Refracted Violence Background Image

Conflict in Algeria

Between 1954 and 1962, Algeria fought a war for its independence from the French,who had colonised it in 1830. Independence brought new freedoms but also saw the Algerian army become an essential (if partly hidden) part of the political landscape. Over generations, all Algerian presidents have been veterans of thatwar, and have needed the support of the army to remain in power. Algeria has a democratic system but was a one-party state until 1989, and it remains debatable whether it is a “free and fair” democracy. Dissent has often been repressed by the security forces, notably in 1988(Black October) and 2001 (the Black Spring).The recent peaceful protest movement known as the Hirak, which began in 2019, was initially successful but gradually became the victim of state repression as leaders were arrested and imprisoned. Many remain in jail.

 

During the 1990s the country suffered a brutal civil war known as the black decade, in which up to 200,000 people were killed and several thousand “disappeared”. The conflict began after the state closed down elections when the FIS (Front Islamiquedu Salut) were on the pointof winning. A conflict ensured between the army and the most radicalIslamist groups, with massacres of civilians committed by both sides and much confusion as to “who killed who” (both sides in the war disguised themselves as the other).

 

President Bouteflika came to power in 1999 as the civil conflict was ending. His long presidency was characterised by a series of amnesty laws, an official policy of forgetting, and avoiding debates on the black decade. This has meant that there remainwidespread feelings of injustice and impunity (for perpetrators of violence on both sides), and there has been no official process of “truth and reconciliation”, noproper enquiry into the thousandswho were “disappeared” by the state forces, and little sense of recognitionfor the victims of the violence or their families.

  • 1960s

    the period known as “The Troubles,” lasted from the late 1960s until the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, Dungannon was the site of a number of violent incidents.

  • 1954-1962

    The Algerianwar of independence against the French; known in Algeria as “the Revolution”.

  • 1962-1964

    The FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) becomes the dominant force in Algerian politics, aided by wiping out or exiling the other nationalist groups which fought against the French.

  • 1988

    Black October: the army shoot on a crowd of protestors in Algiers,killing 500. The social contract between army and “the people” is broken.Some cultural and political reforms do follow the next yearsuch as the end of the one-party system.

  • 1991

    Elections are aborted in December as the FIS (Front Islamique Salut) was poised for victory.

  • 1992

    The FIS is declared illegal and goes underground. Assassination of new President Mohammed Boudiaf,whohad been seen as a powerful figure of reform. Algeria plunges rapidly into civilconflict.

  • 1999

    The army having very gradually gained the upper hand, and public support for the increasingly brutal Islamist groupsfading away, the conflict comes to an end. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is elected. The first of his amnesty laws is approved in a referendum. Critics have since described his amnesty and reconciliation policies as organised forgetting (amnesty as amnesia).

  • 2001

    State repression of protests at police killing of youth in Tizi-Ouzou, Kabylia (a Berber region). The violence is known in Kabylia as the Black Spring.

  • 2019

    Hirak movement (peaceful protest)begins in February and mobilises huge numbers calling for Bouteflika (who is in ill health and in his 80s) not to stand for an unprecedented fifth term in office. Heultimately stands aside,but political reform does not follow, and gradually the state begins to arrest and imprison key protestors.

  • 2020

    Covid-19 pandemic can be seen to have allowed the regime to reinforce its control of pubic space and to halt the development of the Hirak.

Memories of the Algerian civil war

Portrait: Algerian self-defence group leader

Portrait: Leader of a Self-Defence Group

Leader of a self-defence group speaks

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