ALGERIAN POLITICAL CULTURE and government reflect the impact of the
country's colonial history and its cultural identification. The legacy
of the revolutionary War of Independence (1954-62) and its lingering
implications are still evident in recent political events and in the
evolution of political processes. A strong authoritative tendency and
the supremacy of the military, both remnants of the war for liberation,
have resulted in a sharply divided society in which the political elite
remains highly remote from, and generally unaccountable to, the masses
of its impoverished, unemployed, and dissatisfied citizens.
State-supported socialism, largely fed by petroleum exports, and
"depoliticization" of the masses during the 1970s replaced any
real source of legitimacy for the regime and left the masses almost no
form of political expression short of violent confrontation.
The consequences of this political tradition materialized in January
1992 when a conservative military coup overturned four years of
significant political and economic liberalization undertaken by
President Chadli Benjedid in the late 1980s. Benjedid's extensive
political and economic reforms, pursued to restore political legitimacy
and public confidence in the government leadership, had opened the way
for political opposition. The rise of the Islamic Salvation Front (Front
Islamique du Salut--FIS) as the most significant opposition group
threatened to challenge the secular orientation of the state. The coup
took place only days before the second round of the first freely
contested national elections, elections that were likely to usher in a
new government dominated by Islamists (sometimes seen as
fundamentalists). Since then, the virtual elimination of constitutional
government and the resurrection of military authoritarianism have
returned Algeria to the familiar situation of placing power in the hands
of a small elite, nullifying almost all of the democratic freedoms and
many of the free-market reforms of the preceding few years.
Algeria's bloody overthrow of colonial rule resulted in independence
in 1962 and a legacy of an authoritarian political structure dominated
by several competing interests. The main actors in the national
revolution continued to govern the Algerian polity after independence,
struggling during the immediate postindependence period and throughout
postindependence Algerian history for political control. This tradition
has evolved into a triangular system of government in which the army,
party, and state apparatus share power but continually compete.
Benjedid's reforms in the 1980s effectively eliminated the party (the
National Liberation Front--Front de Lib�ration Nationale-- FLN) from a
prominent position in the political configuration while strengthening
his hand as president through constitutional reforms. The military, also
having suffered a reduction of authority with the political changes
implemented by the 1989 constitution, appeared to have little tolerance
for the liberalization visualized by Benjedid and the more liberal
faction of the FLN. Resurfacing in the early 1990s to "ensure the
security of the state," the military has demonstrated once again
that the army remains the dominant arm of the political triangle. Recent
political events are as much a reflection as a determinant of political
culture in Algeria. The nation in late 1993 was under a state of
emergency, its condition since the military coup in January 1992.
Martial law ruled, essentially invalidating all political structures and
institutions. The outcome of this period will be determined not only by
the political leaders but also by civil society, political competition
within the state, and by mass culture. If the Algerian state is to
overcome its political crisis, it needs to resolve its myriad
socioeconomic problems. If it is to successfully conquer its economic
problems, it will need to become more democratic and decentralized. The
current situation is potentially dangerous because of the explosive
nature of the political tensions inherent in the repression of a
discontented population.
<>POLITICAL
ENVIRONMENT
Postindependence Politics and the Socialist Tradition
With the declaration of independence, Ben Bella assumed the title of
national president. The first postindependence elections were held for
the new National Assembly on September 20, 1962, and on September 26,
the National Assembly officially elected Ben Bella premier and formally
declared the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria. Ben Bella
formed his government from the ranks of the military and close personal
and political allies, indicating that the factional infighting was far
from suppressed.
The first and most pressing task of the new government was to restore
some normality to the war-torn economy and polity. The end of the
colonial period, although not entirely eliminating the French presence
in Algeria, had dramatically reduced it. The mass exodus of Europeans
resulted in a severe shortage of highly skilled workers, technicians,
educators, and property-owning entrepreneurs. The national government
quickly assumed ownership of the abandoned industrial and agricultural
properties and began a program of autogestion, or socialist workers' management. Workers were
responsible for overseeing their own administration through a series of
elected officials. A national system of directors and agencies was
charged with ensuring that the workers conformed to a national
development plan.
A new constitution was drafted that committed the country to a
socialist path, established a strong presidential system, and protected
the hegemonic role of the FLN as the single political party. Ben Bella
assumed control of the FLN executive as general secretary. In September
1963, Ben Bella was elected president for a five-year term. As the
government increasingly tended toward a dictatorship, factionalism
within the leadership began to resurface.
At its first congress in April 1964, the FLN adopted a draft
statement, the Algiers Charter. The charter outlined the structure of
the state and government and committed Algeria to the autogestion
program envisioned by Ben Bella. The charter also reaffirmed the
significance of the Islamic tradition in Algerian political culture.
Ben Bella was never able to capture the confidence of the Algerian
public or the military. He was popular among the masses more for his
status as a "historic chief of the revolution" than for his
leadership competency. Despite efforts to thwart the rival military
faction by strengthening the leftist groups, Ben Bella was unable to
overcome the political challenge of his defense minister, Colonel Houari
Boumediene, whose alliance had been critical to his installation as head
of government in 1962. On June 19, 1965, Algeria's first
postindependence president was overthrown by Boumediene in a bloodless
coup.
Algeria - Boumediene and the Socialist Experiment
Council of the Revolution, 1965-75
After the coup, all political power was transferred to Boumediene and
his military-dominated Council of the Revolution. The constitution and
National Assembly were suspended. Boumediene was named president and
prime minister, and his associates were named to the twenty other
cabinet positions. No political institution other than the FLN existed
for the next ten years. The objectives of the regime were to reestablish
the principles of the revolution, to remedy the abuses of personal power
associated with Ben Bella, to end internal divisions, and to create an
"authentic" socialist society based on a sound economy.
Boumediene's support came from the military and technocratic elite who
believed in his gradual reformist program. Support for the new
authoritarian system was not universal, and several coups were attempted
in the first few years of Boumediene's regime. By the early 1970s,
however, Boumediene had consolidated his regime and could focus on the
pressing economic problems.
The Boumediene years were characterized by ardent socialism and
state-controlled heavy industrialization, funded largely by energy
exports. Dependence on France during the colonial period and the
subsequent loss of capital, skill, and technology meant that Algeria's
very survival in the postindependence period appeared to depend on rapid
and extensive industrialization. Boumediene's industrialization program
was highly centralized and involved the nationalization of almost all
industrial and agricultural enterprises. By the early 1970s, almost 90 percent of the
industrial sector and more than 70 percent of the industrial work force
were under state control. The agricultural sector was relatively
neglected at the time.
In the political realm, authority remained as concentrated as it did
in the economic sphere. Aside from local and regional assemblies,
administrative bodies that were essentially subordinate to the
directives of the FLN, all political participation had been suspended
following the coup. Boumediene had sacrificed free political exchange
for regime stability and state consolidation. By 1975 the factional
infighting had ceased and the internal situation had stabilized. In June
1975, the regime announced plans to resurrect public political
institutions and draft a national constitution. The country was about to
return to a constitutional system, Algeria's second national republic.
Algeria - Formation of the Second Algerian Republic, 1976-79
The National Charter approved in June 1976 by a countrywide
referendum was the subject of much public and party debate and was the
product of party, trade union, and other public association
negotiations. The new charter was essentially an ideological
proclamation reaffirming the socialist tradition and implicitly ensuring
the authoritarian nature of the regime and state. The FLN received
explicit recognition as a "unique" national front representing
the revolutionary heritage and ideological identification of the
Algerian people.
The adoption of the National Charter was quickly followed by the
drafting of a national constitution. The constitution was a long
document of some 199 articles detailing a new political structure in
line with the principles enunciated in the National Charter. The
constitution reestablished a national legislature, the National People's
Assembly (Assembl�e Populaire Nationale), but reasserted the
preeminence of the FLN as the single legitimate party. Articles 23
through 26 of the 1976 constitution recognized the unique role of the
FLN in the historical tradition and political culture of the Algerian
state and confirmed its hegemonic position in the new political
structure. Rather than breaking with the personalist character of the
past ten years, the constitution reaffirmed the concentration of power
in the executive. Boumediene was named head of state and head of
government as president and prime minister, commander in chief, and
minister of national security and defense, as well as secretary general
of the country's single legal party.
Boumediene enjoyed the unwavering support of the military
establishment. By consolidating authority and institutionalizing the
Algerian political system, he instilled a degree of public confidence in
his regime that Ahmed Ben Bella had been unable to achieve. Boumediene
was reelected to the presidency in 1976 from a single-candidate ballot.
New elections for the APN were held in February 1977. Although all
candidates were members of the FLN, they represented a variety of
occupations and opinions. The diverse membership of the new assembly and
the high proportion of industrial and agricultural workers and
non-elites were lauded as "the final step in the construction of a
socialist state" that had begun in earnest with the creation of
workers' self-management assemblies at the local level in the late
1960s.
Boumediene died in December 1978. He left behind a consolidated
national government, an industrializing economy, an extensive
state-centered socialist program, a burgeoning energy export industry,
and an apparently stable political system. He also left a political
vacuum. Algeria's political development in the 1970s was heavily
indebted to Boumediene's personal skills and acumen. The lack of an
obvious successor left the FLN and the APN with a dilemma. The president
of the APN was named interim head of state; he served until a special
congress of the FLN named Colonel Chadli Benjedid secretary general of
the party and candidate for president in January 1979. His selection was
confirmed in a national election one week later, when 94 percent of
those voting supported his nomination.
Algeria - Recent Political Events
Despite his overwhelming electoral victory, Benjedid did not
immediately enjoy the same respect that Boumediene had commanded.
Accordingly, the new president was especially cautious in his first few
years in office. His tentative and gradual reforms wandered little from
the socialist course chosen by Boumediene.
Over time, however, Algeria moved slowly away from the strict
socialism of the Boumediene years. After receiving a second popular
mandate in 1985 with more than 95 percent of the vote in new
presidential elections and after making some significant changes in
government personnel, Benjedid seemed increasingly confident about
instituting sweeping reforms that eventually altered radically the
nature of the Algerian economy and polity.
