Mehdi Ben Barka
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Mehdi Ben Barka | |
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المهدي بن بركة | |
Born | January 1920 |
Disappeared | 29 October 1965 (aged 45) Paris, France |
Status | Missing for 58 years, 5 months and 29 days |
Nationality | Moroccan |
Education | Lycée Lyautey |
Occupation(s) | Nationalism, Politician, Revolutionary, Writer. |
Political party | Istiqlal Party (1944–1959) National Union of Popular Forces (1959–?) |
Mehdi Ben Barka (
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.[2]
Early life and education
Mehdi Ben Barka was born January 1920 into a middle class family in Rabat;[3] his father Ahmed Ben M'hammed Ben Barka was at the beginning of his career, serving 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.[4]
He was one of the very few Moroccan children not from the colonial bourgeoisie to have access to a good education.[3] He studied at Collège 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.[3] Meanwhile, in addition to his studies, he worked as a simple accountant at the wholesale market to help his family.[3] He earned his first diploma in 1938[3] 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 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.[citation needed]
His outstanding academic performance attracted the attention of the French Résident Général Charles Noguès, who sent him along with other distinguished students on a trip to Paris.[3] He studied at Lycée Lyautey in Casablanca from 1938 to 1939,[5] and received his baccalauréat diploma in mathematics in 1939.[3]
As a 17-year-old, he became one of the youngest members of Allal al-Fassi's National Party for the Realization of Reforms (الحركة الوطنية لتحقيق الإصلاحات), which would become the Istiqlal Party a few years later.[citation needed]
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.[3] He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and became the first Moroccan to do so at an official French school.[3] 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.[6]
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
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 on house arrest February 1951. In 1955, he participated in the negotiations that led to the return of Muhammad V, who French authorities had ousted and exiled, and to the end of the French protectorate.[6]
Primary opponent of Hassan II
He left the Istiqlal Party in 1959 after clashes with conservative opponents to found the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP).
He authored
In 1962 he was accused of plotting against King
Exile and global political significance
When he was exiled in 1963, Ben Barka became a "traveling salesman of the revolution" according to the historian
As the leader of the
Chairing the preparatory commission, he defined the objectives; assistance with the movements of liberation, support for Cuba during its subjection to the
Disappearance
On 29 October 1965, Mehdi Ben Barka was abducted ("
On 29 December 1975,
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.
Prefect of Police Maurice Papon (1910–2007), later convicted of crimes against humanity for his role under the Vichy regime, was forced to resign following Ben Barka's kidnapping.[citation needed]
Ahmed Boukhari
A former member of the Moroccan secret service, 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.[citation needed]
Ali Bourequat
Moroccan-French dissident 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.[citation needed]
The body was then encapsulated in cement and buried outside Paris, but his head was brought by Oufkir to Morocco in a suitcase. Thereafter, it was buried in the same prison grounds where Dubail and Bourequat were held.[citation needed]
On 1 October 2009 French magistrates announced that Interpol was placing four Moroccans on its most-wanted list: Morocco's police chief Gen Hosni Benslimane, Morocco's former counter-espionage chief Abdelkader Kadiri, secret service agent Abdelkak Achaachi, and Mioud Tounsi, another suspected kidnapper. But the warrants were suspended the next day; Ben Barka's family said that this proved collusion at the highest levels between France and Morocco, with France keeping the case secret.[19]
CIA documents
Owing to requests made through the Freedom of Information Act, the United States government acknowledged in 1976 that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) possessed 1,800 documents involving Ben Barka; however, the documents had not been released as of 2021[update].[20]
French documents
Some secret French documents on the affair were made public in 2001, causing political uproar.
According to the
Driss Basri
Driss Basri, 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..."[23]
Ronen Bergman
Cooperation with Czechoslovak intelligence
Czech historian Jan Koura revealed in a 2020 article[26] that Ben Barka had collaborated with Czechoslovak secret service (StB) from 1961 until his abduction in 1965. This had been suggested 15 years before, but received little attention until confirmed by documents discovered by Koura.[20] Ben Barka made regular trips to Czechoslovakia; he provided the StB with intelligence and fulfilled specific intelligence operations, for which he was financially rewarded. The Czechoslovak secret service provided Ben Barka (codenamed "Sheikh") with intelligence training in 1965. Barka also asked the StB to train a small group of UNFP members based in Algeria with the intention of overthrowing the King Hassan II. Although the StB refused his request and was willing to train Moroccans only on conspiracy methods, surveillance, and anti-surveillance measures, Ben Barka's cooperation with the StB and his visits of Czechoslovakia were no secret to General Mohamed Oufkir and Moroccan intelligence service. According to Koura, Ben Barka's kidnapping may have been related to his alleged plan to stage a coup in Morocco with the help of the Czechoslovak secret service. During his last visit in Prague in early October 1965, Mehdi Ben Barka complained that King Hassan II was taking various measures against him and asked the secret service for a small handgun to protect himself as he feared assassination.[26]
Legacy
Victoria Brittain, writing in The Guardian, called Ben Barka a "revolutionary theoretician as significant as Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara", whose "influence reverberated far beyond their own continent".[27] 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).[28]
Ben Barka's murder was dramatized in the 1972 film The Assassination, directed by Yves Boisset; the role of "Sadiel" (inspired by Ben Barka) was played by Gian Maria Volonté. In the 2005 film I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed, directed by Serge Le Péron , Ben Barka was played by Simon Abkarian.
See also
- France-Morocco relations
- List of solved missing persons cases
- Maxim Ghilan
- Service d'Action Civique
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-516963-8.
