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Fri. Dec. 22, 2000
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Politics in depth > Africa > Politics & Economy
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Algeria Will Continue “Suppressing” Islam
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Over 200 people are still being killed every month in Algeria. Somehow, this has not prevented a radical transformation in the country’s international image over the past 18 months. The perception is no longer of a secretive military regime doing battle with a an Islamist opposition, but of a country that has turned a corner, leaving behind a traumatic decade of bloodshed in which some 100,000 people died.
The chief architect of Algeria’s new image has been Abdulaziz Bouteflika, the veteran Foreign Minister under President Boumediènne in the 1970s, chosen by Algeria’s military décideurs to become president in April 1999. Bouteflika offered his Western backers a fig leaf with the offer of an “amnesty” – the Law on Civil Concord – to the Muslim opposition and reportedly some 5,500 “Islamic militants” agreed to lay down their arms. This was all the Western capitals, long embarrassed by their inability, or even unwillingness, to do anything about the mayhem in Algeria, needed to roll out the welcome carpet for Bouteflika, ending the diplomatic isolation that started in 1992 when the same military men usurped elections to prevent the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS – Jabha Islamiyya li’l-Inqadh) from winning.
The Western self-congratulations was interrupted by Amnesty International (AI)’s release of its report “ALGERIA: Truth and justice obscured by the shadow of impunity” on Nov. 8, 2000.
Why then does a human-rights organization, Amnesty International, want to undo all this? AI argues that the Algerian authorities declare Bouteflika’ s amnesty null and void because it guarantees that no one in Algeria gets punished for their misdeeds. The reality behind this “amnesty” is that it wipes out all violations committed by the Algerian military and local militias armed by the state. AI also points out that successive Algerian governments have failed to carry out any impartial investigations into the thousands of killings, massacres, disappearances, and abductions committed allegedly by “both” sides in the conflict. AI concludes that there is a “continuing lack of transparency within the justice system.”
The Algerian authorities in reality the military will never accede to AI demands for launching investigations into all past and present brutalities, and bring those responsible to justice. Algeria’s military-backed authorities have worked hard to deliberately obscure responsibility for acts of savagery.
The Muslims have denounced the Civil Concord Law as a police measure rather than reconciliation policy. They say that this law failed to address the key issues around which violence erupted in 1992-93: the need to fundamentally restructure and re-legitimize the Algerian state, accept the failure of the strategy of eradication of the Islamists and open up the political process. The Muslims insist that there must be legitimate means for them to express themselves within the formal political arena. For the legal political parties, there must be an opportunity to participate meaningfully in political life, and to make the government and institutions of the state accountable to elected politicians – something that would mark a significant new departure in Algerian politics.
The problem is that Algerian military lives in a complex similar to the psychological make up of militaries of many Muslim country, for instance such as Turkey, where the soldiers see themselves as the guarantor of the nation’s stability, retain an intimate involvement in the country’s political affairs.
The AI report has only confirmed what most Muslims have long insisted that the killing allegedly attributed to the Islamists were in fact carried out by the military. Yous Nesrouallah, a small businessman, is a survivor of the massacre of Bentalha, a town near Algiers, in which 400 people had their throats cut one September night in 1997 – a crime attributed by the military to the Muslims. No friend of the Islamists, Nesrouallah, now living in France, has just published a book in which he reveals that a special death squad attached to the security forces was behind the killing at Bentalha. A witness to the massacre, he writes that soldiers blocked access to the areas where the killings took place, preventing neighbors from coming to the aid of the victims, while a helicopter circled the area during the slaughter. Over five hours, amid an infernal din of screams, none of the nearby soldiers intervened. When the scores of assailants finally left on foot, not a single shot was fired at them.
Another glimpse into the military’s dark work is now available on the Internet in a website set up by dissident Algerian intelligence officers in exile. Calling themselves the Movement of Free Algerian Officers, their site reveals a shadowy world of assassination, corruption, and manipulation.
The issue is not simply the army or saying that the army having tasted power would not let go. The writing on the war is clear that the Algerian army like the Turkish army also takes its orders from forces – that may even be located outside the country’s borders – which are inimical to Islam, especially forces that are apprehensive about having a vibrant Islamic presence so close to Europe.
The ostensible argument is that the West and particularly Europe have tended to put a premium on maintaining the stability of the Algerian regime and containing violence. Thus they do not pay sufficient attention to the root causes of the conflict because a strong Algerian military has been seen as the best means of keeping a lid on unrest, avoiding massive outward migration and the possible spillover of terrorist violence into Europe itself, and preserving Europe’s supply of crude oil and natural gas.
The Europeans argue that this approach has been only partially successful, when with a few exceptions, violence has not come ashore in Europe, but has been contained within Algeria; there has been no massive influx of Algerian refugees; and oil and gas has continued to flow.
However, what is not being publicly mentioned is that the West and Europe are satisfied that undemocratic regimes in Algeria like elsewhere in the Muslim world have successfully kept Islam on hold.
The prescriptions that are being offered for the Algerian crisis recognize that the real representatives of the Muslim expression need to be de-franchised. In October this year, the International Crisis Group (ICG)’s first report in a new series of planned reports on Algeria “prepared by a team of experienced Algeria specialists, with input from sources on the ground in Algeria and other experts” offered a recommendation that the regime “Give legitimate political expression to Islamist political aspirations and sentiments.
This would not necessarily require the Government to relegalize the FIS, but could involve, for example, recognizing WAFA, Talib Ibrahimi’s party, the acknowledged successor to the FIS.”
The report further recommended that the regime should “Engage in a public and transparent dialogue with all Islamist groups, under the leadership of WAFA, with the help of a neutral third party. There is little doubt that any initiative of this kind will have to take account of the Sant’Egidio Accords.”
ICG asks that the regime dissolve the National People’s Assembly, regional and municipal authorities, and set a time-frame for new communal, legislative and presidential elections.
ICG has indeed the European Union and other international players to swallow a bitter pill by supporting “a dialogue between the Algerian government and the Islamists by providing facilitation and a venue.”
Bouteflika, the diplomat he is, is not prepared to give clear answers to questions on political issues, whose resolution is vital to the stability of Algeria. When he visited Toronto in May, he was asked whether he would lift the ban on FIS, he said that he was not prepared to interfere in judicial matters, pretending that the ban is a judicial
rather than a political issue. However, inside Algeria he and his officials regularly announce that they will never lift the ban on the Islamic movement.
The duality and hypocrisy will continue while Muslim blood will continue to flow like water. The West and Europe only desire that this status quo be maintained because it fulfills all their needs, an Islam-free neighborhood and cheap oil and gas. And this status quo will linger as long as the spirit of the Crusades continues and the hunger for cheap energy will continue. |
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Editor – ISNA's Horizons magazine
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