Boumediene's socialist policy had focused almost exclusively on
developing the industrial sector and relied on energy exports to finance
its development at the expense of the domestic and especially the
agricultural sector. Many of these industrialization projects were
poorly designed and, instead of encouraging national development,
eventually drained the economy. Relying on state initiative as the
driving force behind economic development, large-scale industries
quickly became consumed by nationalist imperatives rather than
economically efficient ambitions. The fall of energy prices in the
mid-1980s left Algeria, which was heavily dependent on the export of
hydrocarbons, with a substantial national deficit. Agriculture,
neglected in favor of heavy industry, was underdeveloped, poorly
organized, and lacking in private initiative or investment. The reliance
on food imports meant frequent food shortages and rapidly rising
agricultural prices. Unfortunately, the crisis was not limited to the
agricultural sector. The trade deficit was only one of Algeria's
problems. High unemployment, one of the highest population growth rates
in the world (3.1 percent per year in the early 1980s), an unbalanced
industrial sector focused almost entirely on heavy industry, and rapidly
declining revenues had eroded the state's welfare capacities and its
ability to maintain political security and stability.
Benjedid's initial reforms concentrated on structural changes and
economic liberalization. These measures included a shift in domestic
investment away from heavy industry and toward agriculture, light
industry, and consumer goods. State enterprises and ministries were
broken up into smaller, more efficient, or at least more manageable,
units, and a number of state-owned firms were divided and privatized.
Benjedid opened the economy to limited foreign investment and encouraged
private domestic investment. The new regime also undertook an
anticorruption campaign. This campaign, aside from the obvious benefits
of adding to the legitimacy of the regime, enabled Benjedid to eliminate
much of the old-guard opposition loyal to Boumediene's legacy, thus
strengthening his political control.
With his regime consolidated, Benjedid could intensify economic and
political reform without the threat of opposition. His early reforms had
been limited to the economic sector and had ensured that Benjedid
remained in control of the reform process. By 1987 and 1988, however, he
added political liberalization to the agenda and espoused free-market
principles. He legitimized independent associations, even extending the
new freedom to organize to the Algerian League of Human Rights that had
consistently criticized the regime for suppressing public political
activity and demonstrations. In the economic sector, Benjedid gave state
enterprises increased managerial autonomy. Central planning by the state
ended, and firms became subject to the laws of supply and demand. In
addition, the regime reduced subsidies, lifted price controls, and
accelerated the privatization of state-owned lands and enterprises.
Finally, Benjedid tackled the heavy fiscal deficit by increasing taxes
and cutting spending at the central government level, as well as
reducing state-purchased imports.
Despite all these measures, or perhaps because of them, Algeria found
itself in a critical position politically and economically in 1988.
Benjedid's reforms had exacerbated an already dismal economic situation.
The dismantling and privatization of state enterprises had resulted in
rising unemployment and a drop in industrial output. Trade
liberalization, including import reduction and currency devaluation, and
the removal of price controls and reduction in agricultural subsidies
resulted in a drastic increase in prices and an unprecedented drop in
purchasing power.
The negative effects of the economic reforms were felt primarily by
the disadvantaged. In contrast, the bourgeoisie and upper classes
benefited greatly from economic liberalization. Economic measures
legalized the private accumulation of wealth, ensured privileged access
to foreign exchange and goods, and provided many with relative security
as heads of recently privatized state enterprises. The result was
widespread economic frustration and a lack of public confidence in the
political leadership.
In October 1988, this economic and political crisis erupted in the
most violent and extensive public demonstrations since independence.
Following weeks of strikes and work stoppages, the riots raged for six
days--from October 5 to 11. Throughout the country, thousands of
Algerians attacked city halls, police stations, post offices--anything
that was seen to represent the regime or the FLN. The disorder and
violence were a protest against a corrupt and inefficient government and
a discredited party. The riots were a product of declining living
standards, rapidly increasing unemployment, and frequent food shortages.
Furthermore, the riots represented a revolt against persistent
inequality and the privileged status of the elite.
The poor economic situation was not unique to the Benjedid regime.
Even the austere socialism of Boumediene, at least as tainted by
corruption as its successor regime, had not guaranteed the economic
well-being of the masses. The high oil prices in the 1970s had allowed
Boumediene to fund an extensive state-supported welfare system, however,
freeing him somewhat from popular political accountability. The crash of
energy prices in the mid-1980s undermined this political tradeoff for a
minimum standard of living and eventually undid Boumediene's successor,
who had never managed to achieve quite the same level of stability. On
the contrary, the political and economic liberalization under Benjedid
polarized society by helping to expose the corruption and excesses of
the elites while simultaneously opening up the political realm to the
masses.
The government initially responded to the "Black October"
riots by declaring a state of emergency and calling in the military, but
the demonstrations spread. Hundreds were killed, including numerous
young people, who made up the bulk of rioters in Algiers. The brutal
military suppression of the riots would have far-reaching consequences,
consequences that would ultimately lead to a redefinition of the
military's role in the political configuration of the state. On October
10, Benjedid addressed the nation, accepting blame for the suppression
and offering promises of economic and political reform. His hand had
been forced. In an effort to regain the political initiative and contain
the damage to his regime, Benjedid lifted the state of emergency,
recalled the tanks, and announced a national referendum on
constitutional reform.
Algeria - Democratization, October 1988-January 11, 1992
Benjedid is given credit for responding to the country's most
extensive and destructive riots since independence with political
liberalization rather than suppression. For the next two years, dramatic
upheavals of the political system marked the opening up of the political
arena to public participation. The reasons for Benjedid's response are
variously seen as a means of furthering his own political ambitions by
altering the political configuration in his favor, a sincere commitment
to political reform and democratic ideals, or a desperate effort to
regain the political initiative. Most likely, the impetus for reform was
a combination of all three factors.
In the weeks following the strikes, Benjedid tried to distance
himself from the party and the old guard. He dismissed Prime Minister
Mohamed Cherif Messadia, as well as the head of military security and a
number of other officials associated with the most conservative factions
of the FLN and the military. The noticeable absence of FLN party cadres
in the new technocratic government presaged the president's own
departure from the FLN leadership. On November 3, 1988, a number of
earlier proposed reforms were approved in a national referendum, and
plans for revisions of the national constitution were announced. The
reforms included separation of party and state, free representation in
local and national elections, and some redefinition of the executive
powers.
The new constitution, accepted by national referendum in February
1989, marked the most significant changes in the ideological and
political framework of the country since independence. The ideological
commitment to socialism embodied in earlier constitutions was missing,
and the new document formalized the political separation of the FLN and
the state apparatus. The 1989 constitution allowed for the creation and
participation of competitive political associations, further
strengthened executive powers, diminished the role of the military in
the political triangle, and only briefly alluded to the historical role
of the FLN.
Subsequent legislation formally legalized political parties and
established a system of proportional representation in preparation for
the country's first multiparty elections. Proportional representation
was intended to benefit the FLN, but the new electoral code did the
exact opposite, magnifying the plurality of the Islamic Salvation Front
(Front Islamique du Salut--FIS) in the local and regional elections of
June 12, 1990. The FIS, competing with more than twelve political
parties and numerous independent candidates in the country's first
multiparty elections, captured the greatest share of the
anti-FLN/antiregime protest vote. The elections were officially
boycotted by the Berber Front of Socialist Forces (Front des Forces
Socialistes-- FFS) and Ben Bella's Movement for Democracy in Algeria
(Mouvement pour la D�mocratie en Alg�rie--MDA), along with a number of
smaller opposition parties. About 65 percent of the eligible voters
participated in the elections. The high turnout undoubtedly benefited
the FIS, which as the largest, and possibly the only, plausible
challenge to the FLN received a good percentage of its mandate as
antiregime backlash. It has been argued, however, that the 35 percent
abstention rate resulted largely from a deliberate political choice.
Ethnic enclaves, especially in the Berber region where voters might have
been expected to support such boycotting parties as the FFS, had some of
the lowest turnouts in the country, at around 20 percent.
Despite the devastating defeat dealt to the ruling party, the June
1990 results went undisputed by the government, and the new council
members assumed their positions. The date for national legislative
elections was advanced to the following June, and the country appeared
well on its way toward achieving the region's first multiparty system to
transfer power peacefully to an opposition party. Then on June 5, 1991,
as campaigning opened for the country's first national multiparty
elections, the process came to a rapid halt as public demonstrations
erupted against the government's March electoral reforms favoring the
ruling party. The president called in the army to restore order,
declared martial law, dismissed the government, and indefinitely
postponed parliamentary elections.
Three months earlier, in March 1991, the government had presented and
passed a bill reminiscent of crude gerrymandering. The bill increased
the number of parliamentary seats while altering their distribution to
achieve over-representation in rural areas, where the FLN's base of
support rested. The bill also created a two-round voting system--if no
party received an absolute majority in the first round, only the top two
candidates would participate in a second round runoff. The likely
candidates in such a runoff would be the FIS and the FLN. The FLN
anticipated that the general public, faced with only two choices, would
favor the FLN's more traditional and secular platform over a party that
represented Islamism. The remaining parties, it was thought, would win
seats in parliament in their regional strongholds but would be
marginalized, each expected to win no more than 10 percent of the vote.
Nearly every political party responded to this distortion of the
electoral process. The FIS decried the targeting of the Islamist party
by laws prohibiting the use of mosques and schools for political
purposes and laws severely restricting proxy voting by husbands for
their wives. The FFS and many other secular opposition parties denounced
the electoral changes as leaving only "a choice between a police
state and a fundamentalist state."
On May 25 the FIS called for a general strike. Tensions escalated,
and by early June the military was called in for the first time since
October 1988 to suppress mass protests and enforce martial law.
Specifically targeting Islamists, the military arrested thousands of
protesters, among them FIS leaders Abbassi Madani and Ali Benhadj (also
seen as Belhadj), who were later tried and sentenced to twelve years in
prison. The military also took advantage of the situation to reassert
its influence in politics, calling for the resignation of Prime Minister
Mouloud Hamrouche and his cabinet. The new caretaker government
consisted largely of technocrats, a conservative elite drawn from the
top ranks of the civil service and former state-owned enterprises. Sid
Ahmed Ghozali, until then minister of foreign affairs and a former head
of the state-owned gas and oil company, was named prime minister.
