PRESERVATION OF MEMORY, ARCHIVE AND HISTORY TO STRENGTHEN RECONCILIATION AND GUARANTEE NON-REPETITION OF PAST HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

Under the Follow-up Program of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission’s Recommendations in the field of Archive, History and Memory (IER2), the Advisory Council on Human Rights (CCDH) has organized lately several thematic meetings which are key elements in the Program. These meetings aimed to create thoughts and provide proposals that can be realized to promote Archive, History and Memory. IER2 is funded by the European Union and implemented by the Advisory Council.

In this regard, the Council organized three thematic meetings on “Memory”, “Archive” and “History”. Representatives of the government departments, educational and research institutions, universities, nongovernmental organizations, CCDH departments and regional administrative offices and several experts were all invited.

The participants stressed the importance such meetings and participatory approach in supporting the process of positive preservation of memory, preservation of archive, encouragement of research and dissemination of knowledge on the contemporary history of Morocco.

They made several recommendations, including:

Memory

- strengthening and supporting initiatives taken under the community reparation program, in the field of memory reservation;

- organizing relevant scientific activities and trainings on how to positively preserve memory;

- supporting restoration of former secret detention centers, transforming such centers to memory centers and creating other symbolic places of collective memory;

- strengthening information and communication to provide opportunities to exchange memories;

- twining activities between national institutions concerned by memory and similar European Union institutions;

- adopting a communication plan on Memory, mobilizing national, regional and local partners to realize the suggested projects.

Archive

- realizing training program and continuing training for officials in charge of the management of the archive in public and private institutions, NGOs, etc.;

- encouraging exchange of best practices in the field of Archive preservation and management updating;

- encouraging public administrations to develop the work of their services in charge of archive through continuing training, providing financial and human resources and using modern technologies and the creation of special archive services within the administrations that do not have one;

- relying on specialized professional enterprises in the management of archive;

- encouraging the digitalization of archive and adopting policies to preserve electronic archives;

- adopting a program to collect and manage the archives of institutions, associations, special libraries, etc.;

- adopting a program to identify, collect and classify the Moroccan archive available abroad and the development of the archive available on the colonial period returned to Morocco;

- disseminating and generalizing the archive management ways, rules and standards;

- organizing meetings on the situation of the Moroccan archive

- ensuring archive accessibility;

- encouraging the activation of the institution of Archives of Morocco;

- accelerating the ratification process of the implementation decrees of the Law of Archive

- creating a national advisory committee to put a national policy in the field of archive

History

(these proposals will be submitted to the scientific committee of the Program for study and approval before being included into the Program’s plan of action)

- supporting research units and groups on the contemporary history of Morocco and encouraging scientific research in this field;

- Exploiting already existing resources, researches, studies, reports and national and international publications (encourage translation of foreign language books to overcome the language obstacle);

- relying on the victims of human rights violations and those who witnessed the events of the contemporary history, who are still alive;

- exploiting literature (prison literature) and traditional songs;

- collecting these works (novels, traditional songs) and researches and studies written about them;

- using image in writing history (documentaries and films);

- collecting all publications on the contemporary history of Morocco;

- relying on non-university publications through the involvement of civil society in writing contemporary history and exploiting relevant press articles;

- including contemporary history in the system of education (for example transitional justice);

- launching a PhD course on contemporary history;

- encouraging experience and expertise exchange within the framework of institutional twining with European Union institutions;

- creating a center of research and documentation to work with national and international researchers;

- conducting a study on political movements during the era of human rights violations;

- creating a communication unit;

- exploiting data and information collected from the examination of the history of the “system of Caids”;

- relying on tribe history and the history of Moroccan countryside in general;

- exploiting national and international archives (mainly France and Spain);

- relying on national and international press articles of the era of violations (mainly Egyptian, Tunisian, Algerian, French and Spanish newspapers).

The Advisory Council on Human Rights signed several partnership agreements on the field of “History, Memory and Archives”, mainly the University of Mohammed V-Agdal, the Moroccan Cinema Centre (CCM), the High Commissioner for Former Resistance Fighters and Members of the Liberation Army, the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education, Staff Training and Scientific Research and the Ministry of Culture. It created an ad-hoc committee made up of experts and university researchers to deepen discussion and thinking on the subject and follow-up the updating of the national archive.

The Council held consultation meetings with several national stakeholders in the field of archive, history and memory. These meetings determined the main fields of intervention and resulted in the organization of several thematic seminars.

The Advisory Council on Human Rights concluded an agreement with the European Union to fund IER 2. With a budget of 8 million Euros, the Program includes several activities, mainly: the examination of archives (IER and CCDH), its classification and inventory, creation of an archive institution in Morocco (Archives of Morocco), support operational creation and equipment of the "Archives of Morocco", valorization of the archives of the period of 1956 – 1999, teaching contemporary history, realization of studies and researches, production of communication materials, commemoration of victims’ names, creation of regional museums, creation of a national museum of contemporary history, equipment of museums, etc.