The assassination of the Algerian chief of national police Colonel Ali Tounsi coincides with the standoff between
the Turkish Government and the military establishment. In Algeria, a conflict of similar colouring has been
underway for several months.

ANNABA, ALGERIA — Said Osmani risked his life trying to flee his country and now faces prison for the attempt. Marwane Belabed never made it.

Both are part of an exodus the Algerian press has dubbed the “harraga” — a play on a Maghreb Arabic word to mean “those who burn” — the overwhelming majority of whom are young people who try to cross the Mediterranean and burn identity papers and emotional ties in the process.

European barriers to immigration may never have been so tight, yet Algerians are attempting clandestine migration to Europe on a scale unseen in recent years.

“It’s an act of defiance against European immigration policies,” said Kamel Belabed, whose son Marwane, 25, disappeared trying to reach Europe in April 2007. “They know the risks they’re taking.”

There are no figures for all those who disappear, or indeed all those who attempt the crossing. But in recent years, hundreds have arrived in Italy alone. In 2007, 1,762 clandestine Algerian migrants arrived, according to the Italian Interior Ministry. The number rose to 2,019 in 2008, the ministry said.

According to the French daily Le Monde, the Algerian Coast Guard intercepted more than 400 people and recovered nearly 50 bodies last year.

Officials at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees say the flow was too insignificant to capture their attention before 2007, when they began looking at the situation. And the International Organization for Migration, which works with governments and other partners to manage migration, opened an office in Sardinia in 2008 to monitor the flow.

Hocine Ali, a doctor at the international airport in Algiers, said that he and his colleagues received harraga deported from Europe several times a week and that, based on what they tell him, he believed the number of those who do not make it is substantial.

Official statements from North African governments portray their recent tightening on immigration as cooperation with European initiatives to halt sub-Saharan migrants who transit through Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco and try to cross the Mediterranean. In Algeria, however, it is no longer possible to ignore the large number of locals leaving.

A 2008 report by the International Organization for Migration states that the rising number of perilous sea crossings from North African countries is a consequence of moves by European states to “externalize” immigration control, by urging other countries to stop the flow at the source by setting up detention centers on their own soil. Bilateral agreements between the European Union and the countries on its borders have restricted traditional routes, like those that run through Morocco and on to Spain.

At 25, Mr. Osmani is a repeat would-be migrant. Last September, he tagged along on a small boat with friends, all from the coastal town of Annaba. Bad weather forced them back, he said. Then, in December, the Algerian Coast Guard intercepted the boat he was on.

In May, on his third attempt, he made it to Italy. He and a cousin each paid 60,000 dinar, or about $840, to a family friend who had made the trip before as a guide. With the help of a global positioning system device, the guide took a boat with about 30 people to Sardinia.

Upon landing, they were arrested. An Algerian consular official arrived, with files on previous offenders. He identified Mr. Osmani. The cousin, a first-time migrant, proved harder to place and was still in Sardinia when Mr. Osmani — deported after a month — was interviewed for this article.

“I’m facing growing old without ever having had a life,” said Mr. Osmani, who lives in a small apartment with his mother and an adult brother and works odd jobs.

Two years ago, the Ministry of Religious Affairs issued a fatwa against clandestine emigration. On March 8, it became a criminal act. “Leaving the national territory in an illegal manner” is now punishable with a fine of 20,000 to 60,000 dinar and up to six months in prison. Mr. Osmani goes to court later this month. Before the change, harraga usually got a small fine.

El Watan, a leading independent newspaper, quoted the justice minister, Tayeb Belaiz, as saying the law was necessary to combat organized human trafficking.

Abdelkader Messahel, the Algerian minister responsible for North African affairs, called on Europe to take a more nuanced approach to the migration problem in early June. Mr. Messahel argued that by creating laws and, in the case of Libya and Tunisia, detention centers, North African countries have cooperated with the E.U. He said more emphasis should be placed on development to keep migrants home, El Watan reported.

Karim Tabbou, general secretary of the Socialist Forces Front, the oldest opposition party, said Algerians were fleeing because of lack of opportunity and disillusionment with the elite. He also said Europe had failed to support human rights and democracy in Algeria.

