moulay Youssef in Rabat, among the children of the colons and the city's nobility, where he joined the drama club and excelled in his studies. Meanwhile, in addition to his studies, he worked as a simple accountant at the wholesale market to help his family. He earned his first diploma in 1938 with high honors at a time when Morocco only produced about 20 or so graduates of baccalauréat secondary school programs per year.
In response to the change of the legal system under Berber Dahir of May 16, 1930, which placed Amazigh populations under the jurisdiction of the French authorities, 14-year-old Mehdi Ben Barka joined the Comité d'action marocaine, the first political movement born under the protectorate.
His outstanding academic performance attracted the attention of the French List of French residents-general in Morocco Charles Noguès, who sent him along with other distinguished students on a trip to Paris. He studied at Lycée Lyautey in Casablanca from 1938 to 1939, and received his baccalauréat diploma in mathematics in 1939.
As a 17-year-old, he became one of the youngest members of Allal al-Fassi's National Party for the Realization of Reforms, which would become the Istiqlal Party a few years later.
Though he wanted to complete his studies in France, the outbreak of World War II forced him to continue his studies in mathematics at the University of Algiers, also under French control in 1940, instead. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and degree in physics and became the first Moroccan to do so at an official French school. The Algerian People's Party influenced him to broaden the scale of his nationalism to incorporate all of North Africa. He could not disassociate the fate of Morocco from the fate of the entire Maghreb.
Career
Ben Barka returned to Morocco in 1942. At 23 years old, as the first Moroccan Muslim graduate in mathematics of an official French school, he became a professor at the Royal Academy, where the future king of Morocco Hassan II was one of his students. He participated in the creation of the Istiqlal Party, which would play a major role in Morocco's independence. He was the youngest signatory of the Proclamation of Independence of Morocco of January 11, 1944. His signature got him arrested along with other party leaders, and he spent more than a year in prison. cites Ben Barka as having participated—along with Ahmed Balafrej,, Mohamed Laghzaoui, and —in the creation of the newspaper Al-Alam in 1946. According to Mohammed Lahbabi of the USFP, Mehdi Ben Barka prepared the Tangier Speech delivered by Sultan Mohammad V on April 10, 1947.He also remained an activist in the nationalist movement, to the extent that the French General Alphonse Juin described him as the "enemy #1 of France in Morocco.” Mehdi Ben Barka was put under house arrest in February 1951. In 1955, he participated in the negotiations that led to the return of Mohammed V, who French authorities had ousted and exiled, and to the end of the French protectorate.
Primary opponent of Hassan II
On 24 December 1958, Mohammed V appointed the left-wing leader of the Moroccan Workers' Union Abdallah Ibrahim as prime minister - a move by the king to widen the gap between the left wing and right wing of the Istiqlal Party. This caused Allal al-Fassi to resign as party leader in anger and also prevented the more radical Ben Barka's inclusion in government. Ben Barka left the Istiqlal Party executive on 25 January 1959, forming the National Confederation of the Istiqlal Party whose purpose according to Ben Barka was not a split in the party but a "union". He called it a "clarification and a reconversion" with the purpose of turning it into a "structured, homogenous party". Despite this, it later became the National Union of Popular Forces by merging with fractions of the Popular Movement and the Democratic Independence Party.He authored al-Ikhtiyār ath-Thawrī fī l-Maghrib in preparation for the second conference of the UNFP in 1962. Around this time, Ben Barka increasingly embraced revolutionary Marxist language, and the UNFP adopted a political program based on socialism and land reform, aiming to democratize public life and align the party with anti-imperialist Arab and African countries.
In 1962 he was accused of plotting against King Hassan II. He was exiled from Morocco in 1963, after calling upon Moroccan soldiers to refuse to fight Algeria in the 1963 Sand War.
Exile and global political significance
When he was exiled in 1963, Ben Barka became a "traveling salesman of the revolution" according to the historian Jean Lacouture. He left initially for Algiers, where he met Che Guevara, Amílcar Cabral and Malcolm X. From there, he went to Cairo, Rome, Geneva and Havana, trying to unite the revolutionary movements of the Third World for the Tricontinental Conference meeting that was to be held in January 1966 in Havana. In a press conference, he claimed "the two currents of the world revolution will be represented there: the current emerged with the October Revolution and that of the national liberation revolution".As the leader of the Tricontinental Conference, Ben Barka was a major figure in the Third World movement and supported revolutionary anti-colonial action in various states; this provoked the anger of the United States and France. Just before his disappearance, he was preparing the first meeting of the Tricontinental, scheduled to take place in Havana. The OSPAAAL was founded on that occasion.
Chairing the preparatory commission, he defined the objectives; assistance with the movements of liberation, support for Cuba during its subjection to the United States embargo, the liquidation of foreign military bases and apartheid in South Africa. For the historian René Galissot, "The underlying reason for the removal and assassination of Ben Barka is to be found in this revolutionary impetus of Tricontinentale."
Views
He supported various collective solidarity movements, including Maghrebi union, secular pan-Arabism, pan-Africanism, third-worldism, anti-imperialism, and the non-Aligned Movement. In the 1960s, he served the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America, attended the All-African Peoples' Conference, and served as chairman of the preparatory committee for the Tricontinental Conference.On Berbers
Mehdi Ben Barka saw the "Berber problem" as a remnant of colonial cultural policy. Aboulkacem al-Khatir has written that Ben Barka once told a reporter, "Le Berbère est simplement un homme qui n'est pas allé a l'école ".Disappearance
On 29 October 1965, Mehdi Ben Barka was abducted in Paris by French policemen and never seen again.On 29 December 1975, Time magazine published an article titled "The Murder of Mehdi Ben Barka", stating that three Moroccan agents were responsible for the death of Ben Barka, one of them former interior minister Mohamed Oufkir. Speculation persists as to CIA involvement. French intelligence agents and the Israeli Mossad were also involved, according to the article. According to Tad Szulc, Israeli involvement was in the wake of the successful Moroccan-Israeli collaboration in the 1961–64 Operation Yachin; he claims that Meir Amit located Ben Barka, whereupon Mossad agents persuaded him to come to Paris where he was to be arrested by the French police.
Theories on the disappearance
French trial
In the 1960s Ben Barka's disappearance was enough of a scandale public that President De Gaulle, who ordered an investigation, formally declared that the French police and secret service had not been responsible. After trial in 1967, two French officers were sent to prison for their role in the kidnapping. However, the judge ruled that the main guilty party was Moroccan Interior Minister Mohamed Oufkir. Georges Figon, a freelance barbouze who had testified earlier that Oufkir stabbed Ben Barka to death, was later found dead, officially a suicide.Prefect of Police Maurice Papon, later convicted of crimes against humanity for his role under the Vichy regime, was forced to resign following Ben Barka's kidnapping.