Algeria’s Tarnished Revolution

By Greg Noakes

Algeria continues its stunning descent into chaos. Armed Islamist militants are battling an inflexible military regime while a faltering economy produces increasing hardship for the majority of Algerians. Human rights violations are continuing apace on both sides of the conflict as the toll of innocent victims mounts. The nation's current crisis is made even more poignant by its contrast with the bright promise of the Algerian Revolution some three decades ago. Beneath Algerians' horror of mindless atrocities, anger at the incompetence of the country's political leaders and despair over the endless cycle of violence there lies a sense of betrayal of ideals, of history, and of the Algerian people themselves.

With independence in 1962, all things seemed possible for the new country, blessed with a large and industrious population, abundant natural resources and a national sense of determination and commitment after a hard-fought war against a foreign occupier. Algeria's independence was not granted by the French but won by the Algerians, and paid for in blood and fire.

The war for independence is known in Algeria as the "Million-man Revolution" after the number of Algerians said to have been killed during the nearly eight years of armed insurrection. While the exact casualty figures are a matter of historical debate, no one denies that the country paid an extraordinary price for independence. Knowing the cost of the war first-hand, Algerians were determined not to squander the blessings of independence.

Yet Algeria's political leaders again proved Lord Acton's maxim that absolute power corrupts absolutely. During the "heroic" era of Presidents Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumediene bureaucratic corruption was at least hidden, overshadowed by the impressive accomplishments of Algerian nation-building. Even the ultimately disastrous centralized economic system was a source of pride. It symbolized Algeria's attempt to consolidate its independence and realize its aspirations of true non-alignment by developing its domestic industrial base.

In the 1980s, President Chadli Bendjedid tried to decentralize the economy, opening it up to private investment and moving resources from heavy industry to production of consumer goods. The economy grew during the oil boom years, and a new elite near the centers of power prospered. They began to parade their affluence, visibly flaunting the egalitarian nature of Algerian society and the ideals of the revolution.

When petroleum prices plummeted, the economy stagnated, since oil and gas provide over 90 percent of the country's foreign exchange earnings. Although more and more Algerians began to fall through the social welfare net, top bureaucrats and officials continued to line their pockets.

Algerians were determined not to squander the blessings of independence.

As the disparity between rich and poor grew, it set off serious rioting in October 1988. This, in turn, led Chadli to dismantle the single-party political system and call for elections. Algeria's three-year experiment with democracy was hectic and exhilarating after decades of one-party rule under the National Liberation Front (FLN).

Some 50 political parties, some consisting of no more than a handful of members, were legalized. Among them were secularist, nationalist, socialist and liberal groups.

There were also religious parties, in contradiction to electoral legislation, chief among them the Islamic Salvation Front, or FIS. It first showed its strength in municipal elections, where it swept most of the major cities' town councils. A year later, after the FIS won the first round of national elections in December 1991 and was set to achieve an absolute majority in the country's legislature, the army forced Chadli to resign, cancelled elections and declared a state of emergency.

A new five-man High Council of State, led by exiled revolutionary war hero Mohammed Boudiaf, was formed. But true authority in the country rested with the army. The FIS was banned and many of its activists rounded up. As most moderate Islamists were led off to prison or went into exile, the radicals took control and launched armed attacks against the regime and its agents, whether ranking government officials or neighborhood policemen.

Boudiaf was assassinated during a speech in June 1992, a killing reportedly ordered by a "mafia" of former government officials fearful of his anti-corruption drive. His murder seemed to lock Algeria into the cycle of escalating violence and deteriorating authority.

Presidents and prime ministers have since been appointed and dismissed, but actual change remains elusive and the military continues to be the real power in the country. As Islamist attacks have grown increasingly brazen, the scope of "legitimate targets" has widened to include foreigners, intellectuals, journalists and unveiled women.

Nor are extrajudicial killings the exclusive preserve of the "barbus" or "bearded ones." Pro-government paramilitary death squads also have taken to the streets. Some 3,000 Algerians and a handful of foreign nationals have been killed thus far in the conflict. Whole neighborhoods and large rural areas are "no-go zones" for the police at night, when control reverts to the armed Islamist groups. The Islamist extremists, however, seem as unable to topple the regime as is the military to suppress the militants.