- ^ France accused 44 years on over Moroccan's vanishing by Lizzy Davies, The Guardian, October 29, 2009
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "المهدي بن بركة معارض مغربي ليس له قبر". www.aljazeera.net. Retrieved 2020-03-30.
- ^ Abderrahim Ouardighi (1982). L'itinéraire d'un nationaliste, Mehdi Ben Barka, 1920-1965: une biographie. Editions Moncho. p. 17.
- ^ Muratet, Roger (1967). On a tué Ben Barka (in French). Plon.
- ^ ISSN 2116-5289.
- ^ American Universities Field Staff Reports Service North Africa Series, Vol. V No. 5 (Morocco)
icwa
.org /wp-content /uploads /2015 /09 /CFG-32 .pdf - ^ "قضية المهدي بن بركة تعود للواجهة بقوة في المغرب بعد مرور نصف قرن على اختطافه". CNN Arabic (in Arabic). 2015-10-30. Retrieved 2019-07-11.
- ^ ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2021-07-06.
- OCLC 690860373.
- ^ "الحبابي: بنبركة هو الذي كتب خطاب محمد الخامس بطنجة وكان يدخل القصر مع عبد الرحيم بوعبيد مختبئين". فبراير.كوم | موقع مغربي إخباري شامل يتجدد على مدار الساعة. 2012-10-19. Retrieved 2021-07-06.
- ^ a b Mouaqit, Mohammed, “Ben Barka, Mehdi”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Consulted online on 16 May 2022 First published online: 2018 First print edition: 9789004356665, 2018, 2018-5
- ^ Karen Farsoun and Jim Paul, "War in the Sahara: 1963," MERIP Reports, No. 45 (March 1976).
- ^ "The Murder of Mehdi Ben Barka". Time. December 29, 1975.
- ^ "Officer reveals grim details of Ben Barka's murder". irishtimes.com.
- ^ Szulc 1991, p. 275: "By mid-1963, Operation Yakhin had become virtually routine. Colonel Oufkir, the new Interior Minister in Morocco, and Meir Amit, the new chief of the Mossad, concluded a secret pact that year providing for the training of Moroccan security services by the Israelis and limited covert military assistance in exchange for a flow of intelligence on Arab affairs and continued free departures of Jews. In 1965, the Mossad rendered Oufkir the shocking and sinister service of tracking down Mehdi Ben-Barka, the leader of the leftist opposition in Morocco, whom both the king and his Interior Minister wished dead. Amit agreed to locate Ben-Barka, and Mossad agents persuaded him to come to Paris from Geneva under false pretenses. Near a restaurant, French plainclothesmen arrested Ben-Barka and handed him over to Oufkir’s agents. They then took him to the countryside, killed him and buried him in a garden. Investigations by the French government uncovered the truth, and the Ben-Barka affair became a political scandal in France, Morocco and Israel.”
- ^ Clea Caulcutt (28 October 2010). "Spies, Nazis, gangsters and cops - the mysterious disappearance of Mehdi Ben Barka". RFI English.
- ^ "France: L'Affaire Ben Barka". Time. 28 January 1966. Archived from the original on November 5, 2012.
- ^ Samuel, Henry (16 October 2009). "French secret services accused of link to murder of Ben Barka". The Telegraph.
- ^ a b c Burke, Jason (26 December 2021). "Moroccan opposition leader Mehdi ben Barka was a spy, cold war files suggest". The Observer.
- ^ Affaire Ben Barka : Driss Basri chez le juge, Le Figaro, 23 May 2006 (in French)
- INSEE. Retrieved 12 August 2023.
- ^ French: «Je n'ai été mêlé ni de près, ni de loin, ni à l'époque, ni à aucun moment, à l'affaire qui s'est déroulée sur le sol français» explique-t-il au Figaro. «Seul un petit groupe, qui a gardé un silence total, savait. Il est possible que le roi savait. Il est légitime de penser que de Gaulle était en possession d'informations... Le problème est qu'aujourd'hui les protagonistes sont tous morts» in Affaire Ben Barka : Driss Basri chez le juge, Le Figaro, 23 May 2006 (in French)
- ^ Bergman, Ronen; Nakdimon, Shlomo (2015-03-23). "The ghosts of Saint-Germain forest". Ynetnews. Retrieved 2019-03-31.
- ISBN 978-1-4000-6971-2.
- ^ S2CID 228837772.
- ^ Africa: A Continent Drenched in the Blood of Revolutionary Heroes by Victoria Brittain, The Guardian, January 17, 2011
- ISBN 2907993933
Further reading
- Jan Koura (2020) "A prominent spy: Mehdi Ben Barka, Czechoslovak intelligence, and Eastern Bloc Espionage in the Third World during the Cold War. " Intelligence and National Security https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2020.1844363
Bibliography
- Ben Barka, Mehdi (1957–1965). Écrits politiques (in French). Syllepse. ISBN 2-907993-93-3.
- Ali Bourequat (1998), In the Moroccan King's Secret Gardens, Maurice Publishers
- L'indic et le commissaire Lucien Aimé-Blanc and Jean-Michel Caradec'h. Plon .
- Mehdi Ben Barka. Recueil de textes introduit par Bachir Ben Barka, Collection "Pensées d'hier pour demain", éditions du CETIM, 96 pages, 2013, Genève,
- ISBN 978-0-374-24946-5.
External links
- Morocco's Dirty War by The Nation
- Various English articles – including interview with son of Ben Barka and review of Ahmed Boukari's revelations from L'Humanité on the occasion of the anniversary of Ben Barka's disappearance[dead link]
- Photo
- Exile is his country By Yossi Klein, 31 July 2003, in Haaretz