Algerian Security Forces Behind Over 6,000 Disappearances

ALGIERS, 1 April 2005 — Algerian security force members were responsible for the disappearances of more than 6,000 civilians during a decade-long struggle with rebels, a government-appointed commission has concluded.

“The 6,146 I am referring to are people who have disappeared because of the actions of agents of the state (security forces),” Farouk Ksentini, appointed by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to probe an issue that has haunted the government for years, told Reuters yesterday.

“We cannot say whether they are dead or alive. We have said that they have disappeared,” he said, adding that the agents had acted on their own initiative and not on orders of the state. The missing, suspected of being rebels or supporting them, were taken in for interrogation by security forces across Algeria in the 1990s and never seen again. They are presumed dead.

This report, labeled “explosive” by the media, is unprecedented as it addresses the until now taboo issue of the involvement of state forces in unlawful acts during the conflict, which threatened the very survival of the state. Algeria plunged into near civil war when militants unleashed “jihad” after the army cancelled legislative elections in 1992 that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was set to win. The army feared an Iranian-style revolution.

Authorities estimate that 150,000 people died during the uprising. Violence has sharply fallen in recent years.

“The most important thing for us was that the truth be told,” said Ksentini, a lawyer, who is also president of a government-appointed human rights commission.

The report, whose full findings have not been released, said the state was responsible for failing to provide security for its citizens but not guilty of the acts of disappearances.

“The fact that the state recognizes that security agents were implicated is a courageous act,” said Mahmoud Belhimer, a professor and deputy editor of Algeria’s largest newspaper.