The Algerian Tragedy

The origins of the recent attack on a remote gas installation in Algeria lie in the military coup that ended the “Algerian Spring” two decades ago. Indeed, as that episode has shown, the civil war that followed, in which more than 150,000 people were killed, never really ended.

EXETER – Commenting on the recent Algerian hostage crisis on an international news channel, one terrorism “expert” made a remarkable claim: “Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was founded because of the so-called Arab Spring, after we abandoned our Libyan ally [Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi].” After enduring a few more inaccuracies, I felt compelled to put aside the students’ papers that I was grading.

Let’s start by stating the obvious: AQIM is not a product of the Arab Spring. AQIM exists because of the military coup that ended the “Algerian Spring” two decades ago. And it has not been strengthened by the Libyan revolution, but rather by the failure of state-building in North Mali, the absence of post-conflict reconciliation and reintegration in Algeria, and a lack of accountability for a shadowy Algerian security establishment whose brutal methods have proved woefully inadequate to the challenge.

AQIM’s history can be traced directly to the coup staged by a handful of Algerian generals against President Chadli Bendjedid in January 1992. Bendjedid, whose memoirs were recently published (he died in October), gave Algeria its first relatively democratic constitution, lifting the ban on political parties and guaranteeing a minimum of basic rights, including freedom of speech, assembly, and conscience. He was the first Arab president to be criticized on state-owned TV (that is, without the critic disappearing afterwards). Algeria was the first Arab Spring country.

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