On the Road from Morocco

Waving a forest of red flags with green five-pointed stars and shouting praises to the glory of Allah, more than 40,000 enthusiastic Moroccans last Thursday obeyed the order of their King and marched into the Spanish Sahara. In fervor and numbers, the invasion evoked memories of the armies of the Prophet Mohammed embarked on a holy war—or, possibly, a biblical epic staged by Hollywood. By week's end nearly 100,000 of the unarmed marchers, asserting Morocco's claim to the mineral-rich Spanish colony, had moved seven miles across the border and were camped within sight of the euphemistically named dissuasion line—minefields and concertinas of barbed wire installed by the Spanish forces to halt the invaders. As diplomats frantically tried to find a face-saving way to defuse the confrontation and avoid bloodshed, tension mounted.

This long-prepared "Green March" was the bizarre means devised by Morocco's King Hassan II to annex the colony peacefully. Accompanying the marchers was TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn, who cabled this report:

Leading the marchers across the border was Moroccan Premier Ahmed Osman; with him were several Cabinet ministers, and visiting delegations from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Gabon. Once inside the Sahara, they stopped at the white-domed outpost at Tah, which had been abandoned just a few days earlier by the Spanish when they pulled back their troops. After kneeling in prayer, the group of VIPS headed back into Morocco. Gendarmes then gave a signal, and thousands of Moroccans—wearing everything from djellabas to soccer uniforms—poured across the border.

As they fell to their knees and prayed outside the outpost, workmen hastily erected a triumphal arch on the previously unmarked boundary; atop it were Moroccan flags and huge portraits of Hassan. After moving into the Sahara in a great human flood a half-mile abreast, the marchers soon narrowed into a column eight to ten people wide and began raggedly shuffling down the single-lane asphalt road in the direction of Aaiūn, Sahara's capital. A huge paratrooper distributed paperback copies of the Koran, which the marchers waved as they chanted, "Allah akbar [God is great]," "The Sahara is Moroccan," "Long live King Hassan."

Brave Marchers. Because the Spaniards had pulled back nine miles to the dissuasion line, the Moroccans encountered no resistance other than the cactus and the sand they kicked up into annoying swirls. Ahead, the land was completely flat until the dissuasion line, where it dips into a valley and rises to a plateau. On the plateau's rim, silhouettes of Spanish army tanks were visible; Spanish helicopters hovered ominously over the advancing column.

At the dissuasion line there were signs warning that the area was mined. The Spanish authorities claim they have buried more than 20,000 explosive devices throughout the area. We were told that the mines had been placed only within a mile of either side of the road. This means the marchers could proceed safely if they were willing to leave the asphalt and brave the inhospitable desert.