Today, 29 September 2005, the Algerian population are going to vote. Usually you vote for your future, but it appears that in Algeria you vote for a different reason – for the past. Since the end of the civil war, which cost the country so many lives, Algeria has been trying to live again, but the lacerations created by a justice system that hasn’t been able to punish the guilty are still too deep. The person responsible for the rebirth of Algeria after the "dirty war" is Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the president of the Republic. Since coming to power his policy towards the crimes committed during the war, whether by the army or by the fundamentalists, has always been to let bygones be bygones, first with an amnesty and now with a referendum. The objective is to draw a line under the past, consigning the massacres to history and those responsible for them to oblivion. But instead of a vote about this question it seems to be more a referendum on the president himself, who won the last elections and was confirmed president of Algeria because he was the man who supported pacification. Given the meagre results, with hundreds of people killed in clashes between the army and fundamentalists, he’s now playing the definitive card designed to finish once and for all with the past. But who is Bouteflika? Here’s his story, told by an Algerian journalist.

The French massacres. They arrived in brand new cars and armoured vehicles, leading a well-nourished and well-armed "Frontier Army" made up of healthy, well-trained young soldiers. They knew they had the support of all the Arab regimes of the time, headed by Nasser. They took control, almost without any resistance, from the trembling hands of an internal army that was exhausted by seven years of ferocious war against one of the strongest military powers in the world. Everybody knows that the Algerian war wasn’t a military victory. France carried out a terrible slaughter with more than one million dead, the vast majority of whom were civilians. The National Liberation Army (the internal part) was almost decimated in 1960. While the first secret negotiations were going on with political representatives of the National Liberation Front, the French government had, since the end of the 1950s, been carrying out a series of large-scale military operations. The French Defence Minister at the time, Andre Morice, ordered the construction along the border of a barrier made of various lines of electrified barbed wire laid over land that had been strewn with anti-personnel mines, in an attempt to isolate Algeria from Morocco and Tunisia (the so-called Ligne Morice), and to stop the arrival of arms, ammunition and other equipment. The Cabila and Aures mountains, which were often used by the partisan forces, were singled out for special attention with large-scale military operations launched against them, like Operation Jumelle, which severely tested the resistance of the rebels. In addition, the Massu paras needed less than two years to flush out the famous urban guerrillas of Ben Mhidi Yacef Saadi in what became known as the Battle of Algiers.

The end of an era. In the end international pressure, international public opinion and French public opinion, which was tired of the war, forced the French government to negotiate. The result of the negotiations was the self-determination referendum of 1961 which produced the independence of what was, just as India was for the British, the jewel in the crown of Imperial France.

The need for change. It became clear that it was necessary to find a political solution, that the savage repressions and, even worse, the bloody manipulation of the massacre period was only pushing the country further into chaos.Large parts of the establishment and the military began to organise themselves. They began looking for someone who still had enough credibility to start over again and construct the future of Algeria.

The godsend. Strangely enough the group of generals who had been in control of power in Algeria for more than 20 years, were all former officers in the French army during the war of liberation. As soon as negotiations had been started for Algerian self-determination in 1958, a number of Algerian junior offices (who often had recently been promoted to lieutenant), began to desert the army. The promotion was known as Lacoste, after the French governor of Algeria at the time, Robert Lacoste, a staunch believer in "l’Algérie française". These young "hotheads" didn’t, however, dash off to join the partisans being massacred in the mountains, but saved themselves by fleeing to Tunisia and Morocco to join the "Frontier Army", where the future of Algeria was really being decided. 

The Boutef reign. During the years of travelling and business deals, particularly in the west-supporting Gulf states, Abdelaziz Bouteflika established good relations with the Western powers, even though he had been a minister in the "anti-imperialist" government of Boumedienne. Both parties had learnt to appreciate the other side and when he arrived in Algeria to announce his intention to run for the presidency of the Republic, the United States were his main sponsors. All the opposition forces went to the American ambassador to ask for guarantees that the elections would be carried out fairly, but despite this the elections were not fair, although this is another story. The first mandate for "Boutef" was dedicated almost exclusively to reinforcing his power, and it wasn’t easy. He had to face a frontal attack from some generals and from a section of the press that supported them. The kidnapping of 30 Swiss and German tourists was a clear signal from the DRS, the organisation that had been foremost in manipulating the various armed groups during the "Dirty War". The daily newspaper, Le Matin, with the powerful general Mohamed Lamari behind it, who at the time was the Chief of Staff, conducted an all-out war against the president, printing daily reports about the scandals he and his closest advisors were involved in, while the editor of the paper published in France a book that immediately became a best seller under the title "Bouteflika, an Algerian impostor". A large part of the National Liberation Front party, which traditionally had always supported the president, moved over in mass to the challenger, Ali Benfliss, and the Cabilia were blazing and steeped in blood for more than two years. Everything seemed to be going against Boutef, but history proved this wrong when he won a second mandate with 80% of the vote, a result that didn’t so much reflect the popularity of the president as the power the system’s candidate had and the degree of control he had over the secret services and administrative departments. Nowadays Benfliss, together with the NLF party, is back in the fold. General Lamari has resigned, the other generals are falling over themselves to kiss the re-elected president’s hand and Le Matin newspaper has been closed down and its editor, Benchicou, is rotting in prison without anybody worrying about him, while "little Boutef" is in charge of everything, without any problems. Or almost.