Tories condemn coup leaders to torture and death

Moroccan officers who took part in Wednesday's unsuccessful attempt to overthrow King Hassan were escorted back to Rabat yesterday on orders from the government.

They had sought political asylum in Gibraltar after fleeing from Morocco in an air force helicopter.

The Foreign Office refused asylum and herded them onto a Moroccan military aircraft which promptly flew back to Rabat.

The two officers face torture and certain death at the hands of the king's secret police. The Tory government, which maintains the closest ties with Hassan's dictatorship, is well aware of the fate to which it has condemned the two men.

According to Joseph Godber, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, their continued presence on the Rock was 'not conducive to the public good'. The men were illegal immigrants and were deported as such, he said.

It was felt that the correct thing to do was to return them to Morocco, he added. The decision was taken following representations in London by the Moroccan ambassador Thami Ouazzani.

There is no extradition treaty between Britain and Morocco.

Not that Hassan himself usually bothers about these formalities.

His strongman Gen Mohammed Oufkir (said to have shot himself for reasons of 'honour' after the coup's failure) was convicted in France of having organized the kidnap-murder of Moroccan union leader Mehdi Ben Barka seven years ago.

During his interview with the ambassador, Godber expressed on behalf of Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home the government's shock at the 'wicked meempt nock the life of King Hassan and asked Ouazzani to convey Douglas-Home's congratulations to the king on his escape.

King Hassan's absolute rule in Morocco is sustained by the most savage repression against any opposition.

In July last year a group of progressive officers who tried unsuccessfully to overthrow the monarch were summarily executed after hideous tortures.

Hassan personally supervised the execution of ten officers three days after the coup attempt. Belgian fascists build memorial to SS men FLEMISH fascists in Belgium have erected a monument tc their co-thinkers who fought in the Nazi SS against the Soviet Union.

The monument, at Stekene, west of Antwerp, was erected by the right-ming organization hich the Vlaamse is now formally dissolved.

It was put up despite a ban by the local authority, and the mayor of Stekene is now seeking leave to take the case to a higher court.

The 'Bloc National Belge' a war-veterans': organization, has "public homage to treason a and added: It is obvious that the annual SS reunions at Flensburg The officers-four generals, five colonels and a major *were publicly humiliated and 1 their insignia stripped from • the ir uniforms before being shot.

Afterwards their troops were paraded past their corpses to spit on the bodies.

Queen Elizabeth Il sent Hassan her 'most sincere congratulations on your narrow escape' and asked him to 'convey my sympathy to the relatives of those who died'.

This week Hassan's postbag has included a letter of congratulations from General Francisco Franco, Spain's fascist ruler.

There will also be rejoicing in Washington that the Americans' most reliable North African ally is still in the saddle.

The US has three secret military bases in Morocco, serving the Sixth Fleet and manned by 1,700 military technicians.

Hassan's savage and corrupt regime receives from the US huge hand-outs which are used to finance the armed forces and the secret police and maintain the luxury of the royal court.

In October last year, after the July coup attempt had been brutally suppressed by the King's police apparatus, Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin visited Morocco on a 'goodwill visit.

The Soviet Union has close trading ties with Morocco despite its connections with the US. German electrical firms lose markets GERMAN manufacturers of electrical consumer goods are demanding urgent government action to stem the influx of competing Japanese products.

The production of radios, TV sets, stereo kits and tape recorders accounts for a quarter of the entire West German electronics industry and employs more than 100,000 Imports of these goods, mainly from Japan, increased 331 per cent last year to a total worth about £100m.

German firms have already been driven out of the pocket transistor radio market and made only a third of the standard transistors sold on the home market last year.

The German firms sold only 289,000 portable television sets, and Munster will now be at Stekene.' Three years ago, when project was first mooted, fascists were driven ou' Stekene by Belgian ex-servic emen and trade unionists.

THE government is setting up a special board to deal with the resettlement of Ugandan Asians holding British passports, Home Secretary Robert Carr announced yesterday afternoon. He said discussions with other Common wealth countries were underway to ensure that UK passport holders who wanted to go to countries other than Britain should be allowed to do so. caused year. Feudal welcome for narrowly. escaped Hassan Hassan is also courted by the Chinese Stalinists. When the rebel officers attacked the Skirate palace in July they found the Chinese ambassador among the guests at the king's birthday against 376,000 imported. And home-produced tape recorders now represent only 10 per cent of the home market.

Japanese 'offensive' is by the closing of the States market following August 15 measures last The West German electronic goods market is more open than those of the other EEC countries and German firms have been buying Japanese products for sale under their own brandnames.

Unless the government protects the home industry, the manufacturers say, the whole market in small transistor radios and portable TV sets will be in overseas hands by 1980, together with three-quarters of the radio set market and over two-thirds of colour TV production. Chile farm take-overs CHILE'S worsening agricultural crisis is creating great problems for the Popular Unity coalition headed by president Salvador Allende.

Luis Corvalan, the Communist Party general secretary, told the party's plenum in Santiago earlier this week that agricultural production had increased only by about 2 per cent.

'The country has not succeeded in untangling the economic problems preventing the increase of food production ..! he said. !

'Food prices have up to now been nxed almost trom day to day. Our main error has been to drop our guard in the countryside!

The Communist Party's chief contribution to the Popular Unity's agricultural policy has been vigorous denunciations of are bungled peasants who occupy their landlords' farms.

The Allende government is committed to the bureaucratic take-over of the huge estates, and Corvalan said this process would be completed in months' time.

Yet according to the Socialist Party, which is in alliance with the Stalinists, the state takeovers frequently misfire because the state Agricultural Reform Corporation is not on hand to prevent the landowner selling his machinery once he knows his land is to be taken over.

As a result, says the Socialist Party, 'more than half the expropriated lands are now non- productive.

The party also complains that the 'peasant councils' supposed to group the agricultural workers have been created 'from above' and are dominated by the landlords.

The urgency of the situation is underlined by the shortage of meat and vegetables in the cities, where there are now sometimes queues for basic foodstuffs.

The Socialist Party has calculated that the country will need to import $400m-worth of food and $100m-worth of farm machinery this year, exacerbating the already grave balance of payments situation.