Victims of human rights breaches not to cite names at public hearings, IER chairman
Morocco, Politics, 12/9/2004

Chairman of the Justice and Reconciliation Commission, "IER" a body set up last January to seek out-of court settlement of past human rights abuses in Morocco, said victims who will testify at public hearings will be totally free to express themselves but will not reveal names of persons they are accusing of being the authors of these violations.

Driss Benzekri explained that if the commission authorises such names to be cited it will have to guarantee them to right to defend themselves, stressing that in 90% of cases accusers do not have cogent evidence.

The IER chairman was speaking at a colloquy held by the commission and the institute of Amazigh culture on "hearings and oral history."

However, he stressed any victim of human rights breaches has the right to initiate judiciary action.

He also explained that the public hearings do not seek to resemble the South African or Ghanaian experiences where they turned into a sort of trials. In Morocco, he argued, the truth is known in its generalities and the hearings will rather be a means of free expression of sufferings meant to usher in a new vision of the relationship between citizens and the state.

"We are convinced that we have fulfilled our goals and we are planning to consult the victims before making the findings of our research public and to supply to the public opinion the information it is entitled to in these types of cases," he stressed.

The IER has analysed some cases and truths related to these breaches, took note of the breaches that took place in the centers of Tazmamart, Agdz, Tagounit, Kourbis and Dar Bricha and raised questions on collective repair of harm and reconciliation, Benzekri said.

The commission has also prepared a program involving local inhabitants to the quest of appropriate solutions because they have been harmed too, he said explaining a dialog has been started with inhabitants, citing the example of Tazmamart, a modest berber palace and the school named "Qasr Tazmamart" that became notorious because of the detention center bearing the same name.

Means to repair harms suffered by some regions in the economic, social and tourism sectors will also be examined in a bid to erase once and for all the bad reputation affecting the dignity of inhabitants.

"We need not only to study some individual cases of human rights violations, but also fathom truth in its collective dimension by placing these events in their cultural, social and political dimensions in order to contribute to drafting genuine policies of change that will be contained in the Commission's final conclusions."

The colloquy looked into issues related to the limits of written history and the importance of oral history, through the public hearings, to fill the documentation gaps.

Previous Stories:
  Human rights abuses victims to testify at public hearings   (11/12/2004)
  Reconciliation commission starts consultations with political parties and trade unions   (11/6/2004)
  Human Rights Watch notes impressive strides in rights and backsliding   (10/22/2004)

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