THE ALGERIAN regime claimed an overwhelming (and totally
unbelievable) 97% ‘yes’ vote and 80% turnout in its referendum on a
‘peace and reconciliation charter’, held on 29 September. President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika said this would draw a line under the brutal civil
war which erupted in 1992.
Manny Thain
The violence between Islamist fighters, state forces and vigilantes
has claimed over 150,000 lives – mainly working class and peasants, men,
women and children.
The whole population has been brutalised and traumatised by the mass
bloodletting, the atrocities by both sides. Although fighting has
largely abated, conflict still flares – a further 50 people were killed
in September.
The charter offers an amnesty to fighters who give up their arms,
except those involved in mass slaughter, rape and planting bombs in
public places. It does not explain how anyone involved in those acts
could be brought to account. The charter absolves the regime of any
responsibility for deaths and disappearances. It continues the ban on
FIS (Front Islamique du Salut).
It was the banning of Islamist FIS and the cancellation of the second
round of national elections, due in January 1992, which kick-started the
civil war. FIS had emerged as the largest party in the first round, had
856 local councillors, and would have won the second round. The army
stepped in, with the approval of the US and other Western powers. FIS
members – and many others – were rounded up in their hundreds. FIS
issued a call to arms.
Bouteflika’s charter is more a cynical ploy to increase his power
than an exercise in genuine reconciliation. The charter has been
denounced by families of the disappeared, who organise weekly
demonstrations. They fear they will be marginalised or even banned.
There was no independent monitoring of the vote and human rights groups
say the turnout was half that claimed by the regime.
It was particularly low in the cities, including the capital,
Algiers. In the eastern Kabilye region, the Berber population greeted
the referendum with demonstrations. According to Le Monde (29
September), tribal leaders called a one-day general strike, and the two
main opposition parties, the Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS) and the
Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Democratie (RCD) called for a
boycott. In the Kabilye capital, Tizi Ouzou, even the official turnout
was only 11.4%, with 11.6% in Bejala, Kabilye’s second city.
Making up just under a fifth of the population, the Berbers are the
original inhabitants of North Africa. They fought shoulder to shoulder
with Arabs in the bitter war for national independence against French
imperialism, 1954-62.
With the one-party state which took power after 1962, then outright
military rule, however, the Berbers were repressed – and continue to be.
During the civil war, they were attacked by both sides. After decades of
mass resistance, much of Kabilye is a no-go area for state security
forces.
War-weariness
Nonetheless, with an easing of the civil war, and record oil prices
giving some relief to the economy – although this has by-passed the vast
majority of Algeria’s people, with youth unemployment around 50% –
Bouteflika has consolidated his position.
Exhausted from years of violence, people crave peace, and hope
against hope that, maybe, a period of relative stability could open up.
Bouteflika has attempted to broaden his support among sections of the
Islamists. The registered (acceptable to the regime) Islamic parties,
the Mouvement de la Societe pour la Paix (MSP) and Al-Islah (Reform),
both campaigned for a yes vote.
Bouteflika has used the civil war and Algeria’s oil and natural gas
resources to align himself increasingly with the US regime, signing up
to George W Bush’s ‘war on terror’. He has allowed US special forces
into Algeria to track down Islamist groups.
This convergence of interests ensured that there would be little if
any criticism from the so-called ‘international community’ of the
referendum campaign, vote rigging and Bouteflika’s rule.
Of course, it is nothing new for a US administration to back
thinly-disguised military regimes when they defend its economic and
strategic interests.
The charter itself grants the president increased powers and has
fuelled speculation that Bouteflika will attempt to stay on past the
statutory maximum two terms in office.
The Algerian peoples, Berber and Arab, require more than presidential
charters to secure a future of peace and prosperity. They will need to
rely on their own independent organisation, rediscover their rich
traditions of class unity and mass struggle, and build a democratic
movement for socialist change.
