ALGIERS — In the 1990’s, Algeria was the Iraq of the Arab world, ripping out its own heart in a bloodbath that pitted a rising Islamist movement against military death squads, killing more than 100,000 people. It was a model of hell on earth.
Er… in the 1990s, Iraq was the Iraq of the Arab world.
Anyway, it’s good that the august newspaper of record is bringing attention to the problems with the general amnesty the Algerian government has granted (it would have been ever better if they mentioned that discussing the identity of the perpetrators of the civil war’s crimes is now illegal), but isn’t it a little bit late? The charter for national reconciliation, as the Algerian government calls its attempt to bury the past, went through in February. At the time I quoted Le Monde:
The text adopted by the government puts them [security personnel] beyond the reach of legal pursuits, even if infractions have been committed. They have “shown proof of patriotism,” and “no lawsuit can be made, individually or collectively,” against them. “Any denunciation or complaint regarding [security personnel] will not be accepted,” the documents adds, while adding that “any declaration, written or otherwise, using or instrumentalizing the wounds of national tragedy to attack national institutions, weaken the state, damage the honor its agents… or to sully the image of Algeria internationally” will be sanctioned.
The lack of coverage of the Maghreb in major US newspapers is really quite astounding.
Can anybody recommend a good book on Algerian political developments in the last five years? Anything written after Luis Martinez La guerre civile en Algerie?
Re: the NYT story, they’ve become so obsessed with Iraq and everything related to it that they don’t seem to be able to write about the Middle East except through that lens (or that of Israel-Palestine, of course).
I understand Hugh Roberts is writing a new book on Algeria at the moment, covering the time since the http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/185984684X/sr=8-1/qid=1151669474/ref=sr_1_1/002-1723008-2448801?ie=UTF8“ rel=”nofollow”>last one, The Battlefield, which is quite recent anyway (2003).
I think story is written with Iraq’s national reconciliation plan (which offers an amnesty) in mind. It’s still about Iraq, even though it’s about Algeria. That’s why it mentions Iraq in the opening, “This is what might happen/pros-cons of amnesty”. It isn’t really about Algeria, nowadays none of the American papers care about Algeria (or non-Iraq Arab countries) enough to make an article about it that isn’t related to Iraq!
Roberts 2003 book looks great, will check it out, thanks.