The E.U. gave Algeria €55 million, or $79 million, in 2008, out of a total €309.7 million for Maghreb countries. Officially, unemployment in Algeria is 11 percent, but it is widely believed to be much higher.

Ali Bensaad, a researcher in migration at the Provence University, in southern France, suggests that the typical Algerian clandestine migrant is likely to have some form of employment. Usually 20 to 30 years old, about 40 percent are university educated, he said. Women remain rare, but figures from the International Office of Migration show that dozens made it to Italy last year.

Marwane Belabed was an assistant in his father’s graphic design company when he left by boat after three applications to visit France were rejected. “He never said anything about what he was planning to anyone,” his father said.

Among Algeria’s youth, frustration is palpable, Mr. Bensaad said. The average Algerian is 26.6 years old, but the political class has changed little since independence in 1962. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who in April won re-election, first joined the government before most Algerians were born.

In its own defense, the government points to job-creation programs, as well as investment in housing and public works. Djamel Ould Abbes, minister of national solidarity and the Algerian community abroad, organized seminars in what was billed as an attempt to understand the migration. Mr. Abbes refused to comment for this article.

Since Marwane disappeared, his father, in his 60s, has become spokesman for a group of families of harraga who have vanished at sea.

Mr. Belabed reproaches his government for not coordinating the identification of bodies that lie unclaimed in Spanish and Italian morgues. He is also looking into rumors that Algerian harraga are being held in Libya and Tunisia.

The Belabed family is haunted by its vanished son. A few months back, the family moved from its home — where a once-treasured sea view had become an unrelenting reminder — when a small boat was found in the backyard, apparently hidden by more harraga planning their own trip.

Source: New York Times, 9 Sept. 2009

Official, 41, Was Ordered Back to U.S.

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 29, 2009

The CIA's top officer in Algeria has been returned to Washington amid allegations that he drugged and raped two women at his Algiers residence, an accusation that presents the Obama administration's new intelligence team with an unexpected legal and diplomatic crisis even before it officially takes office.

The 41-year-old Algiers station chief was ordered home by the State Department after a months-long investigation of alleged sexual assaults in September 2007 and February of last year, U.S. officials confirmed yesterday. The two women involved in the incidents told U.S. diplomats that they became unconscious after receiving what they believed were knockout drugs served to them in drinks.

The alleged assaults, if confirmed, are viewed as particularly serious because they could potentially damage diplomatic relations with Algeria, a U.S. ally, and undermine U.S. efforts to improve its image in the Muslim world, former diplomats and foreign policy experts said.

The CIA and State Department declined to comment on the alleged assaults, which were first described in an Internet report yesterday by ABC News. State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood confirmed that an investigation was ongoing and that the officer involved had been recalled to Washington.

"The U.S. takes very seriously any accusations of misconduct involving any U.S. personnel abroad," Wood said.

Mark Mansfield, a CIA spokesman, said the spy agency "would take seriously, and follow up on, any allegations of impropriety." He declined to confirm the name of the station chief or to give details on the agency's internal investigation.

However, the women's allegations are described in detail in an affidavit by a State Department investigator assigned to the case. In the affidavit, filed in federal court in Washington, the women give similar accounts of being assaulted by a man described as an official of the U.S. Embassy in the Algerian capital. The official is identified in the affidavit as Andrew Warren, an "employee of the U.S. government" assigned to the embassy.

The first woman, an Algerian national who also holds a German passport, told embassy officials she was assaulted by Warren after meeting him at a party at his residence. She said Warren offered her a mixed drink, which he prepared out of her sight. Later, she said, after consuming more of the drinks, she became ill and experienced symptoms "nothing like the physiological effects of alcohol" she had previously experienced, the affidavit states. The next morning she awoke "on a bed, completely nude, with no memory of . . . what had occurred."

The second woman, a married Algerian national living in Spain, told embassy officials she became violently ill after consuming two drinks at Warren's residence last Feb. 17. She reported fading in and out of consciousness and awakening to find Warren having sex with her. She said she blacked out again and could not recall afterward how she had gotten home.

In the affidavit, the investigator said there was "probable cause" to believe Warren had committed aggravated sexual assault.

