Ifni war
The Ifni War or Sahara-Ifni War was an undeclared war between Spain and France against Morocco, between November 23, 1957 and June 1958 that took place in the Spanish territories of Ifni, Cabo Juby and Spanish Sahara that was resolved with the Cintra Agreement.
After the independence of Morocco, it sought to unite, under its sovereignty, the computation of territories over which it considered itself legitimately sovereign, embarking on armed conflicts against France and Spain in this war, in the Rif Revolt (1958-1959) and in the War against Algeria (1963-1964).
The origin of the Spanish territories of Ifni, Cape Juby and Spanish Sahara
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The origins of the territories of Ifni, Cape Juby and Spanish Sahara respond to different circumstances. On the one hand, there is the political instability of the Moroccan sultanate at the end of the XIX century and the participation of Spain in the balance of power of the Great Powers in Africa. In addition, there are other reasons such as the historic Spanish presence on the North Atlantic coast of Africa, mainly with the conquest of the Canary Islands in the XV century and, to a lesser extent, the traditional Canarian fishing in the Canary-Saharan bank and the historical existence of Spanish or Spanish-Portuguese strongholds in Africa.
The Spanish Sahara is due to the recognition in the Berlin conference of 1884 of the sovereignty of the territories claimed for Spain by the expedition of Emilio Bonelli within the context of the race for Africa. It was a vast and arid territory, the first Spanish construction being the Villa Cisneros fort in 1884.
The Spanish sovereignty of Ifni was recognized during the reign of Elizabeth II by the Wad Ras treaty (1860), after the Spanish victory in the war in Africa (1859-1860). This treaty put an end to the successive claims of Spain over the territory of the old stronghold of the XV century of Santa Cruz de the Small Sea, as the Peace and Trade Treaty between Spain and Morocco on May 28, 1767, under the reign of Carlos III. However, the territory was effectively occupied on April 6, 1934 by Osvaldo Capaz Montes, seventy-four years after the Treaty of Wad Ras. It took place after an erroneous determination of the location of Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequena, the signing of the Treaty of Fez in 1912 between France and Morocco and the campaigns of 1934 that culminated in the French conquest of Morocco, which until then had prevented the occupation of the territory within the Spanish-Moroccan conflicts.[1]
As for Cabo Juby, the Spanish-French treaty of November 27, 1912 recognized Spain as the Spanish protectorate of Morocco, which was divided into a northern zone, and a southern zone called Cabo Juby. This agreement has its origin, both in the Spanish-French treaty in Paris in 1900, and in the Algeciras Conference in 1912. This recognition put an end to Spanish suspicions about the interests of other powers in the hinterland of the Canary Islands, such as the attempt English late 19th century century to establish a fishing factory at Cape Juby.
In 1946, after the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the international isolation of Spain Ifni, Cabo Juby and the Spanish Sahara were administratively included in Spanish West Africa (AOE) and their processes of political and economic decolonization began which accelerated as a result of Morocco's independence in 1956.
1956ː tensions between Spain and Morocco
Background
The year 1956 saw the culmination of the Moroccan independence process, an event that made it possible for that country to advocate, from that moment on, for the reconstitution of the territorial puzzle into which France and Spain had decomposed the country throughout throughout his decades of protectorate of the country. This issue was inserted in a particularly complex process, which reached its peak in the three years from the return of Sultan Mohamed V -carried out in November 1955- to the crisis of Ifni in December-January 1957-1958.
The Moroccan purpose of achieving the territorial integrity of the empire was the central point on which the calculation of negotiations and tensions that took place in that period revolved. However, this issue did not have an unequivocal reading by the group of actors involved, highlighting the existence of very different interpretations according to the different and multiple actors that were part of the described process.
The official declarations of the Spanish Government on January 13, 1956 show the degree of dissonance that existed between the different actors involved. Spain, despite recognizing in these statements the legitimacy of the sultan as Moroccan leader, the unity of the Sherifian empire and the independence of Morocco, maintained a certainly ambiguous position on issues of a fundamental nature, a position that ended up setting the calendar for Spanish decolonization in its territories on the African continent. From this position, Spain limited itself to declaring self-government of the area under Spanish sovereignty, only allowing the return to the direct sovereignty of the Moroccan government in the north of the country, which implied leaving the southern area of Cabo Juby and Ifni outside of what was concerned by the agreement for independence. This decision deprived of effectiveness the declarations about the recognition by Spain of the restoration of the unity of the Moroccan empire.
Spain before the possible reversal of Ifni: an ambiguous position
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On April 7, 1956, the Moroccan declaration of independence was signed in Madrid.
Sultan Mohamed V had traveled to the place where this declaration was signed to report that the Spanish agreement was also necessary to put an end to the protectorate, thus alleviating the humiliation suffered by the Spanish government by France, a country that until then had acted unilaterally with regard to the granting of independence to Morocco, ignoring the provisions of the treaty signed in 1912, where Moroccan sovereignty over its own country was transferred to France and Spain.
In the official declaration that Mohamed V made in Spain on April 5, he made it clear that the issue concerning the unity of the Moroccan empire was the central issue of the negotiations:
“No one ignores the difficulties and problems, both material and psychological, which resulted from the division of Morocco into different areas, nor the bad consequences of that division for the political and economic life of the country. We are convinced that Spain, who knew how to stand next to Morocco in the difficult times, will correspond to this desire with its knightliness and its gallant nobility. The Moroccans look forward to, at this historic meeting, the elimination of the borders that are erected within their country, and which are the symbol of a faded era forever: that of guardianship and protectorate.”Mohammed V
The Spanish response was not long in coming. The Head of State, Francisco Franco, assured - as a result of the sultan's declaration - that Spain would give the new independent Moroccan Government the necessary facilities and assistance so that the two assumptions of unity and sovereign freedom could be fully achieved.