The Ghozali government distanced itself from the FLN party cadres
while remaining subservient to the military. The FLN, meanwhile, broke
into several factions. Benjedid resigned from the party leadership in
July, alienating any remaining factions in the party that supported his
regime. In September 1991, the state of emergency was lifted and new
elections were set for December 1991 and January 1992.
Two months before the start of the elections, in October 1991, the
government issued a new electoral law whose bias was hardly better
disguised than that of the March reforms that had provoked the initial
demonstrations in June. The law increased the number of seats in the
assembly, redistributed them to favor FLN strongholds, and omitted
earlier provisions facilitating the participation of independent
candidates. Moreover, most of the FIS political leadership was in prison
(Madani and Benhadj had been joined by the remaining six members of the majlis
ash shura, the FIS ruling council) and all newspapers were banned.
Once again, the government sought to ensure that the results of the
elections would be to its, and the military's, liking.
Nearly fifty political parties participated in the first round of the
elections on December 26, 1991. The result was another clear victory for
the FIS and an equally clear humiliation for the FLN, which once again
performed poorly. The FIS appeared certain of achieving the two-thirds
parliamentary majority necessary for constitutional reform. Its next
closest competitor was the FFS, followed by the FLN as a distant third.
With nearly 200 seats to be decided in runoff elections set for January
16, 1992, it appeared certain that a transfer of parliamentary power to
the opposition was imminent.
The military, however, quickly affirmed its unwillingness to see
power transferred to a political party it regarded as a threat to the
security and stability of the state. Calling the government's position
toward the Islamists "accommodating," the army called for the
president's resignation and the suspension of the scheduled second round
of elections.
Algeria - Return to Authoritarianism, January 11, 1992
The coup, led by the minister of defense Major General Khaled Nezzar,
soon returned Algeria to an extremely tense state. Military troops were
put on alert throughout the country, tanks and armored cars were
deployed throughout Algiers, and military checkpoints were set up.
President Benjedid resigned on January 11, citing "widespread
election irregularities" and a risk of "grave civil
instability." The military then reappointed Sid Ahmed Ghozali as
prime minister. Ghozali was also named to head the new High Security
Council (Haut Conseil de S�curit�--HCS), a six-member advisory body
dominated by such senior military officials as Major General Nezzar and
Major General Larbi Belkheir. This new collective executive body
immediately assumed full political authority, suspending all other
political institutions, voiding the December 1991 election results, and
postponing future elections.
The HCS was soon replaced by the High Council of State (Haut Conseil
d'�tat--HCE), designed as a transitional government that would have
more political legitimacy than the HCS. In fact, the HCE differed little
from the HCS. The new HCE was a five-member collective presidency
dominated by military officials who had almost unlimited political
powers. Former independence leader Mohamed Boudiaf was recalled from
self-imposed exile in Morocco to lead the new HCE and serve as head of
state.
The coup initially went virtually unchallenged because even the FIS
leadership discouraged its followers from provoking clashes with the
military. Relative tranquility prevailed, and the military withdrew its
tanks and troops in the following days. Some Algerians even expressed
support for the coup, citing fears of an Islamist government. Some
200,000 demonstrators marched in Algiers protesting the Islamists, and
the main workers' union, the General Union of Algerian Workers (Union G�n�rale
des Travailleurs Alg�riens--UGTA), in early January threatened to
resist any Islamist government.
The period of relative calm, however, was as deceptive as it was
brief. Within a month, near civil war occurred as Islamists struck back
against the military crackdown. The new government reimposed a state of
emergency, banned the FIS in March, and dissolved the communal and
municipal assemblies, most of which had been controlled by FIS members
since the June 1990 elections. The government also banned all political
activity in and around mosques and arrested Islamist activists on
charges ranging from possession of firearms to promoting terrorism and
conspiracy against the state. Military courts tried and sentenced the
activists to lengthy imprisonment or death, without right of appeal
and/or full awareness of the charges brought against them. Thousands of
demonstrators were taken to makeshift prison camps in the Sahara while
hundreds of others were detained for questioning and often tortured.
Most of the remaining top FIS leadership was arrested, and thousands of
rank-and-file party members were forced underground. Other reversals of
the democratization process quickly followed. The press, which had
slowly gained freedom, was quickly reined in, the National People's
Assembly was indefinitely suspended, and the omnipresent and ubiquitous mukhabarat
(state security apparatus) resurfaced.
Despite the military's obvious targeting of the Islamists, the
latter's political suppression drew heavy criticism even from FIS
rivals. The FLN and the FFS soon proposed a tactical alliance with the
FIS to counter the military government in an effort to preclude the
complete abandonment of the democratic process.
The repressive military actions of the government against the
Islamists were reminiscent of the military force used by the French
colonial authorities against the nationalists during the War of
Independence. Thousands of troops were mobilized and assigned to cities
and all major urban centers. Curfews were imposed, removed, and
reimposed. Entire neighborhoods were sealed off because of police sweeps
and other searches for accused "terrorists." Islamists
retaliated by killing military personnel, government officials, and
police officers by the hundreds. Some 600 members of the security
forces, and hundreds more civilians and Islamist demonstrators, were
killed in the first twelve months following the coup. The majority of
Algerians, meanwhile, were caught in the middle, distrusting the army as
much as the Islamists.
The government, citing a need to "focus its full attention"
on Algeria's economic problems, warned that it would not tolerate
opposition. In reply, FIS leaders warned that the popular anger aroused
by the political suppression was beyond their control. Hard-liners in
FIS split from the more moderate pragmatists, criticizing the FIS
leadership for cooperating with the government. As a result, radical
factions replaced the relatively moderate FIS leadership, now long
imprisoned. Meanwhile, other independent and radical armed Islamist
groups arose, impatient not only with the government but with the FIS
itself. The new radicals, FIS officials acknowledged, were beyond FIS
control.
On June 29, 1992, head of state Mohamed Boudiaf was assassinated
during a public speech at the opening of a cultural center in Annaba.
The death of Boudiaf at the hands of a military officer illustrated the
extent to which Algeria's political crisis transcended a simple contest
for power between Islamists and military leaders or between religious
and secular forces.
Twenty months after the coup, the country was still being torn apart
by constant fighting between Islamists and the military. Following
Boudiaf's assassination, HCE member Ali Kafi was appointed head of
state. On July 8, only a week later, Prime Minister Ghozali resigned,
and Belaid Abdessalam was named to replace him. Both Boudiaf and Ghozali
had begun to move toward a rapprochement with the Islamists, no doubt
recognizing their desperate need for popular support in the absence of
any sort of constitutional legitimacy.
The months following Boudiaf's assassination and Ghozali's
resignation were marked by intensified efforts to suppress
"terrorism." Emergency tribunals, headed by unidentified
judges who levied "exemplary" sentences with no means of
appeal, were established to try Islamist "terrorists." An
antiterrorism squad was headed in 1993 by General Mohamed Lamari, a
former government official under Ghozali who was removed from office to
facilitate talks with the opposition. Islamist activity intensified as
Islamists also targeted civilians--teachers, doctors, professors, and
other professionals--whose sympathies might lie with the military.
Cooperation in 1993 among various opposition groups and the
predominance of professionals, including doctors and teachers, in such
radical groups as the Armed Islamic Movement, was considered by a
well-informed observer to imply a "considerable level of antiregime
collaboration among apparently respectable middle-class Algerians."
Moreover, it appeared that the radicalization of the opposition, far
from receding, has spread into traditionally more moderate sectors of
society.
Since independence the government has relied on veterans of the
revolutionary period as leaders, although they represent little more
than vague historical figures to most Algerians. The government has also
ignored numerous opportunities for dialogue with the opposition, opting
for rule by decree without any constitutional mandate. Moreover,
divisions within the government have greatly hindered the development of
an effective economic policy, undoubtedly the key to Algeria's political
turmoil in the mid-1990s.
Prime Minister Abdessalam was greatly hampered in his economic
efforts by his connection with Boumediene's failed heavy
industrialization program from 1965 to 1977. On August 23, 1993,
Abdessalem was dismissed and replaced by Redha Malek, formerly a
distinguished diplomat but also a traditional nationalist vehemently
opposed to the FIS and an advocate of a hard-line approach to combating
"terrorism."
The legacy of the past has played heavily into the current political
situation. For years the government had ruled without any
accountability. Until the mid-1980s, corruption and inefficiency were
often masked by high oil revenues that sustained an acceptable standard
of living for most Algerians. Unfortunately, this legacy has greatly
undermined the country's ability to rise to the current political
challenge by inhibiting the development of an effective economic sector
and by provoking widespread dissatisfaction among the majority of
Algerians.
Algeria - POLITICAL STRUCTURE AND PROCESSES
Constitution
Since independence in 1962, Algeria has had three constitutions. The
first of these was approved by a constitutional referendum in August
1963, only after prior approval and modifications by the FLN. Intended
as a means of legitimizing Ben Bella's new regime, the constitution also
established Algeria as a republic committed to socialism and to the
preservation of Algeria's Arab and Islamic culture. The constitution
lasted only two years, however, and was suspended upon Colonel
Boumediene's military coup in June 1965. For the next ten years, Algeria
was ruled without a constitution, although representative local and
provincial institutions were created in the late 1960s in Boumediene's
attempt to decentralize political authority. In 1976 the National
Charter and a new constitution were drafted, debated, and eventually
passed by national referenda. Together, these documents formed the
national constitution and ushered in the Second Algerian Republic. The
new constitution reasserted the commitment to socialism and the
revolutionary tradition of the nation, and established new government
institutions, including the APN. The 1986 revisions continued the
conservative nature of the previous constitutions but increased the role
of the private sector and diminished the socialist commitment.
The revised constitution of February 1989 altered the configuration
of the state and allowed political parties to compete, opening the way
for liberal democracy. The new constitution removed the commitment to
socialism embodied in both the National Charter and the constitution of
1976 and its 1986 revision. The references to the unique and historic
character of the FLN and the military's role as "guardian of the
revolution" were eliminated. The provisions for a unicameral
legislature remained.
