National Reconciliation and Peacebuilding in Algeria: Lessons for Libya?

1. Introduction

In the 1990s, Algeria experienced a violent civil war between the government and an Islamist insurgency. There were seven armed groups, namely: the Armed Islamic Movement (AIM); the Islamic State Movement (ISM); the Islamic Front of the Armed Jihad (IFAJ); the Islamic Army of Salvation (AIS); the Armed Islamic Group (GIA); and the Guardian of Salafi Call (GSC). The war followed a contested process of political liberalisation that was associated with important societal cleavages. Disputes between sympathisers of secular parties and the Islamist opposition were seen on a daily basis, especially on university campuses. Mosques also were transformed into political mobilisation hubs and places of contestation against post-independence policies. In 1992, and after the suspension of the electoral process by the military, violence exploded and the country descended into a period of massive human rights violations. Civilians were vulnerable to various types of atrocities: political assassinations, mass killings, massacres, sexual violence, enforced disappearances, and enforced displacements. In 1997, a truce was announced by the AIS after long negotiations with the national intelligence agency. Consequently, the levels of violence in the country decreased. According to the national authorities, there had been as many as 200,000 victims in the civil war, but no detailed reports have been published assessing the deaths and consequences of the “Black Decade”2 . According to civil society estimates, the war resulted in around 18,000 enforced disappearances by state forces3 and 20,000 enforced disappearances by armed groups, including 4,000 women.4 After Abdelaziz Bouteflika came to power in 1999, the presidency announced two complementary projects to establish peace and to implement reconciliation: the Civil Concord Law (CCL, 1999) and the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation (CNPR, 2005). Although violence decreased and life returned to various damaged villages, the projects have come under severe criticism from national and international human rights organisations, which asserted that reconciliation is not a one-step initiative. Instead, it is a long and multi-step process that involves enhancing societal tolerance, diminishing structural injustices, defending human dignity and victims’ rights. It follows that the reconciliation initiative should be revised and promoted continuously in a way that strengthens democratic norms and peaceful interpersonal relations. This paper5 scrutinises the reconciliation initiative in Algeria by highlighting the principal measures that have been undertaken by different actors. It, also, illuminates the main lessons from the Algerian experience. Those lessons might be usefully employed by experts seeking to design reconciliation processes in Libya, a country in a complicated transitional period. Certainly, the external and internal dynamics of violence differ from one country to another. But both countries share common socio-cultural characteristics and are exposed to similar security threats. The paper is part of a broader research effort that features extensive ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Algeria in 2018-2019. We rely on three sources to address the main scientific concerns of the analysis; most of the data are primary materials. First, there are interviews. We conducted more than one hundred interviews with victim families and other agents who played a significant role during the war.

2. 1. Explaining Algeria’s descent into violence

 Algeria experienced a political impasse in the mid 1980s, which exploded violently in the 1990s. Scholars have presented many theories to explain the violence that prevailed in Algeria: bankruptcy; the failure of the economic policies; political corruption; authoritarian policies; and the social crisis. The war had three main phases. 

1.1. First Phase: Suspension of the electoral process:

 On 9 February 1992, the military rulers in Algeria announced a state of emergency and suspended the electoral process, as the Front for Islamic Salvation (FIS) had been on the verge of triumphing at the ballot box. 6 Top-rank officers, mainly Khaled Nezzar, justified that decision as a way to protect the principles of the republic against the autocratic FIS project. It was largely presumed that the FIS embraced a radical doctrine and an extremist tone that challenged the post-independence regime. It is true that the FIS’s leading figures, such as Ali Belhadj, had asserted that Sharia was the only source for legitimacy and knowledge. Nevertheless, the interruption of the electoral process was also an opportunity for the incumbent regime and powerful factions to monopolise the country’s resources and hinder all forms of a transparent democratic reform: this was widely recognised by academics and in the public sphere.

The suspension of the electoral process was accompanied by massive human rights violations against civilians, including FIS activists. It extended to people who publicly expressed their opposition to state policies without showing any support for the Islamist opposition. The state detained thousands in concentration camps in the south of the country under a variety of politically motivated charges.8 Meanwhile, others were executed or died under torture.