The Spanish-Moroccan joint declaration signed on April 6, although it contemplated the fact that the agreement signed in Madrid on November 27, 1912 could no longer govern Spanish-Moroccan relations -without specifying that said agreement had ceased to be valid be in force after France recognized the independence of Morocco-, ended up limiting itself to renewing on the Spanish side the "will to respect the territorial unity of the empire guaranteed by international treaties", also committing itself "to take the necessary measures to make it effective"..
This allusion to international treaties could presuppose for Spain that the territory of Ifni was not concerned, since -as was argued years later- it had a differentiated status, since Morocco had recognized the cession of the enclave in different treaties. Several issues remained pending exhaustive treatment, such as the near future of Cabo Juby or Tarfaya, an area to which no reference was made in the declaration dealt with, nor was it returned to the sovereignty of the Moroccan sultanate while the north zone.
Despite the foregoing, and after his return from Madrid, Mohamed V assured, from his balcony of the Jalifian palace in Tetuan, days after his trip, that from that moment on the country effectively exercised power sovereign over the entire territory of his kingdom, both to the north and south of it, and that the Spanish authorities, by virtue of the provisions of the protocol signed on April 7, 1956 in Madrid with the Spanish Government, were dissolved and its administration was transferred to its Government.
These statements were not supported by actual events that followed. The royal sovereignty over Tarfaya and its region was not restored to the sultan, and no plausible explanation was provided by Spain for this fact, except for the idea that it was a protection measure for the Sahara and the Canary Islands.
With regard to the Ifni territory, it is significant to note that the signing of the Moroccan declaration of independence in 1956 in Madrid was also especially celebrated by the Ait Ba Amrán -the populations of the Ifni enclave-, who Moroccan flags were raised in the territory after the aforementioned event.
The agreements reached in Madrid were also accompanied by a whole series of incidents that took place in the Ifni enclave during the days immediately following them, highlighting, among these, the fact that an indigenous policeman murdered a European corporal. These incidents were notified by Carrero Blanco -on April 11- to the Spanish consul in Rabat, through statements in which he did not limit himself to recounting what happened, daring to attribute responsibility for what happened to "provocateurs who were acting from Tiznit”, assuring, likewise, that these provocateurs were possibly agents of a third power interested in disturbing the good relations existing to date between Spain and Morocco.
The French specter had not yet disappeared from the imagination of the Spanish authorities, who were still upset by the French decision to unilaterally anticipate the independence of Morocco. The incidents that occurred during these dates in the area were also responded to by the sultan, who sent a message to the Spanish government expressing his "deep feeling" for what happened in Ifni, as well as for the deaths of Spaniards that this had caused.
Days after the note issued by the Sultan, the Governor General of Spanish West Africa demanded that the Rabat Embassy request a statement from the new Moroccan authorities stating that Ifni was not concerned with independence. The letter made clear his fear of the possible concentration of Baamranis from all over the country who had come to meet their relatives for the end of Ramadan festivities.
It was at this moment that the difficult internal situation in which Morocco found itself during these years became especially evident, it should be noted that it was a newly independent country, where the Istiqlal party seemed to act freely -without following what was officially dictated by the Sultan- on various fronts, such as the one related to Ifni.
This situation was also found reflected in the notes sent to Pardo de Santayana by the then Spanish ambassador in Rabat, José Felipe de Alcover, who suggested to him, from these first moments, the advisability of dealing discreetly with the local Istiqlalians in the face of to be able to control order in the enclave, assuring him that (as the Moroccan prime minister had confirmed, Si Bekkai) the Moroccan authorities did not see themselves capable of maintaining order throughout the country at the moment, and that these authorities had already shown their good disposition towards Spain, offering the person responsible for the death of the Spanish corporal in Uggug.
Pardo, in line with what was suggested by Alcover, confirmed, a week later, the contribution of the Istiqlal leaders to the defense of order in Ifni, also advocating the fact that the end of Ramadan was not accompanied by incidents of any kind in the area, despite the expected arrival of 3,000 visitors.
The Istiqlal party before the decolonization of Ifni: an irredentist defense
The fact that Spain refused to carry out a complete decolonization of the territories claimed by independent Morocco changed the initially favorable attitude of the Istiqlal party towards this country. The idea that Ifni would be left out of the agreements that had been signed to obtain the independence of Morocco contradicted the Sultan's promise to achieve Moroccan unity. Defending the promised unity until it was achieved became the main purpose of the Istiqlal party., despite what all this entailed (such as the fact that its relationship with Spain was broken). This claim allowed him to become a champion of unity, also serving to express his discomfort with the sovereign for the marginalization that the party had been subjected to since the negotiations with France the previous year; a discomfort that also served to accuse the monarch of having accepted incomplete independence.
Allal El Fassi -leader of the Istiqlal party- had followed both the Sultan's return to Morocco and the negotiations with France with some expectation and reluctance. Close to Spanish politics, he had been in favor of a tripartite negotiation which ultimately did not take place.