In what was considered a sweeping mandate of support for the
liberalization efforts of Benjedid, a referendum on the 1989
constitution passed February 23, 1989, with a 75 percent approval and a
78 percent participation rate. The changes embodied in the constitution
were not universally accepted, however. Within a month after the
ratification of the new constitution, a number of prominent senior
military officers resigned from the FLN Central Committee to protest the
revisions. The most divisive issues included the separation of the
religious institution and the state; the abandonment of the commitment
to socialism; and the liberalization of political life, allowing
independent political parties.
The 1989 constitution established a "state of law,"
accentuating the role of the executive and, specifically, the president,
at the expense of the FLN. The president, having the power to appoint
and dismiss the prime minister at will, and maintaining singular
authority over military affairs, emerged as the dominant force. The FLN
became but one of many political parties. The responsibilities of the
army were limited to defense and external security. Moreover, the army
was obliged to become less visible because of its role in suppressing
the October 1988 revolts.
Algeria - Executive: Presidential System
FLN Role
The FLN had traditionally served as the only legal political party in
the legislature and the only source of political identification. It
controlled all aspects of political participation, including the trade
unions and other civil organizations. In the prerevolutionary years, the
party served as a source of national unity and mobilized the fight
against French colonial domination. Having played such a dominant role
in the War of Independence assured the FLN a privileged position in the
emerging political configuration, a position preserved in the early
constitutions.
The first Algerian constitution in 1963 established a single-party
structure for the new nation and recognized the FLN as the single party.
The constitution declared the party superior to the state--the party was
to design national policy, the state to execute it. Political hegemony
did not last long, however. Factional infighting within the party and
Boumediene's heavily military-oriented presidency greatly undermined
party authority. During most of the 1970s, with the Council of the
Revolution as almost the sole political institution and Boumediene's
cabinet primarily composed of military officers, the party's political
functions were nearly eliminated. The president and his cabinet assumed
the party's policy-making initiative; the elimination of the APN
basically annulled mobilization responsibilities. The 1976 National
Charter and constitution reasserted the party's symbolic and national
role but bestowed little additional responsibility. In the late 1970s,
with the reemergence of political institutions and elections, the party
became again an important political actor. The creation in 1981 of a
Political Bureau (or executive arm of the FLN in a communist sense),
legislation requiring that all union and mass association leaders be FLN
party members, and the extension of party authority resulted in the
growth and increased strength of the party until the late 1980s, when
its heavily bureaucratic structure came under serious scrutiny.
By the 1980s, the FLN had become discredited by corruption,
inefficiency, and a broad generation gap that distanced the wealthy
party elite from the realities of daily life for the masses of
impoverished young Algerians. The FLN had ceased to be the national
"front" its name suggests. Algeria's economic polarization was
such that only 5 percent of the population was earning 45 percent of the
national income, whereas another 50 percent was earning less than 22
percent of national income. Members of the party elite enjoyed
privileged access to foreign capital and goods, were ensured positions
at the head of state-owned enterprises, and benefited from corrupt
management of state-controlled goods and services. The masses, however,
suffered from the increasing unemployment and inflation resulting from
government reforms and economic austerity in the mid- to late 1980s. The
riots of October 1988 indicated that the FLN had lost legitimacy in the
eyes of the masses.
Increasing economic polarization was but one facet of the broadening
generation gap. Thirty years after independence, the FLN continued to
rely on its links to Algeria's revolutionary past as its primary source
of legitimacy, ignoring the fact that for most voters what mattered was
not the martyrs of the past but the destitution of contemporary life.
Indeed, 70 percent of the population was born after the revolution.
Benjedid's call for constitutional reform began the collapse of the
FLN. The 1989 constitution not only eliminated the FLN's monopoly but
also abolished all references to the FLN's unique position as party of
the avant-garde. The new constitution recognized the FLN's historical
role, but the FLN was obliged to compete as any other political party.
By mid-1989 the military had recognized the imminent divestiture of the
FLN and had begun to distance itself from the party. The resignation of
several senior military officers from party membership in March 1989,
generally interpreted as a protest against the constitutional revisions,
also reflected a strategic maneuver to preserve the military
establishment's integrity as guardian of the revolution. Finally, in
July 1991 Benjedid himself resigned from the party leadership.
The legalization of political parties in 1989 caused a number of
prominent party officials to defect from the FLN in the months that
followed, as ministers left to form their own political parties or to
join others. A break between the old guard and the reform-minded
technocrats dealt the final blow to any FLN aspirations to remain a
national front and foreshadowed the party's devastating defeat in the
1990 and 1991 elections. By the time of the coup in January 1992, some
factions had even defected to join or lead Islamist parties, including a
group that acted in alliance with the FIS.
Algeria - Legalization of Political Parties and Beginnings of a Pluralist System
The legalization of political parties, further enunciated in the Law
Relative to Political Associations of July 1989, was one of the major
achievements of the revised constitution. More than thirty political
parties emerged as a result of these reforms by the time of the first
multiparty local and regional elections in June 1990; nearly sixty
existed by the time of the first national multiparty elections in
December 1991.
Granting the right to form "associations of a political
character," the constitution recognized the existence of opposition
parties. Earlier, such parties were precluded because the FLN had a
national mandate as a front, eliminating the political necessity of
competitive political parties. Other political associations had also
been limited because trade unions and other civil associations fell
under FLN direction and had little autonomy. The new constitution
recognized all political associations and mandated only a commitment to
national unity and sovereignty. The July law further clarified the
guidelines for the establishment and participation of political parties.
The law prohibited associations formed exclusively on regional,
ethnic, or religious grounds. Ironically, however, the two parties that
profited most in the 1990 and 1991 elections were the FIS and the FFS
from the Kabylie region. That these parties were among the first
legalized in 1989 has given credence to those who maintain that
Benjedid's liberalization was based more on tactical personal
considerations than genuine democratic ambitions. They argue that these
parties had the means and appeal to challenge the monopoly of the FLN.
The FLN became the main antagonist to the liberalization program of
Benjedid and his then prime minister, Hamrouche. By the time of the
military coup, the FLN had completely broken with the government.
The December 1991 elections and the scheduled second-round runoffs in
January 1992 provided the first national test for the new multiparty
system. The elections were open to all registered parties--parties had
to register before the campaign period began--and were contested by
almost fifty parties. Voting was by universal and secret ballot and
assembly seats were awarded based on a proportional representation
system. Only 231 of the 430 seats were decided in the first round of
elections in which 59 percent of eligible voters participated, but an
Islamist victory seemed assured by the Islamist command of 80 percent of
the contested seats. The second round of elections was canceled by the
military coup of January 11, 1992.
Algeria - Electoral System
The judicial system, in common with other aspects of Algeria's
culture, shares features of its French and Arab traditions. Throughout
the French colonial period, secular courts prevailed as the final
judicial authority, although Islamic sharia courts had jurisdiction over
lower level cases, including civil cases, criminal offenses, family law,
and other personal matters. Secular courts in Algeria owed their
existence to the earlier Turkish administrative control, however, not
French imposition. The French courts replaced the Turkish courts and, in
so doing, modified them to reflect French principles of justice. The
secular courts were authorized to review sharia court decisions,
although for the majority of Algerians, the sharia court was the final
source of judicial authority. Following independence in 1962, the
government promised to create a new judicial system that would eliminate
the French colonial legacy and reflect more accurately the ideological
orientation of the new state, which was committed both to socialism and
the Arab and Islamic tradition. The revised legal system was not created
until 1975, under Boumediene, when new civil and criminal codes were
announced.
These codes reflected the divergent nature of socialist and
traditional Islamic notions of justice. Family law, personal status
(especially regarding the rights of women), and certain criminal
penalties were divisive issues and many were simply omitted from the new
judicial codes. In the 1980s, Benjedid proposed a family code, which
drew extensive public criticism but was ultimately passed in 1984.
Judges are appointed by the executive branch, and their appointment
may be challenged only by the High Judicial Council. Judges are not
tenured, although they remain relatively free from political pressure.
The 1976 constitution asserted a judicial responsibility to uphold the
principles of the revolution; this commitment has lessened in
importance, however, as Algeria has moved away from its socialist
origins.
The judicial tradition has stipulated that defendants be fully aware
of the charges against them, that they have free access to legal
counsel, and that they be able to contest a judicial outcome in a court
of appeal. The constitution upholds basic principles of personal liberty
and justice and prohibits the unnecessary holding of individuals for
questioning for longer than forty-eight hours. Under Benjedid's
political liberalization, constitutional respect for individual freedoms
expanded. A number of political prisoners were released, and the
elimination of exit visas and the legalization of political associations
facilitated the exercise of free speech, movement, and expression.
Individual freedoms were, however, subordinate to military concerns
and issues of national security and have been regularly suspended under
periods of martial law. The military leadership in the early 1990s
suspended almost all institutions of state, including those of the
judicial branch. Islamist leaders and other criminal offenders have been
tried by military tribunals and have received heavy sentences of
imprisonment or death. The HCE, as the military presidency, is an
authoritarian government responsible only to itself. Even at the best of
times, the executive is not subordinate to the judicial branch, the
president serving as head of the High Judicial Council. In the early
1990s, however, cases arising out of the state of emergency as opposed
to ordinary civil or criminal cases have been assigned to the military
tribunals.
Algeria - Supreme Court
All national power and decision-making authority rest in the hands of
a select elite and a select group of institutions. This elite structure
has been characterized by its triangular configuration of army, party,
and state. This configuration persists despite its fluidity--vacillating
between peaceful coexistence and vehement competition for dominance.
Events of the early 1990s and the subsequent realignment of this
political configuration in favor of the military pose substantial
challenges for Algeria's future development and stability because the
administrative elite and top party functionaries have been relegated to
a subordinate position.
In the years immediately following independence, no one faction of
the political elite could control the entire political system. National
preoccupation with state stability and political consolidation ensured a
relatively stable balance among the competing elite factions. Under
Boumediene, the party was reduced to a minor role while a civil-military
autocracy in the form of the Council of the Revolution emerged as the
predominant political force--consistent with Boumediene's vision of the
development of a stable and secure, heavily centralized government. The
party and other national institutions were allowed to disintegrate to
preclude the emergence of any significant opposition to his highly
concentrated government.
Renewed political institutionalization and mass politicization in the
late 1970s countered this diminution of the party's role. The 1976
National Charter and constitution acknowledged the party's historical
role while enhancing its position as the single legal party affiliation
under which candidates could run in the newly created local, regional,
and national assemblies. The elimination of the Council of the
Revolution and the subsequent absorption of its remaining members into
the Party Congress of the FLN after Boumediene's death further enhanced
the party's national status.
