30 August 2005
Aljazeera
A
campaign for a referendum on a civil war amnesty has started in Algeria,
but advocates for victims worry that the law will allow the perpetrators
of atrocities to escape justice.
The amnesty, announced
recently by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has been proposed as a way
to close a chapter on the nation's 10-year civil war, which claimed
about 150,000 lives.
"They think
they can tear the pages of 10 years of violence from our memory, give
us money and make us forget about our disappeared," said Safia
Fahassi, 39, a spokeswoman for the Algerian Coordination of the Families
of the Disappeared.
Fahassi said her
husband, a journalist, was kidnapped in May 1995 and was never found.
The amnesty would
drop criminal charges against members of armed Islamist groups who did
not participate in massacres, bombings in public areas or rapes as well
as give immunity to members of the security services who were linked
to disappearances and violence.
Members of armed
groups who committed crimes against individuals or targeted soldiers
would have immunity, but they also would be barred from political activity.
"This is the
only way to break the cycle of violence and achieve our aim of durable
peace, turn a horribly bloodied page and close a period made of death,
destruction and grief," said Bouteflika on 14 August.
For the first time
since the civil war started in 1992, the disappeared who were abducted
by members of security services are being considered "victims of
the national tragedy" and their relatives will be offered compensation.
The civil war was triggered when the army cancelled the nation's first
multiparty elections, which an Islamist party was poised to win.
The referendum will
be conducted on 29 September, but there is apprehension among victims'
families that the amnesty will end their quest for justice.
Several victims'
associations announced on 20 August that they oppose the amnesty and
urged Algerians to vote against it.
"National reconciliation
cannot be achieved on the grounds of impunity. Responsibilities on both
sides of the civil war have to be clearly determined first," said
Ali Merabet, who leads the Somoud Association of the Families of Victims
Abducted by Islamist Armed Groups.
Merabet, a 41-year-old
school sports coach, never dealt with politics until July 1995, when
his two brothers, Aziz, 28, and Merzak, 14, were kidnapped by members
of the GIA, killed and buried in the backyard of a farm in the outskirts
of Algiers.
"We are not
against a national reconciliation, but we do say 'no' to an amnesty
decided in a hurry without going through a process that will recover
truth and justice," Merabet says.
Forgiveness can
only be given by the families of the victims, Merabet says, and only
if the perpetrators of the crimes publicly confess and ask the families
for forgiveness.
"We do not
want to be perceived by the rest of the population as peace-haters -
we want a national reconciliation, but a true one," he insists.
Others have come
to accept the idea of amnesty.
Fatima-Zahra Flici,
a deputy of the National Democratic Rally, the second-largest party
of the governmental coalition, is the widow of a famous Algerian intellectual
killed by the Islamist Armed Groups (GIA) in 1993.
A few years ago, says Flici, who became the leader of the Algerian National
Organisation of Victims of Terrorism, she never would have accepted
the idea of "forgiving the terrorists", but today she acknowledges
she has changed.
"Since terrorism
started and until 1999, we were against any idea of forgiving, but today
with time passing, we think about the future of our children. We do
not want them to grow up with the sentiment of vengeance; we do not
want them to be fed with hatred."
Bouteflika's proposal
is a positive step if it is meant to be the starting point for a national
debate about national reconciliation, said Ali Yahia Abdennour, president
of the Algerian League for Defence of Human Rights.
"National reconciliation is a political issue. It cannot only be
achieved through security and social measures. There should be a political
solution, truth should be said about overwhelming human rights violations
committed by the Islamist armed groups, the army, the security services,"
Abdennour said.
In 1999, during Bouteflika's first presidential term, the country went
through a reconciliation with the Civil Harmony Law, which was intended
to guarantee immunity to members of armed groups who did not commit
violence and reduce sentences for those who killed, raped or bombed
civilians.
This law was controversial
among Algerian and foreign human-rights organisations but was enthusiastically
endorsed by referendum.
It resulted in the
disarming of several thousand members of the armed groups and the return
of stability and security.
The new amnesty
would benefit members of the security services, who were accused by
many international human rights organisations of failing to protect
civilians during the massacres of the 1990s or of indirect involvement
in those massacres.
"There is no
doubt that amnestying members of security forces is what makes the difference
between the previous civil harmony law, which was meant only for armed
groups, and this coming amnesty," said Farouk Ksentini, head of
the Algerian Commission for Promoting Human Rights.
For the associations
of the families of victims, providing amnesty to those involved in "the
fight against terrorism" means giving immunity to criminals who
caused the disappearance of 6146 people, Ksentini's commission says.
For Fahassi, who
says her husband was kidnapped by police officers because he was suspected
of having links with armed Islamist groups, what is more troubling than
giving amnesty to the abductors is the idea of "being forever forbidden
from knowing the truth".
The families of
the disappeared, she says, "still hope to know what happened to
their loved ones. They still don't know if they are dead or alive, and
we all are dreading that this law will definitively close the doors
on our demand for truth".