- Title: ALGERIA: ALGERIANS PREPARE FOR FORTHCOMING PEACE REFERENDUM
- Date: 14th September 1999
- Summary: ALGIERS, ALGERIA (SEPTEMBER 14) (REUTERS) 1. TOP SHOT OF ALGIERS 0.04 2. VARIOUS STREET SCENES (3 SHOTS) 0.20 3. VARIOUS NEWSPAPER STAND / PEOPLE READING NEWSPAPERS / HEADLINES ON REFERENDUM (4 SHOTS) 0.38 4. VARIOUS OF REFERENDUM POSTERS AND BANNERS IN STREET (4 SHOTS) 0.55 5. SV (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) MAN SAYING HE IS OPTIMISTI
- Embargoed: 29th September 1999 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: ALGIERS, ALGERIA
- Country: Algeria
- Reuters ID: LVA3GP0ILSIJ0V8L2KGJYQ4EQODY
- Story Text: Algeria will have a peace referendum on Thursday
designed to end a decade of strife and start repairing the
wounds caused by over 100,000 murders.
Called by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his so-called
Civilian Concord law, some critics say the referendum has been
called only to try to legitimise his April election victory,
devalued when all his six rivals withdrew at the last minute
amid vote-rigging allegations.
But others are optimistic, indeed many believe that this
is the only hope for the future of Algeria.
Arab and Western governments hope that a massive
endorsement of the president's peace policy in a referendum on
Thursday will set Algeria on the long road to reconciliation
and reform after nearly a decade of brutal civil strife.
Bouteflika says 100,000 people have been killed in
Algeria's civil strife.He has called the referendum to put a
popular stamp of approval on a peace plan that has so far
involved a pardon for thousands of Moslem rebels and their
supporters.
But some foreign experts are sceptical of President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika's ability to deliver real change in a
system where armed forces chiefs with entrenched economic
interests hold the real power behind the throne.
After an unpromising election in April, in which all his
opponents dropped out in protest at alleged fraud, the veteran
former foreign minister has built on a truce negotiated
earlier by the generals with the main Islamic guerrilla movement.
He has granted an amnesty to some political prisoners,
vented public frustration at corruption and inefficiency and
talked incessantly of reform in a flood of almost nightly
television appearances, speeches and interviews.
But there have been daily reports of mostly small-scale
killings during the referendum campaign, challenging
Bouteflika's claim to be ending a civil war in which he says
100,000 have died since the army intervened to cancel a
general election in 1992, which the Islamic Salvation Front
(FIS) was poised to win.
Despite the truce with the main Islamic Salvation Army
(AIS), shadowy extreme Islamic groups and organised crime by
private militias remained a problem.
Algeria-watchers doubt that Bouteflika has much autonomy
to take decisions without the approval of military chiefs and
some are concerned that he may misread his own power and run
into trouble, as his forerunners did.
His immediate predecessor, retired General Liamine
Zeroual, also pledged to restore democratic legitimacy to
Algeria and bring about peace and national reconciliation.He
was forced to resign early after being outmanoeuvred by
military rivals.
An earlier head of state, Mohammed Boudiaf, was
assassinated in 1992 after apparently falling foul of powerful
generals by pressing for a clean-up of corruption.
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