UNITED NATIONS: Rights Groups Face Struggle on Algeria

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 4 1997 (IPS) - A new appeal for the United Nations to become more involved in the Algerian conflict faces the same stumbling block encountered by previous efforts: Algeria’s demand that the world body stay away.

Seven groups – Amnesty International, the Arab Women’s Council, the Arab American Institute, the American Muslim Council, American Near East Refugee Aid, the National Association of Arab Americans and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee – have urged the United Nations to hold a special session on the Algerian massacres.

“Violence in Algeria during the past year has reached an unprecedented level, with thousands of civilians killed and thousands more forced to flee their homes,” the groups said in a joint statement released Monday.

“The scale and brutality of the recent massacres are baffling,” the groups added. “Men, women, children and poor and elderly people have been slaughtered, decapitated, mutilated and burned alive in their homes. Some of these massacres, which lasted for hours, took place right next to army barracks and security forces posts.”

“The reason behind calling for a meeting is to get things out in the open, to find out who is killing whom,” said Abderrahim Sabir, chairman of Amnesty International USA’s North African Coordination Group. Determining responsibility for the massacres, he argued, would benefit the government in Algiers as well as aid in ending the conflict.

“We are hoping that (the Algerian government) will accept the call for a human rights investigation,” Sabir said. But Algeria has been wary of outside involvement, and has refused U.N. offers of help several times over the past few months.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan argued in September that the massacres “could not be considered an internal affair” and urged greater international involvement in settling the crisis.

While the banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) of Algeria welcomed Annan’s comments, President Lamine Zeroual’s government rebuffed the offer of assistance as unwelcome intrusion.

“President Zeroual indicated that Algeria has the means, has the strong capabilities and the institutions to handle the situation itself,” Annan said after he discussed the crisis with the Algerian president. The U.N. chief ended his bid for direct involvement, saying, “It takes two to tango.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson fared no better when she tried to convince Algerian officials of the need for international involvement in the crisis. She conceded last month that she had “a clear difference on the issue of sovereignty” with the Zeroual government, which snubbed her efforts to push for a human rights investigation there.

“It is not a matter, in our complex, interrelated world that can be the sovereignty of any one country,” she said of the massacres. “Teachers are being hacked in front of students, children are traumatised in an appalling way… (The massacres) should be a matter of international concern.”

“It is time for the Algerian government to realise that human rights protection is not an issue of ‘internal affairs’, and that no state, Algeria included, is above international security,” the seven groups said in their statement. “At a time when its citizens are being slaughtered en masse week after week, the government of Algeria should welcome – not oppose -international attention aimed at helping to protect lives.”

Algeria’s response to the various offers of international support has been consistent: After each one, the foreign ministry has released an official statement blaming the killings on terrorism, arguing that the situation is under control and urging governments not to interfere in its sovereign affairs.

In the most recent statement, Mohamed-Salah Dembri, Algerian Ambassador to the United Nations, said that “at no time” had Algeria considered allowing a U.N. human rights team to investigate the massacres. A statement released at the same time repeated the government’s claim that “the situation is under control.”

Algeria has moved even more forcefully against critics of Algeria’s human rights record. Sabir said that the Zeroual government last week began an effort to withdraw the U.N. consultancy status of both Amnesty International and the Paris- based International Human Rights Federation, both of which are non- governmental organisations (NGOs) accredited by the U.N. Economic and Social Council.

“We reminded the high commissioner (Robinson) that we would resist these NGOs to the end,” Dembri said, accusing the two rights groups of making “slanderous and defamatory” statements.

Algeria’s military-backed government has been fighting Islamic radicals for five years, following the military’s cancellation of the second round of 1992 elections in which the FIS — then a legal party — held a commanding lead. Since then, at least 20,000 people have been killed, with both the government and extremist groups, notably the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), sharing the blame. At least several hundred more people have been killed in massacres since the summer.

FIS leader Abbasi Madani, who is under house arrest, responded to Annan’s offer several months ago with a letter calling for U.N. mediation. Sources who did not want to be revealed told IPS that the FIS has welcomed all offers of U.N. involvement — although there are few ways to confirm the Islamists’ attitude, given the restrictions on covering the FIS in Algeria’s media.