Warren has not been charged in the case. Attempts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful.

ABC, quoting unnamed officials, said the women's accounts were backed up by videotapes that were found in the CIA officer's residence. The tapes, apparently secretly made, allegedly show the CIA officer engaged in sex acts with several women, including one of the alleged victims in the case who appears to be in a semiconscious state, the network reported.

The Justice Department, which is participating in the investigation, declined to comment on the case. A spokesman for the Algerian Embassy in Washington said his government had no immediate response to the report.

Mark Zaid, a private attorney who represents current and former CIA officers, said the case raises questions about the adequacy of the agency's self-policing of its senior officers. All CIA officers are required to report any unofficial contact with foreign nationals, although in practice, the agency sometimes looks the other way when its employees engage in romances overseas, Zaid said.

While cases of rape would be "unbelievably rare," the reality is that some agency employees "are sleeping around while posted overseas -- sometimes brazenly -- and no one does anything about it," he said.

Isobel Coleman, director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program of the Council on Foreign Relations, said it was vitally important that the U.S. government pursue the investigation vigorously and publicly, given the particular cultural sensitivities of Muslim cultures toward sexual crimes.

"We need to show that we take it very seriously," she said.

Original article here.

This isn't the time to speak of ethics, but of precise intelligence. Whoever gave the instructions to send 100 of our planes, piloted by the best of our boys, to bomb and strafe enemy targets in Gaza is familiar with the many schools adjacent to those targets - especially police stations. He also knew that at exactly 11:30 A.M. on Saturday, during the surprise assault on the enemy, all the children of the Strip would be in the streets - half just having finished the morning shift at school, the others en route to the afternoon shift.

This is not the time to speak of proportional responses, not even of the polls that promise a greater share of Knesset seats to the mission's architects. This is, however, the time to speak of the voters' belief the operation will succeed, that the strikes are precise and the targets justified.

Take, for example, Imad Aqel Mosque in Jabalya refugee camp, bombed and strafed shortly before midnight on Sunday. These are the names of the glorious military victory we achieved there - Jawaher, age 4; Dina, age 8; Sahar, age 12; Ikram, age 14; and Tahrir, age 17, all sisters of the Ba'lousha family, all killed in a "precise" strike on the mosque. Another three sisters, a 2-year-old brother and their parents were injured. Twenty-four neighbors were wounded and five homes and three stores destroyed. This part of the military victory did not open our television or radio news broadcasts yesterday morning, nor did they appear on many Israeli news Web sites.

This is the time to speak about the detailed maps in the hands of IDF commanders, and about the Shin Bet advisers who know the exact distance between the mosque and nearby homes. This is the time to discuss the drone planes and the hot air balloons fitted with advanced cameras floating over the Strip day and night, filming everything.

This is the time to rely on legal advisers studying the operation to find the right phrasing to justify "collateral damage." Time to praise Foreign Ministry spokespeople who in their polished language, with their elegant South African or charmant Parisien accents, say it is the fault of Hamas, which uses neighborhood mosques for its own purposes.

Talk of double standards has always been moot. Maybe there was a huge weapons store in the mosque. Maybe Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades militants met there every night and from there planned to launch their upgraded fighter jets.

Where does the IDF Chief of Staff sit when he draws up war plans? Not in the Sahara, or even in the Negev. What would happen if someone blew themselves up at the entrance to Tel Aviv's Cinematheque movie theater, and those who sent him said sorry, but he was headed for the Defense Ministry down the street?

This is not the time to recall long-forgotten history lessons to say this is not the way to topple a government. Nor is it the time to make rational recommendations for balanced statesmanship. The time for such things has passed, along with the New Order we once arrogantly tried to establish in Lebanon, which only brought us Hezbollah. Along with the Orientalists' plans to reduce the popularity of the PLO, which only paved the way for the emergence of a militant Islamic nationalist movement.

The time of such recommendations has passed, along with the grab of Palestinian lands and hyperactive construction of settlements in the Oslo era, which only laid the cornerstone for the second intifada and the fall of Fatah.

