ALGERIA: An amnesty aimed at drawing a line under Algeria's years of strife won a warm welcome yesterday from relatives of jailed Islamist former fighters but ran into tough criticism from human rights groups.
More than 2,000 Islamist ex-fighters are to be freed under the amnesty shortly in a test of a government drive to reconcile an oil-exporting nation whose stability is seen as important for the security of north Africa and the Mediterranean.
The former combatants, due to be freed shortly, were convicted for their role in more than a decade of conflict that began when the authorities cancelled the 1992 legislative elections that the Islamic Salvation Front was poised to win.
The decision triggered an uprising by the Islamic Salvation Army, the armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front, which had won the first round of Algeria's first multi-party polls in 1991.
The amnesty gives guerrillas still fighting six months to surrender and be pardoned, provided they were not responsible for massacres, rapes and bombings of public places.
It also bars prosecutions of members of the security forces for any wrongdoing committed during the conflict that killed between 150,000 and 200,000 people, mostly civilians.
Human rights groups say the amnesty grants too sweeping an immunity and muzzles discussion of the conflict.
Thousands of Islamic guerrillas have already given themselves up since early January 2000 after an earlier partial amnesty. The last significant prisoner releases took place in 1999.
Rights groups say the authorities have largely failed to investigate abuses during the conflict.
Hocine Zehouane, chairman of the Algerian League for the Protection of Human Rights, said: "Releasing sentenced people is not a problem. The problem lies in giving amnesty to people who have not been judged. This is why the charter is not legal vis-a-vis international law."