A Collapsing Economy

The government also has proven impotent to solve the country's economic woes. Saddled with a massive foreign debt and unable to attract outside investors due to the fragile security situation, Algeria's economy is collapsing. Salaries in both the public and private sectors have gone unpaid for months, prices are rising and goods are increasingly scarce.

The dinar has lost much of its value, further decreasing the ordinary Algerian's purchasing power. This fuels popular resentment, which in turn is capitalized upon by the militants. In this apparently endless cycle of violence and despair, it is the ordinary Algerian citizen who suffers.

Some observers argue that this deadlock will force the military and the militants to engage in dialogue. Already significant factions in both the regime and the Islamist opposition are prepared to negotiate to avert an all-out civil war.

Algeria's new president, Liamine Zeroual, has expressed a preference for dialogue rather than the failed "eradication strategy" of his predecessors, while FIS leaders also have said they are prepared to talk with the regime. Many hope that such talks can produce a truce and a return to normalcy.

As yet, however, hard-liners on both sides are unwilling to negotiate. The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) has accused the rival Armed Islamic Movement (MIA) of backsliding toward negotiations, and there have been reports of bloody clashes between the two commando groups. A prominent Islamist advocate of dialogue, Mohammed Bouslimani of the Harnas party, was found dead in a roadside ditch; two members of theGIA standaccused of his murder. How either the GIA or the MIA would respond to a FIS-brokered truce is anyone's guess, but some speculate that the political leaders of 1991 have been eclipsed by the radical "Afghan" military commanders, Algerian veterans of the jihad in Afghanistan.

The military also appears to be split, with a majority of the upper-echelon officer corps favoring a "no negotiations, no compromise" stance. Zeroual, who continues to serve as defense minister, has apparently lost much of his support within the officer corps to armed forces chief of staff Gen. Mohammed Lamari, who called Zeroual's proposal for negotiations a gesture of "conciliation and failure. " Members of elite military units are appalled at the idea that the government might sit down with the very guerrillas they have been fighting for the last two years. Whether or not Algeria's largely conscript army, much less the reserves expected to be called up soon, will follow their hard-line officers into a last stand is a topic of much debate.

Yet there seems little room for optimism about the prospects for negotiations. Nothing substantial has changed in the military equation and since neither side is able to vanquish the other completely, both can continue to funnel men into the conflict. Algerians have earned a well-deserved reputation as a serious, steadfast and phlegmatic people with a high tolerance for adversity and little time for pomp and ceremony. While eastern Arab leaders made endless pronouncements in 1967 only to have their collective armies defeated in a span of six days, the poorly equipped Algerian rebels quietly and resolutely fought toe-to-toe with the French army for seven and a half years before gaining independence.

The same qualities that served the Algerians so well during their revolution, however, lead some to speculate about how devastating a full-scale Algerian civil war would be. Recent Algerian history is notencouraging. Rival Algerian groups fought amongst themselves during the revolution as well as against the French, with considerable loss of life in these internecine conflicts. Competing factions almost plunged the country into a civil war in the independence summer of 1962. In both cases the matter was decided by force of arms, with the side having the most men and guns emerging victorious. This lesson is not wasted on the newest crop of combatants.

A Tragic Shock

Across Algeria there is the feeling that something has gone tragically wrong with history, and shock that the dream of 32 years of independence has degenerated into pointless bloodshed. The present conflict, many believe, is no longer about the restoration of an Islamic order or the defense of liberal secular ideals, but about power, either getting it or keeping it.

Those who voted for FIS in 1991 did not cast their ballots so that terrorists could stab a pediatrician at his clinic, slit an intellectual's throat on a deserted road or gun down unveiled women at an Algiers bus stop in the name of Islam. Those who voted against the FIS did not approve the same tactics of collective curfew, torture, mass detention and summary execution of "suspected rebels" used against an earlier generation of Algerians by the French army.

No one wants the sacrifice of the million martyrs, or the efforts of three decades of independence, to be squandered in a paroxysm of senseless violence. Algerians say that the country is like a louiza, a 19th century French gold piece featuring a bust of Louis Napoleon sometimes found in wedding dowries and always bright and shining. The last two and a half years are reminders that, unlike louizas, national aspirations can tarnish with time.

Greg Noakes is the news editor of the Washington Report.