The era of reason and judgment died long ago, even before the targeted assassinations of Fatah activists in the West Bank, which soon turned into shooting attacks on soldiers and the emergence of another few thousand young people taking up arms, not to mention the phenomenon of suicide bombers.

It is never the right time to say "we told you so," because once it is possible to say those words, they are already invalid. We cannot revive the dead, nor repair the damage caused by arrogance and megalomania.

This is the time to speak of our own satisfaction and enjoyment. Satisfaction from tanks once again raising and lowering their barrels in preparation for a ground attack, satisfaction from our leaders' threatening finger-waving at the enemy. That's how we like our leaders - calling up reservists, sending pilots to bomb our enemies and manifesting national unity, from Baruch Marzel to Tzipi Livni, Netanyahu to Barak to Lieberman.

By Amira Haas, Israeli journalist / w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m

"I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president... We must [w]ork together to get our country moving again."

In these words, hours after the ballot boxes closed, the white John McCain acknowledged his defeat and congratulated his black opponent Obama, the son of a black formerly Muslim Kenyan goat-herd from the furthest reaches of Africa.

It is the young Obama who will lead America, the most powerful empire on Earth and the one with the greatest influence on world affairs.

Local and international media in all their diversity were gripped by these elections to a degree unprecedented anywhere at any time, deepening the event's historic dimension.

This included Arab satellite media, astonished by the vitality shown by America in choosing as its head a person from a race whose members not too long ago were prevented from even riding a bus side by side with a white man.

It was an irony of fate that these satellite channels are mostly owned by ruling families where the seat of power is passed down from grandfather to father and ancestor to ancestor, and where only the Angel of Death gets to change the ruler, who is succeeded by one of his descendants or brothers.  Others are owned by so-called "republics" which have become military monarchies where again the seat of power changes only by the visit of the Angel of Death or of an enemy army's tanks.  Most of the military monarchies' rulers are over seventy and have grown old on their thrones; many have slipped into senility after indulging in the pomp of greatness.

The monarchies, whether military or masked by a civilian façade, pretend that "après nous la déluge" - that without them, there would be chaos or Taliban.  They pretend that their rulers represent the ineluctable decrees of fate, that any change of them would be mourned by all the earth and even the heavens.

But these monarchies have nourished destruction in their bosoms, and hypocrisy in their midst, and corruption in their bounds - as they strangle a people groaning in ever-worsening poverty and ever-increasing oppression, and corruption fills the people's world with evil and despair and desperation, to the point that nations have been destroyed and others stand at the brink of destruction.

By Robert Fisk

Five years on, and still we have not learnt. With each anniversary, the steps crumble beneath our feet, the stones ever more cracked, the sand ever finer. Five years of catastrophe in Iraq and I think of Churchill, who in the end called Palestine a "hell-disaster".

But we have used these parallels before and they have drifted away in the Tigris breeze. Iraq is swamped in blood. Yet what is the state of our remorse? Why, we will have a public inquiry – but not yet! If only inadequacy was our only sin.

By Stephen Zunes

The United States has done for the cause of democracy what the Soviet Union did for the cause of socialism. Not only has the Bush administration given democracy a bad name in much of the world, but its high-profile and highly suspect "democracy promotion" agenda has provided repressive regimes and their apologists an excuse to label any popular pro-democracy movement that challenges them as foreign agents, even when led by independent grassroots nonviolent activists.

In recent months, the governments of Zimbabwe, Iran, Belarus, and Burma, among others, have disingenuously claimed that popular nonviolent civil insurrections of the kind that toppled the corrupt and autocratic regimes in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine in recent years - and that could eventually threaten them as well - are somehow part of an effort by the Bush administration and its allies to instigate "soft coups" against governments deemed hostile to American interests and replace them by more compliant regimes.

A former member of the Algerian secret services who was jailed in Spain and released on October 31 said he had been secretly detained for three days before he was released.

"The police officers asked me to follow them to Torremolinos police station where at around 2 p.m. I was told I am sought on three charges: desertion, breach of the army code, and terrorist activity,” said Mohamed Samraoui in a statement released on Rachad movement website on Saturday.

