Algeria hid massacre toll
2006-03-22 23:00
Algiers - Algeria's government has
acknowledged hiding the real toll of one of the worst massacres
of its decade of conflict, explaining that to tell the truth at
the time would have helped its militant Islamist foes.
Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia told a briefing for local
journalists on Tuesday that a massacre carried out by Islamist
attackers in villages near Relizane town in January 1998 cost
1 000 lives, not the 100 or 150 then cited by officials.
The massacre caused a storm of international concern, with
European nations questioning the ability of Algeria's government
to protect its citizens, and deepened jitters over the possible
destabilising effect of the conflict on the wider Mediterranean.
El Watan daily said the admission put in question the
veracity of official accounts of the conflict at a sensitive
time when the country has embarked on a national reconciliation
process aimed at drawing a line under the bloodshed.
"You will accuse us once again of lying, but in Ramka 1 000
people were massacred in the course of a single night," Liberte
daily quoted Ouyahia as saying of one of the villages.
"We hid the truth because you don't go into battle
proclaiming defeat.
"Those who carried out these massacres did
not do them just to kill people, they did them to make the
international community rise up against us," El Watan quoted him
as saying.
Blanket immunity
Many Algerians are still traumatised by the conflict, in
which 200 000 people, mostly civilians, were killed in clashes
between the authorities and Islamist insurgents.
The insurgency began in 1992 after the authorities cancelled
legislative elections that a radical Islamist party was poised
to win.
The authorities had feared an Iranian-style revolution.
Under an amnesty implemented this month, the security
services won blanket immunity from prosecution while hundreds of
former Islamist fighters, including some former leaders of armed
Islamist gangs, walked free from prison.
Some critics described the amnesty as too sweeping, saying
it would encourage former rebels to resume armed action.
But others disagree, saying the government should be trusted
to know how best to bring a definitive end to the conflict. They
point out that the broad lines of the amnesty were
overwhelmingly approved by Algerians in a referendum last year.
Political science professor Said Guessmi told Reuters: "The
majority of Algerian people ... are no longer worried by
statistics (of casualties).
"Algerians are interested in the
future. They want to turn the page."
In central Algiers on Wednesday, about 40 demonstrators who
lost relatives to Islamist attackers held a one-hour rally in
opposition to the amnesty.
"Terrorists were behind cutting throats of people. I will not
forgive them.
"They took my daughter Houda from a school before
cutting her throat," said Amina Kouidri, from Larbaa, a village
in an area known as the triangle of death.