Bouteflika calls for support

2005-09-19 21:42

Tizi Ouzou - President Abdelaziz Bouteflika called on Monday for Algerians in the restive Kabylie region to support his referendum of national reconciliation which aims to bring an end to more than a decade of bloody insurgency by Islamic extremists.

Speaking to 5 000 people in a stadium in Tizi Ouzou, the capital of the Kabylie region in northeastern Algeria, Bouteflika said "there is no other alternative solution" than the referendum to achieve national reconciliation.

"If we want to advance, it's now or never. It's not too late," the president said.

Last month Bouteflika announced a referendum to be held in the troubled north African country, now scheduled for September 29, on a "proposed charter for peace and reconcilation" aimed at "bringing an end to the bloodshed".

Bouteflika has said under this charter, authorities would end legal proceedings against Islamic extremists "who have already halted their armed activity and surrendered to the authorities".

However the president has stressed any amnesty would exclude "those involved in mass massacres, rapes and bomb attacks in public places".

Algeria's opposition Socialist Forces Front (FFS) has called for a boycott of the charter, arguing it "cannot endorse a text that glorifies force and deprecates political mediation, consecrates impunity and amnesty, and in the end negotiates away pain and suffering".

The FFS has support among the indigenous Berber people who live mainly in northeastern Algerian provinces but isn't a major national political player.

Algeria's Islamic insurgency, which has claimed 150 000 lives, was sparked in 1992 after the army prevented a fundamentalist Islamic party from taking power by calling off the second round of general elections it was poised to win.

Bouteflika also called, at Monday's rally, on former colonial power France to "recognise its responsibilities" and the damage caused in Algeria, during the war of independence between 1954 and 1962, and said his country was ready to sign a final "treaty of friendship".

- SAPA