Mehdi Ben Barka
Encyclopedia
Mehdi Ben Barka was a Moroccan politician, head of the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces
(UNPF) and secretary of the Tricontinental Conference. An opponent of Hassan II, he "disappeared
" in Paris in 1965.
Despite countless theories attempting to explain what really happened to the man hailed by his supporters as "Morocco's Che Guevara
", the exact circumstances of his disappearance have never been established, and as of 2009, investigations are on-going.
, Morocco to a civil servant, and became the first Moroccan Muslim to get a degree in mathematics in an official French school in 1950. He became a prominent member of the Moroccan opposition in the nationalist Istiqlal
party
, but broke off after clashes with conservative opponents in 1959 to found the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces
(UNFP).
In 1962, Ben Barka 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
.
On October 29, 1965, Mehdi Ben Barka was abducted ("disappeared") in Paris by French police officer
s and never seen again. On Dec. 29, 1975, Time
magazine published an article called "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 Mohammed Oufkir. Speculation persists as to CIA involvement. French intelligence agents and the Israel
i Mossad
were also involved, according to the article.
. He left initially for Algiers
, where he met Che Guevara
, Amilcar 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 held in January 1966 in Havana, where he affirmed in a press conference, "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 revolution
ary anti-colonial action in various states, provoking the anger of the United States and France. Just before his death, he was preparing the first meeting of the Tricontinental, scheduled to take place in Havana
, Cuba
- the OSPAAAL (Spanish for "Organization for Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America") was founded on this occasion.
Chairing the preparatory commission, he defined the objectives; assistance with the movements of liberation, support for Cuba subjected to the United States embargo
, the liquidation of the 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."
Ben Barka is considered a "revolutionary theoretician as significant as Frantz Fanon
and Che Guevara
", whose influence reverberated far beyond the African continent. His writings have been collected and translated in French by his son Bachir Ben Barka and published in 1999 under the title Écrits politiques (1957–1965).
Mohamed Oufkir
. Georges Figon
, a witness with a criminal background who had testified earlier that Oufkir stabbed Ben Barka to death, was later found dead, officially a suicide
.
Prefect of Police Maurice Papon
(1910–2007), later convicted for crimes against humanity for his role under Vichy, was forced to resign following Ben Barka's kidnapping.
, Ahmed Boukhari claimed in 2001 that Ben Barka had died during interrogation in a villa
south of Paris. He said Ben Barka's body was then taken back to Morocco and destroyed in a vat of acid
. Furthermore, he declared that this vat of acid, whose plans were reproduced by the newspapers, had been constructed under instructions from the CIA agent "Colonel
Martin", who had learnt this technique to make corpses disappear during his appointment in the Shah's Iran
in the 1950s. Henceforth, a pattern of "disappearances", starting from Iran, passing by Morocco in the 1960-70s, and continuing on into South America's dirty war
s during the 1970s-80s was discovered. (See link below)
and former Tazmamart
prisoner of conscience
Ali Bourequat
claims in his book, In the Moroccan King's Secret Garden, to have met a former Moroccan secret agent in a prison near Rabat
in 1973-74. The man, Dubail, recounted how he and some colleagues, led by Colonel
Oufkir and Ahmed Dlimi
, had murdered Ben Barka in Paris.
The body was then encapsulated in cement
and buried outside Paris, but his head brought by Oufkir to Morocco in a suitcase
. Thereafter, it was buried on the very same prison grounds where Dubail and Bourequat were held.
(CIA) was in possession of some 1,800 documents involving Ben Barka, but the documents were not released.
Michèle Alliot-Marie
had agreed in 2004 to follow the recommendations of a national defence committee and release the 73 additional classified documents on the case. However, the son of Mehdi Ben Barka was outraged at what he called a "pseudo-release of files", insisting that information had been withheld which could have implicated the French secret services
(SDECE), and possibly the CIA and the Mossad
, as well as the ultimate responsibility of King Hassan II
, who conveniently was able to put the blame on Oufkir after his failed coup in 1972.
