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Al-Ahram Weekly 7 - 13 October 1999 Issue No. 450 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 7 - 13 October 1999 Issue No. 450
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Interview Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters 'A page has turned'
By Dalal Abu GhazalehIn a surprise move, Morocco's young King Mohamed VI has allowed his late father's ardent foe, Abraham Serfati, to return home after eight years in exile in France during which several appeals from Western governments and human rights activists had been turned down.
Shortly before he died, King Hassan had pledged to improve Morocco's human rights record, released several political prisoners and offered compensation to families of scores of activists who disappeared in the 1960s and 1970s, a period that witnessed social and political unrest. But authorities steered clear of dealing with the North African country's two most prominent dissidents: Serfati and Islamist leader Sheikh Abdessalam Yassine, who has been under house arrest for over a decade.
Moroccan politicians and human rights activists saw the new king's move as a major breakthrough that could open the door to more political freedom and strengthen the hand of the government of socialist Prime Minister Abderrahmane Al-Youssoufi.
Although Serfati and Yassine are on opposite sides of the political spectrum -- the first is a radical leftist, the latter a fundamentalist Islamist -- Moroccan human rights activists believe the authorities have dealt with them "in an unfair and arbitrary manner."
While Serfati had appealed to King Mohamed to return to Morocco, Yassine refuses to follow suit, Moroccan sources said. But officials do not rule out an early solution to Yassine's plight as part of reforms decreed by the king.
Five months ago, Serfati's wife, French human rights campaigner Christine Daure, whom he married while in jail, was expelled by Morocco's Interior Ministry just hours after she landed at Rabat Airport at the invitation of Al-Youssoufi. The move demonstrated yet again the strong influence of Interior Minister Idriss Basri. But his power that pervaded many departments in Morocco appears to be waning after the new king moved to slowly strip him of several portfolios he had assumed, including his handling of the Western Sahara issue, and effectively handing it over to the Foreign Ministry.
Only a few weeks after he took the throne, King Mohamed appointed a new head of intelligence and sacked a close aide to Basri who acted as governor for the Western Sahara. He appointed instead a career diplomat as a special coordinator with the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).
Much has changed since Serfati was jailed for 17 years and then expelled in 1991 to France on charges of trying to overthrow the monarchy. The actual charge was his sympathies to the Polisario Front that was engaged in a 15-year-old guerrilla war against Morocco for independence of the Sahara. The country now boasts an active multi-party system and the Western Sahara issue is to be decided in a UN-brokered referendum due to be held in July according to a deal agreed on by both sides.
Serfati himself appeared to acknowledge these changes. "I would like to contribute in building a modern and democratic Morocco under his majesty's leadership," he said in a letter appealing to the king to allow his return.
Shortly after Al-Youssoufi's appointment 18 months ago, he promised not to do "anything that would undermine Moroccan diplomacy" on the Western Sahara.
Welcoming the reforms, Serfati said more should be done to put an end to what he called "Makhzan's medieval power."
"The Makhzan is a feudal apparatus which includes bureaucrats of the Interior Ministry who resist political and social reforms, the reforms undertaken by his majesty. People like Basri have no lessons to give us on democracy. They should leave the scene," he added.
The silver-haired Serfati, now 73 and wheelchair-bound, says he has no immediate plans to return to politics. "But I will help my friends and colleagues in civil associations."
It was not immediately known if he would revive his Marxist 'Ila al-Amam' (Forward) movement. But friends say Serfati's views have not changed, especially on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Serfati, from a wealthy Jewish family in the business capital of Casablanca, won many admirers in the Arab world for refusing Israeli citizenship and calling for the withdrawal of Israel from occupied Arab territories and demanding the creation of a Palestinian state.
In fact, he joined King Hassan and Al-Youssoufi in many of the battles they waged against colonialism. He was put on trial, imprisoned and sent to exile for his nationalistic views. But when he returned after Morocco's independence in the mid-1950s, he clashed with the authorities. The Interior Ministry stripped him of his Moroccan nationality saying he was a Brazilian and turned down several requests for his case to be dealt with by the judiciary.
Asked to comment on King Hassan's death in July, Serfati said: "I feel neither bitterness nor joy nor pain. A page has turned. As far as Hassan the man is concerned, history will be the judge."