The movements carried out by Allal El Fassi during the final stage of the agreements between the monarch and the protective authorities confirm his distance from the scene where the decisive events took place and his closeness to the Spanish authorities. His first approach from his exile it was in Madrid, where he arrived on March 11, 1956 to chair a meeting of leaders of the Istiqlal Party and meet with the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, having met days before, both he and Ben Barka, with the ambassador of France in Madrid, to which both expressed their concern about the pride and lack of definition of the Spanish authorities. Once his assignment in Madrid was over, Allal El Fassi traveled to Seville, where he held a meeting with the Khalifa and the High Commissioner. From there he traveled to Tangier on March 17, where he confirmed the merger of his party with Abdeljalek Torres' National Reform party, carried out two days earlier.
Finally, and from Tangier, he traveled to Rabat, the city where he met with Mohamed V on March 26. This trip, "unsuspected" according to the report of the Mixed Office, was the result of the pressure exerted on El Fassi by the leaders of the istiqlaliano Executive Committee, meeting in Tangier in order to undo the rumors of a disagreement between the king and the leader that the other parties began to exploit. The approaches of this leader to Spain lost interest at the moment in which this country ceased to be a protagonist in the Moroccan independence process (due to the role assumed by France), a fact to which he added the loss of prominence that his own personal figure had suffered after going into exile, as well as the preference expressed by the sovereign over another key figure of the Istiqlal, Ahmed Balafrech, appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs at the beginning of May.
It is at this point that the irredentist counterattack started by Allal El Fassi in his speech on June 18, 1956 in Tangier -carried out during the homage to the martyr of independence, Mohamed Zerktuni-, in the which assured that Morocco was already independent, but that it was not completely unified, explaining how this last task would not be fulfilled until "Tangier, the Sahara under foreign influence from Tindouf to Colomb Bechar, passing through Tuaf, Kenadza and Mauritania are not liberated and unified". Curiously, the name of Spain did not appear in the speech.
Ifni thus became the touchstone of the fragility of the political moment that Morocco was experiencing, as well as the ambiguity in which the Istiqlal party had to move in this first moment of independence. As stated in a report by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs a decade later, the Istiqlal party, with respect to the Ifni area, played a double role. On the one hand, being integrated into the official government, it had to respond to the commitments that the Rabat authorities agreed with the Spanish. On the other hand, he combined this attitude with an activity outside the dictates of the Government, aimed at maintaining an ultra-nationalist position, vindicating Ifni and spurring the Liberation Army in its movements against the Spanish authorities of the enclave.
Escalation of tension: Ifni's claim
From the interior of Ifni, the istiqlali elements established "a parallel government", with its own office on the ground since April 1956, where they processed all kinds of affairs for Moroccans. On those dates, the atmosphere was already especially tense, observing how the Moroccan flag was waving at all times in the main mosque of the enclave.
Based on what was dictated by a Spanish informant of the time -resident in Ifni and "mutilated gentleman in the Ebro"-, opinion in Ifni was divided in these months of 1956. This informant assured that all the natives wanted incorporation into Morocco, all of them being nationalists. However, being a nationalist did not mean being enemies of Spain. For him, the opinion in the enclave was thus summarized in three groups: 1) Those who hated the Spanish; by Christians, by Europeans, by invaders…; 2) Those who wanted the Spaniards to leave in peace, without a fight, without blood involved; and 3) Those who wanted the Spanish to stay, but under the command of the Sultan.
At the end of May a large commission of Baamranis - made up of around 500 people - traveled to Rabat to pay homage to Mohamed V and request integration into Morocco. The response they received made them return disappointed of that trip. In order to calm things down and clarify the situation in Ifni, the Moroccan governor of Agadir visited the territories of Spanish West Africa, warning the population that the legal status of the territories had not changed with independence. However, the situation was already much more confused than all this.
The atmosphere of confusion was not accompanied by special tensions until the end of 1956, the date on which Mohamed V appointed the merchant Ali Ben Buaida as a member of the National Consultative Assembly. In the official list of Mohamed V's appointments to said institution listed the merchant as domiciled in the "Ifni province", a fact about which the Spanish ambassador Alcover requested explanations, in a verbal note issued on January 4, 1957. This note was answered by the Moroccan ministry of the following way:
“The enclave of Ifni has always been considered by Morocco as an integral part of its territory. The granting of fishing made by His Imperial Majesty to the Spaniards in 1767 and confirmed in 1860 does not imply in any way an assignment of this part of the Moroccan territory [...]. The stipulations regarding Ifni (especially with regard to its delimitation) agreed between France and Spain in the agreement of 3 October 1904 and 27 November 1912 may not oppose Morocco, for not having participated the latter in the same [...]. Regardless of the legal argument that Morocco could present, the problem of the Ifni enclave has always been considered by the Moroccan Government as part of a more general context: that of the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco.”
The Spanish government, after observing that the claim to the enclave was becoming official, considered it necessary to carry out an in-depth legal study to be prepared for a bilateral debate.
These claims came from different areas within Morocco. Allal El Fassi, for his part, began the publication of the newspaper "Sahara al-Magrib", whose first issue - dated March 7, 1957 - housed a petition regarding the increase in the representation of Ifni in Moroccan political bodies, as well as such as the demand for improvements in the education, road and communication systems of the enclave.
Since the beginning of May 1957, various sabotage and terrorist activities also took place in Ifni, highlighting that on the 13th of that same month the Moroccan embassy in Madrid informed the Spanish Government that it was going to proceed to appoint Moroccan officials in Ifni, a decision that was replicated with warnings by the Spanish ministry. In the following months (June and July), violent clashes, arrests of Istiqlalian leaders and activists, propaganda actions and strikes and closures of shops, which ended up motivating -together- the intervention of Spanish troops in the area, which resulted in a high number of deaths and injuries.
