Attempted coup by Skhirat

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When Skhirat attempted a coup on July 10, 1971, King Hassan II of Morocco was to be overthrown.

course

In the course of negotiations for the legal protection of US bases in Morocco, General Mohamed Medbouh was handed a copy of a letter from Omar ben Messaoud in the USA, in which the airline Pan American World Airways asked for the construction of a hotel in Casablanca on the premises of the Eudeskaserne was asked to make payments to ministers and the royal family. The measures taken by Hassan II as a result could not establish any confidence in his person.

Mohammed Ababou (* 1938, † 1971) was the commander of the Ahermoumou Cadet School. On May 14, 1971, Mohammed Ababou had set up an ambush on the road from El Hajeb to Azrou for Hassan II. When General Medbouh noticed that Hassan's convoy was escorted by a helicopter, he gave Mohammed Ababou the order to clear the ambush.

On July 10, 1971 at 3:15 a.m., 60 trucks with cadets from the Ahermoumou cadet school moved out. At 10:00 a.m. at a snack on the edge of the forest in La Mamora near the US base Sidi Yahya El Gharb, the target of the military maneuver was stated: Hassan II was surrounded by subversive traitors and the long-haired in Skhirat . Hassan II expects the Cadets to be released. The command was divided and included the palace from the north and south. The commandos were supposed to shoot in the air to humiliate the subversives. Anyone who resisted or tried to flee was shot down.

The guideline with which the cadets were to be deceived continued even in the disagreement among the officers about how to proceed. While the senior officers around General Medbouh formed a revolutionary council and wanted to force Hassan II to abdicate, Ababou's concept envisaged the killing of Hassan II.

Although the birthday party did not offer any resistance, the cadets nevertheless carried out an undifferentiated massacre. The majority of the chauffeurs who waited in the parked vehicles were murdered by being shot in the neck . Louis Joxe , who witnessed the massacre, had the impression that the cadets were drugged.

Colonel Bouazza Boulhimez, commander of the gendarmerie, gave Ababou an answer that he did not like, and Ababou had him shot. Hassan II had fled to the toilet with his councilors - Ahmed Laraki, Prime Minister Moulay Ahmed Alaoui, Ahmed Senoussi, Ahmed Balafrey, Mohammed Oufkir . Medbouh knocked on the toilet door, declared that the action was a prank by Ababou and offered Hassan II the opportunity to abdicate. It was rumored that he withdrew with a signed abdication. The toilet door was then guarded by about 20 cadets. The personal physician Benyaïch had assembled a submachine gun in the rooms, which Hassan II had been given on his last birthday. In the following exchange of fire, Ababou was hit in the neck and Medbouh was killed. On July 11 at 4:00 am Ababou ran his generals Hammou, Bourgrine Habibi and Colonel Cheleouati to govern by Rabat . They left 90 cadets behind in Skhirat.

Ahmed Dlimi had found a working phone and ordered two companies of barracked police to Skhirat, which brought down the remaining cadets.

Around 100 people were shot and at least 200 wounded in the massacre . Among those killed were the Ambassador of Belgium, Marcel Dupret , the personal surgeon Henri Dubois-Roquebert (* 1890), the cardiologist Jean Himbert when he provided assistance, ministers, the President of the Supreme Court, numerous senior officers and dozens of servants.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ François Pédron: Échec au roi. You coup d'État de Skhirat au suicide d'Oufkir. Editions de la Table round. Paris, 1972
  2. ↑ La muerte del General Medbuh precipito el fracaso de la subelevacion (article in the Spanish daily ABC of July 13, 1971)
  3. ↑ Morocco: Bloody Birthday (article in the US news magazine Time on July 19, 1971); Quote: "Belgian Ambassador Marcel Dupret fell dead with a bullet in his chest."
  4. ↑ http://rami.tv/illustr/07photos.htm (website of the publicist Ahmed Rami with photographs of the events in July 1971; Swedish, French); Sesente y nueve muertos y ciento treinta heridos en la primera lista de victimas (article in the Spanish daily ABC of July 14, 1971)