, Interior Minister of Hassan II and his right-hand man from the early 1980s to the late 1990s, was heard by the judge Patrick Ramaël in May 2006, as a witness, concerning Ben Barka's kidnapping. Basri declared to the magistrate that he had not been linked to the Ben Barka Affair. He added that "it is possible that the King knew. It is legitimate to think that de Gaulle
possessed some information..."
National Union of Popular Forces
The National Union of Popular Forces was founded in 1959 in Morocco by Mehdi Ben Barka and his entourage, because they found that the Istiqlal Party - which had led the independence struggle - wasn't radical enough.Espousing socialist policies, the party took a strongly critical line towards the...
(UNPF) and secretary of the Tricontinental Conference. An opponent of Hassan II, he "disappeared
Forced disappearance
In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...
" in Paris in 1965.
Despite countless theories attempting to explain what really happened to the man hailed by his supporters as "Morocco's Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
", the exact circumstances of his disappearance have never been established, and as of 2009, investigations are on-going.
Background
Ben Barka was born in RabatRabat
Rabat , is the capital and third largest city of the Kingdom of Morocco with a population of approximately 650,000...
, Morocco to a civil servant, and became the first Moroccan Muslim to get a degree in mathematics in an official French school in 1950. He became a prominent member of the Moroccan opposition in the nationalist Istiqlal
Istiqlal
-Political parties:*Istiqlal Party, the Hizb al-istiqlāl or Independence Party, political party in Morocco*Hizb al-Istiqlal, or Independence Party , Arab political party under the British Mandate of Palestine...
party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
, but broke off after clashes with conservative opponents in 1959 to found the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces
National Union of Popular Forces
The National Union of Popular Forces was founded in 1959 in Morocco by Mehdi Ben Barka and his entourage, because they found that the Istiqlal Party - which had led the independence struggle - wasn't radical enough.Espousing socialist policies, the party took a strongly critical line towards the...
(UNFP).
In 1962, Ben Barka 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
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
in the 1963 Sand War
Sand War
The Sand War or Sands War occurred along the Algerian-Moroccan border in October 1963, and was a Moroccan attempt to claim the Tindouf and the Béchar areas that France had annexed to French Algeria a few decades earlier.- Background :...
.
On October 29, 1965, Mehdi Ben Barka was abducted ("disappeared") in Paris by French police officer
Police officer
A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
s and never seen again. On Dec. 29, 1975, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine published an article called "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 Mohammed Oufkir. Speculation persists as to CIA involvement. French intelligence agents and the Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
were also involved, according to the article.
The exile and global political significance
Ben Barka was exiled in 1963, becoming a "travelling salesman of the revolution", according to the historian Jean LacoutureJean Lacouture
Jean Lacouture is a journalist, historian and author. He is particularly famous for his biographies. - Biography :...
. He left initially for Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
, where he met Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
, Amilcar Cabral
Amílcar Cabral
Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral was a Guinea-Bissauan and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, writer, and a nationalist thinker and politician. Also known by his nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing war of independence...
and Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
. From there, he went to Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, Rome, Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
and Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, trying to unite the revolutionary movements of the Third World for the Tricontinental Conference held in January 1966 in Havana, where he affirmed in a press conference, "the two currents of the world revolution will be represented there: the current emerged with the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
and that of the national liberation revolution".
As the leader of the Tricontinental Conference, Ben Barka was a major figure in the Third World
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
movement and supported revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
ary anti-colonial action in various states, provoking the anger of the United States and France. Just before his death, he was preparing the first meeting of the Tricontinental, scheduled to take place in Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
- the OSPAAAL (Spanish for "Organization for Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America") was founded on this occasion.
Chairing the preparatory commission, he defined the objectives; assistance with the movements of liberation, support for Cuba subjected to the United States embargo
United States embargo against Cuba
The United States embargo against Cuba is a commercial, economic, and financial embargo partially imposed on Cuba in October 1960...
