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.