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ICTJ Activity

On January 7, 2004, King Mohammed VI established a 17-member Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER) headed by Driss Benzikri, a human rights activist and former political prisoner. As the first truth commission established in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the IER was tasked with establishing the truth about enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions that occurred between 1956 and 1999; identifying institutional-in contrast to individual-responsibility for such abuses; providing reparations to victims; issuing recommendations for reforms to prevent the repetition of violations; and promoting reconciliation.

Although the IER lacked judicial powers of investigation, public authorities were obliged to cooperate because of its royal support. The Commission examined more than 22,000 applications for consideration and held victim-centered public hearings televised throughout Morocco, an unprecedented event in the region. The IER concluded its official mandate on November 30, 2005, presenting its final report to the king in December 2006. Shortly afterwards King Mohammed VI approved the publication and public release of the final report and asked the Advisory Council on Human Rights (CCDH)  to ensure the follow-up and supervise the implementation of the IER's recommendations.

The IER's complete final report is available in Arabic and summaries are available in English and French on its Web site. In the report the IER determines the responsibility of state actors and some other parties for abuses including disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, and excessive use of lethal force. It outlines extensive individual and communal reparation plans and recommends that the prime minister issue a public apology for past abuses. The report also recommends concrete steps the Moroccan government and civil society can take to ensure nonrepetition, such as measures and reforms to strengthen the rule of law and increase judicial oversight of the security services.

Despite many notable accomplishments, the work of the IER has critics who have pointed to its limited investigative powers and the lack of an accountability mechanism for perpetrators of human rights violations. Groups such as the Moroccan Association for Human Rights have organized their own versions of public hearings-though without the benefit of national television coverage-in which victims were allowed to name perpetrators. Perhaps the most significant complaints involved the limited information the Commission made publicly available regarding its investigations into the fate of the missing and the burial sites of the deceased.

The ICTJ worked closely with the IER as well as Moroccan civil society groups and the media. In the period leading up to the establishment of the IER, the Center encouraged a transparent and participatory process for establishing the Commission's mandate and selecting commissioners. In response to the IER's early requests, the ICTJ provided assistance in areas such as establishing information storage and retrieval databases, developing protocols for conducting public hearings, organizing reparations, preparing the final report, and developing and implementing public and media outreach strategies. Visiting experts with experience of working with truth commissions in Ghana, Guatemala, Peru, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Timor-Leste provided such assistance, and ICTJ experts provided comparative analysis and translated key texts into Arabic to make them more accessible to Moroccans.

The Center continuously stressed the need for transparency and for a well-developed communications strategy to keep Moroccan society and the media informed about the IER's progress. In this regard the ICTJ arranged for a visit by the former communications director of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The IER established a multilingual Web site, and through public hearings, seminars, and interviews with the media it sought to maintain a steady flow of information about its mandate and activities.

At a dinner honoring the first ICTJ-organized regional training workshop on transitional justice in July 2004, the IER announced that it would conduct public hearings as part of the truth-seeking process in Morocco. The hearings began with two public sessions in Rabat on December 21 and 22, 2004; both were televised live nationally. Excerpted recordings of subsequent hearings in Figuig, Er-Rashidiyya, Khenifra, Marrakech, and al-Hoceima were televised after the public hearings. Summaries and audio recordings of some of the individual testimonies are available on the Commission's Web site.

With Moroccan NGOs the ICTJ stressed the dual role of working with and assisting the IER and monitoring and assessing its activities. The Center worked closely with the NGO Follow-Up Committee, comprising the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights, and the Moroccan Forum for Truth and Justice, to monitor the IER and assist in the truth-seeking process. The first coordinator of the Follow-up Committee attended a weeklong training course on transitional justice at ICTJ offices in February 2004 and met human rights advocates from other parts of the world. The seminar provided an introduction to transitional justice tools and approaches, including prosecutions, truth-telling, reparations, vetting, institutional reform, and reconciliation.

In conjunction with the Moroccan Center for Documentation, Information, and Training in Human Rights (CDIFDH), the ICTJ organized and taught several NGO training workshops and seminars in 2004. The Center also partnered with the CDIFDH to organize seminars for the Moroccan media to build the knowledge and capacities of journalists and broadcasters to monitor and report on the truth-seeking process.

