Reconciliation commission discusses development projects in Figuig
Morocco, Politics, 2/1/2005

The justice and reconciliation commission, in charge of considering past human rights violations, discussed here Sunday with several local associations issues of a vision on compensation of collective prejudice relating to human rights violations that occurred in Morocco during the second half of last century.

The meeting of the commission (French acronym IER) is meant to identify the reality of past human rights violations and population development requirements to present them to public authorities. The IER will also make the needed moves to materialise the requirements in the form of development projects to help the town of Figuig.

Participants in the meeting considered the agenda issues on the development need in Figuig, including the increase of public health personnel and health equipment and facilities, water harnessing and the construction of a dam to irrigate palm tree orchards and other projects.

The IER and local associations meeting was held after the public hearings held by the commission on Saturday and Sunday on past human rights violations during which several people told of the hardships they suffered.

The commission started, in Rabat last December, public hearings on human rights violations that occurred between 1956 and 1999, and schedules other sessions in Errachidia and Khenifra after those held in Figuig over the weekend.

Academic and IER member, Brahim Boutaleb said the testimonies presented during the hearings are "pages written in the public and humanitarian memory of Morocco," which are a stage in a national plan that aims at remembering the violations, for History is made up of "individual actions in space and in time."

The Mohammed V University professor said the archiving of the testimonies is meant to "appropriate the past," which is a right for Moroccans to better understand the future.

Boutaled, who chaired over the hearing sessions, told the Moroccan news agency the IER is not entitled to write down this lapse of time of the Moroccan History, for this goes beyond its competences and powers.

The IER mission is to compile a database to help researchers and academics interested in the history of human rights violations, he said adding the commission has gathered some 20,000 archive files.

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