STUBBORN RIFFS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 189, 12 August 1925, Page 7

STUBBORN RIFFS.

DEMAND FOR INDEPENDENCE. ABD-EL-iIRIM FIRM. PARIS, August 11. An official communique say 3 the French Government has received a communication from General Primo de Rivera, president of the Spanish Directory, reporting an interview he had with a Riffian emissary. The latter declared that Abd-el-Krim would only enter into peace negotiations if the independence of the Riffs were recognised.—(Reuter.) The Riff leader is at present one of the most dismissed personages on earth. A man who knew this redoubtable person (who seems to have got over his broken leg), says: Born in the territory of the Beni Urriaguel tribe, Abd-el-Krim is the son of a little local village head-man, such as there are many in the Riff, a country split up into twenty-five different tribes, without reckoning many subdivisions of the same, and governed by local assemblies, who in turn.elect their temporary rulers from among the most prominent inhabitants, of which old Mahomed Abd-el-Krim was one. This man, like his sons, -was obsessed with the idea of the great mineral wealth they supposed exists in their native mountains, and particularly in the flanks of the Djebel Hamman, a mountain in the Urriaguel tribal lands. The old man's truly Oriental imagination led him to believe in the existence of cold among other forms of mineral wealth in that spot. Hence his decision to Fend his second son to the Madrid School of Mines, the elder being too far advanced in years for such an education. Mahomed Abd-el-Krim, jun., was once employed by the intellisenee branch of the Spanish staff at Melilla, but was never either an n.c.o. or an officer in the Spanish army, much less in the artillery, which, as all who know Snain are aware, is a very select corps, its members holdin? the title of Industrial Engineer in addition to thpir military rank. Fnfortunatelv, Abd-el-Krim lost the confidence of his employers* which is the explanation of his secession from Spain. "While serving in the above-named capacity. Abd-el-Krim acquired a fair knowledge of Spanish, although the style both of his letters in that languasre and those of his brother is of a very low order, as can bp sppn by anvonp wlm cares to nprnse the interesting pnees of [Captain Sainz's work. "Con. El General jXavarro." wherein are dpseribed thp hardships and slights tn which Ahd-pl-Krim deliberately snhmittpd the Spanish j officer prisoners in 1021. in the hope of! I compelling , their families to forep the! home Government to ransom them, a ] plan which eventually Meantime, more than five hundred of the rank | and file nerished of hunger at the hands I of this Xorth African rebel. For such ! he is, both technically and in fact. In j spite of his ambitious claims to sovereignty-. be is merely another Rosrhi. and j as such is looked upon by the immense I majority of the inhabitants nf Morocco.