Caught between two devils s
Literacy campaign in Algeria
International Viewpoint #264 MARCH 1995
Between the repressive regime of the National Liberation Front (FLN) and the growing Islamic fundamentalist movement, ordinary Algerians are frightened and powerless. Small groups of democrats, socialists, feminists and defenders of the Berber ethnic minority wage a heroic struggle, which needs our full solidarity. Sonia Leith spoke to Nejib Abdou, Member of the Leadership of the Socialist Workers' Party (PST) International Viewpoint: What went wrong in Algeria?
Nejib Abdou: The one-party regime of the National Liberation Front (FLN) is totally discredited. For the country's leaders, all methods are justified in the struggle to preserve the enormous privileges they acquired during the 'socialist' period following decolonialisation.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the FLN regime tried to manage the political and social crisis by bringing the democratic opposition and the Islamic parties onto 'the non-violent' territory of a multi-party system. They desparately wanted to by-pass the social radicalisation brewing in the working-class districts and the factories, which had sparked off a wave of unrest in 1988.
The craving for a new alternative to the regime, which would reestablish the dignity of the working classes, resolve the enormous frustrations experienced by most young people, and give some answers to the growing economic difficulties and to the real moral crisis very quickly created a base for the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS).
Passive management of the crisis was no longer enough for the regime. The FIS was no longer "just' possible, no longer "just' visible everywhere It had become an immediate and concrete alternative to a 10
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And this says... ? regime in crisis and lacking all legitimacy. The crisis had come to a head. What followed is better know to our readers: declaration of a state of emergency on 9 February 1992, a massive campaign of repression, the development of an Islamic fundamentalist guerrilla movement, waves of assassinations, and the terror and hopelessness you can imagine. And today?
After the widescale arrests of Muslims, the regime has started operations against the guerrillas in the most uncontrolled regions. A reinforced offensive by a military team sent by the French government and supported by an army with improved anti-guerrilla techniques has started to inflict damage on the underground movements. For a long time the guerrillas increased the number of assassinations, the sabotage of the infrastructure and ambushes on the Police and army patrols which gave the impression of a strong guerrilla force that was everywhere and of maintaining the initiative in the political and military arena, leading the population and democratic movements to ask themselves how such ease of action is possible. Beyond all speculation the FIS and the Army of the Islamic Group (GIA) guerrillas have created fear, making insecurity widespread and gaining a great
Her... Democracy? deal in terms of psychological headway.
The impression of the regime's incapacity to confront the integrists has been reinforced by the political dialogue in which President Liamine Zeroual took part in in 1994 and the various concessions he made to the FIS
After the November 1994 discussions, Zeroual and the army seemed to participate in a policy of eradicating resistance movements accompanied by massive repression in the Islamic areas. The damage has been enormous, the Algerian press talks of more than 20 000 dead and 2 billion dinars worth of damage.
Having given an impression of divisions, hidden conflicts within the army and continuing vacillation, the regime with Zeroual seem to be rallying its forces and giving a more homogenous image. And the Fundamentalists?
With no chance of winning on military grounds, the armed Fundamentalists are going in for spectacular actions, particularly in the towns. Certain FIS leaders have already realised the need for a single-minded army for any seizure of power and is therefore speaking respectfully of the army.
This means that the army envisages more a political treatment of Islamism and the FIS in the future but on the condition of a liquidation of the whole underground
International Viewpoint #264 MARCH 1995
FLN
of the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS) and GIA who are affiliated to the FIS. The army must also win against the Islamist underground in order to make the presidential elections fixed for July 1995
Such evolution clearly brings with it, through pressure from armed Islamism and beyond FIS' encounter with power, a long-lasting tough line from the state. The dictatorship, sundered by the events of October 1988, has reorganised and embedded itself in all aspects of social life. It is not only about repression and exclusive and authoritative legislation, it is also about the fear to speak, to act and it is clearly about political mistrust of the policies put forward by the parties, the obsessive fear of the system which legitimises the dictatorship and death which has become a part of daily life - it is in this psychological and political world that the dictatorship will establish itself. Does the Rome peace plan mean that the opposition has taken the initiative?
