The long-running dirty war between Algeria’s secular military-backed regime and Islamic extremists is deteriorating into three-sided strife, with spreading riots by members of the Berber ethnic minority.
Clashes between youths demanding an end to “government oppression” and security forces, which first broke out in April, have lately exploded to claim the lives of 56 people and injure 2,300 others, according to official figures, while opposition parties and the private press say that 80-100 people have died.
The violence in the Berber community began with a wave of rioting in late April in their stronghold region of Kabylie, where young people manifested their deep discontent with what they feel is an Arabized government that ignores their economic needs and muffles their mother tongue, Tamazight.
The spark that ignited the violence was the shooting death of a Berber youth while in police custody. But the clashes, which have since then seen Berber students repeatedly battle riot police, grow out of a long-smoldering ethnic conflict.
The violence comes on top of the government-Islamist dirty war, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 1992.
Most recently, at least 20 Islamic militants were killed in a June offensive by the Algerian army against mountain strongholds of the Armed Islamic Group, one of several militant Muslim factions confronting the government with tactics ranging from diplomatic pressure to guerilla warfare.
BERBER GRIEVANCES SMOLDER
Berbers, who make up about 33 percent of the Algerian population, are fed up with the government’s Arabization policies, which they feel have left their culture sidelined, if not outright suppressed. Language remains a flashpoint: despite the introduction of Berber language in schools in 1999, activists are still outraged by lawmaker’s attempts to make Arabic the country’s official language.
Meanwhile, complaints of economic marginalization have become intertwined with ethnic strife. Hocine Ait-Ahmed, the exiled president of the Berber-based Socialist Forces Front (FFS), was quoted by AFP as having told France Inter that the Algerian people were "living under increasing poverty," and that young people no longer believed in political change.
The conflict is aggravated by Muslim fundamentalists’ determination to enforce the use of Arabic, as well as their proclamations in 1992 that Islamic law would be enforced nationwide. The Berbers, who are mostly identified with secular society, have seen many villagers killed, allegedly by Muslim fundamentalists, as well as folk heroes like outspoken singer Lounes Matoub.
Posthumously considered the "guide" of the Berber revolt, Matoub has become the idol of Berber youths, who during the recent protests and rioting have carried his posters high and chanted his protest songs before doing battle with riot police, according to AFP. Last month, 20,000 people marched in a major Kabylie city to mark Matoub’s death.
However, this Muslim-Berber violence is a relatively small drop in the larger bloodbath that followed the government’s moves to block the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) from taking power after it secured a first-round victory in 1992 elections. According to Amnesty International, “Tens of thousands have died since the current conflict began in 1992, thousands have ‘disappeared’ after being taken away by security forces … human rights abuses of the most brutal nature have been committed by security forces, state-armed militias and armed groups.”
DIVIDE AND CONQUER
From one angle, the latest violence is in many ways a continuation of the indigenous people’s centuries-old struggle against successive waves of conquerors, from the Romans and Vandals, to the Arabs and French.
The policies of the French colonial rulers in particular helped set the stage for the current conflict. A 1995 report by Aicha Lemsine in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs notes that “Under the French, use of the Arabic language became a symbol of backwardness, while the status of non-Arab Berbers was elevated … for 132 years of occupation, the ‘little natives’ were made to repeat phrases like … ‘The nomadic and warlike Arabs still live in tents.’”
Information just released in France substantiates allegations of widespread use of torture and assassination of political opponents during the occupation of Algeria. French General Paul Aussaresses, 82, may face a jail term linked to his revelations that he personally tortured and killed 24 Algerian prisoners during the independence war that ended in 1962.
He said his actions were carried out with the full knowledge and backing of the French government, including then justice minister Francois Mitterrand, who later became president.
Neither torture nor what Lemsine calls the “curriculum of division” prevented the Algerians from uniting to throw out the French in the 1960s. However, ethnic rifts soon cracked open, with the FFS splitting off from the National Liberation Front (FLN), an overwhelmingly Arabized party which spearheaded the war for independence, and which has kept a tight grip on Algeria ever since.
One reason for the post-independence schism, according to research posted on the website of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM), was the FLN’s “exclusion of Berbers from high-ranking positions within the party” which effectively barred them from important government posts. CIDCM research also points out that the FLN “decided to Arabize Algeria to counter the French colonial influence on their state.”
DANGER ON HORIZON
The decades after the war of independence witnessed demonstrations, paralyzing strikes and increased organization as the Berbers agitated for a better position for their culture and language. Chief among the protest vehicles has been the Berber Cultural Movement (MCB), which directly or indirectly incorporates main Berber civil opposition groups such as the FFS. Despite reports of the emergence of an armed Berber movement, the main avenues of protest have been peaceful.
However, the recent riots in Kabylie and elsewhere raise the question of how long the Berber struggle will remain mainly within the bounds of civil society. Official Algerian sources are fond of pointing to the country’s constitution, which enshrines Arab, Berber and Islamic culture as the nation’s guiding lights.
But despite President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika’s efforts to incorporate leaders from the Berber Rally for Culture and Democracy into his government, the most recent violence led the two RCD ministers to resign this spring. And with the toll from the riots soaring, there seems to be no guarantee that the long-buried landmine of ethnic violence will not explode with a vengeance.
In the meantime, the chances of the outside world getting a clearer picture of the bloodbath seem to be diminishing.
According to a June report by the US-based human rights watchdog Freedom House, Algeria refused to issue visas to reporters from the Paris dailies Libération, Le Figaro and Le Monde, who had been assigned to cover the French minister of external commerce's visit to Algeria.
"Why grant visas to some journalists but not to others? Considering the serious events which are currently taking place in Algeria, foreign journalists should have the possibility to freely cover the news, irrespective of the media outlet for which they work," commented the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières.
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
