Ifni

Ifni was a colony and later a Spanish province until June 30, 1969, when it was transferred to the Kingdom of Morocco. Since 2009, when the State Land Reform Plan was approved, it is the province of Sidi Ifni (in the Guelmim-Ued Nun region since 2015), with two urban and seventeen rural municipalities. It has an extension of 1502 km² and about 54 000 inhabitants. Its capital is Sidi Ifni.

Geography

Playa de Gezira, Nahias de Sidi Ifni.

It is a strip of land about eighty kilometers from the coast and twenty-five kilometers inland located on the Atlantic coast between the foothills of the Anti-Atlas and the ocean. It is located about 300 kilometers (170 nautical miles) from the island of Lanzarote. The climate is arid, milder along the coastal strip, with irregular rainfall and high and regular temperatures. The population is mainly made up of the Berber tribe of the Baamarani, of the Islamic religion.

There are subsistence crops of barley, argan (the typical grass for camels) and wheat. Spanish colonization introduced the cultivation of castor bean, from whose seeds lubricating oils are extracted, and of henequen, which provides textile fibers. Extensive ranching of goats, sheep and cattle (in addition to camels) and fishing on the coast. The only important population is Sidi Ifni. The other localities are small towns with a few hundred inhabitants. The official languages are Arabic and Amazigh, but French and Spanish are studied at the Cultural Youth Center and various language schools in the city.

History

Assignment to Spain

The Spanish flag on the provisional seat of the Ifni territorial government on 7 April 1934, which marked the effective occupation of Ifni by the Spaniards.

The Spanish presence in the region dates back to the time of the Catholic Monarchs, when Diego de Herrera founded (1476 or 1478) a place on the coast that had long been used as a temporary base for Spanish sailors and fishermen (the Río de la Mar Pequeña), a settlement called Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña rebuilt in 1496.

A territory as a right by that ancient establishment, was recognized to Spain by Morocco on April 26, 1860, through the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Spain and Morocco signed in Tetouan, after a short war. It was known that the tower was near Tarfaya, but it was alluded that the exact location of that lost Spanish base in the XVI century, with which the determination of which place should be ceded to Spain was the subject of all kinds of hypotheses. The mouth of several rivers was proposed: the Draa, the Schbeika, the Massa, the Assaka, and even the city of Agadir, among other possible locations. Finally, the one known as Sidi Ifni was chosen, although recent research suggests that the remains of the Santa Cruz fort can be recognized in the place known as Puerto Cansado (which has also been successively known by the names of Argila, ErRjeila, Guader, Agwitir, Port Hillsborough, Khnifir or El Kra'an).

Spanish colony

Map of Spanish West Africa until 1956.

Map of Spanish West Africa since 1958.

Despite the location being decided in Sidi Ifni, the Spanish presence was non-existent until 1934, when Colonel Osvaldo Capaz took possession of the area. However, the limits of the colony, fixed by a 1912 treaty with France, are notably smaller than those established in 1860.

Due to the military uprising of 1936 against the Spanish Republic, the territory remained in the hands of the rebellious side from the beginning. The so-called tabors of Ifni Shooters were formed, which were six, if we count the one from Sahara-Ifni and they became famous in that conflict.

Until 1952, Ifni had the status of protectorate. In that year it became part of Spanish West Africa (entity that grouped the colonies of Spanish Sahara and Cabo Juby, with its capital in Villa Bens –current Tarfaya–, in Morocco).

Since Morocco gained independence in 1956, it has claimed the territory on several occasions. The first in August 1957, alleging that the Franco-Spanish treaty of 1912 had been abrogated. At the end of 1957 serious border incidents occurred, being the beginning of the Ifni war, with the Ifni garrisons being attacked by irregular troops led by Moroccan nationalists from the Istiqlal Party and tacitly supported by the king, calling themselves the Moroccan Liberation Army (ELN). The Spanish Army withdrew from most of the territory with the purpose of establishing a defensive line that was limited, close to the capital, easy to defend and impenetrable. The ELN limited itself to taking control of that abandoned territory.

Although this war was never formally declared or ended, Spain and Morocco signed the Cintra Agreements on April 1, 1958, ceding Cabo Juby (with its capital in Villa Bens, present-day Tarfaya) to Morocco in June 1958, in compliance with the Moroccan independence agreements in 1956. However, the territory lost in Ifni was not recovered, actually passing to Morocco; the military positions of the Spanish defensive line constituted the border until the moment of the retrocession of Ifni to Morocco in 1969. Spain's administration over the Ifni territory was effective only in the vicinity of the capital, Sidi Ifni.

Overseas Province

Map showing the approximate limits of the Spanish province of Ifni.

Ifni constituted from 1958 (after the war) until June 1969 (retrocession to Morocco) a Spanish province, governed by a governor general, who sent attorneys to the Francoist Courts, being territorially and in practice only a population nucleus (a city) more Spanish.

During the following years, international pressure (Resolution 1514 of the United Nations General Assembly of December 14, 1960 on decolonization, which included Ifni as a non-autonomous territory; resolution 2072(XX) of the United Nations of December 16, 1965, in which the Government of Spain, as administering power, is urged to decolonize the territories of Ifni and Spanish Sahara) led Spain to begin talks with Morocco that led, at the beginning of 1969, to the agreement to transfer the territory to Morocco —agreement of the Government of Spain of October 12, 1968—. The flag of Spain was lowered from Sidi Ifni on June 30, 1969. Article 7 of the 1969 Treaty of Fez between Morocco and Spain, regarding the Ifni Territory, and in relation to the defense and protection of the Spanish and haquetía, declares: "The Moroccan Government will not hinder the maintenance of existing Spanish cultural and educational institutions in the territory and will provide facilities for the opening of those that the Spanish Government may consider convenient".

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  Spanish soldiers in 1957

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  Spanish soldiers in 1958

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  Sello de Ifni español de 1961.

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  Spanish passport issued in Ifni, a colonial possession in North Africa.

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  Last General Order of the Ifni Sector. June 30, 1969.

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  Ifni cession ceremony to Morocco, 1 July 1969.