Examination of Witness (Questions 166-179)
1 FEBRUARY 2005
PROFESSOR GEORGE
JOFFE
Chairman: As an old friend of Parliament,
Professor Joffe, may I welcome you and introduce you as a former
senior research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS) now at King's College London (KCL), a former visiting fellow
at the Centre for International Studies in the Department of International
Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) and a visiting
fellow at the Centre for International Studies at Cambridge University.
You are also engaged in consultancy work on North Africa and,
particularly apposite to the current period, honorary secretary
of the Society for Moroccan Studies. I personally visited Morocco
last year, at the invitation of the parliament for the state opening
by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, therefore I can only chair, but
Mr Illsley will be opening the discussion.
Q166 Mr Illsley: Professor, welcome to
our Committee meeting. The first question I should like to ask
is in relation to international terrorism and to suggest that
Morocco perhaps avoided much of what happened in the rest of that
part of North Africa in the 1990s in terms of terrorist atrocities
until of course 2003 when the bombings occurred in Casablanca.
Following that there was a suggestion of a link between the Madrid
bombings and the Moroccan ones. Prior to May 2003 had the Moroccan
authorities been somewhat complacent about the threat of domestic
Islamist terrorism?
Professor Joffe: One needs to
distinguish between two separate things. First of all, the events
in Madrid in March of last year should be separated out from events
inside Morocco itself. The fact was that the Moroccan security
services were well aware of the dangers which occurred in Algeria
repeating themselves in Morocco and therefore a very strong attempt
was made by them to ensure that should not occur. In particular
in eastern Morocco, where there certainly had been contacts across
the border, they made sure that Morocco was isolated. Indeed in
1994 relations between the two states were broken off and the
border was closed largely for that purpose. There was, in that
year, an attempt coming from France to initiate that kind of terrorism
in Morocco. To a very large degree Morocco survived the period
of the 1990s without any major terrorism incident of any kind.
In the wake of that, it is probably true to say at the beginning
of the crisis which begins in 2001, the Moroccan authorities did
assume that in some way they would escape the problems which had
existed elsewhere. Although they were vigilant, they did not pay
attention to certain indigenous developments which were actually
quite evident to those who wished to look for them. It was clear
that the domestic situation had changed from the nature of the
Islamic movements which had existed in the 1980s and 1990s, which
were fundamentally movements calling for social and political
change and were of very long standing, and the growth of increasingly
acute and extreme views in some of the poorest parts of cities,
particularly of towns like Casablanca, but also Fez and also Tangiers.
The authorities assumed that things would not become dangerous
and were therefore taken completely by surprise by the events
of May 2003. Those events need to be seen in context, that is
to say there were certainly people involved in them who had been
in Afghanistan over the previous 20 years and to that extent you
could argue they had links towards al-Qaeda and similar movements.
That should not be over-exaggerated and I would strongly agree
with Dr Roberts that those relations were links in the loosest
of senses; they did not imply a commonality of ideology or purpose.
Again, the events of May 2003 were fundamentally directed at Morocco
at the Moroccan state and at attributes of the Moroccan state.
Many of the targets were Jewish, but you have to bear in mind
that in Morocco the sultanate has always been seen as the protector
of the Jewish community, so there was a clear link between the
state and the actual targets. To that extent it was a localised,
internal matter. The interesting thing is that although the networks
were mopped up very quickly indeed and although a very powerful
anti-terrorism law was introduced, bringing back the death penalty,
in fact there has continued to be low level violence in Morocco
ever since; certainly up until May of last year there was evidence
of networks existing in the countryside and indeed of there having
been the use of traditional "musem", which is a kind
of pilgrimage, to act as cover for training camps that were used.
That has all been stopped, but nonetheless the evidence of the
networks still persists. We have to assume that there is somewhere
there a kernel of violence, but again it is internally directed,
it is not connected with the outside world. It is for that reason
I wanted to make a distinction between the situation in Morocco
and that actually in Spain in March 2004. The events in Spain
do form part of a much wider pattern. I do not think they argue
for a conscious and deliberate link with al-Qaeda, however you
care to define it, but they do form part of the same ideological
approach at a trans-national level. The fact that they occurred
in Spain, that they involved Moroccans but were led by an Egyptian,
which is quite significant, do suggest two things: one, that they
formed part of the generic and general Salafi jihadi ideology
of confrontation with the state and its replacement and, secondly,
and this is perhaps the important point, they form part of a much
wider movement amongst North African communities in Europe, which
also adhere to similar values and similar ideas and do not necessarily
reflect origins inside their countries of origin.