, the liquidation of the 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."
Ben Barka is considered a "revolutionary theoretician as significant as Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon was a Martiniquo-Algerian psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer whose work is influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism...
and Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
", whose influence reverberated far beyond the African continent. His writings have been collected and translated in French by his son Bachir Ben Barka and published in 1999 under the title Écrits politiques (1957–1965).
French trial
In the 1960s Ben Barka's disappearance was enough of a "scandale public" that President De Gaulle formally declared his government 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 ministerInterior minister
An interior ministry is a government ministry typically responsible for policing, national security, and immigration matters. The ministry is often headed by a minister of the interior or minister of home affairs...
Mohamed Oufkir
Mohamed Oufkir
General Mohammad Oufkir was a Moroccan Berber politician.As the right hand man of king Hassan II in the 1960s and early 1970s, Oufkir led government supervision of politicians, unionists and the religious establishment...
. Georges Figon
Georges Figon
Georges Figon was a freelance barbouze that arranged the meeting with Mehdi Ben Barka in the Brasserie Lipp. Later he told L'express that he had seen who killed Barka. He accused General Oufkir whom he saw torturing Barka...
, a witness with a criminal background who had testified earlier that Oufkir stabbed Ben Barka to death, was later found dead, officially a suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
.
Prefect of Police Maurice Papon
Maurice Papon
Maurice Papon was a French civil servant, industrial leader and Gaullist politician, who was convicted for crimes against humanity for his participation in the deportation of over 1600 Jews during World War II when he was secretary general for police of the Prefecture of Bordeaux.Papon also...
(1910–2007), later convicted for crimes against humanity for his role under Vichy, was forced to resign following Ben Barka's kidnapping.
Ahmed Boukhari
A former member of the Moroccan secret serviceSecret service
A secret service describes a government agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For instance, a country may establish a secret service which has some...
, Ahmed Boukhari claimed in 2001 that Ben Barka had died during interrogation in a villa
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
south of Paris. He said Ben Barka's body was then taken back to Morocco and destroyed in a vat of acid
Acid
An acid is a substance which reacts with a base. Commonly, acids can be identified as tasting sour, reacting with metals such as calcium, and bases like sodium carbonate. Aqueous acids have a pH of less than 7, where an acid of lower pH is typically stronger, and turn blue litmus paper red...
. Furthermore, he declared that this vat of acid, whose plans were reproduced by the newspapers, had been constructed under instructions from the CIA agent "Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
Martin", who had learnt this technique to make corpses disappear during his appointment in the Shah's Iran
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
in the 1950s. Henceforth, a pattern of "disappearances", starting from Iran, passing by Morocco in the 1960-70s, and continuing on into South America's dirty war
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
s during the 1970s-80s was discovered. (See link below)
Ali Bourequat
Moroccan-French dissidentDissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
and former Tazmamart
Tazmamart
Tazmamart was a secret prison in south-eastern Morocco in the Atlas Mountains, holding political prisoners. The prison became a symbol ofoppression in the political history of contemporary Morocco...
prisoner of conscience
Prisoner of conscience
Prisoner of conscience is a term defined in Peter Benenson's 1961 article "The Forgotten Prisoners" often used by the human rights group Amnesty International. It can refer to anyone imprisoned because of their race, religion, or political views...
Ali Bourequat
Ali Bourequat
Ali Bourequat was a French citizen of Moroccan origins living in Rabat, Morocco. He is a writer and former forcibly disappeared. As a successful businessman, he came from a rich family of Turkish origin close to the court of king Hassan II....
claims in his book, In the Moroccan King's Secret Garden, to have met a former Moroccan secret agent in a prison near Rabat
Rabat
Rabat , is the capital and third largest city of the Kingdom of Morocco with a population of approximately 650,000...
in 1973-74. The man, Dubail, recounted how he and some colleagues, led by Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
Oufkir and Ahmed Dlimi
Ahmed Dlimi
Ahmed Dlimi was a Moroccan General under the rule of Hassan II. After General Mohamed Oufkir's 1972 assassination, he became Hassan II's right-hand man. He was promoted to General during the Green March in 1975, and took charge of the Moroccan Armed Forces in the Southern Zone, where the military...
