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Making Waves: the Political Impact of Human Rights Groups in North Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Susan Waltz
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Extract

Concern for democratisation, central in the study of comparative poiltics over recent years, has tended to shift attention away from the African continent. North Africa, in particular, has been neglected in this literature, though it has witnessed important liberalising political changes – most notably with the removal from office of Tunisia's President-for-Life Habib Bourguiba, and the dramatic decline of the Frot de libération nationale (F.L.N.) in Algeria following political violence in October 1988.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 481 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 An exception is Diamoud, Larry, Linz, Juan J., and Lipset, Seymour Martin (eds.), Democracy in Developing Countries Vol. 2, Africa (Boulder and London, 1988),Google Scholar although the authors restrict coverage to sub-Saharan countries, as does Sklar, Richard L., ‘Developmental Democracy’, in Comparative Studies in Society and History (Cambridge), 29, 4, 10 1987, pp. 686–714.Google Scholar

2 Human rights concerns in the region are hardly new. For years, organisations such as Amnestuy International, the Federation international des droits de l'homme, and the International Commission of Jurists, have employed a variety of strategies to all attention to abuses that ranged from political imprisonment and disappearances to torture and killings. What is innovative about these new North African groups is their local origins, and the measure of self-criticism implied.

3 Jackson, Robert H. and Rosberg, Carl G., Personal Rule in Black Africa: prince, autocrat, prophet, tyrant (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1982).Google Scholar

4 A third group, led by Maitre Menouar, was in the late 1980s said to have aspired to political party status. Its voice, never strong, has also been lost in the din.

5 Eickelman, Dale F., The Middle East: an anthropological approach (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1989), p. 148.Google Scholar

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9 Cf. Tessler, Mark A., ‘Morocco: institutional pluralism and monarchical dominance’, in Zartman, I. William (ed.), Political Elites in Arab North Africa (New York, 1982).Google Scholar

10 Eickelman, , The Middle East, p. 242.Google Scholar

11 Eickelman, , Moroccan Islam.Google Scholar

12 This fragmentation is sometimes called ‘segmentalism’, creating some confusion with the anthropological designation of societies–usually sub-Saharan–fragmented into small, kinship-based autonomous units that use one of several different modes to consolidate in times of need–see Potholm, Christian P., Theory and Practice of African Politics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1976).Google Scholar While Moroccsn politics are notoriously ‘segmented’– cf. Gellner, Ernest, Saints of the Atlas (Chicago, 1969);Google Scholar Waterbury, John, The Commander of the Faitful. The Moroccan Political Elite–a Study in Segmented Politics (London and New York, 1970);Google Scholar Hermassi, Elbaki, Leadership and National Development in North Africa: a comparative study (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1972);Google Scholar Tessler, loc. cit; and Entelis, John P., Comparative Politics of North Africa: Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia (Syracuse, N.Y., 1980),Google Scholar and Culture and Counterculture in Moroccan Politics (Boulder, 1989)–contemporary polity is not characterised by weak or absent centralised authoirty,Google Scholar as understood by the segmentalist model– cf. Eickelman, Dale F., ‘New Directions in Interpreting North African Society’, in Connaissances du Maghreb (Paris, 1984).Google Scholar Segmentalism in the political science literature on Morocco has really come to mean fragmentation, although the component of negative solidarity–Ibn Khaldun– remains implicit in the notion. In this article the term fragmentation is preferred. Political fragmentation or ‘segmentalism’ has been used by e.g. Waterbury, op. cit. pp. 165–89, to explain the split the Istiqlal party that development in the late 1950s, as well as more recent political fissions–see Entelis, Comparative Politics.

13 Levine, Daniel H., ‘Paradigm Lost: dependence to democracy’, in World Politics (Princeton), 40, 3, 04 1988, pp. 377–94,Google Scholar and Bermeo, Nancy, ‘Rethinking Regime Change’, in Comparative Politics (New York), 22, 3, 04 1990, pp. 357–77.Google Scholar

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16 In Europe, the Comité de lutte contre la répression au Maroc had been founded by French wife of one of these prisoners, Abraham Serfaty. Some of the A.M.D.H.'s early communiqués involved these prisoners and theri families.

17 See ‘Communiqués de l'association marocanie des droits de l'homme au Marco concernant l'arreatation de maître Abderrahmane Ben Ameur, membre du bureau central et celle de members des familles de détenus politiques’, Rabat, 12 December 1980, and Le Monde (Paris), 25 07 1981.Google ScholarPubMed

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19 Organisation marocanie des droits de l'homme, ‘Rapport de la commission préparatoiré’, Rabat 10 December 1988, pp. 4–5.

