Under a New Regime, Moroccans Search for Truth And Justice

By Marvine Howe

Ahmed Marzouki remembers everything about Tazmamart—18 years in the tiny concrete cell, the stifling heat and Siberian winters, the isolation and absence of light, the stench of disease and filth, scorpions and mosquitoes, miserable rations of bread, chickpeas and vermicelli, sadistic prison guards. Of the 58 military officers and men implicated in unsuccessful coups against the late King Hassan in the early 1970s, only 2nd Lt. Marzouki and 27 others survived Morocco’s notorious desert prison, which is now closed.

“I am against vengeance, against cutting off heads; all I want is the truth,’’ says Marzouki, whose detailed prison memoir, Tazmamart Cellule 10, published in Morocco and France last year, was a best seller and is being translated into English. He warns that if the authorities turn the page on the problem of political prisoners without disclosure of past violations, the torture will continue.

In Le Marie (“The Bridegroom”), Salah El Ouadie, poet and human rights advocate, describes with light humor the whole repertoire of tortures he suffered during 10 years of incarceration. The slender volume presented as letters from prison came out in French earlier this year, after three editions in Arabic.

A student activist, Fatna el Bouih, “disappeared’’ and was tortured for seven months in Casablanca’s Derb Moulay Cherif detention center in 1977, before being transferred to other prisons for a total of five years. She writes of her experiences in Speech in the Shadows, recently published in Arabic. Bouih and her husband, Yusuf Madad, also are involved in a project to publish testimonials from other women former prisoners.

And then there is Malika Oufkir’s own story, Stolen Lives, which has captured the imagination of the American public. Her life begins as an Arabian Nights fairy tale in the royal palace, but turns into a medieval nightmare when she, her mother and five siblings are imprisoned for 19 years because of the sins of her father, Gen. Mohammed Oufkir. Second in power only to King Hassan himself, General Oufkir was accused of the failed attempt to assassinate the monarch in 1972 and summarily executed.

This outburst of tales of torture and imprisonment says a good deal about the new freer atmosphere in Morocco since Mohammed VI acceded to the throne two years ago, upon the death of his father, Hassan II. It is indicative as well of a growing thirst for truth and reconciliation. Like other people who have endured long periods of human rights abuse, Moroccans are pressing for an end to the official silence on what is generally called les annees de plomb—the years of lead—from the mid-1960s to 1990.

Moroccans today are divided as to whether to open the dossiers on that dark period, when the kingdom was wracked by cycles of suspicion, repression and rebellion. In recent talks with scores of officials, human rights activists and ordinary citizens, it seems that the majority favors some kind of accountability, if not punishment, for past abuses. An important sector, however, fears revelations could lead to destabilization and threaten the monarchy itself.

“I am for national reconciliation—not a settling of accounts,’’ Prime Minister Abderrahmane Youssoufi, whose brother died in detention, said recently. The Moroccan Socialist leader cited the example of Spain’s Socialists and Communists, who, having suffered severely during the Civil War and Franco’s rule, chose to turn the page and accept the restoration of the monarchy.

Moroccan human rights groups, however, led by the Forum of Truth and Justice, are seeking to establish a National Truth Commission, along the lines of the South African Truth Commission headed by Bishop Desmond Tutu. They have called for a national symposium on the issue to be held in Casablanca in early October.

“How can we make a state of law if we don’t say who is responsible for violations of the law?’’ asked Driss Benzekri, a political prisoner from 1974 to 1991, who heads the Forum. He stressed that there are still some 600 missing persons, along with an estimated 50,000 people—including entire families or tribes—who suffered directly or indirectly from state repression.

In a recent interview, Benzekri said that the king has agreed “in principle’’ to the idea of a public debate on the reconciliation process. Talks on the details are currently underway with royal representatives, as well as the main political parties, which have indicated their support. Discussions center on the composition and powers of a truth commission, and whether the conclusions should be submitted to the king, parliament or the courts.

Morocco’s most celebrated former political prisoner, Abraham Serfaty, a Marxist engineer who spent 17 years in jail and eight years in exile, insists that the whole truth be revealed “without restrictions.’’ He favors the South African model, a process of amnesty, compensation and rehabilitation whereby victims present their cases before a commission of wise persons, not a court. All persons responsible for human rights violations would be identified, but minor civil servants could remain incognito, while the chief torturers would be publicly denounced and removed from their positions.

