Mr Prime Minister,
Mr Secretary-General,
Your Excellencies, Ministers and Ambassadors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like, first of all, to congratulate those who have played a part in organising this great event.

Allow me to say how pleased and happy I am to be among you here to participate in a new round in this series of Stockholm International Forum conferences, which have become a highpoint for meetings of stalwarts and dedicated defenders of human rights, in their totality and indivisibility, at a time when these values risk being compromised by renewed challenges to the conceptual values of peace and peaceful coexistence.
The choice of “preventing genocide” as the topic for reflection, exchange and debate in this final round of the Forum has an undeniable importance, in several respects.
After the excesses committed at the time of the Second World War, which brought grave attacks on humanity, this same humanity, by adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, made its profession of faith in the rule of peace and security for all.
Yet we are bound to acknowledge that more than 50 years later, the world is shaken by numerous tensions, in diverse regions of the globe, giving rise to conflicts, wars and revolts that risk disrupting, at any moment, a balance that is more or less precarious and that take the heaviest toll on humankind.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Morocco has always put forth manifold efforts, side by side with the international community, for the triumph of peace, agreement and the peaceful settlement of conflicts, labouring to promote the values of tolerance, dialogue and the right to differ.

On 24 January 1958 Morocco became party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Similarly, under the criminal law of Morocco, propaganda in favour of war and all actions inciting hatred or destabilisation of the country are prohibited and subject to severe penalties.

§Morocco has made an irrevocable choice in favour of change and has given itself every means to succeed in its transition to democracy and to win in the race to modernise its society. In this process, constitutional, institutional and normative reforms have been adopted that bear witness to the Royal will to secure for Morocco a place in the 21st century, to anchor democracy in the country’s social reality and customs and to establish the rule of law.

Making the values of human rights its own, as pillars of its social project, the Kingdom of Morocco reaffirms in the preamble to its Constitution its commitment to universally recognised human rights.

The reinforcement of institutions guaranteeing cultural rights constitutes another important aspect of the actions taken by Morocco in its conviction as to the indivisibility of human rights.

Honouring the commitment to the identity and culture of Morocco in its entirety, of which Amazigh constitutes a major component and one of the pillars of Moroccan culture and civilisation, His Majesty King Mohammed VI established on 17 October 2001 the Royal Institute for Amazigh Culture and has accepted the Institute’s recommendation on the adoption of Tifinagh as the script to be used for the Amazigh language.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are aware that institutional and normative arrangements are necessary for the construction of a state of law characterised by solidarity and respect for human rights. Nevertheless, this objective would be unattainable in the absence of translation into everyday practice so as to make of it a culture transcending the whole of society.
This explains the importance that Morocco has accorded to education in human rights and to the general introduction of such education in all primary and secondary schools from the beginning of the 2003 school year.

Equipped since October 2003 with a National Commission on International Humanitarian Law, education in international humanitarian law constitutes a major objective of Morocco’s National Action Plan in this area.

It its endeavour to extend the culture of human rights to different social spheres, Morocco centres its future efforts on education in democracy and citizenship.

Elsewhere, the efforts pursued by Morocco to combat the racism, xenophobia and intolerance that lead to attacks on the rights of migrants have been crowned by the establishment of a Centre for Migrants’ Rights, within the framework of a partnership concluded between the Government of Morocco and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) on 5 July 2002 in Geneva.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
How can we explain the coexistence of attacks on human rights, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including crimes of genocide, with a major international mechanism for protecting human rights, which has not ceased to evolve and grow richer since 1948? How can we prevent genocide?

So many questions – answers to which will only be found by adopting a new common approach to the primacy of law and a firm determination to protect and guarantee the global right to human dignity and security.

In this context, few things could be more edifying than to quote the message of His Majesty King Mohammed VI at the United Nations Millennium Summit on 7 September 2000, in which His Majesty emphasises: “Today, with the emerging convergence of ideas on a planetary level around the supremacy of law and the democratic ideal, we are offered the opportunity to spare future generations the plagues of horror and inequality that encumber the century that is now coming to an end, and to break, wherever it persists, the fatal chain of poverty, ignorance and exclusion… This new frontier of humanity rests, firstly, on a concept of ‘global human security’, which means that, no matter where, no child has died of hunger, no pandemic has spread, no ethnic tension has erupted, no woman has been a victim of discrimination or been affronted in her dignity, no right of expression has been mocked,…., no transnational water has generated conflict, no sanction has unduly penalised innocent peoples.”

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Great as the attacks on human rights and human dignity may be, the achievements of humanity in the area of human rights are equally great, and this allows us to retain hope in the ability of mankind to preserve future generations and correct the present trend.
At the beginning of the third millennium, the international community is called upon more than ever to make the right to sustainable human development and the right to solidarity fundamental, not subsidiary, rights.

I wish the endeavours of this conference success, expressing the wish that it will contribute to the propagation of the ideals of human rights and to the triumph of peace, tolerance, the eradication of violence and development based on solidarity.

Thank you.