US embassy cable - 05ALGIERS1975

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ALGIERS 001975 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT. FOR P, R, NEA/FO, NEA/PD AND NEA/MAG 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/24/2015 
TAGS: KISL, PGOV, PHUM, KDEM, KPAO, EAID, AG, Terrorism 
SUBJECT: COMBATING EXTREMISM IN ALGERIA 
 
REF: STATE 159129 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Richard W. Erdman, Reason 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
1.  (C) Having defeated an armed Islamic extremist insurgency 
over the past thirteen years, Algeria has gained considerable 
experience in combating extremism.  Algerian military and 
political leaders openly admit now that at the time of the 
army's intervention to prevent the election of an Islamist 
majority in 1991-92, the government and the army had only a 
tenuous claim to political legitimacy while the Islamist 
insurgency initially enjoyed some popular support, and 
benefited even more from widespread apathy and cynicism.  The 
extremists lost in part due to their own bloody excesses, 
particularly their tactics of using massacre and rape against 
unarmed civilians, and in part because the army and security 
forces learned to couple their counterinsurgency operations 
with a media and information campaign designed to undermine 
the religious justification of the terrorists.  After the 
first few years of the conflict, which saw serious human 
rights abuses, the military leadership also came to recognize 
that respecting the rights of the civilian population was key 
to winning hearts and minds and enlisting public support 
against the terrorists.  Senior Algerian generals have told 
us this marked the turning point in their internal war 
against Islamic extremism. 
 
2.  (C)  After President Bouteflika's election in 1999, he 
added the additional element of a limited amnesty known as 
the Civil Concord.  Algerians will go to the polls again 
September 29 to vote in a referendum on Bouteflika's 
follow-on program called the Charter on National 
Reconciliation.  The principal goal of Bouteflika's 
initiatives is to further isolate the remaining groups of 
Islamist terrorists by offering many of them the opportunity 
to turn themselves in peacefully and be reintegrated into 
society. 
 
3.  (C) The methods developed and used by the Algerian 
Government to counter extremism have included: 
 
-- unapologetically making clear its strong commitment to 
cooperate with international efforts to combat terrorism; 
 
-- convincing Islamic scholars with a broad following in 
Algeria such as Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the Egyptian scholar based 
in Qatar, among others, to issue statements and fatwas 
condemning the brutal slaughter of Algerian civilians by 
terrorist groups, and circulating cassettes of these 
statements; 
 
-- sending consistent messages through state-controlled 
mosques and informal Sufi orders, especially during sermons 
at Friday prayers, condemning terrorism and violence as 
antithetical to Islamic values; 
 
-- President Bouteflika's frequent use of Quranic verses and 
Islamic rhetoric in public speeches to reinforce the message 
that the Government is not anti-Islamic; 
 
-- videotaping and broadcasting confessions by captured 
terrorists, particularly those implicated in massacres of 
civilians; 
 
-- allowing space in the political arena for moderate Islamic 
parties such as the Movement for a Society of Peace (a member 
of the majority coalition) and Islah (the largest legal 
opposition party), while continuing to bar the former leaders 
of the Islamic Salvation Front (known by its French acronym 
FIS) from returning to political activity; 
 
-- a broad consensus in the media, including the independent 
press, that terrorism is a plague that must be wiped out 
through international cooperation -- even if significant 
elements of the media and public opinion continue to insist 
that the right to resist foreign occupation precludes some 
non-Algerian terrorist organizations such as Hamas, 
Hizballah, and the Iraqi "resistance" (with the exception of 
Al-Zarqawi's group) from being considered terrorists. 
 
4.  (C) With our encouragement, Algeria has assumed a leading 
role in counterterrorism cooperation with its Sahelian 
neighbors to the south.  We have also supported the 
establishment in Algiers of an African Union Center devoted 
to the study and research of terrorism.  The Center is 
emerging as an important site for counterterrorism training. 
 
5.  (U) The Government has focused on reforming and 
modernizing the education system, revising the curriculum to 
reduce the amount of time devoted to Islamic studies and 
reining in teachers who used their classrooms to inculcate 
extremist values and ideas among their students.  State 
controlled radio promotes religious tolerance as well by 
broadcasting programs that feature mainstream Christian 
religious leaders based in Algeria.  State institutions such 
as the Higher Islamic Council and the Ministry of Religious 
Affairs support inter-religious dialogue. 
 
6.  (U) A number of Algerian NGOs are also dedicated to 
promoting public awareness of the crimes committed by 
Algerian terrorists.  These include such groups as the 
Organization of the Families of the Victims of Terrorism, as 
well as individual Algerian professionals such as 
psychiatrists who have devoted themselves to working with 
orphans from villages where terrorist massacres took place or 
to working with women who survived being kidnapped and 
repeatedly raped by terrorists, and photographers who have 
compiled documentary records of terrorist attacks on 
civilians. 
 
7.  (U) USG programs in Algeria effectively complement the 
efforts of the Algerian Government, Islamic establishment, 
and civil society to counter extremism.  These programs enjoy 
the strong backing of the Government, and several represent 
partnerships with NGOs.  The greatest constraint on our 
programming activities is the small size of our embassy 
staff, and especially our PD Section. 
 
8. (U) The Ambassador has made the most of media interviews 
and public speeches to emphasize the values of tolerance, our 
common struggle against terrorism, and our respect for 
Algeria's religious traditions.  While delivering a Cultural 
Preservation grant to preserve Islamic manuscripts stored at 
the Sufi Zaouia in Tolga, Ambassador stressed the commonality 
of peaceful values in Islam. 
 
