In Algeria's Killing Fields A Hidden Governmental Role? - Algerian government may be involved in killings

Humanist, March, 1999 by Elie Chalala

Hardly one week passes without scores of Algerians being killed. The ongoing Algerian civil war, pitting nationalist and secular government forces against Islamists, has claimed 80,000 lives since it began in 1992. "Not only do we know the identity of the dead but we know who the killers are as well," said the Algerian novelist Wassini al-Araj recently, referring to the Islamist groups that have claimed responsibility for the massacres of civilians.

It is true that most of the killings are the work of the Armed Islamic Group (Groupe Islamique Arme or GIA), which sprang from the Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut or FIS). But an increasing body of evidence is pointing to another hidden hand on the gun--that of the government's security forces and some of its backed militias, which use the violence of the Islamists to mask another agenda. The nationalists, led by the National Liberation Front (NLF), came to power in 1962 after winning the war for independence against France. But their rule was authoritarian, benefiting a narrow state bureaucracy. Deteriorating social and economic conditions, coupled with repression, paved the way for a popular uprising against the NLF in 1988, during which 150 to 300 youths died.

For a moment, the uprising appeared to shine a new dawn over Algeria, producing a new constitution--popularly approved in 1989--giving the people the right to form political parties and enjoy individual freedoms, like the right to strike. But the constitution's true test did not come until the June 1990 local elections, the freest in Algeria's modern history. The FIS was the major winner, garnering 65 percent of the popular vote. When a repeat showing appeared imminent as the 1992 legislative election neared, the government moved to cancel the election, triggering the current relentless cycle of bloodshed.

The FIS had put its faith in the electoral process, only to be robbed of victory. This seemed to leave the gun as the only means to effect change. The resulting civil war continued unabated through the rise to power of Algeria's current president, retired general Liamine Zeroual, who in 1996 pushed through a repressive new constitution banning any parties based on religion. Unexpectedly, Zeroual has called for early presidential elections in April 1999, thus cutting his term of office some twenty-one months short. The official line is that the election is a step toward democracy. However, at this writing, few find reassurance in the candidates being discussed. Zeroual's decision is viewed by many observers of Algerian politics as a staged event designed to pave the way for another figure from the ranks of the military-dominated Algerian power structure.

Meanwhile, the raging cycle of violence has taken on apocalyptic dimensions--with images of slaughter, decapitation, and even the immolation of men, women, and children. Western media have largely bought into the Algerian government's claims of "liberalization" and that the Islamists are the sole perpetrators of the worst violence.

Typical of this group is Roger Kaplan, who in the August 1998 Atlantic Monthly challenges the mounting evidence of a hidden government role in Algeria's civil war. He also attacks other Westerners who give credence to the increasing contentions that either the government's "death squads" or its agents are responsible for much of the violence. In his article, Kaplan reiterates testimony of the former U.S. ambassador to Algeria, Ronald Neumann, given before a congressional subcommittee in February 1998, rejecting claims of government death squads. According to Neumann, Algeria's vast territory--"the size of the United States east of the Mississippi"--is apparently a major factor in the inability of the Algerian army to protect the population because it is "self-evident that a relatively small army could not be everywhere."

Many, including Amnesty International Secretary General Pierre Sane, are perplexed by the Algerian government's reluctance to aid massacre victims when governmental forces are reported to be nearby. According to a report by Sane that appeared in European and Arabic-language publications in December 1997, government security forces were close enough to hear cries and calls for help and to see flames from burning homes in several of the massacres.

In mid-January 1998, when 428 people were massacred in Sidi Hamad, questions again centered on "Where was the government?" Rajih Khoury, a columnist for the Lebanese daily An Nahar, wrote:

   After the massacre, survivors said the killers went to a coffee shop to eat
   and drink and then killed the patrons and the workers and left. How much
   time does this take? Crude calculation suggests that slaughtering 100
   persons requires one or two hours at least.... Then to prepare the fire to
   burn another 100 persons ... axing and cutting ... the trip to the coffee
   shop to eat and drink ... killing the patrons and workers.... The horrific
   operation of massacring must have lasted more than five hours. Where was
   the government during this time?