Q167 Mr Illsley: You have probably answered
the second question I was going to ask, about diaspora Moroccans
involved in international terrorism and whether they were involved
in the domestic situation and links with al-Qaeda. There is a
reference to the informal economy, the suitcase trade.
Professor Joffe: Yes, the tujara
ask-shanta.
Q168 Mr Illsley: Perhaps you could say
a few words about that. What is the linkage between these small
groups, the suitcase trade and the bombings? What is the rationale
behind their involvement?
Professor Joffe: First of all,
it is very dangerous to make too clear a distinction between these
phenomena, because of course they have contact at some level and
maybe links as well. For analytical purposes, however, it is more
helpful and more accurate to treat them as being separate. May
I just make a comment about the state of the migrant communities
in Europe? The danger is that very often their activities may
be mistaken as being connected with terrorism when they are not
necessarily so or they may only loosely be so connected, because
they also involve exactly this element of the informal economy
being mixed in with political action and political alienation.
One has to be very careful about deciding what the significance
of some of these events actually is. I should point out that amongst
the 612 arrests carried out in this country under anti-terrorist
legislation, only 17 people have actually been accused or tried
for terrorist offences. That is quite striking, indicating the
way in which it is very dangerous to assume that the whole gamut
of offences which are committed and for which people are arrested
necessarily relates to a common terrorist cause. As far as the
situation in Morocco is concerned, and here there is a parallel
to that in Algeria or indeed in Libya, there is a vast informal
economy. It is the essential component which soaks up surplus
labour and guarantees a degree of social peace. It is therefore,
although disliked by government, because it cannot be controlled
and cannot be taxed, tolerated and to some extent encouraged.
It is not necessarily a mechanism by which you achieve economic
efficiency. I should point out, because very often it operates
with the formal economy lying on top of it and it therefore carries
additional cost. It is in effect a fourth sector economy. The
point about that trade is that what it does is build up networks
and the networks can communicate inside the country and outside
it and as such it becomes a very useful vehicle on which you can
piggyback political movements. Therefore it is very often connected,
in some way, with movements linked with political violence or
political opposition. That has been true in part in Morocco, but
not in the same way perhaps as has been the case in Algeria. If
you look at the movements which have been identified in Morocco,
they are located in certain quarters of certain towns. They are
related often to the presence of charismatic preachers, often
people who have been involved in events outside Morocco, but they
are then localised and there are linkages between them around
the country, between, for example, Casablanca and Fez, Fez and
Tangiers, but they are not necessarily the same links as you will
find through the informal economy. Having said that, the fact
of the informal economy, the implication of social and economic
deprivation that it implies, is of crucial importance in explaining
why there is, as it were, a background against which terrorism
and violence can exist. One needs to bear in mind that none of
these movements can survive if there is not a generalised sympathy
in some way with their wider objectives and that is certainly
true in Morocco.
Q169 Mr Illsley: You may have heard me
ask Dr Roberts the question about the prisoners in the Western
Sahara. I just wondered whether you had any view on that.
Professor Joffe: Yes, I do have
a view on that. First of all, one should bear in mind that there
were over 1,000 a year ago and the Polisario Front has, as a gesture,
released the majority. That already indicates that the prisoners
represent a diplomatic and political opportunity for the Polisario
Front. They use them as a mechanism to try to engage the Moroccan
Government in direct negotiation. The Moroccan Government has
engaged, and it did do so through the Houston agreement and through
the good offices of James Baker, but it does not like doing so.
It argues that the real responsibility for the crisis in Western
Sahara rests with the Algerian Government because it is the Algerian
Government which gives the Polisario Front use of territory. The
Algerian Government, in a sense, provides the facilities for the
Front to continue to operate and therefore it [Morocco] should
be talking directly to the Algerian Government. The Algerian Government
rejects that and argues that this is a matter to be settled in
accordance with the United Nations and the Organisation of African
Unity resolutions and in turn the Polisario Front points out that
there are 400 Moroccan prisoners being held in the Western Sahara
by the Moroccan authorities. What you are seeing is the use of
these pawns in a wider political game.
