Butaflika appoints a committee for people missing due to politics

Algerian President Abdul Aziz Butaflika has appointed a national committee to consider the question of hundreds of missing who disappeared in the framework of the wave of violence which effected the country, in a remarkable attempt before the presidential elections, in order to close this file which raised criticism from local and international legal groups.

Amnesty International blamed the Algerian authorities last week saying in a report to that effect concerning human rights conditions that laws are not applied in a way that allow dealing with consequences of violence which started by the beginning of 1992.

Amnesty International said Legislative reforms even if they include certain positive aspect, are kept just ink on paper, and any of these initiatives did not treat the heritage of the last decade of violence during which a human rights crisis of terrorist dimensions hit the country.

Estimates for the number of victims of the acts of violence throughout one decade are between 100, 150,000 thousands. Figures are contradictory concerning number of missing. The ministry of the interior said that the number exceeds 6,000 while the consultation committee for human rights protection ( a governmental organization) headed by Farouk Qasantini reduces the number to 430 missing.

Qasantini who was chosen by Butaflika to chair the committee in charge of discussing the file said "this is a wide positive step. It is a clear answer to the report of the Amnesty International."

In earlier statements Qasantini considered that the way to define the identity of the killed persons is ineffective in a way that led to that 3200 persons were buried without notifying their families because it was difficult to recognize them.

Butaflika said that the committee he had formed, a group including 7 members that will work according to new ways but he gave no explanations. He added "the new mechanism is characterized by independence and effectiveness and will implement all requests aiming at searching for any person that his family announces to be among the missing."

Almost, everyday, mother of missing persons gather in front of the building of the the said consultation committee asking for information about their children. This file, however, has been changed into a pressure card by the opposition groups before the presidential elections which are held in April and it is expected on a large scale that through it Butaflika is seeking to win a new presidential term of office.

Butaflika was elected in April 1999 on the hope to restoring back stability and peace to the country. He took steps to achieve reconciliation including the national reconciliation law which availed hundreds of extremists Islamists to benefit from a pardon granted for abandoning their weapons.

He said upon the formation of the said committee on September 21st "this mechanism is part of a large scale for national reconciliation. It reflects the will of the state to shoulder its responsibility to ensure the security of persons and property."