In 2005 the Center conducted several consultative and assessment missions to continue its ongoing dialogue with the IER and civil society representatives. Several missions involved senior ICTJ staff attending public hearings, including the final hearing held in May in al-Hoceima. That same month the ICTJ's director of communications conducted a capacity-building mission to share strategic insights with IER staff and national media representatives on effective publicity and outreach strategies. In June an ICTJ consultant and gender expert met with women's groups, human rights NGOs, and the IER's Reparations Committee to discuss how aspects of gender were being taken into account in the commission's work. In the fall, near the end of the IER's mandate, three ICTJ specialists attended and led the discussions at a national conference on reparations. Soon after a senior staff member also attended a national conference of the NGO Follow-Up Committee on reconciliation in Morocco.

In 2006 the ICTJ conducted a number of activities and staff visits to assess the IER's work and encourage and support implementation of its recommendations. With the Moroccan Centre for the Study of Human Rights and Democracy, in July 2006 the ICTJ co-organized a national conference to elicit feedback and analysis about the IER's work. The event marked the first organized public discussion of the IER's successes, shortcomings, and ongoing challenges in the post-Commission era. It brought together a wide range of actors, including the main political parties, victims' groups, trade unions, national and international human rights organizations, academics, and journalists who debated the different aspects of the IER experience for three days.  

Parallel with the July conference Alex Boraine, the ICTJ's founder, board chair and former deputy chair of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, met with senior Moroccan officials, including the prime minister, the president of Parliament, and the secretary general of the Advisory Council on Human Rights, to discuss implementation of the Commission's recommendations.

 In June 2006 ICTJ organized a joint visit to Morocco with the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) to evaluate the investigative and forensic work of the IER and the Follow-up Committee in charge of investigations and to recommend organizational and technical improvements. Along with the visit the ICTJ organized a number of presentations and workshops on human rights and forensic sciences for Moroccan forensic physicians and investigators working with the Follow-up Committee, as well as human rights organizations and victims' groups. The EAAF visit report contains recommendations to improve forensic techniques and methods, enhance the independence of the team in charge of exhumation and identification of human remains, and increase communication with the families of victims and their participation in the process.  

From June to August 2006 an ICTJ consultant conducted interviews with victims, their families, and civil society groups about their perceptions of the IER process, its report, and its recommendations. Analysis of the data collected will help draw the most important lessons from the experience and allow the ICTJ to identify the best ways and opportunities to contribute to the efforts of various Moroccan actors in implementing the IER's recommendations.

Before the release of the IER's final report, the ICTJ published and disseminated a report assessing the IER's work, culminating in a series of transitional justice recommendations and offering a basis for a more comprehensive analysis to follow.

The year 2007 was marked by substantial progress in the implementation of the IER's reparations program. The distribution of individual compensation to victims was almost completed, and $85 million was distributed to approximately 16,000 individuals. In June 2007 the CCDH signed an agreement with the ministries of finance and health and the National Social Security Fund (CNOPS) to provide medical care to the victims and their families at the state's expense. With regard to communal reparations, 11 regions that had suffered particularly from repression and marginalization or where secret detention centers were located have been identified as beneficiaries of this program. An institutional mechanism has been established to manage the implementation of communal reparation programs and ensure that national and local players are involved in the process. Local coordination committees have been set up since October 2007 to enable local actors in the 11 communities to participate in the design and management of communal reparation projects and give them control over the process.   

In response to numerous requests ICTJ staff and consultants visited Morocco on several occasions in 2007 to discuss and help design with the CCDH and civil society groups various joint projects to understand and assess the Moroccan transitional justice process; advance the implementation of the IER's recommendations, and develop participatory mechanisms to this end.

In the course of 2007 the ICTJ arranged several visits by former IER commissioners or civil society actors to Jordan (to provide assistance to Iraq civil society actors), Bahrain, Lebanon, Yemen, and Sudan, where they shared the lessons of the Moroccan transitional justice experience with local activists and officials. The Center also extended assistance to Algerian civil society actors by facilitating their visits to Morocco. All these interactions have aimed to disseminate knowledge about the Moroccan IER process and thus build capacities and enhance the opportunities for transitional justice mechanisms to operate elsewhere in the region.