9.  (U) Embassy PD Section, in coordination with ECA, NEA/PI 
and the Algerian Ministry of National Education, is 
implementing or supporting a number of projects promoting 
English language teaching. These include two English Language 
Fellows now working at the Ministry of National Education on 
training English-language teaching inspectors  and 
English-language curriculum reform.  A third Fellow will 
arrive shortly to teach English at the University of Algiers' 
training institute for public school English teachers. 
 
-- An American professor has begun a year of teaching in the 
Department of English at the University of Bejaia.  Earlier 
this year, an American professor of American Literature 
taught in the Department of English at Algiers University. 
 
-- Eighty non-elite high school students participated in 
ECA's Microscholarship Program in four Algerian cities this 
year.  We are going to double participation to 160 students 
this academic year and hope to expand it further in the 
future. 
 
-- MEPI, in coordination with the Ministry of National 
Education, is about to launch a $4 million Partnership School 
Program in Algeria.  This initiative focuses on reforming 
English-language instruction in Algerian public schools.  The 
program will also assist the Ministry introduce computer 
technology into classrooms and create partnerships between 
American and Algerian educational institutions. 
 
10.  (U) Programs supporting Algerian youth include the 
following: 
 
-- The PD Section, in partnership with the Algerian NGO 
FOREM, has supported the distribution of 10,000 book bags to 
high school students throughout the country through the 
Department's Shared Future Program.  The book bags, which are 
clearly identified as gifts from the American people, contain 
a book of photographs depicting everyday life around the 
United States, dictionaries, and school supplies. 
 
-- During the past two years, over 30 Algerian high school 
students have participated in the P4LYES Open Door Program, 
which gave them an opportunity to spend a year studying in a 
U.S. high school while living with American families. 
 
11.  (U) Cultural Programs: 
 
-- In 2004 the Embassy sponsored three concerts given by an 
American gospel singer in Algiers and Oran.  The concerts 
were very well received and conveyed a message of religious 
and racial tolerance, in addition to their musical pleasures. 
 
-- A similar concert series by a Latin jazz quartet is 
planned for later this year.  The tour is sponsored by ECA's 
American Music Abroad program. 
 
-- Last year we programmed three Georgetown University 
basketball players in three Algerian cities through ECA's 
Basketball Cultural Envoys.  We plan to do the same this year 
within the framework of ECA's NBA Basketball Initiative. 
Sports events are especially effective in connecting with 
Algerian youth. 
 
12.  (U) MEPI Programs: 
 
-- Using a MEPI small grant, the Embassy worked last year 
with an Algerian and an American NGO to organize a two-day 
conference on Islam and Democracy.  A number of Algerian 
political activists and academics participated in a lively 
discussion that brought together representatives of Algerian 
secular and moderate Islamist tendencies. 
 
-- Another MEPI small grant enabled the Embassy to work with 
the Algerian National Syndicate of Journalists to hold a 
two-day conference to teach communications officials in a 
large number of key ministries how to serve as ministry 
spokespersons.  The conference effectively promoted greater 
government transparency and responsible journalism. 
 
-- Using a third MEPI small grant, the Embassy is working 
with an Algerian filmmaker to produce a documentary film 
depicting the lives of several Algerian women who have 
struggled to promote women's rights.  The filmmaker will show 
the documentary to NGO workshops and other public gatherings 
throughout the country. 
 
-- In July 2005, the National Democratic Institute and the 
Algerian Center of Information on the Rights of Children and 
Women co-hosted a MEPI-financed leadership workshop for 50 
women political activists from both secular/nationalist and 
moderate Islamist political parties. 
 
13.  (U) IV Programs: 
 
-- International Visitor programs are extremely beneficial in 
providing Algerian nominees with the opportunity to get to 
know the United States.  This is especially important in 
Algeria since a relatively small percentage of Algerians have 
visited, lived or studied in the U.S., and the primary 
sources of their information about the U.S. are French and 
Arab satellite television and Hollywood movies, all of which 
provide distorted impressions.  Participants in two recent 
successful IV programs (print and broadcast journalists and a 
free trade group) separately told us at a lunch hosted by the 
Ambassador that their IV programs had been an eye-opening 
experience, since almost all of them had never visited the 
U.S. and the real country they discovered was much 
friendlier, more peaceful, more open, and more modestly 
dressed than they had been led to believe by TV and film 
images.  A woman journalist in the group who wears the 
Islamic head scarf said she had had reservations about 
participating because she expected to be mistreated at U.S. 
airports and on the street, but in fact she found Americans 
very welcoming and more accepting of her dress than was the 
case in Europe.  Cheikh Bouamrane, the head of the High 
Islamic Council, has similarly told us that his participation 
in a Religion in America IV program greatly changed his view 
of American society since he had engaged in a dialogue with a 
broad range of Americans with diverse religious beliefs. 
 
14.  (U) EUCOM Humanitarian Assistance Projects: 
 
-- The Embassy is also managing two major EUCOM-funded 
humanitarian construction projects -- a center for mentally 
handicapped children at Ghardaia and a center for "women in 
distress" in Naciria.  Both projects, launched with high 
profile visits by the Ambassador, have effectively conveyed a 
message of shared concern and friendship, thus strengthening 
support for closer U.S.-Algerian cooperation, especially in 
counterterrorism.  Another project that has been approved but 
not yet funded is the construction of a youth center in the 
economically depressed regional capital of Ouargala, for 
which the Ambassador has leveraged expected U.S. funding to 
raise an additional $700,000 from U.S. private sector firms 
in Algeria.  At all three centers, the focus of the programs 
is to provide disadvantaged Algerians with skills essential 
to securing good jobs and leading productive lives, and in 
the process send a positive message about the U.S. military 
and the American people. 
ERDMAN