, had murdered Ben Barka in Paris.
The body was then encapsulated in cement
Cement
In the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance that sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term opus caementicium to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed...
and buried outside Paris, but his head brought by Oufkir to Morocco in a suitcase
Suitcase
A suitcase is a general term for a distinguishable form of luggage. It is often a somewhat flat, rectangular-shaped bag with rounded/square corners, either metal, hard plastic or made of cloth, vinyl or leather that more or less keeps its shape. It has a carrying handle on one side and is used...
. Thereafter, it was buried on the very same prison grounds where Dubail and Bourequat were held.
CIA documents
In 1976, the United States government, due to requests made through the Freedom of Information Act, acknowledged that the Central Intelligence AgencyCentral Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
(CIA) was in possession of some 1,800 documents involving Ben Barka, but the documents were not released.
French documents
Some secret French documents on the affair were made public in 2001, causing political uproar. Defence ministerDefence minister
A defence minister is a person in a cabinet position in charge of a Ministry of Defence, which regulates the armed forces in some sovereign nations...
Michèle Alliot-Marie
Michèle Alliot-Marie
Michèle Jeanne Honorine Alliot-Marie, born 10 September 1946 and nicknamed MAM, is a French politician of the Union for a Popular Movement . A member of all but one right-wing governments of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, she was the first woman in France to hold the portfolios of Defense , the...
had agreed in 2004 to follow the recommendations of a national defence committee and release the 73 additional classified documents on the case. However, the son of Mehdi Ben Barka was outraged at what he called a "pseudo-release of files", insisting that information had been withheld which could have implicated the French secret services
Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage
The Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage was France's external intelligence agency from 6 November 1944 to 2 April 1982 when it was replaced by the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure...
(SDECE), and possibly the CIA and the Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
, as well as the ultimate responsibility of King Hassan II
Hassan II of Morocco
King Hassan II l-ḥasan aṯ-ṯānī, dial. el-ḥasan ettâni); July 9, 1929 – July 23, 1999) was King of Morocco from 1961 until his death in 1999...
, who conveniently was able to put the blame on Oufkir after his failed coup in 1972.
Driss Basri
Driss BasriDriss Basri
Driss Basri was a Moroccan politician who served as Interior Minister from 1979 to 1999. After General Oufkir's death in 1972, and then Ahmed Dlimi's death in 1983, Driss Basri became Hassan II's right-hand man and number two of the regime from the beginning of the 1980s to the end of the 1990s...
, Interior Minister of Hassan II and his right-hand man from the early 1980s to the late 1990s, was heard by the judge Patrick Ramaël in May 2006, as a witness, concerning Ben Barka's kidnapping. Basri declared to the magistrate that he had not been linked to the Ben Barka Affair. He added that "it is possible that the King knew. It is legitimate to think that de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
possessed some information..."
Filmography
- I saw Ben Barka get killed (2005) by Serge Le Péron http://fest06.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=44
- Ben Barka - The Moroccan Equation (2002) by Simone Bitton http://www.frif.com/new2003/ben.html
External links
- Morocco's Dirty War by The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
- Various English articles - including interview with son of Ben Barka and review of Ahmed Boukari's revelations from L'HumanitéL'HumanitéL'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
on the occasion of the anniversary of Ben Barka's disappearance - Photo
- Exile is his country By Yossi Klein, 31 July 2003, in HaaretzHaaretzHaaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
- French Secret Services Accused of Link to Murder of Ben Barka by The Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
- Is Ben-Barka's Legacy of Ideas and Principles Obsolete? '