In partnership with the Moroccan Center for Cross-Cultural Learning (CCCL) in Rabat, the ICTJ's MENA program assisted the Center's Civil Society and Policy-makers Unit in organizing a residential annual program to provide transitional justice fellowships to human rights practitioners from French-speaking countries. The first course took place in Rabat, Morocco, in April-June 2007. A second francophone course took place in May 2008. 

Many projects related to the IER's recommendations and developed by ICTJ and its local partners have started to be implemented in 2008. Co-organized by the ICTJ, the Moroccan Centre for the Study of Human Rights and Democracy, and the Geneva-based Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), a first-of-its-kind conference on security sector reform (SSR) and good governance took place in Rabat in April 2008. The event brought together representatives of government, Parliament, the CCDH, various security agencies, civil society, and the media to discuss the IER's recommendations on SSR. Experts from Guatemala, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Switzerland who shared their experiences on security sector reform joined the Moroccan participants. Moroccan media described the meeting as a significant first step toward carrying out the IER's recommendations on the reform of security agencies involved in past abuses.

In April 2008 the ICTJ, UNIFEM and CCDH launched a joint project to assess the gender dimension of the IER's work and its follow-up mechanisms. The project's final goal is to propose ways to improve the mainstreaming of a gender approach in implementing the Commission's recommendations, with a particular focus on communal reparation projects.

Now that the distribution of individual compensations has almost been completed and the implementation of communal reparations plans is under way, the ICTJ, in collaboration with the CCDH, will initiate an assessment of the IER's reparations programs in 2008.  Study and analysis of other aspects of the Moroccan transitional justice experience, with the aim of learning lessons that might be transferred to other countries, are also expected to start in 2008.

Throughout its engagement with the IER and the CCDH, the Center has been welcomed by all sectors dealing with the transitional justice process in Morocco. It is still receiving requests for future collaboration, particularly on issues such as the introduction of transitional justice in university curricula, institutional reforms, strengthening of the judiciary, memorials, national archives, and other final report recommendations.

Despite the significant progress in implementing the IER's recommendations, important work remains to be done. Communal reparation programs are still in their initial phase. A number of disappearance cases remain unresolved. A public debate on memorialization and conversion of former detention centers has yet to be initiated. Legal and institutional reforms recommended by the IER are still in an embryonic state.      

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Background

Since Morocco gained independence in 1956, authorities have arbitrarily detained, held in secret detention, or "disappeared" thousands of people-including dissidents, trade unionists, and military officers-because they were perceived to pose a threat to the state.

Primarily in response to growing criticism, in 1990 the late King Hassan II established the National Consultative Council on Human Rights (CCDH). In the early 1990s several hundred political opponents were released and legislation amended to limit the period of incommunicado detention. However, the fate of those still missing and the issue of compensation remained unresolved.

In April 1999, shortly after the king's death and the succession of his son, Mohammed VI, a tribunal was established under the auspices of the CCDH to determine compensation for victims of forced disappearances and arbitrary detention. During the four years of its operation the tribunal decided more than 5,000 cases and awarded a total of around US$100 million in reparations. However, the tribunal had no access to security services or interior ministry files, and thousands of cases remained unresolved. Victims and their families complained about the lack of transparency in the tribunal's procedures and demanded truth and justice in addition to compensation.

In November 2003 the CCDH-reorganized to increase its autonomy and reduce its dependence on government ministries-recommended the establishment of a truth commission. On January 7, 2004, King Mohammed VI formally inaugurated the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER) by royal decree, mandating it to operate through April 2005. In response to a heavy volume of applications, the IER's mandate was extended through November 30, 2005. The IER presented its final report to the king in December 2006. On January 6, 2006, King Mohammed VI approved the publication of the report and asked the Advisory Council on Human Rights to ensure the follow-up and supervise the implementation of the IER's recommendations.

Driss Benzekri, former head of the IER and president of the CCDH, died on May 20, 2007, after a long illness. Until the end of his life Benzekri turned his attention to ensuring the implementation of the Commission's recommendations, including those geared toward helping victims as well as reforming official institutions and building the rule of law. Progress in the implementation of the IER's recommendations is ongoing although much remains to be done.

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(Updated June 2008)