By Abderrazak El Hannouchi
Through the program called “Dayf Attahrir” that was broadcast by Medi 1 TV on the evening of Wednesday, June 15th, Abderrazek El Hannouchi, member of the Executive Office of the International Collective to Support Families, called for creating a parliamentary fact-finding committee on the case of these Moroccans, which its results will enable this mere and immortal human rights case to be heard at the international level.
At the onset of the program, the host of “Dayf Attahrir” Naoufal Laaouamla, a Medi 1 TV journalist, stated that the Algerian regime forcibly deported thousands of Moroccan families on Eid El Kebir, in response to the Kingdom of Morocco’s liberation of its southern provinces from the Spanish colonialism. In 1975, the Military regime did not feed its hatred with all this blatant injustice, it even practiced all methods of repression, oppression, and robbery of property and rights from families who have lived and coexisted with their Algerian brothers in peace and harmony for decades, but rather among these expelled Moroccan families, some individuals sacrificed themselves to support Algeria to free itself from the French colonialism, Laouaamla said.
Regarding the objectives of the International Collective toSupport Families of Moroccans Expelled from Algeria and itsrole in supporting this humanitarian and moral case, El Hannouchi said that this Collective belongs to the path of defending the rights of Moroccans forcibly expelled from Algeria in 1975, and by which the first association was established at the end of the seventies of the last century for their benefit.
Nevertheless, El Hannouchi noted that today is a new phase to defend this case, and we have to pour blood, sweat, and tears into the area of international advocacy. In this very context, he said “we were guided by the fact that our plea will also be nationally strong, and we have decided to draw all our human rights and all the data on this tragedy, to which Moroccans who were forcibly expelled from Algeria were subjected at that stage, so that all interveners can have information on this issue. “.
The International Collective in Support of Moroccan families expelled from Algeria includes direct and indirect victims, human rights defenders, namely Moroccans of the world who were been victims of this situation, as well as the support provided by Moroccan legal events for this pure human right case. Moreover, as a reaction to the organization of the Green March in 1975 for liberating the Moroccan Sahara, the Algerian authorities expelled these Moroccan families without prior notification.
A “tragedy”, this is how El Hannouchi described the actMoroccans were subject to, who were among them individuals who participated in the war to free Algeria from the French colonialists and bear, with the recognition of the Algerian author, the title of “Mujahid”. Those individuals integrated into the Algerian society and many of them provide social, economic, and social assistance to those who remainedattached to their homeland Morocco, and did not accept the Algerian authority’s bargaining to relinquish their Moroccancitizenship, and substitute it with the Algerian on in order to evade arbitrary expulsion.
El Hannouchi stated that this collective expulsion includes45,000 Moroccan families, i.e. approximately 350,000 victimsof this forced expulsion practiced by the Algerian regimeagainst Moroccans of various groups and ages. He furtherexplained that this number is equal to the number of Moroccans who met Hassan II’s appeal, May God has mercyon him, in the Green March. On the other hand, the Algerian President Houari Boumediene responded that this peacefulMoroccan initiative is “the Black March” where its victimswere those Moroccans.
In reviewing some of the scenes of this forced deportation, El Hannouchi showed the inhuman and degrading manner the Moroccan families, women and men, children and elderly, that were relocated in worn-out tracks on Aid Al Adha; explaining that there are very touching, heart-rending testimonies of Moroccans as well as many important writings of direct victims on this subject, including the work of Mohammed Chefraoui, Chairman of this International Collective, entitled”The Black March”, Fatiha Saidi, Mohamed Moulay, MiloudChaouch, and others.
These books include documented and devastating testimonies of tender age children telling how they were cast out of classrooms and taken into the unknown, and thrown into police stations and cells, in the absence of the minimum conditions of health and safety, and members of the same family were separated from each other, especially mixed families, where the Moroccan wife was expelled and forcibly deported from her Algerian husband and children, similarly,this also happened to the Moroccan husband and Algerian wife. These practices are implemented savagely and aggressively, taking all Moroccans’ money, real estate, and housing; even the simple personal things were not exempt from these practices, which are acts punishable by all international laws.
In this vein, El Hannouchi explained that the International Collective is trying to document these crimes committed by the Algerian regime against these defenseless Moroccans, the thing that requires the contribution to the collection of additional data to benefit from in pleading in order to bring justice to victims and their families, and raising awareness of this case in all national and international meetings and fora.
In his analysis of the Algerian regime’s discourse on the issue of Moroccans expelled from Algeria, El Hannouchi noted that this speech went through several stages, including the stage of complete denial of the existence of this issue, while this regime considered after that the matter is nothing more than a regular process to expel illegal Moroccan immigrants, to claim at another stage, that this decision was a response to the expulsion of Algerians from Morocco, which is not true, and has never been proven.
However, Abderrazak El Hannouchi, on the other hand, drew attention to the fact that the Algerian regime is trying to play on the forgotten card, hoping that this tragedy will be erased from the memory of the affected Moroccans and their families, noting that there is another evidence that refutes the allegations of the Algerian regime and confirms its involvement in this file when its 2010 finance law stipulated the confiscation of the property of Moroccans expelled from Algeria. Nevertheless, from time to time, Algerian officials are acknowledging in their statements that what happened to these displaced Moroccans was coercive and abusive and they demand in return justice for these Moroccans with an apology to them.
Concerning the coordination and cooperation with national human rights organizations on this case, El Hannouchi pointed out that the international Collective recently concluded a cooperation agreement with the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights, making it a strategic partner in all stages of national and international pleading, considering that this matter is a mere human rights case, which requires reparation and justice for victims and preservation of their memory.
At the parliamentary level, El Hannouchi says: We have promises to form a parliamentary fact-finding committee, and we are now in a stage of consultation on this matter.” expressing hope to accelerate the creation of this committee, in order to reveal the remaining unknown facts. He added that despite the international Collective in support of Moroccan families expelled from Algeria does not have offices at the external level, it has competencies in several European capitals working on this issue, such as Souad Talsi in London and Fatiha Saidi in Brussels, and there are also others in Madrid, Geneva, and Berlin who are working on preparing an integrated file reinforced with documents, evidence, data, and testimonies, to strengthen the plea for reparations for the victims of the Algerian regime, redress and preserve their memory.
He added, “When we were talking about the suffering of Moroccans who were forcibly and arbitrarily expelled from Algeria, there were some who said that you are exaggerating.” In this case, with the succession of the hate speech by the Algerian regime against Moroccans and the Kingdom of Morocco, which was the cause of this human tragedy, gives conclusive evidence that there is continuing sovereignty of the malice mentality of all Moroccans under Algeria’s military junta. This is what was embodied until 2022, when a newspaper very close to General Khaled Nizar demanded to expedite the expulsion of the remaining Moroccans residing in Algeria, which explains the persistence of this military junta in hatred and malice towards Morocco, imposing a blockade against all initiative from the eastern neighbor, at a time when Algerian activists residing abroad express their willingness to support and defend the victims of this just cause.
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