Algerians vote on peace plan after 13-year insurgency

Algerians today voted on a peace plan the government says will help turn the page on a brutal Islamic insurgency that left an estimated 120,000 dead, but which critics say will whitewash past crimes.

More than 18 million voters were called to polling stations in the oil- and gas-rich North African country, which stretches from the Mediterranean coast to the sandy wastes of the Sahara Desert. Preliminary results from the referendum were expected at around midnight.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika says his Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation aims to close the wounds from the cycle of deadly violence and atrocities that gripped Algeria for more than a decade, after the insurgency erupted in 1992.

Bouteflika needs a high participation rate to give his project legitimacy.

Critics, including human rights groups and some political parties, contend the president is moving too quickly in an attempt to whitewash the years of horror and the cases of thousands of people who mysteriously disappeared during the bloodshed.

“We’re for peace, but first we want the truth,” said Malika Silet, 36. She said her brother disappeared on March 23, 1997, from the streets of the working class district of Bab el-Oued in the capital, Algiers, and that witnesses saw police take him and a group of other men away.

“Are they alive? Are they dead? Where are they?” Silet said, adding that she will not vote.

Bouteflika criss-crossed Algeria for weeks before the referendum, addressing rallies to call out the “yes” vote so the nation can reconcile itself with what authorities refer to as the “national tragedy” and asking its victims and their families to accept a “new sacrifice in the interest of the nation.”

The insurgency started when the army cancelled the January 1992 second round of voting in Algeria’s first multiparty legislative elections to thwart a likely victory by the now-banned Islamic Salvation Front.

Daily beheadings and massacres committed by Islamic extremists followed. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed. There were also strong accusations that government security forces had at least a passive role in some of the bloodshed. Victims’ families contend that security forces were responsible for many of the thousands of people who disappeared.

Critics dismissed the charter as a way for the president to further consolidate power in his nation of nearly 33 million and said that, with pardons for many of those who perpetrated the violence, it goes against the very notion of peace.

Opponents also objected to proposals asking the nation to trust the government to handle cases of people who disappeared – pointing out that government forces are suspected in many cases.

The charter, a lengthy document with a preamble and five parts, offers everyone something, from Islamic rebels to families whose loved ones joined the insurgency, or simply disappeared.

The charter would end judicial proceedings for a broad span of Islamists, from those who lay down arms, those sought at home or abroad for allegedly supporting terrorism, or those convicted in absentia.

An exception in each case is anyone who took part in a massacre, rape or bomb attack in a public place.

It provides reparations for families whose loved ones disappeared.

Green, white and red posters promoting the referendum decorated the walls of buildings across Algiers. Television, radio stations and newspapers carried reports on the benefits of making peace with those who have “gone astray".

Although the insurgents have been largely tamed, sporadic violence continues. The government says 800-1,000 insurgents remain active.