The abdication of the democrats THE arrest of Ali Belhadj, revered tribune of the rebellious youth of the poorest neighbourhoods of Algiers, and Abassi Madani, the spokesman and president of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), on June 30, 1991, left Algeria's fundamentalists in disarray.
These quasi-mythical figures, who threatened holy war and dealt with the regime as an equal force, could in fact, it seemed, be arrested by mere mortals in police uniforms, without the heavens falling on president Chadli.
Exhausted by their dispersed and poorly supported attacks in Algiers, shaken by the public denunciation of Abassi as a "danger for Islam and the country" during a retelevized interview with members of the Majlis al-Chura, isolated from a public that now wants nothing more than a return to calm, the fundamentalists have been unable to respond.
The appeals for holy war were followed only by small and militarily ineffective demonstrations in a few areas. The best prepared elements were put out of action by raids and arrests. CHAWKI SALHI ing the fighting or deserting. * nia, who since the 1970s have been considered as a people sharing sovereignty in Bosnia with Croats and Serbs. Croat nationalism is equally menacing for the Bosnian Muslims since the Croat president, Franjo Tudjman, considers them to be Croats. Bosnia-Herzegovina, indeed, may well turn out to be the most explosive region in Yugoslavia.
In the immediate sense, it is Slovenia that has taken the initiative, fortified by its ethnic homogeneity, which makes it less fearful of internal ethnic clashes. Its declaration of sovereignty has come into conflict with the explicit support of the European Monetary Fund and Community for the federalism of Ante Markovic's government. The EC thus carries the primary responsibility for the army intervention against the proclamation of independence, born out of the collapse of negotiations.
It was the "liberal" Ante Markovic who initially ordered the army to intervene in Slovenia to defend the integrity of the country's frontiers. It appears that he did not expect serious resistance, and thus hoped to maintain his liberal reputation. The resistance by the Slovene territorial units and the army's own logic have made things turn out otherwise.
The army is increasingly arrogating powers to itself which may go beyond assuring the frontiers to involve a challenge to the newly elected regimes. Furthermore, purges in which Serb officers have been replacing those from other nationalities point in the direction of a change in the character of this army, in which it would lose its "Titoist" features as a multinational, federalist force with a International Viewpoint #211 July 22, 199multi-ethnic leadership under the control of the collegial Yugoslav presidency. These are all factors that have kept the army from responding directly to strong Serbian pressures intended to bring about a state of emergency in Croatia.
The partial community of interests between an army whose privileges are directly tied to the maintenance of the Yugoslav state and Slobodan Milosevic does not mean that they have identical aims. Milosevic has responded to the affirmation of the other state/nations by an affirmation of the Serb state/nation, even if this means exploding the federation. This is one of the reasons for the army's reserved attitude to Milosevic in recent months. The defeat inflicted on the army in the first battle in Slovenia will push the army high command into raising the stakes throughout the coun try.
Everything now depends on the breadth of political and social resistance to the military and on its own internal divisions. The pro-independence and anti-militarist movement in Slovenia is strong; and the same is true in Serbia despite the armed bands on the far right. The student movement last march came out against the civil war logic implicit in the actions of the Serbian regime. Parents of conscripts have invaded the Serbian parliament to demand the withdrawal of their children engaged in this dirty war. Tito's Yugoslavia is no more. A new union can only arise on the basis of full respect for the independence of the communities concerned and in opposition to any intervention by the army. *
S INCE October 1990, in agreement with the general secretary of the ruling National Liberation Front (NLF), Mehri, Abdelaziz Belkhadem, the new president of the People's National Assembly (APN), has been trying to restore coherence to the ruling party and reduce the impact of the FIS. Since autumn 1990 disappointment has become evident among the FIS' electorate, since the Islamic local councils, which had promised to provide housing, work and marriage for the young, had failed to deliver. The new deputies, who had once dealt with problems in front of everybody in the mosques, have retreated behind the townhall railings, in the manner of their predecessors. The only evident difference is that those who are getting whatever housing or other benefits exist have beards. The FIS has been slow to react, leading a campaign against the financial strangulation of the town-halls by the central state and supporting the demands of those who have yet to be rehoused after the 1989 earthquake. However, they have not been able to regain the confidence of disillusioned voters. Indeed, a new fundamentalist organization, Hamas, has begun to nibble away at the FIS' more moderate wing. The Gulf war gave the FIS a new opportunity to appear at the head of the rebellious masses, despite the complications due to its relations with Saudi Arabia. However, its militarist rhetoric, which had strong appeal amongst the youth, has only led to the arming of bands dedicated to the "holy war" ', not to fighting George Bush. Then the complete success of the March 12-13 general strike to protest against the cost of living, called by the General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA), which was virulently opposed by the FIS and the Islamic Workers Union (SIT), contributed to a further decline in the fundamentalists'
ALGERIA credibility. Believing the time was ripe, Chadli decided to gamble and, having passed the necessary electoral laws, on April 3, announced elections for June 27.
