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| Africa: North |
| AIS supremo backs Algerian amnesty |
| 2005-08-24 |
| One of Algeria's most influential former Islamist militants endorsed on Tuesday a partial amnesty for rebels that the government hopes will end more than a decade of civil strife. But Madani Mezrag, former leader of the now-dissolved AIS movement, said a minority of rebels would continue their armed fight for a purist Islamic state. "I am with the president. I will campaign for this project," Mezrag told a news conference in Algiers. A national referendum on the amnesty will be held on September 29 but the plan has troubled human and civic rights groups, who have branded it a "charter of impunity" that would deprive some victims' families of justice. Thirteen years of violence that threatened the survival of the state and cost 150,000-200,000 lives broke out when the army cancelled elections a radical Islamic party -- the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) -- was poised to win in 1992. Mezrag negotiated the surrender of his AIS, the armed wing of the FIS party, in the late 1990s. The AIS, with several thousand members, was responsible for hundreds of deadly attacks. The public backing of the amnesty by Islamist heavyweights is expected to help convince reluctant militants to lay down their arms and surrender in exchange for a pardon. Bouteflika says his so-called national reconciliation project will enable Algerians to put a bloody past behind them. Although rebel attacks continue, violence has sharply fallen in recent years and brought back much-needed foreign investment. Mezrag forecast 80 percent of militants would surrender, including members of the al Qaeda-aligned Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), although some in that group would continue their fight. "I am in permanent contact with rebels. I can say that most of them will lay down arms to take advantage of Bouteflika's partial amnesty. The rest should be fought," Mezrag said. The authorities estimate 300-400 militants are still active while security experts say it could be double that figure. Mezrag criticised excluding former FIS members from the amnesty. "The charter says that if you are a former member of the FIS you don't have the right to return to politics ... Not letting them express themselves is not the way to set a democracy," he said. The amnesty will not include militants involved in massacres, rapes or explosions in public areas. Legal proceedings would be dropped against Islamist rebels who had surrendered and against some still wanted at home and abroad if they handed themselves in. Analysts say Bouteflika watered down a general amnesty expected to be offered to all rebels and security forces implicated in illegal killings after the GSPC applauded the killings of two Algerian diplomats in Baghdad. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |