MOROCCO'S TRANSITION A MODEL FOR MIDDLE EAST AND BEYOND
By Georgie Anne Geyer Tue Jan 24, 6:21 PM ET
WASHINGTON -- All right, we've learned over these last four years how to TALK democracy -- the Bush administration does it all the time. But how do you actually DO democracy, especially in the Middle East, where lives are so desolately clouded with memories of repression that reconciliation seems nearly impossible?
While there are several experiments going on in the region, one country stands out as a model for devising tactics and strategies to take an execrable past, wring out its earlier injustices to citizens, and with specific actions make up for the past. That country is Morocco, and its developments under its new king are well worth studying.
Driss Benzekri, a political prisoner of 17 years for his Marxist beliefs, was in town this week -- now as the head of Morocco's Equity and Reconciliation Commission. The group consists of 17 Moroccan citizens as well as former political prisoners, whose broad and comprehensive recommendations for change have been accepted by the young King Mohammed VI. This, even though (among many interesting points) human rights violations were committed under the 43-year reign of his internationally liberal but internally ruthless father, King Hassan II. But more on that later.
"For the last 20 months," the small, dapper Benzekri began, "we covered a period of 43 years. Our special mandate was to shed light on human rights and to conduct investigations of violations of the state and its organizations. We were then to come up with a set of recommendations ... that would foster reconciliation by prompting a national debate.
"In the course of our work, we were able to shed light on the fate of 742 persons who disappeared for different reasons. We called for compensation for them, as well as 10,000 other victims. Then we proposed a series of reforms to the constitution to ensure the separation of powers; and we recommended that the independence of the judiciary be inscribed in the constitution, and an end to legal immunity for security officials who commit human rights abuses. The main objective of our recommendations was to promote and protect all forms of civil liberties. Then we gave the report to His Majesty and it was made public."
The young king, who took over from his father in 1999, immediately embraced the report and its calls for compensation. Many former political prisoners appeared in public town hall meetings and on television, telling their stories in a unique form of catharsis. This is unprecedented in the Arab world.
But how, the skeptical onlooker might ask, can a young king take steps that might look to the world like a denunciation of his father? Is it not a dangerous act to suddenly free people to tell what really happened -- an act that could lead to serious civil unrest? In fact, after studying the "truth commission" experiences of countries such as South Africa and Chile, plus the reconciliatory techniques put forward by the New York-based International Center for Transitional Justice, Morocco was able to arrive at its own techniques for reconciliation exactly because of its unique historical composition.
First, King Mohammed did not share in the nation's leadership during his father's reign, so he is not blamed for anything. Rather, he can be, and is, seen as a unifying factor. Second, Morocco is forbidden by its 1962 constitution from being a one-party state, so there is space for the various political parties to take vigorous part in this new era without the state disintegrating.
Third, there is state recognition of its deeds, and monetary compensation, but no judicial acts against the torturers of the past. It seems to be enough for the people that most of Hassan's old guard are either dead or retired, but gone.
At the end of my long conversation with Driss Benzekri here, he noted that there are indeed two "novelties" to the ongoing Moroccan experience.
"First, we were able to deal with the past without rupture in governance," he said. "The monarchy is still there; we've maintained continuity. Second, we have not limited our work to uncovering truth on isolated cases; throughout our work we have become a real instrument generating debate -- and change."
And the process has only begun.
CURIOUS POSTSCRIPT: In reading through the Moroccan commission's interesting report, I came upon the part marked "Arbitrary Detention," which critically detailed some of the tortures the previous regime practiced: detainees forced to remain still and in one position, a lack of medical treatment in case of illness, hands tied and blindfolded, hanging a prisoner above the ground and beating him, threatening to kill, insults and various forms of humiliation, deprivation of sleep ...
How very odd, I thought: Those and many more are precisely the torture methods that our president and his advisers argue are perfectly legal for Americans to perform in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps the White House ought to take some lessons from the Moroccans.
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