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22 Cf. Entelis, Culture and Conterculture in Moroccan Politics; Combs-Schilling, op. cit.; Eickelman, Moroccan Islam and The Middle East; and Geertz, Clifford, Islam Observed: religious development in Morocco and Indonesia (New Haven, 1968).Google Scholar

23 Morocco has signed and ratified the International Govenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. It has signed but not ratified the Convention Against Torture and Other Curel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, with the proviso on Article 18 that it does not recognise the competence of the Committee Against Torture to carry out investigations.

24 O.M.D.H., , ‘Une Nouvelle association’, p. 4.Google Scholar

25 ‘Rapport de la commission préparatoire’, p. 6.

26 Le Monde, 1 June 1988. The Government later clarified this objection; changes against one individual had been dropped in 1976, while another had been pardoned in 1980. Ibid. 27 July 1988.

27 Interview, 1990.

28 Interview, 1990.

29 Le Monde, 5 October 1988.

30 Ibid.

31 Jeune Afrique (Paris), 21–8 12 1988.Google Scholar

32 Ibid.

33 Hirshman, Albert O., Getting Ahead Collectively: grassroots experiences in Latin America (New York, 1984).Google Scholar

34 O.M.D.H., , ‘Déclaration à l'occasion du Iooème jour de l'organisation’, Rabat, 20 March 1980.Google Scholar

35 Le Monde, 17 June 1989.

36 Ibid. 28 July 1989.

37 Ibid. 28 March 1989.

38 Ibid. 7 October 1989.

39 Interview, 1990.

40 According to Le Monde's correspondent, 24 October 1989, ‘Whatever were the arguments of one faction or another, this quarrel seemed to have put an end to hopes that had been raised upon the creation of the organisation in December 1988.’

41 Zartman, I. William, ‘King Hassan's New Morocco’, in Zartman, (ed.), The Political Economy of Morocco (New York, 1977), pp. 1–33.Google Scholar

42 Cf. El-Mossadeq, Rkia, ‘Political Parties and Power-Sharing’, in I., William Zartman (ed.), The Political Economy of Morocco (New York, 1987), pp. 59–83.Google Scholar

43 Entelis, , Culture and Counterculture in Moroccan Politics, pp. 26–8,Google Scholar drawing on Ben-Dor, Gabriel, ‘Political Culture Approach to Middle East Politics’, in International Journal of Middle East Studies (Cambridge), 8, 1977, pp. 43–63,Google Scholar and Fouad M. Moughrabi, ‘The Arab Basic Personality: a critical survey of the literature’, in ibid. 9, 1978, pp. 99–112.

44 Zartman, , ‘King Hassan's New Morocco’, p. 18.Google Scholar

45 Cf. Tessler, loc. cit. and Zartman (ed.), op. cit.

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47 According to Daniel's, Jean interview with Hassan II, in Le Nouvel observateur (Paris), 12–18 01 1989, the King reasserted his preference for a strong executive style of government, dismissing opposition claims that they are not regularly consulted.Google Scholar

48 Amnesty International Briefing: Morocco (London, 1977);Google Scholar Report on an Amnesty International Mission to the Kingdom of Morocco (London, 1981);Google Scholar and Torture in Morocco (London, 1986). According to Annual Reports from 1978–1989, official missions were sent in 1981 and 1988.Google ScholarPubMed

49 Comités de lutte contre la répression au Maroc (Paris), Bulletin 68, 01–02 1985.Google Scholar

50 The invitation was issued on French television, December 1989.

51 Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Washington, D.C., 10 May 1990.

52 Reports from the first meeting essentially extolled the virtues of the Moroccan state – F.B.I.S., 19 July 1990. Subsequent meetings, however, appear to have included some measure of criticism – Jeune Afrique, 22 January 1991.

53 Amnesty International, Annual Reports, 1978 and 1989.

54 Le Monde, 13 December 1988, and Le Monde diplomatique (Paris), 12 1988.Google Scholar

55 In a rare critical piece on Morocco, Jeune Afrique ran a 6-page story on the human-rights angle of the exhibition, citing Jobert's admonitions. The glossy cover of the 16 April 1990 edition showed a document stamped ‘Amnesty International’, emblazoned with the headline ‘Droits de l'homme: Maroc sons haute surveillance’. The ‘Temps du Maroc’ was cancelled by Rabat in October 1990, following publication of Gille Perrault's Notre ami Ie roi (Paris, 1990), which squelched any hopes of containing human-rights criticisms of the monarchy.Google Scholar

56 O.M.D.H., , ‘Observations sur le deuxième rapport périodique presenté par le gouvernement marocain le 22 mars 1990 en vertue de l'article 40 du pacte sur les droits civils et politiques’, Rabat, October 1990.Google Scholar

57 Interview, March 1990.

58 Whitehead, Laurence calls attention to this issue in ‘International Aspects of Democratization’, in O'Donnell, Guillermo, Schmitter, Philippe C. and Whitehead, Laurence (eds.), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (Baltimore, 1986), although his work primarily concerns more formal instruments of pressure and influence.Google Scholar