By Matt McCarten - The New Zealand Herald

After five years and $3 million in taxpayers' money, our secret police have now decided Ahmed Zaoui is not a sinister terrorist after all, and is in fact capable of being a good model citizen and can stay here.

This sordid episode has been a farce from start to finish. Our new SIS director, Warren Tucker, would have us believe that, as Zaoui has promised to be good, then it's all okey-dokey.

Special to washingtonpost.com's Think Tank Town

The heady days of the so-called "Arab Spring" seem so long ago. Since 2005, Iraq has descended into civil war, Lebanon has experienced war and political paralysis, the Palestinian Authority is on the verge of collapse, and the Egyptian leadership is narrowing, not opening, Egypt's political arena. President Bush's much ballyhooed "forward strategy of freedom" in the Middle East has become a victim of unrealistic expectations about the challenges of promoting more open political systems in the Middle East. With all the discussion in Washington over the last five years about civil society, economic development, education reform, "capacity building," and the role of religion in politics in the Middle East, one crucial, but overlooked factor is the role of the military in the political systems of a variety of countries.

The Algerian generals continue to maintain the cycle of death, destruction and misery. They excel in the creation of hopelessness and destitution. In their despair, the Algerian youth dream of a life in exile and not on the land of their fathers. The generals think that the survival of their regime passes by tying Algeria to the neo-colonial order that is slowly taking shape under globalisation and the war on terror.  These days the Algerian army is in big demand for participation in military exercises with the powerful armies of the region and elsewhere. For the generals this means approval of whatever actions they undertake against the helpless Algerian population and legitimisation of state violence.

Violence is the oxygen which drives the complicated pathways of the chemistry which maintains the life of the Algerian regime. The military establishment is now experiencing a second youth after the "retirement" of the old barons who had dominated the political scene since the military coup of January 1992. The retired generals can relax and take a backseat, having left the banana republic in the hands of trusted and tested younger officers. The colossal fortunes they have amassed and the data base knowledge they have on the persons who have faithfully served them and to whom they have bequeathed power will guarantee the retired generals a peaceable future in the twilight of their life. Writers and journalists, eager for crumbs and small privileges, will rush to help write their memoirs and record their sacrifices for a grateful nation and immortalise their glorious deeds for the posterity.

Fifteen years ago a struggle for power between new forces of political Islam and a military establishment took place in Algeria, paralleling to an alarming degree what is happening in Turkey. This struggle ended in a military coup that plunged Algeria into a cycle of violence; so far 200,000 people have been killed, tens of thousands jailed, a million internally displaced, and tens of thousands exiled.

Communiqué

The Rachad Mouvement confirms that its official website (www.rachad.org) and that of its web-TV (tv.rachad.org) had been the targets of a campaign of attacks and hacks by the Algerian intelligence services before they were completely censored two weeks ago.

Rachad's internet site has thus become the first website to suffer political censorship by the Algerian regime.

Rachad is not surprised by this disgraceful measure as this regime is used to silencing, destroying and repressing dissenting voices, and it is not intimidated by this perfidious regime which preaches a policy of reconciliation while pursuing, in practice, a policy of eradication and exclusion.

This censorship reflects the patronizing attitude of the regime and its wish to subjugate the Algerian people and take away their freedoms and choices, thereby violating the Constitution of the Algerian state and the international rights treaties and covenants to which it is a party.

Rachad condemns this outdated practice and reaffirms that such measures only confirm its assessments of the situation in the country and steel its resolve to remain faithful to its principled stands.

Rachad reassures all Algerians and other freedom loving supporters that no effort will be spared to work with all willing national partners to bring about a fundamental change, to establish the rule of law and good governance, through non-violent means. Rachad will do its utmost in order to spread its message within the country as soon as possible.

On December 11, the independent Quds Press News Agency carried the following report: “An Algerian political activist and opposition member revealed the content of an Algerian-American accord over the use of the Algerian territories by the American military forces

Algerians and Egyptians, especially the young, have every right to support and cheer on their national teams. But it is not acceptable that the dictatorial regimes ruling both Algeria and Egypt should exploit the public's fascination with this event and passion for football for the shameful purpose of reinforcing their oppressive and tyrannical rule, and play on popular emotions to arouse an imaginary enmity that has caused a rift between the two brother nations and led to damages to people and property.

