By IPS Correspondents
RABAT, May 26 2003 (IPS)

The Justice and Development Party (PJD), Morocco’s only legal Islamist organisation, has come under fire over the recent terrorist attacks in Casablanca.

The authorities have not accused the PJD, the third largest political party in Morocco, of involvement in the attacks. But leaders from several parties say the PJD has been spreading radicalism among youth.

The PJD, with 42 seats in the 325-seat Moroccan parliament, came into being in 1997 following a merger between the Democratic, Constitutional and Popular Movement (MPDC) and the moderate Islamist Islah and Tajdid (reform and renewal) Association.

The merger on the recommendation of the government sought to control growing Islamism in Morocco, particularly among members of the MPDC. The PJD is now led by Dr Abdekarim Al-Khatib, an 80-year-old physician and a close ally of the Moroccan monarchy.

But groups supporting the government want the PJD outlawed. "All Islamist organisations, including the PJD, should be dissolved and banned," says Mohamed Lachgar, member of the political bureau of the pro-government USFP (Socialist Union of Popular Forces).

"These extremists have no right to benefit from our democratic system after the Casablanca events," he wrote in an article Sunday in the USFP mouthpiece Al- Ittihad Al-Ichtiraki.

Terrorist attacks led by 14 Moroccan youngsters in downtown Casablanca May 16 killed 43 people and injured more than 100.

The PJD called the attacks "criminal, and contrary to the precepts of Islam." Its members held a demonstration in capital Rabat to condemn the attacks.

But that has not stopped accusations coming its way. The independent Moroccan newspaper Al-Ahdat Al-Maghribya accused PJD leaders of receiving money from abroad. "Some PJD leaders have bank accounts worth millions of dollars," it said.

Officials suspect that the 14 youths who carried out the attacks, 13 of who died, were members of the Salafya Al-Jihadya and Assirat Al-Moustakim (the Right Path), Morocco’s most radical Islamic organisations.

But all of Morocco’s 48 political parties, trade unions and civil society organisations opposed PJD participation in a national demonstration Sunday where more than a million people took to the streets in Casablanca to condemn the attacks.

"The extremists’ participation in the march would have given them credibility as peace-makers while they incite violence, discrimination and hatred," Najat Ikhich, president of the Unified Front against Terrorisme (FUT) told IPS.

"The PJD, through its policies, pushed the youth to committing these ignoble terrorist attacks," she said. Ikhich set up the Front the day after the attacks in Casablanca.

The PJD dismisses such accusations. "These are baseless lies and the PJD is innocent of all these accusations," PJD assistant secretary-general Saad Eddine Othmani told IPS.

"Government-fed parties are using the terrorist attacks as a weapon to fight the rising influence and backing the PJD enjoys among Moroccans," he said. "This campaign is being waged for election purposes. Last year’s legislative elections showed that the PJD is a powerful political organisation to reckon with."

The PJD leader says Morocco’s "outdated and helpless parties now fear a victory of our party in the local elections." The elections are due September.

The Casablanca attacks should be seen "as a reflection of these parties’ inability to solve the country’s development problems," he said. "All the parties that have ruled Morocco since its independence from France in 1956 should now declare their political bankruptcy."

Mohamed Toza, an expert in Islamist movements, warns against demonising moderate Islamists. "The irrational campaign against the PJD can push this moderate party into radicalisation," Toza told IPS. "This will not solve the problem. It will only add fuel to the fire."

Prof Ahmed Chafiri, a sociologist at the Rabat Faculty of Letters says secular organisations "risk pushing the country on to a slippery slope by their attacks on Islam and the PJD."

He warned of the danger of pushing Morocco into an Algeria-like situation. The Algerian government cancelled general elections in 1992 as the now outlawed Islamic Salvation Front was poised for a landslide win.

The decision plunged Algeria into a spiral of violence blamed on radical Islamists, that has left thousands dead.

"We should not forget that Islam is Morocco’s constitutional religion," Chafiri told IPS. "A reasonable and efficient way to handle the issue would be to involve moderate Islamist organisations like the PJD in the fight against terrorism."

Economic and social exclusion had been mentioned as a reason for the Casablanca attacks, said Toza. "Now religious exclusion can create a fertile soil for terrorism."

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