| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa: North |
| Algerian amnesty unlikely to curb GSPC |
| 2005-08-15 |
| The Algerian president's offer of a partial amnesty for Islamist rebels won mixed reviews from local analysts and press commentators on Monday, but most said it seemed unlikely to end the violence afflicting the country. "... I do not think this will put an end to violence because those who are killing are excluded from the plan," said Mahmoud Belhimer, political science professor at Algiers university, noting the offer had been scaled down from a general amnesty. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, announcing the amnesty on Sunday, said 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. Militants involved in "massacres, rape and explosions in public areas" would be excluded from the amnesty. Bouteflika had been expected to offer a full amnesty for all rebels, but scaled down the plan when the main outlawed Islamist movement, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, praised al Qaeda in Iraq for killing two Algerian diplomats last month. Some analysts criticised the draft for not saying how the authorities would deal with rebels still fighting, and accused Bouteflika of making concessions to armed groups despite vowing to keep fighting them. "For those who have suffered, Bouteflika's initiative is like an abdication of responsibility, and for the Islamists and their sympathisers, this promised return is a victory," the newspaper Liberte said in an editorial. "...it is obvious that Algeria will be called one day or the other to bury this painful past, but it is also true that it will not do it at any price," it added. Bouteflika made clear on Sunday he could go no further in the search for peace, and said a referendum would be held next month on the charter for "peace and national reconciliation". The plan also bars those behind insurgent violence from political activity, an apparent reference to two leaders of the now-banned FIS, freed in 2003 after 12 years in a military jail. "The dominant trait of this initiative is the very clear will to distinguish between the FIS political leaders, who will be banned from returning ... and the terrorists who can profit from the forgiveness of the people on the condition of not having taken part in collective massacres. It is a sizeable ambiguity," said Omar Belhouchet, editor of the influential newspaper El Watan. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |