Bouteflika to 'end bloody war'
2005-09-26 16:58
Siegfried Mortkowitz
Algiers - After 15 years of a bloody civil war that has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is gambling that an offer of amnesty to Islamic militants will put an end to his country's long civil war.
On Thursday, more than 18 million Algerians of voting age would be asked to say yes to Bouteflika's Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation that would forgive the crimes of many Islamic militants on condition that they lay down their arms.
According to the 68-year-old Bouteflika, the goal of the deal was to "restore social peace and stop the blood-letting" that had taken an estimated 200 000 lives, caused some $20bn worth of material damage and severely damaged Algeria's standing abroad.
Spiral of bloody violence
The conflict begun in 1992 when Algeria's military cancelled the second round of parliamentary elections, which the main opposition party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), was poised to win.
That began a spiral of bloody violence between Islamic militants and government security forces, with the country's 30 million civilians caught in the middle, which only begun to abate as the century ended.
Bouteflika's Charter consisted of a series of legal and social measures addressed primarily at Islamic militants who were not implicated "in collective massacres, rapes or bombings of public places".
Amnesty offered to militants
It promised to end legal proceedings against thousands of militants from a number of extremist Islamic groups who had held to the truce decreed in 1997 by the Islamic Salvation Army, the armed wing of the FIS.
The project also offered amnesty to militants living abroad or at home who were still wanted by police and to those who had been convicted of crimes in absentia, if they gave themselves up.
Also included in the offer were those already serving prison times for certain acts of terrorism.
In addition, families of the more that 6 000 civilians who were abducted by Algerian police or army units were to receive up to $60 000 dollars in reparation.
32 European tourists kidnapped
Bouteflika's proposal was all the more daring since at least one splinter group of the Islamic Salvation Army was still active in and around Algeria and professed to have ties with al-Qaeda.
In July, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which was responsible for kidnapping 32 European tourists in Algeria in 2003, published an edition of its official magazine in which it provided details about a cross-border attack on a Mauritanian army post.
The magazine claimed that the attack was carried out "to erase a number of myths, beginning with the myth of 'reconciliation and general amnesty' and ending with the myth of 'desperate remnants' or a 'small group that is about to be eliminated'."
- SAPA