Hassan II of Morocco

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King Hassan II (July 9, 1929-July 23, 1999) (Arabic: الحسن الثاني) was King of Morocco from 1961 to his death. He was the eldest son of Mohammed V, Sultan, then King of Morocco and his wife Lalla Abla bint Tahar, whom he married in 1926.

King Hassan was educated at the Imperial College at Rabat and earned a law degree from the University of Bordeaux.

He was exiled to Corsica by French authorities on 20 August 1953, along with his father Sultan Mohammed V. They were transferred to Madagascar in January 1954. Prince Hassan acted as his father's political advisor during the exile. Mohammed V and his family returned from exile on 16 November 1955.

Prince Hassan participated in the February 1956 negotiations for Morocco's independence with his father, who later appointed him Chief of Staff of the Royal Armed Forces in April 1956 by his father. In the unrest of the same year, he led army contingents battling Berbers in the mountains of the Rif. Mohammed V changed the title of the Moroccan sovereign from Sultan to King in 1957. Hassan was proclaimed Crown Prince on 19 July 1957, and became King on 3 March 1961, after his father's death.

His conservative rule strengthened the Alaouite Dynasty, but his refusal to share power with the political parties, instead relying on the makhzen elite, provoked political protest. While king Hassan did not abolish the mechanisms of parliamentary democracy, he dissolved parliament and ruled directly. When elections were eventually held, they were blatantly rigged in favor of loyal parties. This caused severe discontent among the opposition, and protest demonstrations and riots challenged the king's rule.

In the early seventies, the mounting discontent spread to the army, and King Hassan survived two assassination attempts. The first, in 1971, was organized by army cadets. In 1972, during a second attempted at a coup d'état, jets from the Royal Moroccan Air Force fired upon the King's plane while he was traveling back to Rabat, but did not bring it down. After this, tensions slowly cooled down, aided by the king's newfound nationalist credentials in claiming Western Sahara in 1975.

The rigidly dictatorial period from the 60s to the early 90s is known as the "years of lead", and saw many thousands of dissidents shot, jailed, exiled or forcibly disappeared. Although king Hassan II had restored many parliamentary functions by the early nineties and released hundreds of political prisoners in 1991 after pressure from the United States, the "years of lead" ended definitely only with the taking of the throne by his son Mohammed VI in 1999.

1 Foreign policy
2 Family
3 See also
4 References and links

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Foreign policy

King Hassan II served as a back channel between the Arab world and Israel, facilitating early negotiations between them. During his reign, Morocco occupied Western Sahara after the "Green March" in 1975, an issue which was to dominate Moroccan foreign policy until this day. Relations with Algeria deteriorated sharply due to this and due to the 1963 Sand war, when Morocco attempted to annex parts of newly independent Algeria.

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