Lamamra paints conflicting picture

Editor,

At the end of last semester, Ramtame Lamamra, Algerian Ambassador to the United States, spoke at the Auraria Campus and gave his governmentâs view of the tragic situation in the country where between 80,000-100,000 people have died ­ most of them civilians ­ in a wave of bloodshed that has continued since 1992. Lamamra blamed the violence on ãIslamic extremistsä while defending his governmentâs role. He suggested that the security situation has become more or less under control and that the population in its majority stand behind the present government.

Lamamra also made a special point of criticizing recent reports of human rights groups like Amnesty International that have raised questions in recent months that the government itself might be responsible for some of the violence and that the opposition to the military-backed government of President Zeroual is actually far broader than a small band of zealot Islamic guerrillas. In this spirit, the ambassador rejected as unnecessary a suggestion that the present government enter into talks with the opposition and seek some kind of negotiated settlement.

Lamamraâs rosy picture conflicts with reality. The killings have continued in December and January, contradicting his claims that the violence is winding down. Accusations ranging from neglect to open complicity of the military in the violence from Algerian sources continue to be made. The question of the militaryâs broader role as the power behind the scenes manipulating the political process is also raised. An excellent report by CNNâs Christian Amanpour in December of last year only underlined all these questions.

In the interim, the U.S. State Department., which traditionally has refrained from commenting much on Algeria, took the unusual step of calling for an independent investigation of the situation. That statement seems to be in support and in tandem with a European Union initiative. In an unprecedented step, the EU sent a fact-finding delegation to Algiers; that delegation was essentially stone-walled by the Zeroual government, who it seems, had more to hide than to share and left after one day. But a process was begun which it will be come increasingly difficult for the government in Algiers to ignore.

As in Bosnia (where the EU also asked for American help to resolve a regional conflict it was not prepared to resolve on its own), the internationalization of the Algerian crisis ­ its emergence on the international agenda and in the press ­ is a positive step toward bringing the current tragedy to a close.

Rob Prince
Metro anthropology instructor