Neocon,
I share your skepticism and and I'll investigate further... Anyway, did you see the section Dossiers Noirs? It's in English and it tells us the REAL DATA for the last Algerian presidential elections: Bouteflika (the winner if I remember) is said to have reaped only... 28% of the votes!!!
The key to understand what's going on in Algeria is, once again, to be found in Europe's hostility to Islam... Back in 1993(?), when the FIS was winning the elections, a coup was triggered to avoid an ''Iranian scenario'' in Algeria, that is imams ruling the country. A fierce repression had to be enforced upon the population ever since for the military junta to stay in power.
The official, mainstream version about the murderous outrages being perpetrated in Algeria is that most of them illustrate the bloodily folly of the so-called Armed Islamic Groups but since, most of the time, these terrorist attacks occur near regular military bases and since most of the fatalities belong to FIS-abiding villages, many observers came to the conclusion that the Algerian regime was relying on death squads and secret police units to terrorize the (rural) population.
Finally, I think that the US should be supportive of a moderate Islamic regime in Algeria and should try to intervene as a fair political broker between Algeria's military bourgeoisie and FIS politicians (some of them are currently in exile in the US, I believe).
Regards,
Gustave. |