All of this ended up leading, in turn, to intense diplomatic activity on the part of both sides. On August 21, 1957, the president of the Moroccan Council of Ministers, Si Bekkai, addressed the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs in order to convey his concern about the drift of events, confirming the claim to the enclave, requesting the release of the detainees and noting the need to address the study of this issue in a short space of time, having to find a solution that would put an end to the current situation.
On September 11, the response of the Spanish minister would arrive, who stated that he had no objection to submitting the existing difference between the two governments -as regards Ifni- to an international legal instance, both parties having to commit to abide by his ruling. This position was abandoned, however, a few days later, when Castiella met with Balafrech in Tangier, at which time he informed him of the idea of withdrawing the Spanish offer to go to the Court of The Hague to this question.
Events were acquiring an increasingly dangerous speed, producing incursions of the Liberation Army in the border town of Tiliuín, shootings with Spanish soldiers, and mutual reproaches in increasingly frequent verbal notes. An example of this can be found in the Spanish note of November 5, where Spain called attention to the incursions demanding "the public and formal recognition by the Moroccan Government of the limits established by the Treaties", among other issues. On November 11, the Moroccan response, a response that, far from satisfying the Spanish claims, completely opposed them, even demanding that the Spanish Government set a date for the transfer of powers.
Ifni-Sahara War (1957-1958)
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A few days after the note verbale issued by the Moroccan government advocating the transfer of powers from Spain to Morocco, on November 22, 1957 -date on which both King Mohamed V and the minister Balafrach were traveling in the United States -, the Liberation Army (ELM) carried out an attack against the Ifni territory from Gulimin and the south of Agadir, cutting off Spanish communications and occupying border posts and inland towns such as Telata. These combats continued until the beginning of December, as reflected in the work of Mohammed Bensaïd, a participant and leader of the Liberation Army during this period of time.
The Spanish garrison, given the course of events, was forced to retreat to the capital of the territory, which is known as Sidi Ifni. The attack carried out by the Moroccan army against the capital was not effective; however, those carried out in Tamucha, Tabelcut, Hameiduch and Bifurna, were, since all these territories came to be dominated by Moroccan troops after their first offensives.
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In Tamucha there were only about 50 Spanish soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Fernández Fuentes -who died at the beginning of the attack-. The geographical situation of this area made it impossible for reinforcements to arrive on the Spanish side. On November 25 the fall of this post occurred, also coinciding with the fall of the one held by Lieutenant Sotos in Tabelcut, at the hands of the Caid of Tiznit -who represented the Governor of Agadir-, who handed over to the Spanish (liberated in May 1959 by Mohamed V) the Liberation Army present there. Both Hameiduch - under the command of Sergeant Osorio Ramírez - and Bifurna fell on the same dates.
It was in Sidi Ifni where the Spanish army organized a defensive plan from the 22nd, which had the purpose of stopping any external attack, securing the town center and maintaining a reserve to counterattack. The external defense was in charge of the Group of Shooters, while the interior was entrusted to Police Group I. Inside the enclave, meanwhile, Mesti (with 22 men), Telata de Isbuia, Tiugsá, and Tenin de Amel-lu remained under Spanish control. The case of Tiliuín, on the southern border, was considered the most dangerous, since the Moroccan troops were close to their geographical position, specifically in Egleimin. In the Spanish Sahara and Cape Juby, due to the difficulty posed by the defense of its vast and arid territory, military units had withdrawn from the interior to El Aaioun, Villa Cisneros, La Güera and the Cape Bojador and Cape Juby lighthouses.
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The first relief attempt by Spain was accompanied by the intervention of Lieutenant Ortiz de Zárate, which ended in total failure, revealing the fact that the field was already dominated by the Moroccans.
The situation of Tiliuín led to the decision to reinforce it on the 29th, by sending paratroopers; 10 planes bombed the area in order to protect the launch operation of 75 men from II Bandera, who finally managed to penetrate the post in this area.
On December 1, the “Netol” operation wanted to liberate Mesti, Tiliuín and Telata; On the 3rd, this task was achieved in Telata, freeing the existing garrison there, and on the 4th, that of Tiliuín, events that were followed by a rapid Spanish withdrawal to Sidi Ifni.
The existence of numerous Moroccan snipers hiding in the various mentioned territories led to the loss of a significant number of Spanish soldiers, especially in the Spanish operations aimed at recovering the Tiugsá and Tenin garrisons.
From the reception of order 357-15 of the EMC, of December 1957, the operations in Ifni by Spain became the establishment of a static defensive. Sidi Ifni protects itself with two resistance centers, as well as defensive organizations that take advantage of the terrain.
The configuration of an outer defensive belt -made up of three resistance centers and a support point- was followed by a whole series of offensive actions by the Spanish Army, thus reinforcing Spanish control during that period from the capital of Ifni.
Various operations (such as those called “Siroco” and “Pegaso”) took place during these months, accompanied by an attempt to advance towards the north, which was not carried out due to strong Moroccan resistance in the different territories that surrounded the capital.
On March 3, the General Captaincy of the Canary Islands issued Directive number 6, a directive that called for the defensive reorganization that protected Sidi Ifni, a decision that was accompanied by a period of stability.
On June 23, the Captaincy ordered that the enemy fire not be answered, and it was not until the 30th of this month that it was announced that both Spain and Morocco had reached an agreement that sought to put an end to the hostilities.