The Algerian and Egyptian regimes are each trying to spread the idea that the other country's people are the enemy, and that they are the ultimate protector of national honour and defender of national interests, through corrupt and corrupting media which have long confirmed their status as mouthpieces of the tyrants.

The Algerian and Egyptian regimes have demonstrated their failure in every area of politics, economics, and society. Even sports, through which they seek a victory in order to cover for their inability to provide the basic necessities for a decent life to the citizen, have deteriorated just like other aspects of national life. Witness the fact that more than 10 players in the Algerian football team live abroad. They have teamed up with their brothers to represent their nation with bravery and sincerity despite the deplorable situation in the country which has forced many of them to leave it.

This propaganda is bound to backfire once the intoxication of this fabricated feud has passed out of people's minds and many will realise that their emotions were abused and manipulated by the dictators who rule them. This will compound the anger against the ruling regimes which have proved to be beyond reform and a real threat to their countries.

We call on the Algerian people and the brotherly Egyptian people to reject the plots of the ruling gangs. We are confident Algerians and Egyptians are increasingly aware of the need to get rid of these corrupt and oppressive regimes and replace them with legitimate governments striving to safeguard the dignity of their people and the integrity of their territory. Only after such a change can competition, in any area including sports, become a noble contest strengthening the bonds of Arab, Islamic, and human brotherhood.

Rachad Secretariat

17 November 2009

Algerians and Egyptians, especially the young, have every right to support and cheer on their national teams.  But it is not acceptable that the thuggish regimes ruling both Algeria and Egypt should exploit the public’s fascination

Today the Rachad Movement sent a letter to the two Algerian newspapers, Ech Chorouk and El Bilad, requesting them to publish its right to reply  after the two papers put out two articles on 16 April, entitled "Prison for a young man who called for the killing of soldiers through the Rachad Movement's website" in the former and "Email sent to Rachad forum website: terrorist incites army deserters to kill officers who fought terrorism. Court sentences him to 18 months without parole" in the latter.  En Nahar El Djadid and Le Jour d'Algérie also carried similar stories, but referred to the "Irchad Group" rather than the "Rachad Movement."

Here follows the reply of Rachad :

1.     The reported story is misrepresented; our sources confirm that the original report of the case says "the Irchad site", not "the Rachad site", so there is no excuse for a supposedly professional newspaper to involve the name of "the Rachad Movement" in this story.

2.     No request - official or unofficial - for explanation regarding this alleged letter has reached Rachad. Any serious legal investigation would be required to carry out such checks. Thus from the legal perspective the Rachad Movement must have no ties with this case.

3.     For the sake of argument, even if the alleged accusation were true, it would be absurd to judge an Algerian youth in the criminal courts and sentence him with such severity (18 months without parole) just for posting a message on a website.

4.     The purpose of publishing "news" that smear our organisation is to continue spreading fear and defaming any serious opposition whose members are every so often labelled as traitors, conspirators, and terrorists.

5.     Spreading this fabricated story aims at frightening Algerians away from contacting Rachad, which has never ceased to reaffirm its call for a comprehensive, fundamental, responsible change of the illegal regime ruling Algeria, exclusively by non-violent means.

6.     The Rachad Movement is fully transparent in its activities, and its principles, goals and methods have been openly proclaimed and are accessible to the public. It considers that the current regime is the ultimate source of terrorism; this regime first started it, then used it as a method of governing, and maintains it as a strategy to immobilize society.

7.     Rachad strongly condemns the smearing campaign against the genuine opposition, and likewise condemns terrorist crimes whatever their source and whoever carries them out.  Rachad shall continue, through non-violent, honourable, and transparent methods, to confront those who have usurped power over Algerians through deception, fraud, and terror.

Rachad Secretariat

Today's announcement of the "official" results of the elections organised yesterday by the Algerian regime shows once again the absurdity and failure of the autocratic rule which has shamelessly presented us with figures worthy of the "Democratic and Popular Republic", in order to satisfy the ego of the "independent" candidate,."