Benjedid's regime, despite a reduction of formal executive powers
immediately preceding his assumption of office, was marked by
"power consolidation" that strengthened his personal control
at the expense of state, military, and especially party elites. The
deemphasis on personal politics (at least at the highest levels of
government) and the increased importance of institutional life, however,
eventually opened the way for the army's return as the dominant
political force by greatly undermining the other sides of the political
triangle.
Algeria - The Elite
Historically, the elite enjoyed its greatest preeminence under the
socialist Boumediene regime, with its emphasis on heavy
industrialization. The elite includes civil service employees, the
technocratic top personnel in the state's major nationalized industries
and enterprises (e.g., the National Company for Research, Production,
Transportation, Processing, and Commercialization of Hydrocarbons and
the National Company for Electricity and Gas), and economic and
financial planners responsible for the national development program.
Together these elite groups are responsible for planning, developing,
focusing, and administering Algeria's economic and industrial sector.
Having expanded significantly under Boumediene, this sector contracted
substantially with the economic liberalization under Benjedid, although
it remained a vital force and, historically, the most efficient and
productive sector of the national elite. Because personal contacts and
privileged access to capital account for personal status and class in
Algeria, the administrative elite and its networks represent a major
factor in the political environment. The administrative elite, although
generally less politically visible than the party and military elites,
can directly influence development by managing programs linked to
economic growth and political stability.
Since the late 1980s, the administrative elite has provided a pool of
technocrats for the staff of both the civilian government and the
military presidency, which rely heavily on them in modernizing Algeria's
economy. At the same time, the administrative elite has increasingly
been plagued by factionalism.
The other major elements of the elite consist of the FLN and the
military. Within the FLN, the Party Congress is the highest political
organ. It consists of national delegates, representatives from the
various mass associations and professional unions, local and regional
elected officials, APN deputies, and military leaders. The congress
determines general party policy, adopts and revises party statutes, and
elects both the secretary general of the party and its Central
Committee. The Central Committee, which is divided into various
commissions, is an elected assembly that serves only during recesses of
the Party Congress.
The military, consisting primarily of the People's National Army (Arm�e
Nationale Populaire--ANP), has remained a constant force in Algerian
politics, at times quite visible, at times more subtle. The military's
most potent source of power emanates from its monopoly of the coercive
instruments of force. Equally significant, however, is the military's
symbolic role as "guardian of the revolution" and guarantor of
state stability. Its technical and administrative skills have been
critical to Algeria's political and economic development. A certain
domestic prestige stems from the military's influential role in regional
and international affairs. The military is also very active in local and
provincial affairs. Army officials are represented on all major
political institutions and frequently have more influence in regional
administration than do the civilian provincial governors.
Historically, the army has interfered only when conditions
"necessitated" military intervention to ensure the security of
the state. In January 1992, only days away from national legislative
elections that were likely to return a sweeping Islamist victory, the
military resurfaced politically in a highly visible manner. Anticipating
what the armed forces interpreted to be a "grave threat" to
the secular interests and political stability of the state and defying
the apparent government and national volition, the military demonstrated
that it alone would determine the course of Algerian politics.
Algeria - Military Dictatorship
The Benjedid government in the early 1980s relaxed the restrictions
on Islam and its political expression, hoping to preclude the
development of a more politically active Islamist movement. Islamist
political opposition to the regime was tolerated, more mosques were
constructed, religious education in the schools was encouraged, and in
1984 a new family code closely following Islamic tenets was enacted. A
number of prominent Islamic leaders were released from prison, including
Abbassi Madani, a university professor who would be one of the founders
of Algeria's first Islamic political party.
The FIS emerged as a political party on September 16, 1989. One of
the first parties to apply for legal recognition in Algeria's new
multiparty system, the FIS had begun to take shape in the months before
the constitutional revision that legalized political parties. Islamist
leaders met between February and August 1989 while the APN was debating
the new legislation that would enact the constitutional provision
allowing for the creation of "associations of a political
character." The FIS named Shaykh Abbassi Madani, a moderate
Western-educated professor of comparative literature at the University
of Algiers, as its leader. His second in command was Ali Benhadj, a high
school teacher known for his fiery and militant rhetoric and radical
notions of the role of political Islam. This dual leadership and the
lack of a clear doctrine allowed for the variable interpretation and
pluralistic nature of the FIS as a political party. The more moderate
Madani represented a conservative faction within the party intent on
using the democratic system to implement its Islamist code. Belhadj,
with wider grass-roots supports, drew the younger population intent on
the immediate imposition of Islamic law.
In line with the nationalist appeal of the Islamic movement, FIS as a
political party has transcended religious affiliation. In the economic
sphere, the FIS advocates a free-market approach with lower taxes and
incentives for developing the private sector. The party also calls for
cuts in military spending. Its program is largely driven by domestic
interests and is not linked to an international Islamist movement. In
fact, the party platform in late 1992 called for international
cooperation with the West to explore and expand Algeria's natural
resources and export potential.
Many people have minimized the strength of the FIS by maintaining
that its greatest appeal has been in the impoverished urban centers
filled with unemployed and discontented youth. To this view one must add
a few qualifiers. First, in the early 1990s more than 70 percent of
Algeria's total population was under the age of thirty (more than 50
percent was under the age of nineteen). To the extent that the party
appeals to disgruntled youth, it appeals to a huge percentage of the
population. Second, whereas large numbers of unemployed fill the ranks
of the FIS, they are without work primarily as a result of poor economic
policy and limited opportunity. These factors constitute an inevitable
and legitimate precipitate for a backlash vote against the incumbent
regime. Finally, the June 1990 local elections demonstrated that the
appeal of the FIS was not limited to the poorer districts. FIS
candidates won in many affluent districts in the capital and in such
provinces as El Tarf, home of Benjedid.
At the time of the June 1990 elections, the FIS was a pluralist and
generally moderate party. Under the leadership of Abbassi Madani, in
contrast to Ali Benhadj, the FIS resembled a moderate social democratic
party more than a radical Islamist party. The radicalization of the
Islamists and the violent uprisings that dominated political life in
1992 and 1993 resulted from the revived political authoritarianism led
by the army and were not necessarily an attribute of the party itself.
In fact, the party, untested in a national capacity, can be measured
only by its actions. In those local districts controlled by the FIS
since the 1990 elections, few of the radical changes feared by many
outsiders and the old guard in the ruling elite have transpired. In part
the retention of the status quo has been caused by substantial cuts in
municipal budgets and in part by the lack of time and flexibility to
alter drastically existing legislation. However, disagreements within
the leadership itself, especially over the timetable for implementation
of Islamic principles, have been perhaps the strongest factor in the
lack of change.
Algeria - CIVIL SOCIETY
If any one element of civil society has consistently presented a
cohesive and substantive constituency, it is the workers' unions. The
explosion of union activity following political liberalization in the
late 1980s indicates that the affiliational role of the unions has
persisted despite years of subordination to party directives.
The Algerian General Workers' Union (Union G�n�rale des
Travailleurs Alg�riens--UGTA) was created in 1956 after Algerian
participation in French trade unions was banned. Despite the union's
efforts to remain independent, it was taken over by the FLN leadership
in 1963. Under the party structure and the socialist tenets of the
National Charter, the UGTA became more of an administrative apparatus
than an independent interest group. The UGTA consistently opposed mass
strikes and public demonstrations that threatened productive economic
activity and supported government legislation to prohibit strikes in
certain industrial sectors. Until the mid-1980s, all member unions were
integrated federations spanning several industries. After 1984 and in
response to increasing independent activity on behalf of the workers,
these large federations were broken down into smaller workers'
assemblies, greatly reducing the political force of the large unions and
strengthening the managerial control of the UGTA authorities. The number
of strikes sharply declined in the following years.
From 1989 until January 1992, union activity increased to an
intensity not previously witnessed. Splits within the UGTA, the creation
of a number of new, smaller, and more active unions-- including the
formation of an Islamic labor union--and a rapid rise in the number of
strikes and demonstrations have quickly politicized a previously dormant
workers' movement. The frequency and size of labor strikes jumped;
Ministry of Labor figures placed the number of strikes for 1989 at 250
per month, four times that of the previous year.
The growth of the workers' movement illustrates the genuineness of
democratization in the period up to the January 1992 coup. Labor has
generally not supported economic liberalization, and strikes have
hampered a number of the government's free-market reforms. The
government's response to and tolerance for increased mass politicization
and especially union activity will undoubtedly provide clear evidence of
the likelihood for successful democracy in the 1990s.
Algeria - Youth and Student Unions
The Algerian women's movement has made few gains since independence,
and women in Algeria remain relegated to a subordinate position that
compares unfavorably with the position of women in such neighboring
countries as Tunisia and Morocco. Once the war was over, women who had
played a significant part in the War of Independence were expected, by
the government and society in general, to return to the home and their
traditional roles. Despite this emphasis on women's customary roles, in
1962, as part of its program to mobilize various sectors of society in
support of the socialism, the government created the National Union of
Algerian Women (Union Nationale des Femmes Alg�riennes-- UNFA). On
March 8, 1965 the union held its first march to celebrate International
Women's Day; nearly 6,000 women participated.
The union never captured the interest of feminists, nor could it
attract membership among rural workers who were probably most vulnerable
to the patriarchal tradition. In 1964 the creation of Al Qiyam (values),
a mass organization that promoted traditional Islamic values, delivered
another blow to the women's movement. The resurgence of the Islamic
tradition was largely a backlash against the role of French colonists in
the preindependence period. During the colonial period, the French tried
to "liberate" Algerian women by pushing for better education
and eliminating the veil. After the revolution, many Algerians looked
back on these French efforts as an attempt by the colonists to
"divide and conquer" the Algerians. Islam and Arabic tradition
became powerful mobilizing forces and signs of national unity.
Women's access to higher education has improved, however, even if
their rights to employment, political power, and autonomy are limited.
For the most part, women seem content to return to the home after
schooling. Overall enrollment at all levels of schooling, from primary
education through university or technical training, has risen sharply,
and women represent more than 40 percent of students.
