ALGIERS, 13 May 2003 — Ten key players on the Algerian political scene yesterday called for two leaders of the banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) party to be released from prison to promote national reconciliation after more than a decade of civil war. The 12-year prison sentences handed down on FIS leaders Abbasi Madani and Ali Belhadj in July 1992, mainly for undermining state security, are due to expire at the end of June.
Belhadj, 47, and Madani, 72, were arrested along with five other FIS leaders in June 1991 after calling on followers of their party to stage a political strike which degenerated into bloody clashes with security forces. The five other FIS leaders have since been released. Madani was transferred from prison to house arrest in 1997 and Belhadj is the last remaining FIS leader in jail.
In a statement published in the press yesterday, 10 prominent political players called on the Algerian authorities “to apply the law that stipulates that the two chouyoukhs (spiritual chiefs) be liberated” once they have completed their prison terms.
Setting free the two men would ease tensions and “renew hopes of moving forward with national reconciliation which is the wish of all Algerians,” the statement said.
Among the signatories to the statement were former President Ahmed Ben Bella, former Prime Minister Ahmed Taleb-Ibrahimi, Islamic party chiefs Abdallah Djaballah of the National Reform Movement (MRN) and Mahfoud Nahnah of Movement for a Society of Peace (MSP), and the head of the Algerian Human Rights Defense League (LADDH), lawyer Abdennour Ali-Yahia.
Many of those who signed the statement have expressed fears that the detention of Madani and Belhadj would continue even after their prison terms have expired. The FIS was outlawed in March 1992, two months after the army cancelled a second round of legislative elections the Islamist party was poised to win. The FIS wanted to set up an Islamic republic in Algeria.
Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer arrived in Algiers yesterday and called for the mystery surrounding 31 European tourists, missing and feared kidnapped in the Algerian Sahara, to be resolved quickly and without loss of life.
“It is important that we that we bring home our compatriots, safe and sound, as soon as possible,” Fischer told reporters upon arrival at Algiers airport, where he was met by his Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Belkhadem. “I would like to thank the Algerian authorities and government for efforts they have made in finding a solution to this problem.”
Algeria has deployed thousands of soldiers to hunt for the tourists — 15 Germans, 10 Austrians, four Swiss nationals, a Dutchman and a Swede — some of whom have been missing without a trace in Algeria’s vast southern Sahara since February.
The European tourists were traveling in six distinct groups without guides when they disappeared mysteriously in the space of a month in the desert, which covers two million square kilometers (775,000 square miles) in Algeria alone.
Fischer said he was “very happy to be in Algiers for these talks,” while stressing that “naturally, the fate of our compatriots, who have disappeared with other tourists will be at the centre of the discussions.” A statement issued Sunday by Fischer’s office before he left Germany said he would hold talks with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika as well as with Belkhadem, focusing mainly on the missing tourists but also touching on bilateral relations and the situation in the Middle East.