The Committee suspended from 4.53pm to 5.07pm
for a division in the House
Q170 Mr Mackay: I want to move on, following
Mr Illsley's comments about counter-terrorism, to the political
situation in Morocco. We try to follow it, but clearly nowhere
near as closely as you do. We have noted that there seems to have
been quite a number of democratic reforms, from 1996 onwards in
particular. We watched the 2002 parliamentary election, the 2003
local elections, both of which observers appear to say were broadly
free and fair. Could you give us a quick overview as to where
you think the political process is now and whether it is continuing
to move forward?
Professor Joffe: Yes, I should
be very happy to do that. To understand the political changes
in Morocco you need to go back to 1990, which is when King Hassan
II, made a conscious decision that Morocco had to develop a more
constitutionalised form of government and indeed that human rights
formed an important part of that agenda. Although the progress
during the remainder of his reign was perhaps not as certain or
as determined as one might have anticipated or heard there was
undoubted improvement. Freedom of the press began to develop and
by and large it was possible to express an opinion, except on
the monarchy and over the Western Sahara, without threat of any
kind. The king made it clear that he recognised that he would
not be able to bring in full democratic reforms, but that he thought
that would be something left to his son. That turned out by and
large to be the case. The result has been that since his death
in 1999, a spate of reforms has been taking place, often against
considerable local opposition; I think there particularly of reforms
of family law which were brought in at the beginning of last year.
Initially, when they were proposed in 2000, they were rejected
by public demonstration by a large part of the political spectrum,
but they have now been brought in giving women in Morocco virtually
the same rights as exist in Europe. This is a quite remarkable
achievement. It is also quite clear that the security services
were reined in, issues of ill treatment of prisoners by and large
disappeared, political prisoners were released, except in the
context of the Western Sahara, and a process of confronting the
past also began. This has been very impressive. Not only were
those who have been in prison been paid compensation, but at the
end of last year the Moroccan Government engaged in a process
which in North Africa is completely unique by publicly confronting
what had occurred. A series of public investigations was broadcast
on radio and television on some of the most notorious abuses of
human rights, with those involved actually stating their cases,
stating what was done to them and the issue being confronted in
public. This was quite remarkable. From that point of view it
looks very good, but it is not quite as good as it looks. There
is a fundamental problem and the problem revolves around the operations
of the royal palace. Traditionally in Morocco the royal palace
has run a parallel system of government alongside formal government,
to which it has been superior. That system has not been dismantled,
in other words the king still rules quite directly, he does not
simply reign. One of the purposes of the reform should have been
to transform his position into a constitutional one of reigning
rather than being directly involved in the process of government
on a day-to-day basis. That means that there is still an element
of arbitrariness inside the political system and the danger there
is that at moments of crisis that can always be enlarged. That
of course was the danger faced in May 2003, when it appeared as
though the security services were to be unleashed again and thereby
reverse many of the democratic reforms. That did not happen and
the Moroccan Government and the royal palace deserve credit for
being restrained enough for that not to have occurred. It does
mean, however, that the potential is always there. The most hopeful
thing recently was the passage at the end of December of a new
bill outlawing torture and prescribing very severe penalties indeed
for its use. All in all, even though I do not think Morocco is
yet a fully democratic state, I would consider that it is the
most advanced state inside the Middle East and North Africa by
far in the progress it has made. The evidence seems to be that
that progress will continue.
Q171 Mr Mackay: That is very helpful.
We have informally heard from another source, who suggested that
the king was backsliding a little and that there is a view in
Morocco in some circles that he is not pursuing his father's objective
and is only going through the motions. What you are saying is
that that is not true, but there is still this inevitability about
a structure where the royal household operates separately from
the main source of government and is more powerful than it.
Professor Joffe: Yes, I think
that is correct. May I just comment on those views because they
are quite often expressed? It is certainly true that if you take
a very hard line over the question of what in fact represents
democratic governance, there are still many defects in Morocco.
