LATEST UPDATE: JANUARY 2000

Since 1992, an estimated 100,000 people have been killed in Algeria in clashes between government forces and militant Islamists. Although the violence appeared to diminish slightly in 1998 - leading some observers to speculate that national reconciliation was possible - the number of casualties again surged in the aftermath of the unsatisfactory April 1999 presidential elections. There was, however, cause for a renewal of cautious optimism in September of that year when a referendum on the new president's plan to end years of civil discord was overwhelmingly approved.

Although Jews are not the primary target of Algerian Islamists, antisemitism emerges in the context of deep hostility to the West, and to France and the United States in particular. The continuing violence between Islamists and government forces has increased the vulnerability of the few remaining Jews in Algeria. Concern has also grown over the influence of the Algerian crisis on Islamist groups in neighbouring states such as Tunisia and Morocco

Demographic data

Total population: 31 million (July 1999 estimate)

Jewish population: 50

Ethnic groups: Arabs 99 per cent; Amazigh (Berbers) 25 per cent; Tuaregs (a nomadic Amazigh people of southern Algeria and neighbouring countries) and Europeans (less than 1 per cent)

Religions: Islam (Sunni Muslim), the state religion, 99 per cent; Christian and Jewish 1 per cent

Languages: Arabic (official), French, Berber dialects

Political data

Political system: constitutional republic with bicameral legislature

Capital: Algiers

Head of state: Following the assassination of President Muhammad Boudiaf by Islamists in June 1992, the electoral process was suspended by the ruling military government to prevent a likely victory by the Islamist opposition party, the Front islamique du salut (FIS, Islamic Salvation Front). In January 1994 former minister of defence Brigadier-General Liamine Zeroual was appointed president (and elected in November 1995). In April 1999 the military's candidate Abdelaziz Bouteflika was elected president in an election boycotted at the eleventh hour by all of the opposition candidates who claimed that the process was rigged. In September 1999 President Bouteflika called a referendum on his plan to end years of civil discord by offering varying degrees of amnesty; a large turnout (over 85 per cent) overwhelmingly approved the plan (98.6 per cent).

Government: Despite calls by the FIS to boycott proceedings, some forty-four parties did contest the first multiparty legislative elections on 5 June 1997. Against a background of increasing violence and allegations of electoral malpractice, the Rassemblement nationale démocratique (RND, National Democratic Rally) - a new party with close links to then president Zeroual - together with the former ruling Front de liberation nationale (FLN, National Liberation Front) and the Islamist Mouvement de la société pour paix (MSP, Movement for a Peaceful Society) - formerly Hamas - gained a majority in the national assembly (lower house) and formed a coalition government led by Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia until his resignation in December 1999, when he was succeeded by Smai'l Hamdani.

Other major parties: Front des forces socialistes (FSS, Socialist Forces Front), and the Rassemblement pour la culture et la démocratie (RCD, Rally for Culture and Democracy), both Amazigh-based parties (see Racism and xenophobia)

Economic data 

GDP 1998: US$47.3 billion (World Bank)

GDP growth 1998: 5.1 per cent (World Bank)

Inflation 1998 (est.): 9 per cent (CIA World Factbook 1999)

Unemployment 1998 (est.): 30 per cent (CIA World Factbook 1999)

During the nineteenth century, traditional Christian antisemitism was introduced into parts of the Muslim world, including Algeria, by European clerics and missionaries. Jews received favoured treatment from the French colonists and, despite Muslim resentment, soon capitalized on the new economic opportunities.

Following the 1894 Dreyfus affair (see France), a leading French antisemite, Edouard Drumont, was elected as the representative for Algiers.

Although the antisemitic movement of the time was short-lived in Algeria, Nazi propaganda in the 1940s led to its resurgence. Under the Vichy regime, Jews were treated with contempt by the French authorities, who applied the antisemitic Vichy laws in all their severity.

After Algeria gained independence from France in 1962, most of the country's 140,000 Jews emigrated. Algerian Jews, almost universally gallicized, were viewed by Muslims not only as Zionists, and therefore enemies of Arab national aspirations, but also as Europeans. They were also resented for their economic success and the privileges they had enjoyed under French rule. In 1960, during anti-French riots, the Great Synagogue of Algiers was destroyed. Jewish areas were attacked repeatedly and synagogues and cemeteries were desecrated. Large-scale emigration followed.

The 1967 Six-Day War led to further looting and attacks. In recent years, Islamist opposition forces have frequently combined antisemitic, anti-Zionist and anti-western rhetoric. During the 1991 Gulf War, the use of antisemitic slogans was particularly evident.

The cultural and linguistic rights of the indigenous Amazigh (Berbers), an ethnic minority centred in the Kabylie region, are not always respected in the face of the government's continuing programme of Arabization. In September 1999, for instance, President Bouteflika reiterated that the Amazigh language would never become an official language. However, the interests of the Amazigh are represented by the countries' two major opposition parties, the FSS and the RCD, they form a majority among the inhabitants of the capital Algiers and among the influential expatriate Algerian community in France, and they are disproportionately represented in the armed forces, business and education.

The Amazigh are largely opposed to the Islamist groups as they identify Islamism with Arabization. In June 1998 a popular Amazigh singer, Lounès Matoub, was murdered by the Groupe islamique armée (GIA, Armed Islamic Group, see Parties, organizations, movements).

Islamist groups have repeatedly called for the elimination of non-Muslims from the country, and warned foreign workers and business-owners to leave. The abduction and killing of foreign tourists and workers has prompted many international companies to evacuate staff and dependants. The few Christian and other non-Muslim churches have also curtailed public activities.

The 1996 kidnapping and murder of seven French Trappist monks and the killing of the French bishop of Oran, Pierre Claverie (see Legal matters) led the French government to urge all French citizens to leave Algeria immediately.

Islamist groupings

The most significant Islamist group is the banned FIS which advocates a return to religion as a guide for daily action and conservative social practices.

Since 1992, an estimated 100,000 people have been killed in Algeria in clashes between government forces and militant Islamists.

Since September 1997, when the military wing of the FIS, the Armée islamique du salut (AIS, Islamic Salvation Army) declared a largely observed truce with the government, the Islamist movement in Algeria has appeared increasingly divided. Militant Islamists who reject the call for peace, most notably the GIA, continue to attack military targets, as well as local and foreign civilians, including academics, journalists and other professionals.

The GIA emerged in 1993 with the aim of bringing down the government by terrorizing the civilian population. The group rivals the FIS, and is primarily responsible for the murder of foreigners. More than 700 schools have been destroyed by the GIA, on the grounds that their teachings are not religious. Since 1994 the GIA has been issuing statements calling for the elimination of all 'infidels', namely Jews, Christians, polytheists and foreigners, from the country.

Human rights activists have expressed concern over the massacres of villagers suspected of harboring government-backed militias. Also notable in recent years is the increase in the number of abductions, rapes and murder of young women accused of failing to observe Islamic modesty regulations. However, just as serious a concern is expressed over the widespread violence numerous human rights abuses perpetrated by governmental security forces and militias, most of which goes uninvestigated and unpunished.

Antisemitic literature, including Arabic translations of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, continues to circulate in Algeria.

In March 1998 a court in Oran sentenced to death seven suspected Islamic militants who had been implicated in the 1996 killing of the French bishop of Oran, Pierre Claverie (see Racism and xenophobia).

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© JPR 2000