Islam, Democracy and the State in Algeria

Lessons for the Western Mediterranean and Beyond

Michael Bonner, Megan Reif, Mark Tessler

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317984160
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Modern Algeria has been, in many ways, a harbinger of events and trends that have affected the Arab and Muslim worlds. The country's bold experiment in democratization broke down in the early 1990s, largely over the question of whether the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) should be permitted to come to power following its victories in local, regional, and national elections. A devastating civil war followed. Now that order has been restored and the country has a new government, questions about governance, Islam and international relationships are once again at the top of Algeria's political agenda. How these issues are resolved will not only determine Algeria's future, but will also have important implications for other states in North Africa and the western Mediterranean.This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of North African Studies.

Why the Violence in Algeria?

Luis Martinez

A decade after the profound political crisis that shook Algeria to its core, the country seems to be regaining its balance. And the drama played out behind closed doors appears to be subsiding. The army was largely uncommunicative throughout the 1990s, but at an October 2002 international conference in Algiers, it began to disclose its version of what had happened during that period and the reasons for the choices it had made.¹ The histories of civil wars are written by their winners, and the Algerian army was seeking to show that it had definitively carried the day against the Front islamique du salut (FIS, Islamic Salvation Front) and the Groupes islamiques armés (GIA, Armed Islamic Groups). What remained was to provide a reading of this decade, an interpretation of recent history that would carry authority. In November 2002, strengthened by his success, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika even offered Ali Belhadj, the number two of the former FIS, an early release from jail in order to promote a policy of ‘Civil Concord’. Formerly considered the Algerian Savonarola, the inspiration for armed groups and the keeper of the party’s legitimacy, Belhadj no longer seemed a source of concern for the Algerian leadership.

Is the drama really over? The bloody period of 1992–97² seems distant, and since the end of the large-scale civilian massacres the level of violence in Algeria has decreased steadily. There are numerous reasons for this, which we will discuss later, but the facts speak for themselves. For the period 2000–01 the press counted 2,300 dead, whereas in 1997, for the month of Ramadan alone, more than 1,300 deaths were counted. There is not complete agreement on these figures: the Mouvement algérien des officiers libres (MAOL, Algerian Movement of Free Officers) published a report claiming 9,000 deaths in 2000. No doubt the truth lies somewhere between the two versions. But even as insecurity tied to religious and political violence has declined, it has been replaced by another kind of insecurity related to nutrition, economic conditions, public health and transport.

The 1980s were generally regarded as a ‘black decade’ due to the disengagement of the state, the impoverishment of the population, the increase in corruption and the contestation of power by Islamist movements. For many high officers in the military at the present time, the collapse of the political system in the early 1990s was the result of this ‘black decade’. However, General Larbi Belkheir points out, ‘I have a hard time forgiving those who use the “black decade” formula for the 1980s. Many things were accomplished during that time, and everyone seems to hide it’.³ If the 1980s were a ‘black decade’, then the 1990s were a decade wracked by violence, with a death toll reaching approximately 150,000.⁴

In the early 1990s, three challenges threatened the Algerian regime. The first was the emergence of armed Islamist violence following the interruption of the 1991 elections. According to General Touati, there were approximately 27,000 Islamist fighters in 1993.⁵ The early Islamist guerrilla movement, encompassing adherents of various leanings, enjoyed strong popular support and in 1994 was considered capable of overthrowing the regime. Indeed, risk analysis of the country hypothesised a strong possibility of regime collapse. For a long time, the emirs of the guerrilla movement believed that time was on their side and that, sooner or later, the regime would collapse under the blows of the jihad – a view also shared by many foreign governments in 1994. In 2002, General Touati stated that ‘we can affirm that the danger of Algeria’s Talibanisation is far removed, even though serious handicaps persist’.

