Algeria's State Terrorism

[Owen Parsons]

Recently I've become interested in the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s, which was triggered by the Algerian military's nullification of the Islamic Salvation Front's win in the January 1992 elections on the interesting pretext that they would destroy democracy.

Its been something of an open secret that the hideously brutal massacres of civillians, sometimes wiping out entire villages, that were so characteristic of the conflict were actually carried out by the Algerian state and its proxies. This was strongly hinted at by many human rights organizations at the time the carnage was occuring and now it doesn't even seem to be particularly controversial. Noam Chomsky notes:

Turns out that Algeria is very enthusiastic about the US war against terror. [...] Algeria is one of the most vicious terrorist states in the world and has been carrying out horrendous terror against its own population in the past couple of years, in fact. For a while, this was under wraps. But it was finally exposed in France by defectors from the Algerian army. It's all over the place there and in England and so on. But here, we're very proud because one of the worst terrorist states in the world is now enthusiastically welcoming the US war on terror and in fact is cheering on the United States to lead the war. That shows how popular we are getting.

A very good and thorough overview of the conflict is provided by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, "Algeria and the Paradox of Democracy," which may be read here.

Discussion is welcome.

Edited August 4, 2006 by Owen Parsons