'Militants want amnesty'
2005-04-18 14:46
Algiers - Some 400 armed Islamist militants in Algeria are prepared to lay down their weapons if the government passes an amnesty to end 13 years of civil strife, a senior official was quoted as saying on Monday.
"Around 400 armed militants, or more than 95% of the terrorist elements still present in the field," are ready to give themselves up, the head of the National Commission for a General Amnesty (CNAG), Abderrezak Smail, told the Expression newspaper.
The CNAG, a prominent lobby group, has been "in direct contact with terrorist groups, who have ceased all subversive activity for several months, while they wait for the president to decree a general amnesty," Smail said.
Any militants who refused to surrender under such an amnesty would be viewed as "bandits" and would be dealt with accordingly by the security forces in the troubled north African country, he added.
Last month, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika raised the possibility of a national referendum on a general amnesty, but the idea has met with strong resistance in some quarters of Algerian society.
The CNAG, whose president of honour is former head of state Ahmed Ben Bella, campaigns in a semi-official capacity to back Bouteflika's amnesty proposal, which would extend to both sides in the low-level war against armed Islamic fundamentalists that has claimed 150 000 lives in Algeria since 1992.
The insurgents rose up in arms soon after the army intervened, in January 1992, to call off the second round of a parliamentary election the subsequently outlawed Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win.
The war reached its murderous heights in the 1990s when bomb attacks and massacres of civilians were frequent.
A movement called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) is the only insurgent group still active, with an estimated 300 to 500 members.
About 50 people, including about 15 security force members, have been killed in violence involving armed Islamist groups since the beginning of last month, according to a toll compiled using official figures and media reports.