Algeria

Country in North Africa, bounded east by Tunisia and Libya, southeast by Niger, southwest by Mali and Mauritania, northwest by Morocco, and north by the Mediterranean Sea.

Government

Algeria is a multiparty state, with a French-style limited presidential executive and some limitations on the types of political parties which may be formed. Its 1976 constitution, as amended in 1989, 1991, and 1996, provides for a directly elected president and a two-chamber parliament, and describes Islam as the state religion. The president is elected for a 5-year term, renewable once. The president is head of state and heads the high security council and council of ministers, and appoints a prime minister to head the government. The parliament comprises a lower chamber, the national people's assembly, with 380 members elected for a five-year term, and an upper chamber, the council of the nation, with 144 members. A multiparty system was adopted in 1989 but after the Islamic fundamentalist Front for Salvation won the first round of assembly elections in December 1991, the electoral process was suspended, a state of emergency declared, and power assumed by an emergency military body, the high security council. The military continued to dominate until 1999. Under the constitution, no political organization can be formed if ‘based on differences in religion, language, race, or gender’.

History

The area now known as Algeria was ruled by Carthage from the 9th century BC, and later by Rome 2nd century BC-5th century AD. In the early Christian era, St Augustine was bishop of Hippo (now called Annaba) 396-430. The area was invaded by the Vandals after the decline of Roman rule and was ruled by Byzantium from the 6th to the 8th century, after which the Arabs invaded the region, introducing Islam and Arabic. Islamic influence continued to dominate, despite Spain's attempts to take control during the 15th and 16th centuries. Algeria came under Ottoman rule from the 16th century and flourished as a centre for the slave trade. The sultan's rule was often nominal, and in the 18th century Algeria became a pirate state, preying on Mediterranean shipping. European intervention became inevitable, and an Anglo-Dutch force bombarded Algiers in 1816.

French colonization

A French army landed in 1830 and seized Algiers. By 1847 the north had been brought under French control, and was formed in 1848 into the départements (administrative areas) of Algiers, Oran, and Constantine. Many French colonists settled in these départements, which were made part of metropolitan France in 1881. The mountainous region inland, inhabited by the Kabyles, was occupied 1850-70, and the Sahara region, subdued 1900-09, remained under military rule.

Struggle for independence

After the defeat of France in 1940 by Nazi Germany in World War II, Algeria came under the control of France's pro-German Vichy government, which collaborated with the Nazis, until the Allies landed in North Africa in 1942. Post-war hopes of integrating Algeria more closely with France were frustrated by opposition in Algeria from both those of French and non-French origin. There followed an urban and rural guerrilla war of independence from France 1954-62, led by the National Liberation Front (FLN). Referenda in Algeria and France resulted in 1962 in the recognition of Algeria as an independent one-party republic with the FLN's leader, Ben Bella as prime minister in 1962 and the country's first president from 1963. On independence, around 10% of Algeria's population, including most of the 1 million pieds-noirs (Algerians of European descent) and 90,000 harkis (pro-French Muslim Algerians who had served in the French army) fled to France. The defence minister, Colonel Houari Boumédienne, deposed Ben Bella in a military coup in 1965, suspended the constitution, and ruled through an army-dominated revolutionary council. As part of a socialist programme, agriculture was collectivized, the oil industry nationalized, and an industrialization programme launched. Algeria also became a leading member of the non-aligned group of nations and supported independence movements in sub-Saharan Africa. However, a dispute with Morocco over the Western Sahara, and Algeria's support for the Polisario armed group, nearly led to war and resulted in continuing poor relations with Morocco.

Chadli's presidency

The state's control over the media, and the banning of all parties except the FLN, was confirmed in the new constitution, which declared Algeria to be an Islamic, socialist, one-party state. On Boumédienne's death in 1978, Chadli Benjedid, secretary general of the FLN, became president. During Chadli's presidency, relations with France and the USA improved, and there was some progress in achieving greater cooperation with neighbouring states, such as Tunisia. Algeria acted as an intermediary in securing the release of the US hostages in Iran in 1981. A proposal by Colonel Khaddhafi for political union with Libya received a cool response in 1987. Diplomatic relations were restored with Morocco and Egypt in 1988.

Domestically, there was mounting popular unease over the extent of corruption within Chadli's administration. Large social changes, with increasing urbanization and improving literacy and education, challenged traditional identities and there developed in response growing Berber identity and Islamic fundamentalist movements. Meanwhile the economy had become overly dependent on oil revenues, which were high after the 1973 oil crisis, but which plummeted from the mid 1980s as oil prices fell sharply. There were shortages and rising unemployment. The army dealt harshly with riots and protests against economic austerity measures in October 1988, opening fire and killing 170 demonstrators. Reforms were implemented, and the constitution revised in 1989 to remove any reference to socialism and to allow multiparty politics. The reforms were designed in part to stem the growing fundamentalist movement. Ben Bella returned in September 1990 after nine years in exile.

Military rule

The Islamic Front for Salvation (FIS) won 188 of the 231 seats contested. Chadli resigned in January 1992 after the first round of assembly elections in December 1991. This prompted the army to step in and cancel the second round of elections on the grounds that it feared that the FIS, which believed in a state ruled in accordance with sharia (Islamic law), would end democracy. A military junta was formed headed by Muhammad Boudiaf, a former opponent of President Chadli. Political activity in mosques was banned and FIS leaders were detained in an attempt to halt the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. A state of emergency was declared in February 1992 and in March 1992 the FIS was ordered to disband. However, disquiet and potential violence persisted and in 1992 Boudiaf was assassinated and replaced by Ali Kafi.

