Islamists, soldiers, and democrats: The second Algerian war

Middle East Journal

Volumn 50, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 16-38

  Mortimer, Robert ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0040861496     PISSN: 00263141     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. Rémy Leveau, "FIS: l'armée veut négocier" (FIS: The army wants to negotiate), Le Nouvel Observateur, 3-9 February 1994, p. 36. See also his Le Sabre et le turban: l'avenir du Maghreb (The Saber and the Turban: The Future of the Maghreb) (Paris: François Bourin, 1993).
2. Rémy Leveau, "FIS: l'armée veut négocier" (FIS: The army wants to negotiate), Le Nouvel Observateur, 3-9 February 1994, p. 36. See also his Le Sabre et le turban: l'avenir du Maghreb (The Saber and the Turban: The Future of the Maghreb) (Paris: François Bourin, 1993).
3. See the editorial in the army's official monthly, al-Jaysh (The Army) (April 1991),
4. as excerpted in Maghreb-Machrek 133 (July-September 1991), pp. 127-28.
5. Abdelkader Yefsah, "L'armée sans hidjab" (The army without veil), Les Temps Modernes (January-February 1995), p. 154.
6. Among these were the officers who began their careers in the French army (referred to as the DAF for "démissionnaires de l'armée française," or those who quit the French army) and those who rose directly out of the uprising (maquisards), those who were trained in the Middle East or the Soviet Union, the more and less technocratically oriented, and various regional clans. These subgroups within the officer corps required constant balancing.
7. Interview with Nizar, cited in Abed Charef, Algérie, le grand dérapage (Algeria: The Big Skid) (La Tours d'Aigues: Editions de l'Aube, 1994), p. 55.
8. It is worth noting that Nizar concluded this interview by rejecting the idea of a "barracks army," reiterating the army's responsibility to intervene if the "unity of the nation" were in danger. Charef. Algérie, p. 56.
9. Pierre Dévoluy and Mireille Duteil, La Poudrière algérienne (The Algerian Powderkeg) (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1994), p. 43.
10. Ahmed Rouadjia, "Du nationalisme du FLN àl'islamisme du FIS" (From the nationalism of the FLN to the Islamism of the FIS), Les Temps Modernes (January-February 1995), p. 129.
11. Ibid., p. 132. See also his Les Frères et la mosquée (The Brothers and the Mosque) (Paris: Karthala, 1990).
12. Ibid., p. 132. See also his Les Frères et la mosquée (The Brothers and the Mosque) (Paris: Karthala, 1990).
13. For a thorough analysis of the various ideological currents and groupings within the Islamist movement, see Séverine Labat, "Islamisme et islamistes en Algérie: un nouveau militantisme" (Islamism and Islamists in Algeria: A new militancy) in Gilles Kepel, ed., Exils et Royaumes: les appartenances au monde arabo-musulman aujourd'hui (Exiles and Kingdoms: Memberships in the Arab-Muslim World Today) (Paris: Presses de la FNSP, 1994), pp. 41-67.
14. For an analysis of the role of "solidarities and oppositions based on kinship," see Thierry Michalon, "L'Algérie des cousins" (The Algeria of cousins), Le Monde Diplomatique (November 1994), pp. 1, 16-17.
15. See Charef, Algérie, pp. 222-51.
16. Forty-one percent of the registered voters abstained. Furthermore, there were nearly a million invalid ballots. This explains why Jacques Fontaine writes of the 1991 results, "[I]n fact the first party by far is that of the abstentionists. With the addition of the spoiled and blank ballots, it represents nearly 50% of the electorate." See his "Les élections législatives algériennes: résultats du premier tour" (Algerian legislative elections: Results of the first round), Maghreb-Machrek 135 (January-March 1992), pp. 154-65. As regards the irregularities, FIS municipal officials neglected to distribute some 900,000 voters' cards and otherwise manipulated the voting lists; some of the spoiled ballots were invalidated by the vote checkers themselves.
17. See Lahouari Addi, L'Algérie et la démocratie (Algeria and Democracy) (Paris: Editions la Découverte, 1994), particularly chapter 8, for a discussion of the idea of a civic pact applied to the Algerian case.
18. Charef, Algérie, p. 338.
19. The circumstances of the assassination remain obscure. Boudiaf was shot by a soldier, temporarily assigned to his personal security guard. In June 1995, Lembarak Boumaarafi was sentenced to death for the crime, but many Algerians questioned whether he had acted of his own will.
20. Le Monde, 8 February 1994.
21. The FFS received 510,661 votes. The FLN had three times as many votes (1,612,947) for its 16 seats.
22. Charef, Algérie, p. 378.
23. On 22 March 1993, for example, a large anti-terrorist rally took place in Algiers in which banners calling upon the army to take power directly appeared.
24. Dévoluy and Duteil, Poudrière, p. 305. The hypothesis that Mirbah was eliminated by the military hardliners circulated widely, but the GIA publicly claimed responsibility for the assassination.
25. Le Monde, 11 December 1993.
26. Charef, Algérie, p. 508. The CDN did confirm that unspecified "contacts" with the FIS took place, and the exiled leadership of the FIS also stated that the government had made such a contact. Le Monde, 27 January 1994.
27. Charef, Algérie, p. 508. The CDN did confirm that unspecified "contacts" with the FIS took place, and the exiled leadership of the FIS also stated that the government had made such a contact. Le Monde, 27 January 1994.
28. Cited in Charef, Algérie, p. 502.
29. Le Monde, 9 February 1994.
30. The FLN assumed the primary responsibility for organizing the march. The FFS was wary that the FLN and the FIS might strike a deal that would leave the "democratic pole" isolated. The FIS, however, was not interested in appearing to be coopted by the FLN. Thus, the tactic backfired as only some 20,000 people marched - a number considerably less than had been seen at other political rallies.
31. Le Monde, 8 September 1994.
32. Le Monde, 15 September 1994.
33. Le Monde, 17 September 1994.
34. Le Monde, 30-31 October 1994.
35. Ibid.
36. Le Monde, 1 November 1994.
37. Gilles Millet, "Les fruits de la mauvaise foi" (The fruits of bad faith), Libération, 1 November 1994.
38. There had, in fact, been prior contacts between the legal parties and the leaders of the FIS in the prison in Blida and during the period of house arrest in Algiers.
39. Le Monde, 24 November 1994.
40. Mehri confided to the press that he was "stupefied by the political evolution of a man like Benhadj," whose position had become much more pragmatic in the face of the threat of the GIA. See Jean-Paul Mari, "Rome: le labyrinthe de la paix" (Rome: The labyrinth of peace), Le Nouvel Observateur (19-25 January 1995), pp. 28-29
41. The text of the Platform of Rome may be found in Le Monde Diplomatique (March 1995), p. 7.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Omar Belhouchet, "Pourquoi Alger voit rouge" (Why Algiers is seeing red), Le Nouvel Observateur (9-15 February 1995), p. 46.
45. Le Monde Diplomatique (March 1995), p. 7.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Jeune Afrique, 2-8 February 1995.
49. Le Monde, 3 February 1995.
50. The turnout was reported to be very high, with 74.92 percent of the electorate voting: 61.34 percent for Zeroual; 25.3 percent for Nahnah; 9.29 percent for Sa'di; and 3.78 percent for Boukrouh. Le Monde, 19-20 November 1995, p. 4.
51. Le Monde, 23 February 1995.