Algeria says some ex-rebels may quit amnesty plan
ALGIERS (Reuters) - About 250 former rebels who disarmed and won amnesty under Algerian peace efforts have not had the state support they were promised and may return to war, a human rights official said on Saturday.
Farouk Ksentini, head of the National Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, said most aspects of a reconciliation plan aimed at ending 16 years of conflict were working normally but some parts needed greater effort.
Ksentini said he had met representatives of 250 ex-rebels who had signed a petition complaining they were still waiting to benefit under the 2006 charter for peace and reconciliation.
"They have not been reinstated in their jobs. They do not have the means to live. They say they are marginalized," he told state radio in an interview.
Under the terms of the charter, former Islamist rebels can apply to be reinstated in the jobs they abandoned to take up arms and fight the government. This provision also applies to people who helped the Islamist cause without actually fighting.
"They are demoralized. We should not push people to go back to the bush," Ksentini added.
"There are malfunctions in the application of reconciliation. We are trying to solve this problem. Algeria enjoys a good financial situation that helps us cope with this problem and boost stability."
He did not elaborate on the faults of the system. But everyone from top officials to ordinary Algerians complains that dealing with the ponderous Soviet-style bureaucracy on work and housing matters can involve months of paperwork.
Under the charter, in 2006 the government freed more than 2,200 former rebels jailed for their role in the conflict, which began when the authorities cancelled 1992 elections which the Islamic Salvation Front was poised to win.
More than 150,000 people were killed in the bloodshed. The violence has abated in recent years, although suicide car bombings have hit targets in Algiers and eastern provinces in the past year.
The charter offers guerrillas still fighting the authorities a pardon if they lay down their weapons provided they were not responsible for massacres, rapes and bombings of public places.
The law also offers compensation to families whose loved ones were killed by rebels and to families whose relatives disappeared and were believed killed by the security forces.
It provides compensation to families who fell into poverty due to the absence or death of relatives who joined the revolt.
(Reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed, editing by William Maclean and Philippa Fletcher)