It is also true that the king has on occasion shown himself to
be more hesitant than might have been expected. In part that reflects
the actual political situation in the wake of the events of May
2003, which were a tremendous shock. They also reflect something
else which one needs to bear in mind, which is that there is a
tradition in Morocco that the son of a monarch is never as good
as his father. Although it sounds trivial to say it, it actually
is quite a significant fact, because it means that until he has
confronted the first major crisis he does not carry the prestige
and credibility that his father would have done. Mohammed VI has
suffered from that problem in part. There is a further problem
too. You need to bear in mind that Mohammed VI's first moves were
to dismantle the system of control his father had created, particularly
around one leading figure, Driss Basri, who was the Minister of
the Interior. Mr Basri was removed from office—with great
care it should be said; it was not a violent transition at all—and
his departure from office meant that the king had to reconstitute
the type of apparatus that Mr Basri had run. He did this in part
through the army, which was a break with his father's tradition,
in part through his appointment of a new security head, General
Hamidou Laanigri. That caused some anxiety because these were
figures from the old regime and therefore it was argued that he
was actually engaging in backsliding. I do not think the evidence
really supports that except possibly over the Western Sahara issue.
Q172 Mr Mackay: Returning to the backsliding
phase which seems to crop up quite often for the critics and moving
on to human rights which you have already largely covered in answer
to my first question, you presumably would by and large refute
that following the Casablanca bombings there has been a backsliding
on human rights and there was an overreaction to an inevitably
very difficult crisis.
Professor Joffe: I do think there
was a backsliding on that occasion. The security services were
given a degree of freedom which perhaps they should not have been
given. That has now been corrected and I would quote in support
simply the latest Amnesty International report which goes out
of its way to congratulate Morocco on its progress on human rights,
despite its anxieties about certain specific areas.
Q173 Mr Mackay: Earlier in your replies
to Mr Illsley you touched upon the growing number of slums on
the edge of many big cities; you mentioned Casablanca, Fez, Tangiers.
Would you agree that a more serious problem is the socio-economic
policy which is probably going backwards, whereas you paint a
quite positive picture in the political and human rights field?
Professor Joffe: Yes, I am afraid
I would have to agree with that almost completely. The evidence
is, not just in Morocco but elsewhere in North Africa and the
Middle East, except perhaps Tunisia, that by and large the economic
restructuring programmes which have been proposed have not succeeded
in their objective. That objective was really very simple: it
was simply to provide employment through economic development.
That was the crucial consideration. By and large, despite very
great efforts at economic restructuring, none of the countries
concerned, and particularly not Morocco, have succeeded in overcoming
that particular problem. One of the reasons for this is that they
do not have the kind of comparative advantage which would attract
foreign capital in the way say, for example, you will find in
South East Asia. That is a major problem. Another reason has been
that in many cases legislation has not been appropriate to attract
foreign capital. The third reason is that no questions have ever
really been asked as to whether the methods by which economic
restructuring was supposed to occur and produce the desired outcomes
were appropriate or not. To a very large extent the evidence seems
to be that they were not really very appropriate. Let me give
you one very small example. One of the consequences of Morocco's
acceptance of the removal of tariff barriers under the Barcelona
agreements and the World Trade Organisation requirements has been
that a large part of government revenues has simply disappeared.
They were to be replaced by indirect taxation, value added tax,
which was introduced four years ago. The evidence seems to be—and
here I quote the IMF—that countries which have done this
have rarely been able to replace lost customs revenue by additional
indirect taxation. That means that government cannot provide the
services it requires and therefore it cannot create the conditions
which will attract foreign investment. You are caught in a vicious
circle. Although the Moroccans have tried since 1983 to achieve
effective economic reform, they still have not achieved it and
the evidence is the growth in poverty around the main cities.
Q174 Mr Mackay: Would you like to comment
on another potential burden to economic and social growth, that
is the huge increase in the population?
Professor Joffe: It is true that
the population has increased dramatically, as it has again in
Algeria in particular; the two countries have populations of more
or less the same size. Actually, however, since 1990 both rates
have dropped and therefore the growth in population has declined.
What we are seeing now is that birth rate bulge up to the labour
market and that is exactly the same problem as in Saudi Arabia
or anywhere else in the Middle East. That produces an enormous
challenge for government and it is a challenge, which quite frankly,
it is unrealistic to think they can meet.
Q175 Mr Mackay: Finally, relationships
with the EU. What more can the EU do? We have heard from official
Moroccan sources that they would of course like more to be done.
They vaguely seem to talk—or perhaps I have failed to understand
what they are saying—of some half-way house between full
EU membership and the current association agreement which they
find inadequate. Could you comment or help me on that at all?
Professor Joffe: Yes, I can indeed.