The siege was maintained, then, until the ceasefire of June 1958. The territories obtained by the Liberation Army were administratively integrated into Morocco and controlled by it until 1960, the year in which the Liberation Army was relieved by the Royal Armed Forces, a formation that Crown Prince Hassan will lead, as Chief of Staff.
The Government of Spain, for its part, reversed its offer to the Moroccan Government to submit the complaint over the territory to an international instance, arguing that after the fait accompli of the attack on the enclave it was not possible to think in a dignified manner in a prize to the already carried out aggression.
In official Spain's speeches, in fact, all responsibility for what happened in Ifni was dumped on the Liberation Army, avoiding, at all times, cutting ties with Morocco. Lieutenant General Barroso, Minister of the Army On December 21 of that same year, he delivered a clarifying speech regarding what has been mentioned up to here, a speech in which he accused the "occult forces" and "international communism" of being behind the attack on the colony.
In this same speech, he also responded to the rumors spread in the Moroccan press in previous days -which stated that the Spanish Government was willing to hand over the Protectorate area south of the Draa-, making it clear that Spain, despite not Having challenged the integration of said zone, "it would lack its sense of international responsibility if it abandoned it to those who do not obey His Majesty the King of Morocco and refuse to accept the law and discipline of their legitimate Monarch [...]".
In addition, it should be noted that both the speech of the appointed minister and the words pronounced by Franco on December 30 coincided in pointing out that neither the Moroccan people -as a whole- nor their monarch had any responsibility about what happened in Ifni.
Christmas 1957 was not only the scene of significant political speeches, it also featured various performances by different Spanish artists (including those by Carmen Sevilla and Gila, among others) in the Ifni enclave, place where the regime tried to emulate what was done by American artists during the Korean War.
Since 1957, Franco's regime also began a more than significant control of the Spanish press, the purpose of which was to limit the information that might exist in the media about what happened in Ifni during these years -thus also counteracting what was shown in the Moroccan press-. This censorship was not characterized by prohibiting the appearance of news related to what happened in Ifni, but by instrumentalizing the information that appeared in the Spanish media in an almost daily. The informative selection was thus careful not to count the number of its own casualties, to increase the damage done to the enemies and to show that the result of the operations carried out was always victorious, some messages that were supported with the provisions of the National Radio of Spain and the NO-DO, channels that facilitated the arrival of the message to the masses with a lower educational level than those who read the press daily. This war propaganda did not cease with the passage of time, getting to observe in the press how the death of certain Spanish soldiers made them authentic media heroes.
Provincialization of Ifni after the War in the Sahara and Operation “Écouvillon”
The military operations of the Liberation Army were not limited to the Ifni enclave. Part of the troops of said army were displaced at the end of December of this year from the mentioned enclave to the territory of the Spanish Sahara (today known as Western Sahara), challenging the Spanish positions in that territory and carrying out certain attacks in January 1958, highlighting the battle of Edchera.
What happened during these months in this area aroused the concern of France, a country that had, at that time, possessions in Algerian and Mauritanian lands. This concern made it easier for the French country to offer its collaboration -in terms of the number of soldiers and weapons - to Spain, with the aim of carrying out a joint operation that would have the purpose of annihilating the forces of the Liberation Army that were in the territory of the Sahara. This was the origin of the so-called "Operation Écouvillon", which was part of the Franco-Spanish offensive that took place in February 1958. The Spanish had 9,000 soldiers and the French 5,000, and around 150 planes. The first Moroccan outposts to fall were the mountain strongholds at Tan-Tan. Bombarded from above and rocketed from below, the Liberation Army suffered 150 deaths and abandoned its positions. On February 10, the 4th, 9th and 13th Spanish Legion battalions, organized into a motorized group, drove the Moroccans out of Edchera and advanced towards Tafurdat and Smara. The Spanish army in El Ayoun, together with the French forces from Fort Gouraud, attacked the Moroccans on February 21, destroying the Sahara Liberation Army concentrations between Bir Nazaran and Ausert. The offensive disintegrated the Liberation Army.
During these same dates the Spanish Government adopted a decision of special significance: the provincialization of Ifni and the Sahara by decree of January 10, 1958.
The preamble to the decree justified "modifying the current administrative and military structure of the General Government of Spanish West Africa, adapting them to the geographical, political and military realities", due to certain circumstances, such as "the natural and different policies" of the Ifni and Sahara territories, their separation "by considerable distances", their "very different customs", the "social organization of their inhabitants and even the nature of their borders". Furthermore, their article first provided that Both Ifni and the Sahara became, from that moment, provinces, which (according to later articles) became militarily dependent on the Canary Islands, governed by a Governor-General with command over the troops settled in their territory, to which they remained "The other authorities and officials are subordinate except the judicial ones insofar as it affects the conduct and rulings of Justice matters."
Outcomeː Treaty of Cintra (1958) and the difficulties in the retrocession of the South zone
On April 1, 1958, the Treaty of Cintra was signed (under pressure from the United States that sought to end Spanish-Moroccan tensions), a treaty by which Spain promised to withdraw the southern area of the Protectorate.
At the height of the Ifni war, the American Secretary of State, Foster Dulles, had traveled to Madrid -on December 20, 1957-, on his return from the conference of heads of government of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).), held in Paris. The latter, according to Salas Larrazábal, took advantage of the trip to ask Franco to reach an agreement with the Sultan, and a month later, on January 20, 1958, he informed him that he had advised the Moroccans to cease their hostilities. with Spain, something that had to be responded by Spain with some kind of compensation to the Sultan, allowing him to strengthen his position and thus facilitating Morocco's permanence in the western field.
