Morocco urged to compensate 'years of lead' victims

RABAT, Nov 29 (Reuters) Morocco's two main human rights groups urged the government to compensate victims of past state repression, a year after a commission appointed by the king entitled 9,280 people to payouts.

Human rights groups at home and abroad had hailed the North African country for setting up the Arab world's first truth commission to probe state rights abuses in the repressive era between the 1960s and 1990s, known as the ''years of lead''.

The Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER), which was named by King Mohammed, ended its one-year long investigation in December 2005 with a report confirming at least 9,779 cases of rights abuses ranging from deaths to sexual abuse.

The IER then recommended that 9,280 victims were entitled to get compensation, including 1,895 who will receive additional benefits for jobs or other professional opportunities they lost.

''One year after the IER ended its report ... the Moroccan Human Rights Association (AMDH) and Equity and Truth Forum point with regret to the fact that none of the commission's decisions were implemented,'' the AMDH and Forum said in a joint statement yesterday.

The government had repeatedly said it was committed to implementing the IER's recommendations.

''We deplore that none of the IER conclusions was implemented by the authorities whether shedding light on the fate of disappeared people, discovering the tombs of the dead and handing their remains to their families or the individual and collective compensation for victims,'' AMDH and Forum added.

The IER said it had found out that 174 people died in arbitrary detention between 1956 and 1999 but it did not succeed in determining where they were buried.

It asked the authorities to pursue investigation to find that out and the whereabouts of at least 66 people suspected to be ''cases of forced disappearances''.

Government officials were not immediately available to comment on the statement by the two groups but a government source told Reuters it was considering paying compensations next year, without giving details.

REUTERS SBA BST0435