Another major gain of the women's movement was the Khemisti Law.
Drafted by Fatima Khemisti, wife of a former foreign minister, and
presented to the APN in 1963, the resolution that later came to be known
as the Khemisti Law raised the minimum age of marriage. Whereas girls
were still expected to marry earlier than boys, the minimum age was
raised to sixteen for girls and eighteen for boys. This change greatly
facilitated women's pursuit of further education, although it fell short
of the nineteen-year minimum specified in the original proposal.
The APN provided one of the few public forums available to women. In
1965, following the military coup, this access was taken away when
Boumediene suspended the APN. No female members were elected to the APN
under Ben Bella, but women were allowed to propose resolutions before
the assembly (e.g., the Khemisti Law). In the early postindependence
years, no women sat on any of the key decision-making bodies, but nine
women were elected to the APN when it was reinstated in 1976. At the
local and regional level, however, women's public participation rose
significantly. As early as 1967, ninety-nine female candidates were
elected to communal assemblies (out of 10,852 positions nationwide). By
the late 1980s, the number of women in provincial and local assemblies
had risen to almost 300.
The 1976 National Charter went far toward guaranteeing legal equality
between men and women. The charter recognizes women's right to education
and refers to their role in the social, cultural, and economic facets of
Algerian life. However, as of early 1993, the number of women employed
outside the home remained well below that of Tunisia and Morocco.
A new family code backed by conservative Islamists and proposed in
1981 threatened to encroach on these gains and drew the protest of
several hundred women. The demonstrations, held in Algiers, were not
officially organized by the UNFA although many of the demonstrators were
members. The women's objections to the family code were that the code
did not contain sufficient reforms. The debate over the family code
forced the government to withdraw its proposal, but a conservative
revision was presented in 1984 and quickly passed by the APN before much
debate resurfaced. The 1981 proposal had offered six grounds for divorce
on the part of the wife, allowed a woman to work outside the home after
marriage if specified in the marriage contract or at the consent of her
husband, and imposed some restrictions on polygyny and the conditions in
which the wives of a polygynous husband were kept. In the revised code,
provisions for divorce initiated by women were sharply curtailed, as
were the restrictions on polygyny, but the minimum marriage age was
increased for both women and men (to eighteen and twenty-one,
respectively). In effect, however, although the legalities were altered,
little changed for most women. Further, it was argued, that the
enunciation of specific conditions regarding the rights of the wife and
the absence of such specifications for the husband, and the fact that
women achieve legal independence only upon marriage whereas men become
independent at age eighteen regardless of marital status, implicitly
underline women's inferior status. Protest demonstrations were once
again organized, but, occurring after the fact (the code had been passed
on June 9), they had little impact.
A number of new women's groups emerged in the early 1980s, including
the Committee for the Legal Equality of Men and Women and the Algerian
Association for the Emancipation of Women, but the number of women
actively participating in such movements remained limited. Fear of
government retaliation and public scorn kept many women away from the
women's groups. At the same time, the government had become increasingly
receptive to the role of women in the public realm. In 1984 the first
woman cabinet minister was appointed. Since then, the government has
promised the creation of several hundred thousand new jobs for women,
although the difficult economic crisis made achievement of this goal
unlikely. When the APN was dissolved in January 1992, few female
deputies sat in it, and no women, in any capacity, were affiliated with
the HCE that ruled Algeria in 1993, although seven sat on the
sixty-member CCN. The popular disillusionment with the secular regime
and the resurgence of traditional Islamist groups threaten to further
hamper the women's movement, but perhaps no more so than the patriarchal
tradition of the Algerian sociopolitical culture and the military
establishment that heads it.
Algeria - The Press
From national independence and until the late 1980s, Algeria had
almost no independent news media. Colonial legislation banned all
nationalist publications during Algeria's fight for independence, and,
although a few underground papers were circulated, independent Algeria
emerged with no significant national news source. Ben Bella did not
inhibit the freedom of the press in the immediate aftermath of the war,
but self-imposed limitations kept the press rather prudently
progovernment.
In 1964 government control tightened, and most Algerian news
publications were nationalized. All news media became subject to heavy
censorship by the government and the FLN. A union of journalists was
formed under FLN auspices but was largely insignificant as an
independent association until the late 1980s.
The primary function of the news media was not to inform or educate
but to indoctrinate--affirming and propagating the socialist tenets of
the national government, rallying mass support behind government
programs, and confirming national achievements. No substantive and
little surface-level criticism was levied against the regime, although
evaluations of the various economic and social problems confronting the
nation were available. Article 55 of the 1976 constitution provided that
freedom of expression was a protected liberty but that it could not
jeopardize the socialist objectives or national policy of the regime.
The Ministry of Information worked to facilitate government supervision
and to inhibit circulation of unauthorized periodicals. Almost all
foreign newspapers and periodicals were likewise prohibited. Television
and radio news programs escaped some of the more heavy censorship
although they, too, were expected to affirm government policies and
programs. Most news broadcasts were limited to international events and
offered little domestic news other than accounts of visiting foreign
delegations and outlines of the government's general agenda.
In the late 1980s, the situation changed under Benjedid. Independent
national news sources were encouraged and supported. The new
constitution reaffirmed the commitment to free expression, this time
with no qualifying restrictions. New laws facilitated and even
financially assisted emerging independent papers. Limitations on the
international press were lifted, resulting in a mass proliferation of
news periodicals and television programs presenting an independent
position to a nation accustomed to getting only one side of the picture.
The liberalization facilitated the creation and circulation of a
number of independent national French- and Arabic-language newspapers
and news programs. A 1990 law legislated a guaranteed salary for the
first three years to any journalists in the public sector establishing
independent papers. As a result of the explosion of local papers,
journals, radio and television programs as well as the relaxation of
laws inhibiting the international press, the Algerian public has been
educated and politicized. Journalists have become an important and
influential sector of civil society. One program in particular,
"Face the Press" (Face � la Presse), appearing
weekly and pitting national leaders against a panel of journalists, has
drawn immense popular enthusiasm. Among the major newspapers are AlMoudjahid
(The Fighter), the organ of the FLN, published in Arabic and
French; the Arabic dailies Ach Cha'ab (The People, also an FLN
organ), Al Badil (The Alternate), Al-Joumhouria (The
Republic), and An Nasr (The Victory); and the French dailies Horizons
and Le Soir d'Alg�rie (Algerian Evening). As part of the
military crackdown following the January 1992 coup, the news media have
been restricted once again. A limited number of newspapers and
broadcasts continue to operate, but journalists have been brought in by
the hundreds and detained for interrogating. Tens more have been
arrested or have simply disappeared, or have been killed by Islamists.
Algeria - The Arabization Movement
The arabization of society was largely a reaction to elite culture
and colonial domination and dates back to the revolutionary period when
it served as a unifying factor against French colonial forces. The
Arabic and Islamic tradition of the Algerian nation has been preserved
through constitutional provisions recognizing its fundamental role in
developing Algerian political character and national legislation
encoding its existence in Algerian daily life--in courts and in schools,
on street signs, and in workplaces. Arabization is seen as a means of
national unity and has been used by the national government as a tool
for ensuring national sovereignty.
Under Boumediene, arabization took the form of a national language
requirement on street signs and shop signs, despite the fact that 60
percent of the population could not read Arabic. Calls have been made to
substitute English for French as the second national language, eliminate
coeducational schooling, and effect the arabization of medical and
technological schools. Algeria remains caught between strident demands
to eliminate any legacy from its colonial past and the more pragmatic
concerns of the costs of rapid arabization.
Emotional loyalties and practical realities have made arabization a
controversial issue that has consistently posed a challenge to the
government. In December 1990, a law was passed that would effect
complete arabization of secondary school and higher education by 1997.
In early July 1993, the most recent legislation proposing a national
timetable for imposing Arabic as the only legal language in government
and politics was again delayed as a result of official concerns about
the existence of the necessary preconditions for sensible arabization.
The law was to require that Arabic be the language of official
communication--including with foreign nations, on television, and in any
other official capacities--and would impose substantial fines for
violations.
Meanwhile the pressure for arabization has brought resistance from
Berber elements in the population. Different Berber groups, such as the
Kabyles, the Chaouia, the Tuareg, and the Mzab, each speak a different
dialect. The Kabyles, who are the most numerous, have succeeded, for
example, in instituting the study of Kabyle, or Zouaouah, their Berber
language, at the University of Tizi Ouzou, in the center of the Kabylie
region. Arabization of education and the government bureaucracy has been
an emotional and dominant issue in Berber political participation. Young
Kabyle students were particularly vocal in the 1980s about the
advantages of French over Arabic.
The Arabization of Algerian society would expedite the inevitable
break with France. The French government has consistently maintained a
tolerant position, arguing that arabization is an Algerian
"internal affair"; yet it seems certain that such sweeping
changes could endanger cultural, financial, and political cooperation
between the two countries. Despite both Algerian and French statements
concerning the wish to break free of the legacy of the colonial past,
both nations have benefited from the preferential relationship they have
shared and both have hesitated to sever those ties. The language
question will undoubtedly remain a persistent and emotional issue far
into the future.
Algeria - FOREIGN POLICY
The Maghrib
The Maghrib remains a politically, economically, and strategically
important area for Algerian foreign policy objectives. Sharing economic,
cultural, linguistic, and religious characteristics, as well as national
borders, the Maghrib nations have historically maintained highly
integrated diplomatic interests. Before Algerian independence, the other
Maghrib nations, former colonies themselves, supported the
revolutionaries in their fight against the French, providing supplies,
technical training, and political assistance. After independence,
relations became strained, especially between Algeria and Morocco, whose
conservative ideological orientation conflicted with Algeria's socialist
direction, and tensions existed over boundary issues between the two.
Accusations of harboring political insurrectionists from each other's
countries damaged relations between Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia
throughout the 1970s. In the 1980s, however, political and economic
liberalization in Algeria drew the countries closer together, and
relations improved dramatically. As Algeria's foreign policy orientation
has shifted toward regional concerns and away from unsustainable
ideological commitments, efforts toward forging a Greater Maghrib have
dominated Algerian foreign policy.