After the aforementioned, two decisions of special importance are reached; Firstly, the Council of Ministers on March 28, 1958, adopts the decision to withdraw the southern area of the Moroccan Protectorate; Secondly, the Cintra agreement was reached on April 1 between the ministers Castiella and Balafrech, an agreement by which Morocco would take charge of said area from April 10. Despite the foregoing, it can be said that the difficulties encountered in proceeding with the reversal of the territory were diverse, which not only contributed to slowing down the ultimate purpose of the agreement, but also contributed to making clear the poor state in which the Spanish-Moroccan relations at that time.
Among the difficulties encountered, was the one expressed by Ahmed Balafrech at a press conference on April 11, where he reported that a convoy of a thousand Moroccan soldiers commanded by Commander Ufkir who were going to take over the territory They were intercepted 140 kilometers from Tarfaya by some Spanish officers, who had indicated to the aforementioned soldiers that the track they were driving on led into the Sakia al Hamra.
Balafrech complained that the Moroccan convoy had not been previously informed, and could have been directed towards another path or authorized to reach Tarfaya along the track they were on to arrive on the date set by the Cintra agreement.
The difficulties that the minister alluded to in his press conference were of greater significance. Initially, the Moroccans wanted the crown prince to be the one who, as the Sultan's delegate, would carry out the official reception of the territory. For this, Moroccan personalities -among them, General Mizzian-, had to travel to Tarfaya on April 8 to prepare the event. But that day the Spanish ambassador, Alcover, informed Balafrech that Prince Hassan would not be welcomed by the Spanish authorities, since his attitude during the attack on Ifni was about to cause -in the words of said ambassador- a break between Spain and Morocco.
The interception of the Moroccan convoy was joined by another event that particularly annoyed the Rabat authorities: the rejection of the appointment of Ali Ben Buaida, a member of the National Consultative Assembly, as the new governor of Tarfaya. On the 11th he was deported together with his family to El Aaiún at the request of the Spanish Government, preventing him from returning.
The response by Spain to what was exposed by Balafrech revealed the displeasure with which the Spanish authorities approached the retrocession of Tarfaya, even declaring, on the part of Spain, that what happened had responded to a logistical error of the State of Morocco, which had not been able to request an authorization to cross territory under another sovereignty.
Under this climate of particular tension, the Moroccan state was not able to gain official control of the Ifni territory until April 17.
Negotiations: more than a decade of meetings (1958-1969)
The mixed Spanish-Moroccan Commission, a first failure
The internal situation in Morocco throughout 1958 was especially difficult; the government appointed by the monarch in the month of May of that same year (under the direction of Balafrech and an Istiqlalian majority) did not reach the end of the year, and the palace was involved in an internal struggle against the Istiqlal party, al which he considered his main rival. The outbreak of this party in the following months, accompanied by the Rif rebellion of 1958, did not improve the situation.
In the months of January and February 1959, the question related to Ifni once again occupied the center of the conversations between Spain and Morocco, as evidenced by the meetings held in those months between Abdallah Ibrahim (who had formed the new Moroccan government in December) and Cristóbal del Castillo -the new ambassador of Spain in Morocco since September 1958-. In these meetings, Castillo offered the possibility that Morocco would provide Spain with territorial compensation "in the vicinity of other Spanish territories", in exchange for the territories lost by Spain in Ifni; a proposal that was answered by Ibrahim, who argued that they would only return the same territorial areas, and that, if there was no friendly solution, Morocco could offer two possibilities: submit the Ifni issue to the United Nations Security Council or delay in time the finding of a solution to this issue.
In the last meetings held between the two figures, the Moroccan head of government proposed a new offer, which could be made if Spain agreed to start talks on Ifni and also ceded the headquarters of the Spanish Army in Morocco. The offer included the following issues: return of prisoners, fishing agreement and a commercial charter for a fishing establishment in Ifni.
Ibrahim stayed in the Spanish capital from April 10 to 15, 1959, being during these days when he decided, together with Castiella, to create a Mixed Commission, so that it could study the pending issues between the two countries. The meeting held by said commission in Rabat between May 5 and 20 was fruitless, since each delegation defended its personal interests without attending to those of the other. Morocco was looking for territorial unification and for the Spanish troops to be evacuated; Spain, for its part, did not want to talk without previously resolving the issues related to Ifni.
On May 6, 1959, a new event ended up tensing the existing climate in the mixed Spanish-Moroccan Commission. That day, Mohamed V returned the Spanish prisoners to the ambassador in Rabat, a decision that he accompanied by a speech in which he reminded Spain that Ifni was Moroccan territory, and that this country had promised to return it to Morocco. The Spanish government refuted what was pronounced by the king of Morocco.
In the Sultan's speech, reference was also made to the need to find political solutions to what happened in Ifni; a path also defended from that moment on by Ibrahim, who made it known to Ambassador Castillo on June 1 of that same year.
From that moment on, Morocco offers Spain the possibility of finding an agreement that satisfies both parties, highlighting the fact that Spain could have special advantages regarding the exploitation of Moroccan wealth. This The offer did not put an end to the controversies between the two countries, which explained why Morocco's official claim to Ifni and the Sahara reached the plenary session of the United Nations on October 6, 1959. Subsequent United Nations resolutions (1514, 1541 and 1542) adopted a year later seemed to open the way for Moroccan claims, claims that Spain rejected at all times.
