Word: hassan
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...giant national picnic. In towns and villages, men and women sang and danced to the din of drums and the ear-splitting piping of flutes; excited children ran through the streets and watched their parents and relatives board trains and buses for the south. King Hassan II's bizarre crusade to "liberate" the Spanish Sahara (TIME. Oct. 27) was ready to begin...
Realizing that an armed invasion might well cause a war with both Spain and Algeria, Hassan had asked for 350,000 volunteers to cross the frontier, armed only with the Koran. By the end of the week, 700,000, including 70,000 women, had signed up for what Moroccan newspapers had dubbed "the Green March" (after Islam's traditional color). Doctors were still giving physical examinations to decide who was up to the arduous 15-day, 60-mile trek across a land as desolate as the moon, where temperatures at this time of year can climb as high...
...Hassan had been preparing his move even before the International Court of Justice ruled that Morocco had not proved its "ties of territorial sovereignty" over the 103,000-sq.-mi. land, which has, outside of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., perhaps 20% of the world's phosphates. All last week a fleet of nearly 8,000 trucks rumbled toward Tarfaya, Morocco's southernmost city, with cargoes that included 42,580 tons of water, food and fuel, along with blankets and tents. Overhead, army helicopters scattered back and forth watching for emergencies, as the never-ending column rolled through...
...whom carried copies of the Koran along with soup bowls, spoons and bottle openers-from the oasis of Ksar-es-Souk. "Go then under divine protection," he said, "helped by your unshakable faith, your true patriotism and your total devotion to the guide of your victorious march, King Hassan...
Algeria says that it does not want the land for itself, but does not want Morocco's right-wing monarchy to have it either. Instead, Algiers favors self-determination, assuming that the Sahara's 70,000 or 80,000 nomads would opt for Algerian-style Islamic socialism. Hassan also assumes they would go socialist and fears that his own shaky regime could not survive if it were surrounded by hostile states...