The notion of a Greater Maghrib has historical allusions to a more
glorious and precolonial past and has provided a unifying objective to
which all Maghrib leaders have subscribed. Achieving more concrete steps
toward political and economic cooperation, however, has proved much more
difficult because political and economic rivalries and strategic
regional interests have frequently inhibited amicable relations. In 1964
a Maghrib Permanent Consultative Committee was established to achieve a
Maghrib economic community. This committee was plagued with differences,
however, and could not reach an agreement on economic union. In the late
1980s, following the historic diplomatic reconciliation between Algeria
and Morocco, an accord finally established an economic and political
Union of the Arab Maghrib (Union du Maghreb Arabe--UMA).
Morocco in June 1988 acceded to the formation of an inter-Maghrib
commission responsible for developing a framework for an Arab Maghrib
union. This action broadened the scope of the Treaty of Fraternity and
Concord that had originated in 1983 as a bilateral agreement between
Tunisia and Algeria. The treaty pledged each nation to respect the
other's territorial sovereignty, to refrain from supporting
insurrectionist movements in the other country, and to abstain from
using force for resolving diplomatic controversies. Prompted by Tunisian
diplomatic concerns about Libyan ambitions and Algeria's hope to
solidify its regionally predominant position through a solid political
confederation, Tunisia and Algeria opened the agreement to all other
Maghrib nations, and Mauritania joined later the same year.
(Mauritania's accession to the treaty precipitated a bilateral agreement
between Libya and Morocco, the Treaty of Oujda, signed in August 1984,
declaring political union and establishing a regional dichotomy.)
The UMA treaty--signed in February 1989 in Marrakech, Morocco, by
Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia--provided a loose
framework for regional cooperation. It established a presidential
council composed of the heads of state of each member country; the
countries jointly shared a rotating presidency, a consultative council,
and a judicial body. Aside from Libya, political inclinations for
turning the UMA into a more substantial confederation have been weak.
Plans for a common economic market will not come into effect until the
year 2000, and bilateral agreements have dominated political
negotiations. The greatest significance of the UMA is its symbolism. The
North African economic union presents a potential counterpart to the
European Community, whose cooperation threatens to undermine the
position of Maghrib exports and migrant workers. Political cooperation
has presented a means of countering the rise of Islamist radicals, who
in the early 1990s were challenging the political regimes in most if not
all of the North African nations. Finally, the UMA provides a regional
forum for resolving bilateral conflicts, the most notable of which has
been the Algerian-Moroccan dispute over the Western Sahara.
Algeria's relations with Morocco, its neighbor to the west and most
significant Maghrib rival, have been dominated by the issue of
self-determination for the Western Sahara. The national integrity of
this former colonial territory has caused a deepseated antagonism and
general mistrust between the two nations that has permeated all aspects
of Moroccan-Algerian relations. Algeria's interest in the region dates
back to the 1960s and 1970s when it joined Morocco in efforts to remove
the Spanish from the territory. After Spain announced its intention to
abandon the territory in 1975, the united front presented by the two
nations quickly disintegrated, as a result of Morocco, and subsequently
Mauritania, staking claims to the territory. Algeria, although not
asserting any territorial ambitions of its own, was averse to the
absorption of the territory by any of its neighbors and called for
self-determination for the Saharan people. Before the Spanish
evacuation, Spain, Morocco, and Mauritania agreed to divide the
territory and transfer the major part to Morocco and the remaining
southern portion to Mauritania. This agreement violated a United Nations
(UN) resolution that declared all historical claims on the part of
Mauritania or Morocco to be insufficient to justify territorial
absorption and drew heavy Algerian criticism.
Guerrilla movements inside the Saharan territory, most especially the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and R�o de Oro
(Frente Popular para la Liberaci�n de Saguia el Hamra y R�o de
Oro--Polisario), having fought for Saharan independence since 1973,
immediately proclaimed the creation of the Saharan Arab Democratic
Republic (SADR). Algeria recognized this new self-proclaimed state in
1976, and has since pursued a determined diplomatic effort for
international recognition of the territory; it has also supplied food,
mat�riel, and training to the guerrillas. In 1979, after many years of
extensive and fierce guerrilla warfare, Mauritania ceded its territorial
claims and withdrew. Morocco quickly absorbed the vacated territory.
Once the SADR gained diplomatic recognition from the Organization of
African Unity (OAU) and many other independent states, Morocco came
under international pressure. As a result, the Moroccan government
finally proposed a national referendum to determine the Saharan
territory's sovereignty in 1981. The referendum was to be overseen by
the OAU, but the proposal was quickly retracted by the Moroccan king
when the OAU could not reach agreement over referendum procedures. In
1987 the Moroccan government again agreed to recognize the Polisario and
to meet to "discuss their grievances." Algeria stipulated a
solitary precondition for restoration of diplomatic
relations--recognition of the Polisario and talks toward a definitive
solution to the Western Saharan quagmire. Without a firm commitment from
the Moroccan king, Algeria conceded and resumed diplomatic relations
with Morocco in 1988. The political stalemate and the guerrilla fighting
have continued almost uninterrupted since 1987. As of late 1993, UN
efforts to mediate the conflict as prelude to a referendum on the
territory seemed to be making modest headway.
Far less troublesome have been Algeria's relations with Tunisia.
Smaller and in a more precarious position vis-�-vis Libya, Tunisia has
consistently made efforts to align with Algeria. In the 1970s, Tunisia
reversed its position on the Western Sahara so as not to antagonize
Algerian authorities. Tunisia was the first nation to sign the Treaty of
Fraternity and Concord with Algeria, in 1983. Throughout Algeria's
independent history, it has joined in a number of economic ventures with
Tunisia, including the transnational pipeline running from Algeria
through Tunisia to Italy. In 1987 the departure from power in Tunisia of
President Habib Bourguiba and his replacement by the more diplomatic
Zine el Abidine Ben Ali brought the two nations closer again.
Similarly, relations with Libya have generally been amicable. Libyan
support for the Polisario in the Western Sahara facilitated early
postindependence Algerian relations with Libya. Libyan inclinations for
full-scale political union, however, have obstructed formal political
collaboration because Algeria has consistently backed away from such
cooperation with its unpredictable neighbor. (A vote by the CCN on June
30, 1987, actually supported union between Libya and Algeria, but the
proposal was tabled and later retracted by the FLN Central Committee
after the heads of state failed to agree.) The Treaty of Oujda between
Libya and Morocco, which represented a response to Algeria's Treaty of
Fraternity and Concord with Tunisia, temporarily aggravated
Algerian-Libyan relations by establishing a political divide in the
region--Libya and Morocco on one side; Algeria, Tunisia, and Mauritania
on the other. Finally, in 1988 Libya was invited to participate in the
inter-Maghrib commission that was responsible for developing the North
African union. The establishment of the UMA in February 1989 marked the
first formal political or economic collaboration between the two
neighbors.
Algeria - Sub-Saharan Africa
Despite its membership and founding role in the OAU, Algeria remains
a society much more closely affiliated with its Arab neighbors and
counterparts than with the African countries to the south. In many
countries, economic crisis and dependency on foreign aid have diminished
the prospects of liberation and movements and hence also reduced the
relevance of Algeria's liberation experience for those nations. Algeria
has, however, resolved its remaining border conflicts with Mali, Niger,
and Mauritania and generally maintains harmonious relations with its
southern counterparts. Economic linkages remain fairly limited in the
1990s, constituting less than 1 percent of Algeria's total trade
balance, although a new transnational highway running across the Sahara
is expected to increase trade with sub-Saharan Africa.
In the early postindependence years, Algeria committed itself to the
fight against colonialism and national suppression in sub-Saharan
Africa. Its commitment was reflected in its support for the
revolutionary movements in Zimbabwe, Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique,
and Namibia and in its condemnation of South Africa. Algeria has not
officially retreated from its earlier ideological affinity for the
revolutionary movements in Africa, but its role has become that of
mentor rather than revolutionary front-runner. As Algeria has found its
influence in the rest of Africa greatly reduced, its economic interests,
ideological affiliation, and identification have fallen more in line
with the Maghrib, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East.
Algeria has consistently reaffirmed its commitment to the OAU,
although its interests in this regional organization have frequently
been motivated more by tactical considerations than ideological
affinity. Algeria has worked toward strengthening the structure and
mediating capacities of the OAU, largely hoping to use the organization
to further its own views on the issue of self-determination for the
Western Sahara.
Algeria - Arab and Middle East Affairs
Algeria's national commitment to pan-Arabism and Arab causes
throughout the Middle East and North Africa has resulted in an active
role in the region. It joined the League of Arab States (Arab League)
immediately following national independence in 1962. Since that time,
Algeria's historical and ideological commitment to national revolution
and self-determination has resulted in a strong affinity for the
Palestinians in Israel, one of the Arab League's most compelling causes.
Algeria has consistently supported the Palestinians and the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) and spurned the idea of diplomatic
resolution with Israel. The Algerian government has steadily backed the
mainstream faction of the PLO under the leadership of Yasir
Arafat--hosting sessions of the PLO's National Council, intervening on
its behalf in diplomatic negotiations with Syria and Lebanon, condemning
internal divisions, and working toward the reconciliation of competing
factions within the organization. Algeria supported Arafat's decision,
denounced by Palestinian hard-liners, to sign a peace treaty with Israel
in September 1993.
Algeria's energetic efforts on behalf of the PLO and the Palestinian
cause have from time to time jeopardized its relations with other Arab
nations (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt), many of which host
significant Palestinian populations of their own. Despite Algerian
indebtedness to Egypt for assistance during the revolutionary period,
the Algerian government severed all relations with Egypt in the late
1970s over Egypt's peace treaty with Israel; relations gradually
improved only with a change of leadership in both countries. More
recently, Egypt's President Husni Mubarak and Algeria's President Chadli
Benjedid found each other's moderate policies more palatable than those
of their predecessors and jointly worked toward a resolution of the
Arab-Israeli conflict. Similarly, Algeria incurred difficulties with
Iraq over its involvement in the peace talks concluding the eight-year
war between Iran and Iraq. Persistent calls by Algeria for an end to the
conflict that it considered so damaging to the pan-Islamic movement led
to a peace proposal that Iraq viewed as overly favorable to Iran. The
proposal was alleged to have provoked Iraqi fighters to shoot down an
Algerian aircraft carrying prominent Algerian officials involved in the
peace talks, including the country's foreign minister.
