ALGERIA: THE ARMY MAKES AND UNDO
Once again it was the Algerian Armed Forces that determined the fate of the president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, when he announced on Tuesday a statement by the Deputy Minister of Defense, General Gaid Salah, that the solution to the crisis calls for the application of the article 102 of the Constitution, which indicates the procedure of disqualification of the head of state when he is considered clinically incapacitated to assume his position.
Buteflika will leave power without having been a history of the Algerian revolution. The native of Uxda (Morocco) was not part of the founding fathers of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN); it did not belong to the "sons of All Saints, who on November 1, 1954, unleashed the first murders and acts of rebellion against the French population; and he did not join the group of leaders that met in Congress in Sumam, in August 1956, to divide the country into six "wilayas" (Major States) in charge of coordinating the uprising against the French colonial presence.
During the Algerian war it did not even have a relevant role to be destined to the Sahara by the National Liberation Army (ELN) to open a new front in those latitudes, where, by force, no relevant military event took place. Under the name of war of Abdelmalek El Mali, his military record would not fill more than one page.
The fate of Buteflika was to have been a friend and confidant of the colonel, Huari Bumedien, the "strong man" who led the country's destinies since he overthrew the president, Ahmed Ben Bella, in June 1965, until he died of a rare disease. the blood in December 1978.
In the colonel's shadow, Buteflika was occupying various political positions; the first of them was the Minister of Youth and Sports in the first Ben Bella cabinet. He did not want him in his government, given his complicity with Bumedien, but he had no choice but to accept it so as not to open a crisis with the military, which ultimately occurred.
In September 1963 Buteflika was promoted to foreign minister in the various governments that were formed until March 1979. He was the youngest foreign minister in the history of Algeria, and the youngest president of the General Assembly of the United Nations. , in 1974. During those years his detractors accused him of being a womanizer, without providing precise data on such luck.
If Buteflika has an assured position in the history of Algeria, this is due to having launched a process of peace and reconciliation with Islamic terrorist groups, which after the dismissal of the president, Chadli Benjedid, in January 1992, by their own comrades in arms, unleashed a bloody war with a balance, still incomplete, that would approach the 150,000 killed in acts of violence.
Benjedid was willing to share power with the main Islamist movement, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), founded by Imam Abasi Madani, which could have led to the emergence of an Islamic republic in North Africa. That possibility was unbearable for the elite of the generals, who ended up cornering the head of state.
When the war against the Islamists began, Buteflika lived his "desert crossing" when he went into exile in the emirates of the Gulf when the Algerian court of accounts accused him of having possessed in Geneva a "black box" of which he had not informed the government. Buteflika said he was a victim of political persecution, stating that the funds given by Bumedien had no other purpose than to financially support several African liberation movements.
In December 1988 Buteflika ran for president, called by the generals who had vetoed Bumedien's death. His election, a year later, with 74 percent of valid votes, was described as fraudulent by the political arc of the opposition after withdrawing its own candidates.
Convinced that there was no military solution to the fight against terrorism, assuming his first presidential term in April 1999, he secretly planned a negotiation with the Islamic Salvation Army (EIS) to which he offered the amnesty and his reintegration into the social life. The result came to light in a law called "Civil Concord", adopted in a referendum held in September 1999. The EIS would be dissolved the following year.
Not having convinced other terrorist groups, which continued the massacres throughout the country, Buteflika gave way to another gesture of conciliation during his second presidential term, begun in 2004, promoting a law of reconciliation and amnesty adopted by referendum the following year. The opposition criticized the consultation, calling it fraudulent and electoral masquerade. The favorable votes to that law amounted, according to official figures, to the exorbitant figure of 97.36 percent.
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Once again it was the Algerian Armed Forces that determined the fate of the president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, when he announced on Tuesday a statement by the Deputy Minister of Defense, General Gaid Salah, that the solution to the crisis calls for the application of the article 102 of the Constitution, which indicates the procedure of disqualification of the head of state when he is considered clinically incapacitated to assume his position.
Buteflika will leave power without having been a history of the Algerian revolution. The native of Uxda (Morocco) was not part of the founding fathers of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN); it did not belong to the "sons of All Saints, who on November 1, 1954, unleashed the first murders and acts of rebellion against the French population; and he did not join the group of leaders that met in Congress in Sumam, in August 1956, to divide the country into six "wilayas" (Major States) in charge of coordinating the uprising against the French colonial presence.
During the Algerian war it did not even have a relevant role to be destined to the Sahara by the National Liberation Army (ELN) to open a new front in those latitudes, where, by force, no relevant military event took place. Under the name of war of Abdelmalek El Mali, his military record would not fill more than one page.
The fate of Buteflika was to have been a friend and confidant of the colonel, Huari Bumedien, the "strong man" who led the country's destinies since he overthrew the president, Ahmed Ben Bella, in June 1965, until he died of a rare disease. the blood in December 1978.
In the colonel's shadow, Buteflika was occupying various political positions; the first of them was the Minister of Youth and Sports in the first Ben Bella cabinet. He did not want him in his government, given his complicity with Bumedien, but he had no choice but to accept it so as not to open a crisis with the military, which ultimately occurred.
In September 1963 Buteflika was promoted to foreign minister in the various governments that were formed until March 1979. He was the youngest foreign minister in the history of Algeria, and the youngest president of the General Assembly of the United Nations. , in 1974. During those years his detractors accused him of being a womanizer, without providing precise data on such luck.
If Buteflika has an assured position in the history of Algeria, this is due to having launched a process of peace and reconciliation with Islamic terrorist groups, which after the dismissal of the president, Chadli Benjedid, in January 1992, by their own comrades in arms, unleashed a bloody war with a balance, still incomplete, that would approach the 150,000 killed in acts of violence.
Benjedid was willing to share power with the main Islamist movement, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), founded by Imam Abasi Madani, which could have led to the emergence of an Islamic republic in North Africa. That possibility was unbearable for the elite of the generals, who ended up cornering the head of state.
When the war against the Islamists began, Buteflika lived his "desert crossing" when he went into exile in the emirates of the Gulf when the Algerian court of accounts accused him of having possessed in Geneva a "black box" of which he had not informed the government. Buteflika said he was a victim of political persecution, stating that the funds given by Bumedien had no other purpose than to financially support several African liberation movements.
In December 1988 Buteflika ran for president, called by the generals who had vetoed Bumedien's death. His election, a year later, with 74 percent of valid votes, was described as fraudulent by the political arc of the opposition after withdrawing its own candidates.
Convinced that there was no military solution to the fight against terrorism, assuming his first presidential term in April 1999, he secretly planned a negotiation with the Islamic Salvation Army (EIS) to which he offered the amnesty and his reintegration into the social life. The result came to light in a law called "Civil Concord", adopted in a referendum held in September 1999. The EIS would be dissolved the following year.
Not having convinced other terrorist groups, which continued the massacres throughout the country, Buteflika gave way to another gesture of conciliation during his second presidential term, begun in 2004, promoting a law of reconciliation and amnesty adopted by referendum the following year. The opposition criticized the consultation, calling it fraudulent and electoral masquerade. The favorable votes to that law amounted, according to official figures, to the exorbitant figure of 97.36 percent.
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