Thus far Mohammed VI has uttered no public criticism of his father’s 38-year iron rule, except to say that he has “a different concept of authority.’’ Nevertheless, numerous books and articles denouncing human rights scandals under the former king have been allowed to circulate in the country. This summer there were even uncensored articles directly implicating King Hassan and his secret services in the 1965 kidnapping and disappearance of the exiled leftist opposition leader Mehdi Ben Barka.

Ben Barka’s kidnapping in Paris by French and Moroccan secret agents nearly caused a rupture in relations between France and its former protectorate. Two trials and numerous books on the Ben Barka affair were inconclusive and, because the body has not been found, the case remained unsolved. In the recent reports, Ahmed Boukhari, a Moroccan secret agent, claims that Ben Barka’s body was flown back to Rabat by Moroccan counter-espionage officials, where it was supposedly dissolved in an acid tank at the Dar el Mokri torture center. These allegations were firmly denied by the officials in question. Prime Minister Youssoufi’s Socialist Party, however, which was founded by Ben Barka, has reopened the case, this time in Morocco.

An aggressive Moroccan weekly, Le Journal Hebdomadaire, which published the latest Ben Barka disclosures, has been the first to open the torture dossier. Several weeks ago, five members of the Bnouhachem Group, leftist students held prisoner from 1976 to 1984, described in detail the tortures inflicted on them and named their torturers. Last year, Le Journal published an open letter to the minister of justice from the Moroccan Association of Human Rights, containing 14 names of alleged torturers and officials involved in arbitrary detentions. “Nobody has the right to tell the family of a victim, forget it,’’ was the comment of Aboubakr Jamai, editor-in-chief of Le Journal, which has had several run-ins with the authorities.

“The process of truth has already begun,’’ says Sion Assidon, who spent 12-1/2 years as a political prisoner, and now heads the Moroccan branch of Transparency International. “What people want is public recognition of crimes by the state, not necessarily a public trial.’’

The trouble is that nobody knows the boundaries of public discourse today. Under Hassan II, there were three taboos—the monarchy, Islam, and Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara—and these subjects still are broached with caution. Furthermore, the Moroccan constitution bars any criticism of the royal family.

The campaign for disclosure on arbitrary arrests and torture actually was instigated over a decade ago by opposition political parties and Moroccan human rights groups. Exerting external pressures were Amnesty International, the European Community, the U.S. State Department and wives of political prisoners, namely Christine Daure-Serfaty in France and Nancy Touil in the United States. An important impetus for change came from the 1990 publication in France of Giles Perrault’s book Notre Ami le Roi, a devastating, if biased and not always accurate, condemnation of King Hassan’s rule, which was categorically denied by the regime.

It was, by many accounts, King Hassan’s planned visit to Washington in the fall of 1991 that triggered an improvement in the situation. It began with the nomination of a consultative council for human rights in May of 1990, the release of the Oufkir family in mid-1991 and, the same year, amnesty for 40 leftists, freedom for 269 Saharans, the release and expulsion of Serfaty, closure of Tazmamart and freedom for the 28 prison survivors.

Following up on his U.S. trip, King Hassan produced a new constitution, which stated that the kingdom would “abide by universally recognized human rights.’’ Morocco’s main opposition parties opposed the new charter, however, which limited public freedoms and reaffirmed the monarch’s overwhelming powers. Rabat took new steps to win international approval in 1993 with the creation of a Ministry of Human Rights and ratification of the United Nations Convention against Torture.

In 1994, King Hassan commuted some 200 death sentences and granted amnesty to more than 400 Marxists, Islamists, students and trade unionists, declaring the page had finally been turned on the political prisoner issue. (Islamist leader Sheikh Yassine was still under house arrest and hundreds of Saharans and Islamists still in jail, but they were not officially considered political prisoners.)