Second, the political opposition that coalesced under the sponsorship of the Catholic community of Sant’Egidio in Rome posed a threat to the regime in 1994. At that time, the Front des forces socialistes (FFS, Front of Socialist Forces), the Front de libération national (FLN, National Liberation Front), the Front islamique du salut and the Parti des travailleurs (PT, Workers’ Party) formed a political platform ‘for a peaceful way out of the political crisis’. These parties had represented 80 per cent of the electorate in the December 1991 elections. They also represented a rejection of the army’s appeal for ‘the support of civil society’ for its cancellation of the elections. Military commanders were claiming ‘pressure’ from civil society, including the leadership of trades unions, of political parties like the Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratic (RCD, Gatherin for Culture and Democracy) and of the Communist Party (Ittihad), to prevent the establishment of a theocratic state. The Sant’Egidio initiative received less international support than had been anticipated and, beginning in 1997, the political parties rejoined the Algerian National Assembly. Whereas the political parties had preached a peaceful way out of the crisis, the military propounded a policy of eradication.

The third threat to the regime stemmed from its financial bankruptcy following the collapse of oil prices. ‘The economy of war’ preached by Belaid Abdessalem prevented the government from meeting its debt repayments. Layoffs of government workers, owing to a lack of money for salaries, loomed as a possibility. In addition, the establishment of a counter-guerrilla movement came at a cost that the government seemed unable to meet.

These three major risks between 1992 and 1995 were compounded, starting in 1997, by the diplomatic marginalisation of the regime following the civilian massacres. Accusations by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) against the army and its security forces over massive human rights violations resulted in a moral embargo against the regime. One concrete result was that Western officials, worried about attracting notice for appearing publicly with Algerian military officials, stopped making official visits. From 1997 to 1998, the violence reached its extreme with massacres in the villages of Beni Messous and Bentalha. Even though the GIA claimed responsibility, the army was again at the centre of the accusations.⁶ The president of the Ligue algérienne des droits de l’homme (Algerian League for Human Rights) accused the army of ‘abandoning populations in danger’. For the first time, the Algerian drama came out into the open. It became a concern for the European Union, which quickly put together an information-gathering commission on the Algerian situation. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights also began a debate on the Algerian conflict and wasted no time in characterising the regime as carrying out ‘state terrorism’. The potential for the internationalisation of the Algerian drama became a major concern for the army, which saw in this a conspiracy of ‘Algeria’s enemies’.⁷ The early resignation of President Liamine Zéroual in 1998 and the holding of a presidential election seemed indicative of the desire of the Algerian leadership to change the country’s image.

The Causes of Violence

What factors explain the onset and the continuation of the violence in Algeria? The economy automatically emerges as the main argument in many analyses. Economic factors do provide a mechanical explanation for the impoverishment of the Algerian state under Chadli Bendjedid’s presidency (1979–91), for the rise of Islamist movements in general, and in particular for the rise of the FIS. The latter group embodied the failure of the single-party FLN-state and the revenge of the ‘dominated’ against nationalist elites perceived as arrogant and scornful. But if the economic factor is useful for analysing the rise of opposition movements, it is nonetheless inadequate for explaining their path to violence. Egypt and Morocco have experienced much more difficult economic situations, but their populations have not been rocked by generalised political violence as a result.

Explanations based on Islam suggest that this religion encourages violence. François Burgat has developed a deterministic approach to Islamist violence: Islamists are regarded as the second phase of decolonisation.⁸ After the nationalist struggle against colonial occupation, the Islamists struggled to reappropriate a lost Islamic authenticity. In an AIS document, while discussing the mujahidin (fighters in the war of independence, 1954–62), the Emir Madani Merzag declares to them: ‘You have liberated the land, we are going to liberate the spirits’. The problem with an approach that emphasises Islam is that it does not explain why Muslims on the whole do not revolt against ‘the unjust prince’ – unless one believes, as the Islamists do, that those who do not revolt are bad Muslims!