What they are actually talking about is a policy introduced by
the Commission in 2003 at the instigation of Romano Prodi. This
is the European Neighbourhood Policy, as it is now known, which
is meant to operate alongside the Barcelona Process; indeed it
is supposed to operate within the Barcelona process because it
is a bilateral arrangement between particular countries and the
European Union. The European Neighbourhood Policy proposes to
offer the same economic advantages to countries which engage in
it as are offered by membership of the European Union, but no
membership of the institutions and therefore no participation
in decision-making powers. The problem is that these are based
on access to economic advantage through positive conditionality,
which implies political change. The one thing which is lacking
is that, unlike the situation inside Europe, there will be no
cohesion funding, there will be no structural funding and those
of course were absolutely key to the success of countries like
Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece. One has to ask the question:
to what extent are these countries going to have to suffer considerable
short-term pain before any benefits of these policies might then
emerge? That is what Morocco is looking for: closer association.
Q176 Mr Hamilton: May I ask whether there
are any links at the moment with the UK through, for example,
the British Council and whether the World Service is active in
Morocco?
Professor Joffe: Yes. The British
Council has long been active in Morocco and has continued to be
active. It is very highly respected, it competes with the American
equivalent; it competes too with the French and the Germans. It
represents for Moroccans—and this is exactly the same as
in the case of Algeria—a mechanism for access to the wider
world. English is recognised in Morocco now to be perhaps the
most important foreign language. The British Council's language
services are very highly respected indeed. They are vastly over-subscribed
and it is an irony to have to say that the British Council has
cut back the funding it provides. I would argue that should be
immediately increased and it would be money very well spent. As
far as the World Service is concerned, it is a great pity that
the World Service has not been prepared to locate its correspondent
for North Africa in Morocco; he is actually located in Tunis,
which is a long-standing arrangement but it is a pity because
it means Morocco gets neglected. I think that one hears far too
little about North Africa in general and Morocco in particular,
not just on the World Service main services, but also on the Africa
service. If you compare it with, say, French international radio,
coverage on North Africa is much better. It is a pity because
this is part, in effect, of the European periphery and it is directly
connected to interests in this country. We have a growing Moroccan
community in Britain which has been here for quite some time.
We have an interest therefore in knowing what is going on. I have
to say that the Moroccan embassy here has gone out of its way
to try to promote cultural exchange and contact, but there has
been very little support for that from the British side.
Q177 Mr Hamilton: Why do you think that
is? Is the Foreign Office not interested in Morocco or North Africa
or the Maghreb countries?
Professor Joffe: Without wishing
to tell any tales in court, as it were, I did note that I was
once told by the Foreign Office that the Barcelona Process was
a very good idea, but whether its time had come or not was not
yet clear, which for a policy which is actually in being I thought
was quite amazing. That does seem to me to indicate that there
is not a general interest in North Africa generally or in Morocco.
We have other areas which seem to us to be more important, they
are much larger trade partners of course, so you can understand
that sense of immediacy, but it is missing out on an area of potential
importance and an area with which we are connected by the Barcelona
Process, by the nature of the migrant communities in Britain and
by the nature of the migrant communities in Europe. It is also
a question of what you do with restricted resources. The Foreign
Office has limited resources, it has to choose where it is going
to make its focus and it has not chosen North Africa in particular
or Morocco for that purpose yet.
Q178 Mr Hamilton: What do you think this
parliament, the United Kingdom itself, the British Government
through the Foreign Office can do both to encourage further democratic
development—you have already outlined the developments which
have taken place and they are very encouraging—and to help
Morocco provide a model to other Arab countries in North Africa
and the Middle East of democratic pluralism?
Professor Joffe: I think there
is a much greater need for cultural and political exchange, that
is to say Morocco may well desire to create a democratic political
system, it may have put in place the legislation for that purpose,
it does not yet necessarily have the habits of mind by which that
can be achieved. Local administration for example is often inept,
the political parties often do not fully appreciate their responsibilities
inside the political system and therefore much greater contact
at those sorts of levels will be immensely useful in building
an infrastructure which would operate an effective political system.
Q179 Mr Hamilton: Is there a lot of corruption?
Professor Joffe: Oh, yes, there
is a lot of corruption in Morocco, but, again, it is reduced in
the demands it makes. That also reflects two things: one, generalised
poverty; two, the way in which entrenched elites preserve their
own interests and preserves.
Chairman: There being no other questions,
Professor Joffe may I thank you very much indeed on behalf of
the Committee for renewing your long links with parliament.
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