SETIF, Algeria, 26 August 2005 — President Abdelaziz Bouteflika urged Muslim militants yesterday to lay down their arms but said that Algeria will not offer an amnesty to everyone in exchange for ending more than a decade of violence.
Human rights groups and families of victims of the conflict that has engulfed Algeria since 1992 fear a partial amnesty due to be voted on in a referendum on Sept. 29 would result in the pardon of Islamists who killed civilians and soldiers.
“I extend my hand to those who are in the mountains to lay down their arms but I stress that there will be no general amnesty,” Bouteflika told thousands of supporters in the city of Setif, some 350 km (220 miles) east of the capital Algiers.
The president is campaigning across the North African country ahead of a national referendum on whether a partial amnesty should be given to hundreds of armed militants.
Bouteflika says the “charter for peace and national reconciliation” will exclude militants involved in massacres, rape and explosions in public places. But legal proceedings will be dropped against rebels who had surrendered and against some still at large if they handed themselves in.
This is the third attempt by Algerian authorities to bring to an end a Muslim militant uprising which has cost 150,000-200,000 lives. Two previous laws gave exemption from prosecution for rebels and saw thousands surrender.
The insurgency began when the army stepped in and cancelled elections a now-banned radical Islamic party — the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) — was poised to win in 1992. It feared an Iranian-style revolution.
A minority of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), Algeria’s leading outlawed militant group, are expected to keep fighting authorities for a purist Islamic state.
Rights groups have branded the amnesty a “charter of impunity” that would deprive some victims’ families of justice.
“The charter contains provisions aimed at exonerating both security forces and armed groups from accountability for grave human rights abuses,” Amnesty International said.
“Such provisions are inconsistent with Algeria’s obligations under international law and may be a final denial of truth and justice to hundreds of thousands of victims and their families,” it said in an Aug. 22 statement.
But most political parties have backed the charter, with the country’s largest legal Islamic party — El Islah — giving its approval yesterday.
“The project reflects the aspirations of the majority that want to turn the page of a decade of blood and tears,” Zakaria Bakhti, mayor of the city M’Sila, told Reuters.