1.2.Second Phase: Mass Recruitment and the Militarisation of the Society :

After the interruption of the electoral process, Algeria witnessed a growth in Islamic armed groups and the militarization of society. The expansion of human rights violations provided a fertile ground for Islamist armed groups to recruit youths and radicalise communities.10 Indeed, the military intervention gave space to hard-liners inside the FIS, who saw violence as the only alternative for achieving their political objectives and for establishing an Islamic State (‘Dawla Islamiya’). State institutions, staff, and even people who opposed the use of violence were targeted by the Islamist insurgency.11 Then, on the other side of the conflict, since the end of 1993, new pro-government forces emerged in Algeria to fight the Islamist insurgency. Unlike the self-appointed pro-government troops that had autonomy in conflict zones, these forces were highly centralised and were totally under state control. Many reasons were given to explain the appearance of these groups: the total absence of security; protection provisions; enforced recruitment; personal grievances; the search for power and selfenrichment; and poverty. Nonetheless, there is a consensus that the state also played a crucial role in increasing militarisation, which was considered a way to strengthen the government’s hands against insurgents. Remarkable efforts were made to augment recruitment. The regime broadcast announcements on official media calling people to help the government and to fight alongside state forces. Furthermore, in rural zones where citizens were more vulnerable to violence, people were compelled to join these forces. The pro-government forces in Algeria were divided into two structures: the Patriots and the Communal Guards. The Patriots or what was called the self-defense forces appeared in 1993. There were estimated officially to be about 170,000 members.12 It is claimed that the first groups appeared in Tizi Ouzou mountain villages where insurgents used to go to collect food and money. Residents asked for arms from the regime to protect themselves and their properties from the insurgents. The Patriots were not properly autonomous. Instead, they were dependent on the Defense Ministry and worked closely with the military operational sector. Moreover, they were geographically rooted. Most of them prioritised the safety of their own area and their families. The second division of the pro-government irregular forces was the Communal Guards, who were dependent on the Interior Ministry. They were forces with regular salaries and worked in close connection with the brigade and the police. Due to the economic crisis, this recruitment program provided socioeconomic advancement for many impoverished young men during the war.13 The first groups were set up early in 1994. They were set out in cities and abandoned villages where they were charged with patrolling state institutions; protecting state officers and politicians and fighting alongside the army in the mountain villages. They were stationed in destroyed schools and empty state buildings and provided protection in many peripheral zones.

1.3. Third Phase: Massacres against Civilians:

 After 1996, the war was more complex and brutal. It became fragmented, multipolar, and loyalties blurred. Two factors explain this change. First, the emergence of pro-government forces forced a profound fragmentation within communities. The locally-driven forms of social solidarity and the cognitive concepts of proximity, including clans and big family, started to break down. Then, the social fabric and the traditional societal hierarchies that structured social solidarity between communities and individuals were badly damaged. Different members of the same family could support the regime and armed Islamists. The second factor was the emergence of extremist doctrines within both belligerent camps. On the one hand, new armed Islamist groups appeared considering society as a whole to be ‘infidel’ (‘kafir’) and seeking a new societal system. On the other hand, powerful clans inside the establishment adopted more radical speech demonising all religious symbols and opponents of the regime. The result was a large-scale campaign of violence against civilians. In 1996-1997, Algeria witnessed massacres in different prefectures, especially in cities surrounding the capital and in the western part of the country. Thousands of civilian people, including children, were slaughtered.14 It is alleged in the official narrative that massacres were a response to the announcement of the electoral process by President Liamine Zeroual in 1995.15 Armed groups proclaimed in published communiqués that those elections were not legitimate and they were attempting to deter people from participating in the polls. In contrast, a ‘dirty war’ hypothesis emerged among academics and refugees in exile.16 For instance, the military rulers had been accused of passivity and collusion with extremist groups after hundreds of men, women and children had been slaughtered in a single night a short distance from an army barrack. Even the AIS leadership maintained that massacres presented a stateled strategy to discredit the Islamist opposition.