For a peace plan based on the end of confrontations between the fundamentalists and the army to be credible the FIS must control the underground and the urban terrorist groups making it possible for them to call a truce and justify dialogue with the regime. The main argument of the GIA and armed groups comes down to a refusal to enter into any kind of dialogue or make any compromise with the regime. If discussions between the opposition and the FIS are to take place, it is also necessary for the army to finally put an end to ferocious repression, accepting the relegalisation of the FIS and acknowledging to its troops, officers and the parents of victims, the need for a peace with the PIS.
The dictatorship's omnipresence must also give way to force of law and democratic liberties must seriously come to the forefront again.
In fact, I believe that this scenario is difficult to envisage at the moment and that the credibility of those involved has been tainted with blood. The violence is widespread and those responsible must be brought to book. The army can not work with the SIA guerrillas and their eradication is a question of survival. Their radical speeches, especially those of Benhadj, do not produce confidence in the FIS and represent a threat to its interests.
The FIS also poses problems. Whether the end of the electoral process and its militants' uncivilised repression can justify its frustrations and radicalism - its profile is also made up of assassinations, collective crime, intolerable violence committed in its name and organised by its militants. And if you continue to look at the FIS politically you must not forget that its political radicalism rests on the profound social crisis, but poorly conceals an authoritarian and retrograde sociopolitical plan, in which religion is not only an ideology.
To sum up, the Rome Initiative 3 could defuse the situation if the regime, under international pressure, accepts negotiation with the opposition on a less precarious basis that before. At the moment it is unthinkable. But the actions and calculations, the blackmail and the conditions, in a violent or political form, will always be the way in which Zeroual and the army will ensure that they do not lose the core of what they are trying to do. They will drag things out, but carry on repressing to the full. The fundamentalists, cornered by the army's offensive in the scrublands, will withdraw towards the towns and increase their spectacular activities which induce terror and psychological shock.
The transition will be maintained within an intolerable circle of violence but to a tired population of exhausted guerrillas and a fragile army it is necessary to add important economic stakes which will doubtlessly impose a political truce and a false social peace. What is the situation of the democratic movement today?
The mobilisation and spectacular battles fought by women and women's groups in 1990-1991 were courageous and anticipated what would become of the FIS and its political plans. Fighting the battle alone, they were not taken seriously especially in the representative democratic parties like the FFS or the mediatory parties like the RCD where the weighingup of political risks are dominant. The Marxist left was more active and visible but its influence was limited.
The democratic movement today is the Cultural Berber Movement (MCB). The mobilisation around the Berbers' claims in Kabylie reactivated the militant energy which has lain dormant for two years, dismantling the wall of pessimism which affected all sectors of society. The MCB knew how to prove that they could still fight, reorganise themselves on a massive scale, react to the omnipresence of the regime in an efficient fashion and go beyond the terror that had been instilled in them. The MCB have also had great moments of mobilisation which have really influenced political course of events. It not only symbolised the determination in claiming identity, but especially as the democratic guardian against rampant Islamist fascism'.
The democratic movement, which is above all a dynamic movement in which democratic parties, left-wing parties, trade unionists, MCB militants, intellectuals etc are together involved in the battle for the right for survival, for wider freedoms, against repression and torture, for the Algerian peoples' right to an identity, against the payment of debt and imperialist pressure, for constituency pressure and for proportional pressure etc. These are the many themes and claims which underlie the basis of the democratic outlook. But the weaknesses of democratic force are enormous and the journey will be very long. What can the Marxist left do?
The political alliances dreamt up around the Rome initiative are "high risk'. I mean that they could shift the currently blocked balance of forces, or force a change in the behaviour of the power or the army, but they are absolutely inadequate in terms of the democratic struggle. What is essential for us is encouraging the autonomous expression of the masses in its organised forms. This means building round the Berber movement, women's associations and the trade unions, to create an active pole in the democratic struggles. The goal of this pole is not to develop a democracy' which allows the current regime to restructure and re-legitimise itself, but to develop a real democracy, which would be the framework for the dissolution of the current regime. The democratic pole we would create should put pressure on those existing democratic parties which support the army, or have a loose alliance with the fundamentalists, to detach themselves !
This democratic pole should also recognise the social disarray and mass uncertainty in society, in the face of an unpopular International Monetary Fund (IMF) plan for Algeria. *
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Alliance with democratic right against the Diouf regime
The democratic opposition to the corrupt "Socialist Party"
regime of president Abdou Diouf will contest the November