Clearly conscious of his own mortality, in February 1998 Hassan II named Youssoufi, a human rights lawyer and leader of the main leftist party, to head the new government of Alternance (Alternative). The Youssoufi government program promised sweeping reforms in the administration, education, economy, judiciary, human rights and the status of women. Youssoufi’s Socialist Party did not have a parliamentary majority, however, and had to make compromises with six other parties in the coalition. Even under a new constitution, the king retained all his prerogatives and control over five key cabinet posts: interior, justice, foreign affairs, defense and Islamic affairs.

On Sept. 28, 1998, the king’s Advisory Council on Human Rights announced that investigations showed the number of missing persons to be 112, with 56 of these known to be dead. It said 27 persons were already receiving monthly stipends and called for studies to determine how “to compensate for the harm done in cases of this kind.’’

Human rights groups contested the figures as unrealistically low, but considered the council’s statement an implicit recognition of state responsibility on the issue of missing persons.

When King Hassan died on July 23, 1999, leaders from around the world flocked to his funeral with praise for the statesman and man of peace. The Youssoufi government assured a smooth transition, and was kept on by King Mohammed VI. From the outset, the 35-year-old monarch, who is often familiarly referred to as M-6, pledged to pursue his father’s policies for the building of a modern state based on a democratic and constitutional monarchy. In his first Throne Speech, however, Mohammed VI called for consolidation of the rule of law, particularly in the domain of human rights and public liberties. Specifically, he announced the creation of an arbitration commission to provide compensation to victims of arbitrary detention. “We are fully aware of the extreme importance of moral and humanitarian compensation to close this dossier definitively,’’ the king said. He also granted amnesty to over 46,000 prisoners.

Through a series of popular gestures, the new king established his distance from Hassan II’s autocratic reign. In the fall of 1999, Mohammed VI encouraged the return of the most prominent political exiles, Abraham Serfaty, who was named consultant to the Department of Mines, and the Ben Barka family. King Mohammed also removed from office his father’s all-powerful minister of interior, Driss Basri, and freed Islamist leader Abdessalem Yassine, held under house arrest for 11 years.

By the end of the year, the Human Rights Council had received over 5,800 claims for compensation for “physical and moral injuries’’ by former prisoners and their survivors. In April 2000, the Royal Arbitration Commission announced settlements in 68 cases, benefiting 354 persons, for a total of $14 million. Human rights organizations criticized the compensation process as slow and unfair, and contended that there must be “moral reparations’’ as well.

Keeping up their pressure, the Forum for Truth and Justice has organized anti-torture days and sit-ins at the main torture centers. A couple of these demonstrations were banned for fear things would get out of hand. Last October hundreds of former political prisoners and their families made a dramatic pilgrimage to Tazmamart, which remains a military base. They placed candles and roses all around the oasis and tried unsuccessfully to obtain the 30 bodies buried in the desert fortress. A French television team was detained 48 hours and charged with filming a military installation.

The security forces, who continue to wield considerable political influence and enjoy broad impunity, clearly would like to close dossiers and bury the past as quickly as seemly. There are still reports of serious human rights abuses, generally related to the ongoing conflict with Algeria over Morocco’s claims to Western Sahara.

Some business, professional and intellectual circles, moreover, fear a destabilization of the regime if the full light of truth is brought to bear on King Hassan’s rule.

“Memory is at the heart of the problem; how far can we go without endangering the country?’’ said Ali Bouabid, secretary-general of the Abderrahim Bouabid Foundation, a center for democratic debate, named for his father. Abderrahim Bouabid was a founder of Moroccan independence, leader of the Socialist Party until his death in 1992, and a close friend of Ben Barka and Youssoufi.

Expressing confidence that the Moroccan monarchy can evolve democratically in spite of “the heavy dossier of the past,’’ Ali Bouabid noted that “it takes time to digest the past—the French had to wait until the end of 1997 for Chirac to apologize for Vichy.’’

“We must find a middle way,” Bouabid said recently, “somewhere between those who seek political trials and those who want to close the book before we’ve read it.’’ He suggested that the Chilean model— a commission that recognized the extensive violations under the old authoritarian system, without the power to judge those responsible—would be appropriate for Morocco.

“After all,” he pointed out, “many of the actors are dead, and those who remain can mold the truth in their fashion."