Algeria shares a cultural identity with the Arab-Islamic nations but
is separated by its distance from the rest of the Middle East. The
closed nature of the authoritarian regime that governed Algeria for most
of its independent history has precluded the development of mass
enthusiasm for, or awareness of, external causes and conflicts.
The period of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 and the
subsequent retaliation by the largely Western coalition forces was the
first time a significant portion of the Algerian public became mobilized
over a foreign policy issue. Arab identification with Iraq drew support
from the masses in unprecedented numbers. The overt support for Iraq on
the part of the FIS and Ben Bella's Movement for Democracy in Algeria
(Mouvement pour la D�mocratie en Alg�rie) and a mass rally in support
of Iraq's Saddam Husayn resulted in a fast reversal by the government
from its original position condemning the Iraqi aggression. Changing
state-society relations--a more active civil society and a more informed
public--have meant new foreign policy directions characteristic of a
government more responsive to its public. In late 1993, Algeria's
foreign policy toward nations of the Middle East, however, had not
changed significantly. Its relations with the West, especially its
former colonizer, had changed markedly since the immediate
post-independence period.
Algeria - The West
Historically, the United States and Algeria have had competing
foreign policy objectives that have come closer only gradually.
Algeria's commitment to strict socialism and to a global revolution
against Western capitalism and imperialism antagonized relations with
the United States, seen, in Algerian eyes, to embody all that the
revolution scorned. United States maintenance of good relations with
France precluded close ties with Algeria in the years during and
following the War of Independence, although the United States sent an
ambassador to Algeria in 1962. Algeria broke diplomatic relations with
the United States in 1967, following the June 1967 war between Israel
and most of its neighbors, and United States relations remained hostile
throughout the next decade. United States intervention in Vietnam and
other developing countries, Algerian sponsorship of guerrilla and
radical revolutionary groups, United States sympathies for Morocco in
the Western Sahara, and United States support for Israel all aggravated
a fundamental ideological and political antagonism. Official relations
resumed in the mid-1970s, although it was not until the late 1970s that
relations normalized. By then Algerian leniency and passive tolerance
for terrorist hijackers drew enough international criticism that the
government modified its policy of allowing aid and landing clearance at
Algerian airports for hijackers.
In the 1980s, increased United States demands for energy and a
growing Algerian need for capital and technical assistance lessened
tensions and resulted in increased interaction with the United States
after the relative isolation from the West during the Boumediene years.
Liberalization measures undertaken by Benjedid greatly facilitated the
improved relations. In fact, an economic rapport with the West had been
growing throughout the previous decade despite tense political
relations. Algeria was becoming an important source of petroleum and
natural gas for the United States. In 1980 the United States imported
more than US$2.8 billion worth of oil from Algeria and was Algeria's
largest export market.
Algeria's role as intermediary in the release of the fiftytwo United
States hostages from Iran in January 1981 and its retreat from a
militant role in the developing world as its domestic situation worsened
opened the path to peaceful relations with the United States. Algeria's
domestic situation was becoming increasingly critical because its
traditional source of economic assistance, the Soviet Union, was
threatened by internal problems. In search of alternative sources of
aid, in 1990 Algeria received US$25.8 million in financial assistance
and bought US$1.0 billion in imports from the United States, indicating
that the United States had become an important international partner.
On January 13, 1992, following the military coup that upset Algeria's
burgeoning democratic system, the United States issued a formal but
low-key statement condemning the military takeover. Twenty-four hours
later, Department of State spokesmen retracted the statement, calling
for a peaceful resolution but offering no condemnation of the coup.
Since then, the United States, like many of its Western counterparts,
has appeared resigned to accepting a military dictatorship in Algeria.
The military government has reaffirmed its commitment to liberalizing
its domestic economy and opening the country to foreign trade,
undoubtedly accounting for some of the Western support for the new
Algerian regime.
Algeria - France and the Mediterranean Countries
Despite ambiguous sentiment in Algeria concerning its former colonial
power, France has maintained a historically favored position in Algerian
foreign relations. Algeria experienced a high level of dependency on
France in the first years after the revolution and a conflicting desire
to be free of that dependency. The preestablished trade links, the lack
of experienced Algerian government officials, and the military presence
provided for in the Evian Accords ending the War of Independence ensured
the continuance of French influence. France supplied much-needed
financial assistance, a steady supply of essential imports, and
technical personnel.
This benevolent relationship was altered in the early Boumediene
years when the Algerian government assumed control of French-owned
petroleum extraction and pipeline interests and nationalized industrial
and energy enterprises. French military units were almost immediately
pulled out. France, although apparently willing to maintain cooperative
relations, was overlooked as Algeria, eager to exploit its new
independence, looked to other trade partners. Shortly afterward,
Algerian interest in resuming French-Algerian relations resurfaced.
Talks between Boumediene and the French government confirmed both
countries' interest in restoring diplomatic relations. France wanted to
preserve its privileged position in the strategically and economically
important Algerian nation, and Algeria hoped to receive needed technical
and financial assistance. French intervention in the Western Sahara
against the Polisario and its lack of Algerian oil purchases, leading to
a trade imbalance in the late 1970s strained relations and defeated
efforts toward bilateral rapprochement. In 1983 Benjedid was the first
Algerian leader to be invited to France on an official tour, but
relations did not greatly improve.
Despite strained political relations, economic ties with France,
particularly those related to oil and gas, have persisted throughout
independent Algerian history. Nationalized Algerian gas companies, in
attempting to equalize natural gas export prices with those of its
neighbors, alienated French buyers in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
however. Later gas agreements resulted in a vast growth of bilateral
trade into the billions of dollars. Further disputes over natural gas
pricing in the late 1980s led to a drastic drop in French-Algerian
imports and exports. The former fell more than 10 billion French francs,
the latter 12 billion French francs between 1985 and 1987. A new price
accord in 1989 resurrected cooperative ties. The new agreement provided
substantial French financial assistance to correct trade imbalances and
guaranteed French purchasing commitments and Algerian oil and gas
prices. French support for Benjedid's government throughout the
difficult period in 1988 when the government appeared especially
precarious and subsequent support for economic and political
liberalization in Algeria expedited improved French-Algerian relations.
Finally, rapprochement with Morocco, a number of joint economic ventures
between France and Algeria, and the establishment of the UMA relaxed
some of the remaining tensions.
One source of steady agitation has been the issue of Algerian
emigration to France. French policies toward Algerian immigrants have
been inconsistent, and French popular sentiment has generally been
unfavorable toward its Arab population. The French government has
vacillated between sweeping commitments to "codevelopment,"
involving extensive social networks for emigrant Algerian laborers, and
support of strict regulations concerning work and study permits, random
searches for legal papers, and expeditious deportation without appeal in
the event of irregularities. North African communities in France remain
relatively isolated, and chronic problems persist for Algerians trying
to obtain housing, education, and employment. A number of racially
motivated incidents occur each year between North African emigrants and
French police and citizens.
Equally problematic has been Algeria's handling of the emigrant
issue. The government has provided substantial educational, economic,
and cultural assistance to the emigrant community but has been less
consistent in defending emigrant workers' rights in France, frequently
subordinating its own workers' interests to strategic diplomatic
concerns in maintaining favorable relations with France. The rise of
Islamism in Algeria and the subsequent crackdown on the Islamists by the
government have had serious implications for both countries: record
numbers of Algerian Islamists have fled to France, where their cultural
dissimilarity as Arab Islamists is alien to the country.
In the early 1990s, nearly 20 percent of all Algerian exports and
imports were destined for or originated from France. More than 1 million
Algerians resided in France and there were numerous francophones in
Algeria, creating a tremendous cultural overlap. French remained the
language of instruction in most schools and the language used in more
than two-thirds of all newspapers and periodicals and on numerous
television programs. Algeria and France share a cultural background that
transcends diplomatic maneuvers and has persisted throughout periods of
"disenchantment" and strained relations. Over time, however,
the arabization of Algeria and the increasing polarization of society
between the francophone elite and the Arab masses have mobilized
anti-French sentiment. Support for the arabization of Algerian
society--including the elimination of French as the second national
language and emphasis on an arabized education curriculum--and the
recent success of the FIS indicate a growing fervor in Algeria for
asserting an independent national identity. Such an identity emphasizes
its Arab and Islamic cultural tradition rather than its French colonial
past. However, France's support for the military regime that assumed
power in early 1992 indicates that the cooperative relations between the
two countries remain strong.
For obvious geographic reasons, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Turkey
share a privileged position in Algerian foreign relations. The economic
and strategic significance of Algeria as a geographically adjacent and
continentally prominent nation are relevant to the foreign policies of
the Mediterranean nations. Whereas Algeria's relations with France have
been complicated by confusing emotional and cultural complexities, its
relations with the other Mediterranean countries have been primarily
driven by economic factors. Both Spain and Italy have become substantial
importers of Algerian gas--1989 figures indicated that Italy was
Algeria's largest customer for natural gas. A transnational pipeline
with three undersea pipes runs from Algeria through Tunisia to Italy,
and work has begun on another. Greece and Turkey have both signed import
agreements with Algeria's national hydrocarbons company, known as
Sonatrach. Spain and Italy have extended sizable credit lines for
Algerian imports of Spanish and Italian goods. Since the latter 1980s,
Algeria has devoted increased attention toward regional concerns, making
the geographical proximity of the Mediterranean nations of growing
importance to Algeria's diplomatic and economic relations.
For the immediate preindependence and postindependence periods, the
best political analysis is found in William B. Quandt's Revolution
and Political Leadership: Algeria, 1954-1968 and David B. Ottaway
and Marina Ottaway's, Algeria: The Politics of a Socialist
Revolution. The Boumediene and Benjedid periods are covered from
contrasting conceptual perspectives in John P. Entelis's Algeria:
The Revolution Institutionalized, Mahfoud Bennoune's The Making
of Contemporary Algeria, 1830-1987, and Rachid Tlemcani's State
and Revolution in Algeria. The most recent analysis incorporating
political, economic, and social events through the military coup d'�tat
of January 1992 is the work edited by John P. Entelis and Philip C.
Naylor, State and Society in Algeria.