During Ramadan (which this year began in mid-April), fundamentalist gangs led by Takfir Oual Hidjra (one of the most radical Islamic groups) attacked theatres and gatherings of young women. At the same time the FIS took up a more fundamental issue through its "Islamic markets" "free from taxes, financed by the town halls and set up by supporters who brought down prices.
Fraudulent electoral system
However the FLN prime minister, Hamrouche, had his answer ready, using a completely fraudulent electoral system to undermine the fundamentalists' hopes.
The number of voters per seat varied from 2,000 to 100,000, depending on whether the FLN or FIS had been supported previously, the south and far east of the country being favoured to the detriment of the cities. Supposing that the voting scores remained the same as on June 12, 1990, the FLN would have gained 198 to 320 deputies with 17% of the vote, the FIS 135 to 265 deputies with 34%. This voting system would effectively cut down the representation of all the parties except the FLN; thus the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS) would be reduced to its stronghold in Kabylia and the centre, its other votes wasted. This meant that the FLN would appear as the only place for anti-FIS votes to go in the second round, bringing two thirds of the electorate behind its candidates.
The FIS could not accept its coming defeat in the June 27 elections. It demanded the repeal of the electoral laws and the holding of the anticipated presidential election, with Abassi raising the temperature by threatening a general strike if these demands were not met.
There was little chance of this strike being a success, given the FIS' embarrassment over the UGTA general strike in
March, and given the widespread feeling that the party conflict offered nothing. The regime therefore tried to push the FIS into carrying out its threats. The call for the strike on May 25 thus appeared as a blunder committed by Abassi under pressure.
The initial results were indeed derisory: of 15,000 workers at the Industrial Vehicles Complex (CVI) at Huiba, 100 went on strike; three out of 500 in the chemical works and so on. Individual militants, at best groups of dozens, walked off the job to general indifference, with the possible exception of the oil fields where a more significant proportion of the workforce joined the strike. The Islamic markets shut, as did the FIS controlled town halls, but most shops remained open except in two medium sized towns in the interior, Médéa and Tlemen.
Democracy on campuses
There was some ferment on the campuses, but a healthy reaction of solidarity against the repression was combined with insistence on a vote on the strike by general assemblies, which ended in the isolation of the few hundred FIS marchers. The demonstrations were very small, although the regime talked up the numbers, wanting to show the FIS' impotence on the television.
The FIS then decided to change its tactics and concentrate on evening marches. Hamrouche met FIS leaders to grant them permission to meet in four places in Algiers, with the aim of increasing the tension and rallying voters around the FLN.
However by this time the popular mood was beginning to change; the abandonment by the democratic and revolutionary parties of any serious challenge to the dictatorship - the former on account of their electoral preoccupations, the latter owing to their material weakness - rendered them irrelevant at this moment. A few tear gas canisters and the youth began to reconsider, and when, on the night of June 2, the police attempted to clear the squares, some of the youth reacted and the movement changed its dimensions and nature; the state of emergency was announced.
In the run up to June 27, Hamrouche had carried out a sort of coup d'état within the regime, shutting up the parties and journals (such as the Democratic Cultural Assembly (RCD), the liberals and the Nouvel Hebdo) close to the president, and eliminating all the currents from the FLN lists. As long as this seemed to be working, Chadli kept his peace. On June 4, when Hamrouche still considered the situ1. The FIS' leading body. It has lost around 20 of its 5 35 members — about ten are in prison and another four in a state of open dissidence.
ALGERIA ALGENIA ation controllable, his opponents demanded a state of emergency. And indeed, Italian lenders had just suspended a credit of $7bn owing to the prevailing instability, while the International Monetary Fund was among the first to support the state of emergency.
Hamrouche's resignation, the grounds that he did not want to be "a man of two policies" (in reality he did not want to sacrifice his ambitions by being made a scapegoat for the repression) gave the impression that the regime was in panic. It seemed as if a poorly followed strike call had in fact overthrown the government, and won presidential elections and a coalition government. These incomprehensible concessions, coming in the wake of the country's being put under military rule, inflated the fundamentalists' power and demoralized everyone else, above all the modernist middle classes, who have come close to panic.
Fundamentalist arms deals
Very quickly however, the regime acted to erase the impression of disarray, first announcing that the state of emergency was going to continue, and then launching a sally of communiqués and measures against the FIS. Belhadj was accused in an affair involving the French Islamist Didier
Roger Guyan, who wanted to take arms and explosives into Algeria; the town halls were instructed to take down their signs saying "Islamic town halls"; the
Islamists' Friday meetings in the Mosques have been regularly denounced and threatened by communiqués from the military authorities. However it was not the fundamentalists who were hardest hit by these measures; Belhadj remained at liberty, the town halls put up in the morning the signs taken down by the military in the night;
and each Friday, despite the deployment of tanks, the fundamentalist meetings continued with the traditional appeals for holy war.