3. The Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation (CNPR):

 A Top-down Reconciliation Initiative A year after his re-election, in April 2005, president Bouteflika made it clear that he wanted to introduce a new spirit of national reconciliation into Algeria to strengthen the peace. In August, he issued a decree containing a “Draft Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation” that was approved by a referendum in September 2005. The new president mobilised all state institutions for a ‘yes’ in that vote. The presidential project focused on four elements: amnesty; financial reparations; compensations for enforced disappearances caused by state violence; and oblivion and past silencing.

Amnesty :

The CCL amnesty measures were extended with the CNPR to exempt all individuals, whether insurgents, civilian auxiliary forces, or security forces, from prosecution for crimes committed during the 1990s. The text of the CNPR made an exception only for those who had participated in massacres, rapes, and bombings in public places. It also called for an end to judicial proceedings against those who had sought refuge abroad and who had been convicted in absentia. As with the CCL, the amnesty was generalised and there are no clear criteria to explain on what basis the pardon is granted for demobilised insurgents. Furthermore, the amnesty mechanism has no time limit and the only one who has the right to introduce amendments is the president. 4.2. Reparations The second element are reparations, which has become a well-established instrument of transitional justice and reconciliation.39 Victims of violence in transitional contexts have the right to the restitution of their property as well as to employment. They are also entitled to rehabilitation including medical and psychological services and symbolic acknowledgment such as memorials, public apologies, and full public disclosure of information on human rights violations.40 In Algeria, reparation is minimal in terms of cash funds compensation. The government aims to close a contested past without acknowledging victims or revealing the truth of what really happened.

Compensations for the victims of the armed groups violence were introduced under military rule.41 But the socio-economic security of the victims of state violence was a controversial topic. Living in poor conditions, many families, especially relatives of those who had disappeared, had no official documents giving the status of their victims. Consequently, they were deprived of access to social and economic services, including work and school for their children. Thus, the Charter set out rules to compensate them. This included families with members who joined the insurgency and who were killed during the war, children born in insurgents’ camps, and political prisoners from the 1990s. Neither victims of state violence nor victims of armed groups violence supported the state’s individual compensation policies. It was claimed that the distributive agenda was highly politicised, lacked transparency, and was selective. Furthermore, it is widely asserted that compensations have been instrumentalized as a means for revenge by the security apparatus and even past FIS sympathisers who work as civil servants in the state bureaucracies. Thus, many victims’ families have been deprived of their rights.

Disappearances Caused by State Violence:

Enforced disappearances put still more pressure on the Algerian government. The CNPR brought in temporary solutions in order to avoid international and national criticism. In 2005, the National Consultative Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights (CCNPH) was charged with identifying the number of the ‘disappeared’ caused by state violence. The commission issued a report that recognised a total of 6,146 missing people. In 2006, after the referendum, the local authorities contacted victim families to settle their cases. Then, various investigations were conducted through the brigade and the local courts; state agents requested victims’ relatives to recount what happened. These were publicised as inquiry commissions to get at the truth. However, their main purpose was to compensate the affected families provided that the family agreed to sign a death certificate. These certificates mention that their victims died during the “black decade”.

State-Sponsored Amnesia:

The post-war regime confirmed that amnesia was the only way for peace; it succeeded in manufacturing a culture of silence and thus enhancing national oblivion. People should forget their past hatred to further the reconciliation process and to make it successful. Bouteflika mentioned in one of his speeches, “you cannot forget your beloved, but you have to turn the past page to live in peace”. Therefore, no symbolic reparation programs in the form of either commemoration or monuments have been set up. The national authorities perceived symbolic reparation as a way of stirring up difficult feelings. The “black decade” is a bad memory that should be erased from the post-independence history of Algeria. The regime took minimal measures serving only its political objectives. It organised, for instance, local ceremonies for victims of pro-government forces during the electoral campaigns. Even in school textbooks, the memory of the civil war is rarely mentioned; there are only short sections describing the role of president Bouteflika in the peace process.