Start of civil war

From 1992, after the cancelling of elections, armed Islamic fundamentalists mounted a retaliatory campaign against the government, targeting politicians, members of the police and armed forces, secularist intellectuals, and foreigners, in successive waves of killings. This civil war was to continue until 2002 and to cost between 150,000 and 200,000 lives. The government was to eventually claim victory, with the disbanding in 2000 of the mountains-based military wing of the FIS, the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), and the defeat in 2002 of the urban-based Armed Islamic Group (GI), but some guerrilla fighting did continue.

Early stages 1992-95

The brutal tactics employed by the government in the early 1990s were condemned by the human-rights organization Amnesty International, including its use of torture, summary executions, and unfair trials. In January 1994 former minister of defence General Lamine Zeroual replaced Kafi as president. Talks were opened with the Islamic fundamentalists in an attempt to resolve the political deadlock, but the militant campaign continued unabated, and the talks soon collapsed.

In January 1995, proposals for ending the civil strife, drawn up in Rome by opposition groups, including the outlawed FIS, the FLN, and the Berber-based Socialist Forces Front (FSS), were rejected by the military government. Instead they launched full-scale offensives against the fundamentalist guerrillas.

New president and constitution 1995-96

Multiparty presidential elections held in November 1995 were boycotted by the main opposition parties, enabling President Zeroual to secure a clear victory of 67%, amid a 75% turnout. A new constitution in 1996 provided for the recognition of Islamic, Arabic, and Berber cultures as the three main constituents of the nation and banned the political exploitation of Islam. Legislation passed in December 1996 also enforced the use of Arabic as the preferred language of public life, despite protests from the country's Berber minority.

Escalation of the civil war 1997-99

The imposition of the new constitution fuelled the civil war. In April 1997, in one of the worst attacks, the guerrillas ringed the village of Thalit, 80 km/45 mi from Algiers, moved in, and exterminated 52 inhabitants. Also in 1997, more than 300 villagers were killed at Sidi Moussa, only seven km from Algiers; the attack, which was believed to be the work of the GIA or its faction, was one of particular savagery, involving mutilation and disembowelling, and directed indiscriminately at all the villagers, including the elderly, women, and children.

The slaughter of civilians continued in 1998, provoking calls for an international enquiry from the USA as well as Europe. In September 1998 President Liamine Zeroual, under pressure from army factions, announced early presidential elections in 1999, which he would not contest. In April 1999, six of the seven presidential candidates withdrew, alleging fraud. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the army-backed ex-independence fighter, was elected president.

Peace with a key guerrilla group 1999

Hopes were rising that an end could be in sight for Algeria's seven-year civil war, after the largest Islamic insurgent body, the AIS, agreed to disband in June 1999, with effect from 2000. FIS leader Abassi Madani called on other rebel groups to follow this lead. Mass defections were also reported from GIA, the deadliest guerrilla army still in the field. At the same time President Bouteflika promised an amnesty for groups which gave up violence, and in July 1999 Algeria began releasing Islamic militants who were not guilty of ‘blood crimes’, mainly members and sympathizers of the AIS. However, in November 1999 Abdelkader Hachanin, the third-ranking figure of the FIS and a key moderate Islamist, was assassinated anonymously, subduing Bouteflika's hopes for national reconciliation. Violence continued throughout the latter half of 2000, with a reported 2,500 civilians and 480 soldiers and guards killed in 2000.

Berber protest

In April 2001, police killed more than 60 Berbers, who opposed the military government, in four days of riots in Kabylie, Algeria's Berber heartland. President Bouteflika promised an inquiry, but the main Berber party resigned from the government in May 2001. This provoked a wave of Berber protests.

In May 2001, ten thousand women took to the streets to denounce the government crackdown on Berbers. In June 2001, for the second time in a month, Algerian Berber dissidents marched on Algiers. Around 1 million people demonstrated in the streets of the capital on 16-17 June, and at least 50 people died, including two journalists. On 19 June, the government banned all demonstrations in the capital, and despite criticism of his handling of the unrest, President Bouteflika refused to step down. However, in September 2001 Bouteflika asked Prime Minister Benflis to hold talks with Berber activists after riots in the mountainous northeastern Berber region of Kabylie in which 80 people were killed. In an attempt to calm continuing Berber discontent, Bouteflika agreed that Tamazight, the Berber language, should be made one of Algeria's official languages. In parliamentary elections, the FLN regained a majority of National Assembly seats, overtaking the ruling army-backed National Democratic Rally (RND).

Ending of the civil war

By 2002 the Algerian army had hunted down the remaining key pockets of the GIA Islamic guerrillas and had crushed this movement. The civil war was effectively over, although a splinter group of the GIA, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), continued to fight in the mountainous east, with several hundred fighters. In October 2003, the GSPC declared support for the al-Qaeda international terrorist movement.

In 2004 Bouteflika was re-elected president, in what was seen as popular confirmation of his policy of bringing the civil war to the end through a mixture of military force and amnesties. In September 2005 the public overwhelmingly approved a referendum to end legal proceedings against former guerrillas who were no longer fighting and to provide compensation to families of people killed by government forces.

With the civil war effectively ended, the government's focus shifted to economic reconstruction, which was aided by the high price of oil and gas - which accounts for 30- of GDP - and by renewed inward economic investment.

Algeria (redirected from Popular Democratic Republic of Algeria)