Contacts between Mohamed V and Franco on the occasion of the events in Ifni
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On June 14, 1960, the Sultan reminded Franco, through a message, of the need for the Spanish troops to abandon the territory in question, avoiding alluding to territorial claims in said communication. Franco, for For his part, he responded to said message on June 27, making special reference to the need to return the territory of Ifni to its pre-war situation.
The correspondence between the two leaders took place from August of that same year until February of the following year, since the death of Mohamed V occurred in that month. Franco's claims to achieve "territorial compensation in other places ” was not satisfied, and tensions between the two countries did not stop increasing during that period, leading to Moroccan military flights over Ifni, as well as an increase in the armed presence on the southern border.
The impact of Hassan II's enthronement on the course of negotiations
The arrival of Hassan II to power did not help calm the situation between Spain and Morocco. On some occasions, in fact, the new monarch increased tensions between the two countries. An example of this is the response offered by Hassan after what happened in March 1961 in the Sahara, where an armed group kidnapped (to later transfer them to Morocco) eleven technicians in a camp of the Union Oil Company -where there were five Spaniards-. Through this response, the monarch positioned himself in favor of what was undertaken by the group in question, whom he praised for being an example of patriotism and the fight against the colonial occupation.
On July 6, 1961, this monarch led a rally in Casablanca in the presence of the President of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic, Ferhat Abbas, in front of whom he once again stressed his desire to put an end to the situation in which they found themselves territories like Ifni.
The Spanish protest against the aforementioned statements did exist, but it did not prevent the final withdrawal of the remaining Spanish troops from this country on August 31, 1961.
A new proposal: the “Spirit of Barajas”
The initial tension described was tried to quell through a calmer attempt to achieve Moroccan territorial claims. Cristóbal del Castillo, Spanish ambassador, in order to prepare his visit to Hassan II, who was willing to change his previous behavior, promoting what later became known as the "Spirit of Barajas".
The meetings between Spanish and Moroccan representatives followed one another in this period, thus reaching April 20, 1963, the day on which Hassan II met with the new Spanish ambassador, Manuel Aznar, who ended up transferring the idea to Franco from the Moroccan monarch that the Ifni question was unimportant and that the real problems revolved around the territory of the Sahara.
On July 6, 1963, during a meeting between Hassan II and Franco in Barajas, what appeared to be a new cooperation between the two countries was sealed, which did not reach any compromise regarding territorial issues.
This apparently cooperative atmosphere was maintained during the two years after the described meeting. However, an incident that occurred in the summer of 1963 came to highlight the still unresolved issue.
During this period, and on the occasion of the holding of the call for municipal elections, the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior prepared a map of the electoral constituencies into which the country was divided. On July 29, the agency news outlet MAP shared that map, which represented the Ifni area under Moroccan sovereignty -for the most part-, leaving the Spanish area reduced to a strip of five kilometers. Hassan II himself came to describe the information as "informative lightness". committed by the MAP agency, presenting excuses to the Spanish Head of State, to whom he expressed his "anger".
In these years there were also visits by ministers in both directions: Fraga was received by Hassan II in July 1963, Balafrech and Reda Guedira went to Spain in May and June 1964 -respectively-, Castiella visited Morocco with signatures of agreements (such as the one concerning the suppression of visas, radio and television) in July of this year, and Hassan II went to Mallorca on December 4 to meet with the Vice President of the Government, Muñoz Grandes.
Another sign of the apparent cordiality that existed between the two countries during this period was visible in February 1965, the month in which Franco invited Hassan to hunt with him in the "Lugar Nuevo" preserve, near Andújar.
The international community's response to the decolonization of Ifni
In 1965, the internalization of the issue of decolonization of Ifni (and the Sahara) began to produce results, which were far from what Morocco had originally intended.
After the argument in favor of the decolonization of Ifni and the Sahara carried out by a Moroccan representative at the United Nations in November, and the response offered to him by the representative of Mauritania (who also claimed possessions in the Sahara), a draft resolution was presented in said commission inviting Spain to agree to the liberation of both territories.
The draft resolution was approved by 88 votes in favor, two against -those from Spain and Portugal- and the abstentions of France, the United States, El Salvador and the United Kingdom.
The response by the then Spanish representative to the United Nations, Jaime de Piniés -where he stressed that Spain was trying to put an end to its colonial project, in line with the provisions of the United Nations- was received negatively in Spain, where some sectors were still in favor of defending an iron sovereignty over these territories.
From these sectors, the argument given by Castiella stands out, who defends that, given the advance of a decolonizing current throughout Africa, the only possible response to ensure the permanence of these colonies under Spanish sovereignty was to let them see each other plunged into a process of self-determination, thus fleeing from the attitude of Salazar's Portugal. This position was not particularly well received by the Presidency of Government, from where a letter was issued - on January 10, 1966, signed by Carrero Blanco - who stated that the greatest fear of the Sahrawis was that Spain would abandon them.
With regard to Ifni, the document states that it is a territory with little value, conceiving it as a lost cause, something that does not prevent it from seeking to instrumentalize said territory in order to obtain some type of compensation for part of Morocco, placing special emphasis on the idea that Ceuta and Melilla be the territories that compensate Ifni's territorial resignation.
Denouement: the decolonization of Ifni in 1969
The aforementioned presidency document also revealed a particularly significant issue: Franco's intention to separate two issues that until then had remained linked, the territorial claims (and the defense of Spanish sovereignty in them) of Ifni and the Sahara.
