Algeria

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Here is another article that blames Algerian regime for the massacres.
Governments in the Near East, Africa, South Asia, and East Asia are pretty
corrupt. Failure of present regimes is one of the reason people are
attracted to "fundamentalist" groups. Egypt, which also violates serious
human rights to suppress opposition, is another such case.

http://reports.guardian.co.uk/papers/19980110-11.html

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By John Sweeney 

Guardian Media Group plc 1998 

Sunday January 11, 1998 

Fresh evidence that at least some of the massacres in Algeria are
the work of the regime's military security force emerged last night
against the backdrop of yet another rural mass killing. 

The slaughter of 55 civilians in Algeria's killing fields - added to the
1,000 murdered in the first 10 days of Ramadan - amounts to the
worst violence in Algeria's six-year civil war. The latest massacres
followed an all too familiar pattern of unarmed villagers being surprised
and overwhelmed by armed men. All that is left is dozens of hacked corpses,
including those of women, children and even infants and those responsible
escape into the dark. The three latest massacres reportedly involved armed
gunmen, who also abducted young women. More commonly knives and axes are
used for the slaughter. 

 The massacres have renewed pressure on Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, now
leading the European Union's belated efforts to allay Algeria's agony. 

Two policemen seeking asylum in Britain told the Observer they took part in
massacres and torture of defenceless civilians, under orders. The defectors
said special forces disguised as'fundamentalists' with beards and Muslim
dress slaughtered entire families in the middle of the night. 

International rage is growing at evidence that the Algerian regime is
deliberately not protecting its people and that the unpopular generals are
colluding in killings. 

Algiers still rejects any United Nations investigation into the massacres,
but as a sop to European sensitivity has agreed to a strictly limited EU
diplomatic mission. Algeria said talks should concentrate on confronting
'terrorism' and ruled out any inquiry into the killings. 

The two policemen who spoke to the Observer recommend that the European
mission should visit five torture complexes in Algiers. They include the
basement of the Châteauneuf barracks, a complex beneath the barracks in Ben
Aknoun Zoo - the zoo station, the torture complex at Beni-Messous, and the
torture complex in the basement of the central police headquarters.


 Copyright Guardian Media Group plc 1998 

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