The list of targets has widened and an feminists do ? denounce the assassins as accurately as possible. *The last united initiative of women's groups was 22 March 1994. Many women wanted to organise a demonstration to protest against the upsurge in assassinations. We agreed on a common declaration denouncing the violence of armed fundamentalist groups, and the blind repression of the regime. But the next day both the other organisations involved decided to withdraw their signatures from anything that denounced the behaviour of the regime. Had someone been to talk to them? In any case, the final declaration was a one sided condemnation of fundamentalist terrorism, and a demand for an even more savage repression of the Islamic fundamentalist milieu by the regime. For our group, this was a mistake. You can't build democratic movement, like the women's movement, unless you denounce all the violations of human rights and summary executions which are raging in the country. Even if we denounce above all the savagery of the fundamentalists, we can't whitewash a regime which still treats women as legal minors through its repressive Code of the Family, and which is responsible for the growing misery and marginalisation in Algerian society. "We had planned to invite women to design a fresco on one of the squares of Algiers to commemorate International Women's Day this year. But the assassination of Nabila Djahnine has made us even more conscious of the danger women face. Whatever we do on 8 March, we will be thinking of Nabila, and the struggle she carried on up to her death... Assia F. is an active member of the Association for Women's Liberation (AEF) in Algiers. * widened to include all of society. In August 1994 the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) threatened to punish all those who participated in the new school year-by attending school, by sending their children to school, or by continuing to teach. Despite the massive courage involved, parents, pupils and teachers by and large resisted the GIA threats.
The most sincere moments of mass opposition to terrorism recently were the 22 March 1993 demonstration called by the trades union federation (UGTA) and the 22 March 1994 demonstration called by a number of women's groups. At the second of these demonstrations, the crowd was 2/3 female, calling for the right to life and the right to live differently.
Since then, funerals have been the main form of get-together, morbid as it may seem. Funerals are the main occasion for exchanging advice, and arranging support, solidarity, a departure... Each of us, and especially the women, tries to recharge themselves from this contact -made so difficult by the need for security.
The assassination of Nabila Djahnine (see page 5), the president of a women's association, seems to mark a new phase. By targeting her, all women militants have been threatened. The fundamentalist groups no longer seek to isolate the regime internationally, and isolate it from the population. They increasingly seek to kill in the womb all elements of opposition to their will, to their conquest of power. *
Algiers, 25 February 1995