On the other hand the FFS' meetings had already been banned before the state of emergency, and the Socialist Workers
Party (PST — the sympathizing group of the Fourth International in Algeria) was forbidden to hold a meeting at Bejaia, while its offices in Oran were raided after a leaflet distribution and activists in
Bejaia were interrogated after a flyposting effort.
There was, furthermore, a religious turn in the official line. Every minister and official has been using and abusing ritual formulas and Koranic verses. The arrests of Belhadj and Abassi were the first sign of the regime really exercising its strength; in the previous phase its policy had had the effect of pushing the undecided towards the strongest, the fundamentalists. This is a pyrrhic victory for the army;
by making the fundamentalists appear the 6 fact licking of eme to pression rate tor a only victims of the repression, while in International Viewpoint #211 • July 22, 1991 whole period, they have paved the way for a fundamentalist flood tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, when the FLN's liberal reforms are applied and misery and despair grow still further.
The democratic parties are passing one after another through the antechamber of the new head of the government, Ghozali, to whom they pledge allegiance. They accept the indignity of bending the knee to the regime while muttering a few abstract declarations when they are forbidden to demonstrate and subjected to curfew. The PST, the only party to reject this approach, is totally outside the community of parties accepted by Chadli, and is continuing to demand the lifting of the state of emergency.
The democratic parties have ended up supporting this curious "coalition government" which contains only FLN members. They have come together to support this latest of the interminable FLN governments Algeria has had since independence, whose prime minister treats them haughtily, while summoning them to speak in the government's favour and against the FIS. Their attitude to the state of emergency has been hesitant and more often than not they support the use of the tanks.
The honest army
Thus, on June 19, the anniversary of the day when the army overthrew him, former post-independence president Ben Bella saluted the army: "above the fray and composed of honest men." He timidly demanded that steps be taken towards lifting the state of siege, as has Ait Ahmed of the FFS, who at least had the courage to say it openly. However, besides Ali
Yahia's League for the Defence of Human
Rights and the PST, nobody has been vigorously demanding the end of the state of emergency.
One exception has been Louiza Hanoun of the Workers Party (PT — linked to the
Lambertiste current of Trotskyism), but she has become seriously compromised with the FIS since her visit to Abassi
Madani and her support for the FIS strike.
The Party of the Socialist Vanguard
(PAGS — the Communist Party) has been calling for the banning of the FIS and thus effectively banning itself from any activity in the popular neighbourhoods.
For the time being, however, the contradictions in the positions of Abassi Madani and the incoherence of his resistance to the state of emergency have affected his credibility. The parents of the victims have not pardoned him for sending their children to the slaughter, while his supporters cannot continue to accept small group actions without rhyme or reason, in the absence of any observable plan. Abassi started off supporting the Ghozali govemment, even reaffirming this support after the accusation against Belhadj, then, suddenly, he demanded the ending of the state of emergency, a few days before his few days before his own arrest. This came after strikes against the FIS apparatus and the arrest of intermediate cadres, which effectively forestalled any vigorous solidarity actions with the FIS leaders. In the western media there has been much talk of a military coup. But why should the Algerian military need to carry out such a coup when they have been in power since 1962? The democratic opening conceded after the events of October 1988 will not be reversed, since it is necessary to gain the confidence of the imperialists. Besides, it is much more efficient and stable to govern flexibly than to rule by military decree. The regime would only turn to the latter resort if it thought that the danger was truly mortal. But in fact it was not, despite fears at the outset that FIS militants would be able to destabilize the army rank-and-file and render the repressive forces impotent.
Today, what is on the cards is a more deep going economic opening. "More than half measures", , headlined L'Horizon, the big evening paper, on July 2, 1991. The limited opening made to foreign companies in July 1990, which permit them to sell in hard currency in exchange for promises of investment, was followed up in February 1991 by total liberalization of foreign trade, at least on paper. In order to meet the obligations to Japanese, French and Italian creditors who are flocking to the Ghozali government, the opening will become more thoroughgoing.
Bankrupt local enterprises, which have been propped up for six months - the time needed to get through the elections — will find themselves in serious difficulties.
The opening up of foreign trade will mean the collapse of the textile industry, shoemaking and processing. The government has promised that the opening will not undermine the national industrial base — we will see, though squaring the circle is usually difficult.
### Devaluation of dinar
The deliberate attacks on purchasing power through the administrative devaluation of the dinar by the regime, and through tax reforms that hit the masses, are bringing about an increase in poverty.
After the elections we will be looking forward to four million unemployed. Thus, what other possibility does the regime have than to prostrate itself further before imperialism and abandon all the efforts made to industrialize the country?
It would be a mistake, in these circumstances, to imagine that we have seen the last of the fundamentalists. The FIS has been the only genuinely mass party, and a socialist, populist or democratic alternative does not exist. Thus, when the liberal reforms bring forth the inevitable misery, this or another party of despair, whether called the FIS or not, may well take the head of the rebellion of the youth. *