Some ten years ago, Algeria lived to the rhythm of waves of massacres that wiped out entire hamlets, with the passivity, if not the complicity, of the army leadership. World public opinion mobilised to stop these massacres and to have an expert commission of inquiry, independent and free in its movements, visit Algeria. This demand, supported by many NGOs and by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, was fiercely rejected by the Algerian government.
At the 54th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in the spring of 1998, a petition that had gathered more than 5,000 signatures from around the world was handed to the Commission, and a sit-in was held at the exit of Room XVIII of the Palais des Nations to demand that a resolution on Algeria be tabled. Several heads of delegation had assured us that they would support action on Algeria should it be decided; but an influential country had to take the initiative. The Commission ended its work without adopting any concrete action on the Algerian tragedy; it was a disappointment for the human rights NGOs and for the thousands of citizens who had mobilised. The Algerian Ambassador, Mohamed-Salah Dembri, addressed the Commission on 22 April 1998 to explain that his government’s position was “faithful to that diplomatic tradition, peculiar to Algeria since independence, of rejecting perishable works and narrow calculations in favour of the powerful convergences of the international community on the ground of collective and solidary duty”. This success of Algerian diplomacy was due mainly to the “friendly solidarity” of the group of African countries and the “fraternal support” of the group of Arab countries within the Commission. In his statement the Algerian Ambassador did not fail to hail “the unanimous support given to us in the expression of our positions by the Non-Aligned world and by many other countries that are not members of it, [which] leads me here to fulfil a duty of gratitude, appreciation and thanks towards those who from the outset understood our approach and gave us their support.”
This unfortunate episode in the history of the Commission led me to express my disillusionment with the UN system in a contribution to the book An Inquiry into the Algerian Massacres (Hoggar, Geneva, 1999).
When the creation of the Human Rights Council was announced, hope was reborn that the new body would break free of the political dead weight that had paralysed the Commission. But alas, my enthusiasm was short-lived, for the same will to freeze UN action soon reappeared in the form of a pressure group made up of states known for their sorry record in protecting human rights, led by… the Algerian state. A group that wants to “nip in the bud” the newly created institution by rendering ineffective the few mechanisms and procedures inherited from the Commission that worked more or less properly, and by attacking in particular the independent experts of the special procedures.
The Algerian daily El Watan, through its Geneva correspondent Amine Djazaïri, stressed with great pride on 30 November 2006, during the third session of the HRC, Algeria’s role within the Human Rights Council in attacking the UN’s independent experts, and presented the adoption of a resolution aimed at imposing a “Code of Conduct” on the independent experts as “a first victory for Algeria on behalf of the African countries”.
In a recent interview (Le Temps, 5 April 2007) on Darfur, the head of the Algerian mission, Idriss Jazairy, “returned the favour” to the Sudanese government. I am aware of the complexity of this conflict, and that the truth on this question lies somewhere between what is published in the reports issued by the Sudanese authorities and those published by Western chancelleries, with facts minimised and exaggerated for political, ideological and even geopolitical reasons. That is precisely why we wanted to assess the situation and try to get closer to the reality. At the beginning of this year, six NGOs from Europe, Latin America and the Arab world joined together to carry out a fact-finding mission on the human rights situation in Darfur. Among them was the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies of the Cordoba Foundation of Geneva (CFG). On the eve of our departure we received a categorical, unexplained refusal from the Sudanese authorities. At the same time, other attempts also failed, including the visit of a delegation of the Human Rights Council. This attitude only strengthened my suspicion that the Sudanese government has things to hide concerning violations of the rights of the Muslim populations of Darfur, under a supposedly Islamic republic.
In the same interview the Algerian Ambassador referred to the Algerian situation, in particular the question of the “disappeared”, in terms that call for a few comments.
I am glad that the Ambassador acknowledges the existence of a problem of the “disappeared” in Algeria. His predecessor had accustomed us to cynical denial. In July 1998, when more than ten thousand Algerian citizens had been disappeared, abducted by the army, the police, the gendarmerie and the government militias, and when many families of the disappeared had come to Geneva to submit hundreds of documented case files of “disappearance” to the UN bodies, Mohamed-Salah Dembri, questioned on the subject on the TSR news, replied: “We have been given two names since the beginning. Two names that were put forward, about which we immediately alerted our authorities so that they would give us adequate answers. To see whether these people even exist in the civil registry. It is not enough to throw out a name; one must first prove that this is an Algerian citizen, that he exists, that he was born somewhere. It is not enough to stroll around Geneva with a few placards, fanciful photos, and to give fanciful places of detention and think that’s it, one has defended human rights.”
But when Idriss Jazairy asserts that the disappearances “were mainly the work of armed groups”, I ask who established this truth, and on the basis of what investigation? Knowing that for more than ten years we have been campaigning for an independent inquiry, and have come up against the systematic refusal of the Algerian authorities.
The Ambassador also informs us that “the security forces are also responsible in an individual capacity”. But then what measures has his government taken against these perpetrators of crimes? Has it prosecuted a single one? Has it not, on the contrary, promulgated a “Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation” that glorifies and honours all the repressive services, military and militia, and an ordinance stipulating that “no proceedings may be brought, individually or collectively, against members of the defence and security forces of the Republic, all components combined”, and which threatens a sentence of three to five years’ imprisonment against any citizen who “by his statements, writings or any other act” – a trial, for example – “undermines the institutions of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, harms the honour of its agents who have served it with dignity, or tarnishes the image of Algeria internationally”?
And when the Algerian diplomat asserts that “we were among the first to sign the convention on the disappeared”, I wonder whether he seriously thinks that a mere initial can resolve a problem as sensitive, tragic and complex as that of the “disappeared”. Moreover, may I remind the Ambassador that the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, its Optional Protocol and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in September 1989, in the middle of the “democratic interlude”, did not prevent, in the aftermath of the coup d’état of January 1992, the terrible wave of repression in which a quarter of a million citizens were killed and tens of thousands tortured.
The comparison that the Ambassador attempts to refute, without being asked, between “the death squads employed by Latin American governments to fight opponents and the struggle Algeria is waging against terrorists” is revealing of the Algerian regime’s unease at seeing, day after day, testimonies, analyses, academic studies and documentaries demonstrate the involvement of certain circles in the Algerian army and intelligence services in war crimes and crimes against humanity, as part of a counter-insurgency war and under cover of the fight against terrorism.
Finally, the most cynical thing in the Algerian diplomat’s remarks is that he tries to justify the “dirty war” waged against his people by a handful of unscrupulous generals with far-fetched arguments such as: “It would have taken little for Algeria to be destabilised to the point of resembling Somalia. That would have been catastrophic for the region.”
In December 1999, Mr Bouteflika sent to Washington as ambassador a friend of proven diplomatic qualities. After the events of 11 September, the latter was tasked with convincing the Bush Administration that Algeria was the best ally of the United States in its “war on terror”. The strengthening in recent years of military and security relations between the two countries suggests that he accomplished his mission. In November 2004 the same ambassador was dispatched to Geneva to make up for the shortcomings of his predecessor’s rather undiplomatic methods and to take matters in hand within the UN human rights system. Will he win his bet?
It is in the interest of human rights, and the duty of the few countries that defend them and of the NGOs and activists devoted to them, to stand up to this revolt led by the Algerian state aimed at undermining the very foundations of the HRC, so as to make it not a “conscience of humanity”, as the Algerian Ambassador claims, but an instrument under the control of dictators, serving to enshrine the international community’s deafness to the laments of the wretched of the earth.
Abbas Aroua, 23 April 2007