The letter sent by Franco to Hassan II on February 27, 1967 (following the latest United Nations resolutions of 1966, which urged the decolonization of the territories discussed here) revealed the degree to which Spain gave green light, from that moment, to the decolonization of Ifni.
At the end of the summer of 1967, there was already correspondence where both heads of state agreed to solve the Ifni problem. In March 1968, a memorandum on Ifni drawn up by Spanish authorities was received by the then Moroccan Foreign Minister, Ahmed Laraki. This document included both the Spanish decision to be able to reach an agreement regarding the retrocession of Ifni, and a concern of special importance: the negotiation of the nationality of the inhabitants of Ifni.
The question regarding the nationality of the natives of Ifni was especially contentious from then on, since Morocco considered the “allégeance perpetuelle” in force, which meant that the inhabitants of the territory had never ceased to be subjects of the Sultan.
For those who wanted to choose to have Spanish nationality, the possibility was offered for the king to grant, individually, the right to renounce Moroccan nationality -which he had never lost-. In the final document The possibility was included that those who wished to have the opportunity to opt for Spanish nationality during the three months following the retrocession of the territory.
This retrocession finally took place on January 4, 1969, with the signing of the cession treaty in Fez, which was carried out by the minister Laraki and the Spanish ambassador, Eduardo Ibáñez, concluding, in turn, a fisheries treaty, which was widely criticized by the Istiqlal party, who considered that Morocco had paid an exorbitant price for a legitimate claim.
There was also criticism from certain political sectors in the Spanish territory, highlighting the fact that on January 24 of that same year the attorney and president of Fuerza Nueva, Blas Piñar, requested in writing from the president of Parliament a oral challenge to the Government in the first plenary session to be held, finally being on February 14 when this representative came to formulate an amendment to the entire treaty signed with Morocco.
The foundations of this proposal -based on the "Spanishness" of Ifni from a legal point of view, and on the historical presence of Spain in the enclave- did not prevent it from being finally rejected, ending up making the provisions effective in the Treaty signed in Fez in 1969.
Consequences
The Treaty signed with Morocco in 1969 did not give rise to any particular disputes on the part of the Spanish population, to whom this retrocession was presented -in the media- as an example of Spain's compliance with international obligations, as well as as a show of Hispanic generosity.
In the Ifni enclave, the negotiations waged by Spain with Morocco were contemplated in the military environment with obedience and silence. The armed forces remained faithful to what was dictated from Spain, and the Spanish Western Africa Graphic Weekly -main means of written communication for Spanish residents in the colony - limited itself to notifying, in a very concise way, the start of negotiations between Spain and Morocco in October 1968.
The recession of the territory also meant the elimination of the Ifni Shooters Group, a military unit that had been founded after the occupation of 1934.
Together with the firm decision of the Government, the abandonment of the enclave was favored by different factors. Among these, the scarce integration that said territory had had with the metropolis stands out, due to the short time that it was under Spanish administration.
On the other hand, Spanish sovereignty over the province was exercised exclusively in the capital of the territory and its security perimeter since 1958, which, together with the fact that the national population was scarce in said area, facilitated the process of decolonization of it.
In 1969, Ifni only had the presence of ten thousand Spanish citizens -close to 90% being soldiers, troop personnel or their families-, who were evacuated from the month of May in military planes and transports Navy Assault.
The civil servants were subsequently incorporated into the local Spanish Administration, and a large number of paid workers moved to Las Palmas.
The compensation paid by the State to those Spaniards who had economic activity in the territory under Spanish control until then were minimal, which reflects the low volume of business that existed in the area.
Another consequence derived from the retrocession was related to the education of the children of the Spaniards residing in Ifni, who saw how their school year was forced to be shortened, thereby increasing the number of hours of daily classes. The two existing private schools in Sidi Ifni were closed down, while the three official primary schools were transferred to the new authorities.
The logistical difficulties of the evacuation were resolved effectively; about five thousand tons of material of all kinds -especially military- were transported by sea.
A subject of special significance that was dealt with in these first moments of retrocession (and that continued open until later years), was the one referring to the maintenance or not of Spanish nationality in people born in Ifni. The Treaty signed in Fez, as previously mentioned, contemplated that all those born in the colony who had benefited from Spanish nationality could choose to continue doing so through an application that could be made within a maximum period of three months. On July 3, The Official Gazette of the Spanish State published the decree of the Ministry of Justice that included the rules to be able to apply for Spanish nationality, according to which anyone who wanted to apply for said nationality had to renounce Moroccan nationality, this resignation having to be verified by the authorities Moroccans.
The evacuation was, despite everything, a quick and easy evacuation; Even holding a ceremony to hand over the territory, where the representatives of the Franco regime came to exalt the "traditional friendship between the Moroccan and Spanish people".
This event was instrumentalized by Spain in the press, using it to denounce the attitude that the United Kingdom was having with regard to Gibraltar, an attitude that will be described as "colonialist" by the regime. It also appeared in the media the visit made by Hassan II to Franco the day after the retrocession, highlighting in these media the idea of "Hispanic-Moroccan friendship", and "the Spanish nobility in their proceeding for decolonization". In Morocco, the treaty and the Spanish cession were viewed -as the press revealed- with great enthusiasm and as a success of their diplomacy.
In just a few weeks, what happened during these years in Ifni disappeared from the press -even from the Canarian media, close to the issue that occurred in the enclave-.
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