World Leaders Join 2 Million at King’s Funeral

As Moroccans buried their beloved King Hassan II on Sunday, they were joined in their grief by a large turnout of world leaders who braved a hot North African sun to march behind the late monarch’s casket in tribute to his many contributions to Middle East peacemaking.

As the tumultuous funeral procession slowly wended through Rabat’s broad, palm-lined main boulevard and narrow streets, about 2 million Moroccans turned out to bid their monarch farewell.

Their rhythmic chants of prayers and verses from the Koran reverberated in a deafening roar across this seaside capital. For most in this nation of 29 million people, Hassan is the only king they have known.

Along the three-mile funeral procession, from the green-tiled royal palace to the hilltop Mohammed V mausoleum, the throng of humanity at times threatened to engulf President Clinton and French President Jacques Chirac, who led marchers. But the two heads of state pressed on with grim determination.

Both before the funeral and after the burial, Clinton took advantage of the extraordinary gathering of world leaders to meet individually with many of them, although mostly for only brief visits. Among those he met with were Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The presence of a top-level Israeli delegation served to underline the Jewish state’s drive to improve its relations with the region’s Arab and Islamic states.

A historic meeting between Barak and the Algerian president was followed by the first three-way contact among Barak, Clinton and Arafat.

“We attach high hopes on your peace plan,” Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was overheard saying to Barak in what was reportedly the first conversation between an Algerian president and an Israeli leader. “We are ready to contribute whenever asked.”

Israel and Algeria, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian drive for an independent state, are technically at war. But the two countries’ delegations spied each other in an open courtyard at the royal palace, approached, and Barak and Bouteflika chatted for about seven minutes, according to reporters who were present.

Barak later told Israeli television that the discussion with Bouteflika was primarily one of courtesy but “not valueless in the path of making changes in the Middle East towards a future of dialogue.”

A major focus of Clinton’s encounters was the peace process, said National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, who added that the president also brought Barak together with Sheik Saad al Abdullah al Sabah, the crown prince of Kuwait, for their first meeting.

Throughout the day, the leaders mingled casually with one another in a variety of settings.

At one point, Barak and Mubarak happened upon one another in the courtyard of the royal palace and gave one another a bearhug.

There had been speculation that Barak would meet Syria’s President Hafez Assad at the funeral, but Assad decided, apparently at the last minute, not to come. He was represented by his vice president, Mohammed Zuhair Masharqa.

Clinton met with Arafat for 40 minutes Sunday night before returning to Washington, offering the Palestinian leader details of his U.S. meeting last week with Barak, according to administration aides.

On Sunday, the new Israeli premier also met with Hassan’s son and successor, King Mohammed VI, 35, who assumed the throne of this country hours after his father’s death Friday at age 70, with Jordanian King Abdullah II and with officials from Gulf Arab states--everyone but the Syrians.

Israeli commentators had eagerly anticipated the possibility that the funeral would become the site of a first meeting between Barak and Assad. The two are poised to reopen long-frozen negotiations aimed at quieting Israel’s last active war front.

But it was not to be. Assad abruptly canceled his plans to attend amid speculation that he was avoiding a public encounter that he would not be able to completely choreograph to his liking.

Israel sent its delegation to the funeral to salute Hassan’s contribution to peace in the region during his 38-year reign and also because of Israel’s huge Moroccan-born community. Hassan was seen as a rare leader in this region who was friendly to the Jewish people.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, in a eulogy published Sunday, credited Hassan with fostering some of the earliest contacts between Israel and its Arab enemies, including meetings that were key to the normalization of relations between Israel and Egypt in the late 1970s.

During Sunday’s funeral, the grief of the Moroccan people was at times overwhelming. Legions of perspiring security agents from a variety of nations, including the U.S. Secret Service, struggled mightily to hold back the crowd, often linking arms for support.

Still, Clinton and Chirac and the other marchers at points were jostled by the advancing crowd, both from behind the casket as well as from the sidelines, as mourners surged forward from police barricades.

“He was well-protected,” White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said of Clinton.

But others said afterward that they had feared for Clinton’s safety.

“I was very worried about the president,” said Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee, who also marched in the procession.

“It was a little bit dicey at the beginning,” Berger said.

He said Clinton was asked by the Moroccans to walk at the front of the funeral procession, just steps behind the casket, and that the president readily agreed.

Former President Bush also insisted on participating in the procession, and he and Clinton were joined by most of the U.S. delegation including Berger and former Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and James A. Baker III.

The Moroccans accorded First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton special dispensation, welcoming her into meetings, including a courtesy call President Clinton paid on King Mohammed VI at the palace, according to U.S. officials. .

Chen reported from Rabat and Wilkinson from Jerusalem.