Tangier International Zone
The Tangier International Zone (Arabic: منطقة طنجة الدولية Minṭaqat Ṭanja ad-Dawliyya, French: Zone internationale de Tanger, Spanish: Zona Internacional de Tánger) was a 382 km2 (147 sq mi) international zone centered on the city of Tangier, Morocco, which existed from 1925 until its reintegration into independent Morocco in 1956, with interruption during the Spanish occupation of Tangier (1940–1945), and special economic status extended until early 1960. Surrounded on the land side by the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, it was governed under a unique and complex system that involved various European nations, the United States (mainly after 1945), and the Sultan of Morocco, himself under a French protectorate. Due to its status as international zone, Tangier played a crucial role for Moroccan Nationalists, who wanted independence, to establish (international) contacts and recruite allies as well as organising gatherings and events.[2]
Tangier International Zone
![Former British legation in the Medina of Tangier[4]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Morocco_Tangier_Former_English_Consulate.jpg/101px-Morocco_Tangier_Former_English_Consulate.jpg)
Former Danish legation in the Medina of Tangier
![Former legation of Austria-Hungary[14]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/Tangier_Austrian_Consulate.jpg/114px-Tangier_Austrian_Consulate.jpg)
For nearly a century after the end of English rule in 1684, Tangier was primarily a military town, the main fortified outpost on the Moroccan Sultanate's side of the Strait of Gibraltar. This role evolved after Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah designated it in 1777 as the main point of contact between the Moroccan monarchy and European commercial interests, leading to the gradual relocation of a number of consulates to the city by the main European nations.[3]: 73 Great Britain, an ally of the Sultanate since 1713 as it needed Moroccan help to provision Gibraltar, moved its consul from Tétouan to Tangier in the 1770s,[4] and the consul of France similarly moved in from Rabat in the early 1780s.[5] By 1830, Denmark, France, Portugal, Sardinia, Spain, Sweden, Tuscany, the United Kingdom, and the United States all had consulates in Tangier.[6]: 68 In 1851, the sultan appointed a permanent representative to the foreign powers in Tangier, the Naib,[3]: 79 and in 1856, all remaining consulates were elevated to legations.[1]: 17
Since the Moroccan legal regime applied Islamic law only to Muslims and Judaic law only to Jews, foreign representatives were kept under a derogatory legal status defined by successive bilateral agreements with the Makhzen, the oldest of which appears to have been concluded with the Republic of Pisa in 1358.[7]: 360 Such bilateral arrangements, known as capitulations, were signed with France in 1767, the United Kingdom in 1856, and Spain in 1861 in the wake of the Treaty of Wad Ras.[7]: 361 In 1863, France and Morocco signed the so-called Béclard Convention which expanded the protégé system to France's benefit, which in 1880 was extended to other nations by the Treaty of Madrid.[8]: 307 Under the capitulations' legal protection the United Kingdom established a postal service in Tangier in 1857, followed by France in 1860, Spain in 1861, and Germany in 1899; the Moroccan Sultanate followed suit with its own service in 1902.[9]: 402
The foreign powers in Tangier soon started developing joint projects, starting with matters of quarantine and public health as early as 1792.[7]: 360 In 1840, a Dahir (decree) of Sultan Abd al-Rahman mandated them to establish a Sanitary Council (French: conseil sanitaire),[8]: 306 chaired by the envoys of the represented nations on a rotating basis in the name of the Makhzen.[7]: 360 In the early 1860s, the foreign nations for the creation of the Cape Spartel lighthouse, inaugurated in 1864.
In 1879, a Dahir of Sultan Hassan I created Tangier's Hygiene Commission (French: commission d'hygiène), which coexisted with the Sanitary Council and gradually took shape in the 1880s as a de facto municipal council, with members appointed by the foreign diplomats but also the Sultan and prominent local residents.[7]: 360 The Hygiene Commission was chaired by the foreign envoys, on three-months turns with succession based on alphabetical order of nationality.[6]: 78 Its leading executive was the vice chair, a position held for most of the decade from 1888 to 1898 by Spanish physician Severo Cenarro.[10]: 272 In 1887, Greek-American community leader Ion Hanford Perdicaris advocated a special status for Tangier as a neutral free port under the great powers' joint control.[11]: 110
In 1892, the Hygiene Commission took over some of the tasks of the Sanitary Council (which nevertheless continued to exist in parallel), and was given legal form on 23 December 1893,[7]: 360 with its role broadened and its name extended to road works (French: commission d'hygiène et de voirie) with authority to raise levies.[12]: 11 In 1904, Tangier was chosen as location of the French-led Moroccan Debt Administration. That same year, a secret treaty between France and Spain acknowledged Tangier's special status and thus marked the first official prefiguration of later formal international arrangements.[7]: 362
The Algeciras Conference of 1906 established the State Bank of Morocco in Tangier, and also created new bodies for the city's management such as an Office of Public Works that in 1909 took over part of the services that had been managed by the Hygiene Commission.[3]: 119 The Act of Algeciras also resulted in the creation of a dual police force under foreign control, the Tabor divided between French and Spanish components,[3]: 236 respectively in charge of public order outside and inside the city limits.[13]
In March 1912, the Treaty of Fes established the French protectorate in Morocco and raised again the status of Tangier. Both France and Spain wanted to control the city, while the United Kingdom wanted to neutralise it to maintain its dominance of the Strait of Gibraltar. Later that year, Article 7 of the Treaty Between France and Spain Regarding Morocco stipulated that Tangier would be granted a special status and defined its geographical boundaries.[7]: 363 A technical committee of France, Spain and the UK met in Madrid in 1913, but only reached agreement in November 1914, after World War I had started, which allowed Spain, which was unsatisfied with the outcome, to suspend its implementation for several years.[1]: 17 [7]: 363 Meanwhile, Tangier still operated under an ad hoc governance regime with a Sultan-appointed governor, the Naib reduced to a largely ceremonial role since Morocco under the protectorates no longer had an autonomous foreign policy, the extraterritorial courts under the respective foreign delegations (downgraded back to consulate status for the same reason), the Sanitary Council, the Hygiene Commission, the French and Spanish Tabors, and assorted specialized committees.
Economy and culture[edit]
The initial economic effect of the creation of the International Zone was sharply negative, because the Spanish protectorate authorities discouraged commerce with it and thus Tangier lost most of its traditional hinterland. Tangier had handled nineteen percent of Morocco's imports in 1906, but only four percent in 1929.[40]
With time, however, the service activities favoured by the zone's special status enabled a gradual recovery. The Zone had a reputation for tolerance, diversity of culture, religion, and bohemianism. It became a tourist hotspot for literary giants and gay men from Western countries. Many of the latter were able to live an openly "out" life in the Zone.[41][42]
The activity of Tangier as an offshore financial centre and tax haven took off in the postwar period. In 1950, there were 85 banks in Tangier, up from 4 in 1900 and 15 in 1939.[1]: 18 Its practice of banking secrecy was extreme, with effectively no bank licensing, no prudential supervision, no accounting obligations, and no transparency whatsoever about a bank's ownership. In some cases, the senior management of a Tangier bank would not even know who the bank's owners were. One author wrote that "the authorities of Tangier had pushed to an unequaled degree of perfection the art of non-governing by reciprocal annulment of rival sovereignties. They took care, better than elsewhere, of the rigorous application of an almost total non-taxation".[11]: 113
In the years leading up to the First World War, Tangier had a population of about 40,000, about half Muslim, a quarter Jewish, and a quarter European Christians.[43][44] By 1956, Tangier had a population of around 40,000 Muslims, 31,000 Christians, and 15,000 Jews.[45]