Finally, among the factors often cited for giving rise to violence, it is useful to recall that of ‘conspiracy’. Conspiracy takes several forms: it may be a conspiracy of military elites who, after being marginalised during the Chadli Bendjedid period, seized upon the political opening to generate chaos (and promote a victory by FIS) in order to oust the president. But it can also be a conspiracy of the enfants de harkis, children of former collaborators with the French, who would have taken revenge for their bad treatment in independent Algeria by enlisting in the ranks of the GIA.⁹

Among all these general explanations, however, the most salient may be the failure of democratic transition, which opened a Pandora’s box of hatred and rancour that had been accumulating since independence.¹⁰

The Failure of Political Transition (1990–91)

Algeria’s political transition failed because of the profound ignorance of its elite of the social transformations that had taken place in the post-colonial state. President Chadli Bendjedid unexpectedly opened the political system in response to the social strife that had marked the 1980s and culminated in the riots of October 1988. Holding a referendum on the constitution, which allowed the establishment of political pluralism, became an alternative to addressing other needs, such as shortages of water and housing, a deepening unemployment crisis and growing corruption. In remarkable fashion, the Islamists of the FIS capitalised on the discontent this situation fostered and exploited it politically.

The greater political openness proceeded without any prior agreement between the new contenders and the former leadership. Going into the elections, those who were in favour of a political opening relied on a simple scenario: the FLN could realistically expect 30 per cent of the votes, with 30 per cent going to the parties of the democratic opposition (FFS, RCD), and 30 per cent to the Islamists. This balance would promote the formation of a national-democratic current against the Islamists. But during the legislative elections of December 1991, the opposite happened: the Islamists became an attractive force that drew in part of the FLN constituency. This provoked the democratic parties to attack the regime, accusing it of playing with fire in order to stay in power. Meanwhile, the inability of the parties to form a bloc against the FIS aroused fear in the army that it would become the scapegoat of the transition.

For the military leadership, the political transition posed a threat on many fronts: politically, by the installation of an Islamic state founded on virtue;¹¹ financially, by the reformers’ project of auditing state finances, likely to reveal evidence of corruption;¹² and in the realm of security, by the growing popular opposition. The army therefore put an end to the transition by forcing the resignation of Chadli Bendjedid and cancelling the elections.¹³

The ability of the FIS Islamists politically to exploit the liberalisation of the political system from 1989 to 1991 shook the army to its core. The establishment of an Islamic state by the ballot box and the fear of becoming the scapegoat of a state founded on virtue were, therefore, at least in part, at the root of the military’s radical attitude toward the FIS Islamists. Indeed, all the literature produced by retired generals throughout the decade recalls their fear on the day after the FIS victory in 1991. The violent language used by the military leadership against President Chadli Bendjedid stemmed from fear caused by the ‘risky experiment’ of the political opening. Between the discomfort of political risk and the assurance of victory against the GIA, the military leadership found it in its best interest to maintain a strict, security-first strategy.

The Army and Safeguarding the State

In confronting the three challenges of security, diplomacy and the economy, the army defied all expectations and carried off an undeniable success. These ‘victories’ did not, however, necessarily result in a return to civil peace. But after a decade of violence the army emerged strengthened and convinced that it indeed remained the last rampart of the Algerian state. This was demonstrated by its stance toward the political solution advocated by the parties at Sant’Egidio.

In 1995, the Algerian leadership forcefully rejected the initiative of the Catholic community of Sant’Egidio. In a position of military weakness in relation to the Islamists, the army considered the first meeting, held in Rome in November 1994, to be a threat. At that meeting, representatives of the FLN, FIS, FFS and others expressed their desire to put an end to the civil war. In January 1995, the principal opposition parties met again and established a ‘platform for a peaceful political solution to the Algerian crisis’. This initiative was at odds with the strategy of the military authorities, who were putting in place an electoral schedule aimed at demonstrating that the FIS was no longer a central actor on the political scene. This included presidential elections on 16 November 1995, and then legislative and municipal elections in 1997. The election of Liamine Zéroual in 1995 maintained for the international community the illusion that peace might b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Contributors
• Introduction
• Algeria at the Crossroads
• Economy and Society
• International Networks and External Powers
• Conclusions: Algeria in Comparative Perspective
• Index