Following a sharp increase in the price of foodstuffs—decided by the government in the framework of an economic policy imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—mass demonstrations broke out in Casablanca, Rabat, and other towns in Morocco. A partial reduction of the increases was immediately announced in order to avoid the spread of the struggles. This did not work.
On June 20 the Democratic Workers Confederation (CDT) launched a general strike. There was a massive mobilization of the workers. The small shopkeepers and artisans joined in the protest, as well as the plebian masses from the poorer and workers neighborhoods. Casablanca became the scene of a real explosion—the largest since independence,
The reaction of the Hassan II regime was brutal. After an initial police intervention aimed primarily at getting the shopkeepers to immediately open up again, the army itself came on the scene, firing at point-blank range on the demonstrators, systematically sealing off neighborhoods, and carrying out mass arrests.
The toll is still not clearly established, but undoubtedly several hundred people were killed, and the number of arrests both in Casablanca and in other towns was even higher. The leaders of the Socialist Union of the People’s Forces (USFP) were also imprisoned. The regime in this way is renewing its tradition of ferocious repression from March 1965.
The June 20 events are the result of a social and political crisis underway since 1978. This crisis led to several general strikes in 1979 and to other strike waves in a series of important sectors in the following years.
This crisis expresses a more general tendency, which is also seen in the other North African countries, This was demonstrated in Tunisia by the January 1978 events and later struggles, and by conflicts in Algeria. Beginning in the mid-1960s, as a consequence of economic and industrial growth, the working class took July 27, 1981 on a greater specific weight and became increasingly conscious of its power and social role. The trade union movement was considerably strengthened through revitalization of existing organizations and the formation of new organizations.
The international economic crisis is also hitting the economies of this region extremely hard. In Morocco this is expressed by a fall in exports (textiles, phosphates, etc.) and the failure of both the previous economic plan and its replacement three-year plan. The debt to imperialist institutions and countries is an increasingly massive burden.
The regime had only one option for trying to extricate itself from the situation: to impose a drastic austerity policy, Putting such a policy into Operation was precisely what provoked successive strike waves, and finally the June 20 explosion.
The working class was not isolated in this battle. The student movement has gone through a resurgence after years of stagnation. The university strike of last February was the Polisario guerrillas in Western Sahara.
most spectacular evidence of this. The plebian masses of the workers neighborhoods, constantly swollen by the exodus from rural areas and composed in their overwhelming majority of young people who find themselves condemned to a miserable existence without perspectives, participated massively in the Casablanca battles. This explosive social situation has challenged the whole political operation of Hassan. He aims to present his regime as a democracy basing itself on national consensus. This project scored an undeniable success in the first period of the war in the Sahara when the “Green March” built up a “national unity” which even included far left organizations. But as the war got bogged down, the perspective of smashing the Polisario Front appeared less and less credible. Military spending weighed increasingly heavily on the state budget (going beyond 40 percent of the total) and the mass of the people were forced to pick up the bill for the operation. Patriotic euphoria disappeared and the war became a supplementary source of social and political tensions. This is why Hassan is now outlining a turn on this burning question. This was concretized as the Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit in Nairobi, where the Moroccan delegation proposed the referendum solution. It has been facilitated by the accomodating attitude of the other African and North African Arab states—in the first place Algeria, whose leaders fear the consequences in the region of an indefinitely prolonged conflict and are not at all enthusiastic about a major crisis of the Moroccan regime which would inevitably have a considerable echo in their country. Right after the Casablanca massacre, and while the city was still undergoing heavy repression, the leadership of the USFP, along with the Stalinist Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS), backed this maneuver by being part
785 of the official Nairobi delegation. This is another indication of the USFP's extremely oportunist line, which always involves compromises with the regime. However, the June 20 events show that this regime does not hesitate to force the most brutal methods to force the masses to accept ruthless exploitation.
Organizations that are a part of the workers movement and want to defend the interests of the exploited masses must make a radical change of line. They must break all collaboration with Hassan and his regime. They need to develop, organize and coordinate the struggle of the workers to ensure the defense of their living standards against the austerity measures demanded by the IMF and the government; to impose respect for the most elementary democratic rights; to demand the liberation of all political prisoners without any exception; and to end the war against the Saharan people, who have a right to self-determination.
To the extent that these struggles are broadened, generalized, and have some success, they will create the conditions for the overthrow of the regime. The unity of the political and trade union organizations of the working class and the exploited masses is a necessary condition for effectively going forward along this path.
It is the duty of the international workers movement to express its concrete solidarity with the Moroccan masses and their organizations, which are subjected to repression. The trade unions of the imperialist countries in particular must participate in this solidarity campaign by demanding their governments suspend all military aid to the Hassan regime. The colonial past and the continuing neocolonial links between France and Morocco make it especially imperative for the French Socialist Party, Communist Party, and trade union organizations to build a solidarity campaign.
Immediate freedom for all the detained trade unionists and militants!
Unrestricted freedom of organization for all parties and trade unions!
For the right to strike and to demonstrate! Not a penny, not a gun for the war in the Sahara!
Independence for the Saharan people!
International solidarity of the trade unions and workers parties!
French trade unions and workers parties must demand that the Mitterrand-Mauroy government immediately halt all military aid to the Moroccan neocolonial regime!