FREEDOM FOR MOROCCO

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27909, 5 March 1956, Page 11

FREEDOM FOR MOROCCO

“Virtual End Of French Rule”

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) RABAT (Morocco), March 3. Dancing and singing went on late into last night in many Moroccan towns as 9,000,000 Moslems rejoiced at the virtual end of 44 years of French rule.

Morocco’s protectorate status was ended in a joint French and Moroccan declaration yesterday, which stated that the Treaty of Fez, which placed this strategic territory at the western tip of the Moslem world under French rule in 1912, “can no longer govern” relations between the two nations.

News of the agreement, reached in Paris at the end of three weeks’ negotiations, soon swept through the country. Tens of thousands of cheering Moroccans poured into the streets of Casablanca, Fez. Rabat and other major towns, singing the Moroccan national anthem and shouting nationalist slogans.

Streets of Morocco towns were a sea of red-and-green Moioccan flags as vast crowds milled excitedly late into the night, around loudspeaker vans broadcasting the text of the joint declaration. Coloured streamers bearing nationalist slogans were strung across every street of the Arab quarter of Casablanca.

CLASHES IN ALGERIA

French Kill 43 Rebels (Rec. 10 p.m.) ALGIERS, March 3. French troops helped by helicopters killed 43 Algerian rebels and captured 145 in clashes yesterday. Two French soldiers were wounded. Heaviest fighting took place in the north of the Constantine department, where Foreign Legion parachutists carried by helicopters, surrounded a fleeing rebel band, killing 22. Throughout Algeria, rebels fired 12 farms and three schools, killed eight civilians, blew up bridges and chopped down telegraph poles. A lorry was blown up by a mine. Police are trying to track down masked hoodlums, organised by Algerian nationalists, who terrorise their fellow countrymen living in Paris if they refuse to provide funds to finance the rebels in the Aures Mountains. The latest victim of the masked gang was a 56-year-old farmer, who was stabbed to death in a slum cafe. Police discovered that he came to France only a month ago to ask his grandsons working in Paris why they had stopped sending their regular payday postal orders to their parents at

home. The boys explained that they could not afford to. since they were being blackmailed into contributing thousands of francs each month to celllecders of the terrorist movement. Podice believe the man was killed as a warning that contributions must be maintained. Terrorist cells usually consist of no more than five men who meet each night in cheap hotel rooms to plan raids on shops and cafes of Algerian traders who refuse to pay. Cafe owners are often threatened with punishment for “religious reasons’’ —because they sell liquor, forbidden by the Koran. If they contribute the equivalent of £5O to atone for this sin. the terrorists let them stay in business. If not. their windows and furniture : are smashed, and sometimes they are , murdered.

I A flare-up of terrorism and rebel activities, however, marred Morocco’s I “Independence Day.” ! Eight French Foreign Legionnaires were killed in an ambush by khakiuniformed rebels in the Riff mountains. Jet fighter planes forced the outlaws to retreat. In the same area, a French farmer was murdered and his wife seriously injured. ! In Marrakesh, a young French priest was badlv hurt when Moroccans 1 slabbed him.