This dark day in our country's history shows that Abdelaziz Bouteflika cannot survive politically other than as a president "elected with 90% of the vote", in the framework of a constitution hastily "made to order" by bribed "representatives".

The hundred-odd foreign observers (Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Conference) were in no position to cover the 47,000 election offices, besides the reservations expressed with regard to them. Widespread and systematic fraud took place.

Rachad had announced on 6 April 2009, in a press release, that the regime was going to "announce a participation rate of 70%-75%, and a 90% victory for Bouteflika, followed in second position by Ms. Hanoune." Our predictions, based on our sources within the current regime, have been born out accurately.

Today we can announce that our sources and other data available to us confirm that the real participation rate was 16%. However, the relative scores of the six candidates, as announced by Noureddine Zerhouni, are not far from the truth.

This mockery of an election shows clearly that the current regime is not prepared to allow any change of government through the institutions they have put in place. It chooses the "opposition" that suits it and gives it a democratic facade.

This strategy only underlines the consistency of Rachad's strategy for change. Such change, which has become vital for Algeria, cannot take place within the forms of the political system imposed by the current Algerian regime.

We call on all Algerians to join in this process of change that we want to be far-reaching, responsible, and non-violent. The current regime no longer deserves even to be criticised; it falls to the real opposition working for the country's interests to live up to its responsibilities and join forces to make the long-awaited process of change real.

Rachad Secretariat

It is within this context that will be organised, in Algeria on the 9th of April, the so-called presidential “elections”, a farce whose results are known in advance, after the constitution was violated to allow the man the Generals had put in power in 1999 to stay in power as long as he lives.

The government that Bouteflika shares with the military and civilian factions has made corruption in every form their means for pillaging resources and expanding their power.

Bouteflika himself acknowledged, on 23 July 2008, that he had “lost his way” and that “all policies had failed” – and yet here he is, with his factions behind the scenes, setting out to produce more failure and despair, through policies ruining the lives of the majority of Algerians.

These terrible and sterile policies have ruined the lives of most people and are plunging Algeria into ever-growing chaos.

We, in the Rachad Movement, call on all Algerians to consider the farce of 9 April as a non-event, to condemn it, to boycott it, and to reject its results. We reaffirm to the Algerian people our unswerving resolve to work with all willing forces in order to bring about a comprehensive change which will save the nation from the predatory factions which continue to usurp the popular will.

Rachad Secretariat

Thursday 19 March 2009

Communiqué Nr. 2
Regarding the “Elections” of 17 May 2007

15 May 2007

As just another step in the process of fabricating facts and ignoring the popular will, the regime in Algeria is running a joke it calls the “legislative elections” whose results are known in advance.

Photographs of the Press Conference of April, 18, 2007
Annoncement of the start of the Rachad Movement

Our country is not well. Our future is in jeopardy, and that of our children may be irredeemably compromised.

Half a century after an independence that was supposed to establish ‘a sovereign democratic social state of Algeria within the framework of Islamic principles’, Algeria is today crippled by despotism, corruption, injustice, poverty and despair.

The root of the problem is well known: the seizure of power and of the country’s wealth by a handful of generals.  There is no more doubt about the balance sheet of this regime: Restriction of liberties, political exclusion, abuse of the law, economic regression, social dislocation, and an identity crisis. Even security remains precarious, contrary to official speeches, as we are reminded daily by the tragic and bloody events that our country continues to suffer from.

Throughout their history, the Algerian people have resisted every form of domination, whether by external occupation or internal tyranny.  They paid an especially heavy price to free themselves from the French colonial yoke and entertain the hope of establishing a social and democratic sovereign state within the framework of Islamic principles.

Unfortunately, the policy of murdering opponents, practiced by the military security already during the revolution, and the overthrow of the provisional government, in the summer of 1962, forced the Algerian people to live under the stranglehold of the military, which put into place a culture of coups and state violence.

Set-up in order to contribute to bringing about a fundamental change in Algeria, to break with political practices in place since independence, and to give hope to the Algerian people, Rachads intends to establish a state in which the rule of law, democratic principles and good governance prevail.

Rachad is open to all Algerians; it rejects all kinds of discrimination, exclusion and extremism, and is committed to using non-violent means to bring about the change.