This week, amidst great secrecy, an Algerian military court handed down a two-year prison sentence to the paramilitary gendarme convicted of gunning down young Massinissa Guermah in Tizi Ouzou in April 2001. The murder of Guermah in a hail of bullets touched off a cycle of Amazigh protests and violent crackdowns by government forces known as the “Black Spring”, during which at least 100 Amazigh demonstrators were killed.
The BBC reports that, in a 15-minute trial, Merabet Mestari was convicted of involuntary homicide and involuntary injury with a firearm. Though technically open to the press, media groups were not informed about the trial until after the fact. The fate of a dozen other gendarmes implicated in the killing is unknown; no arrests or trials have been announced.
Relatives of the victim and Amazigh groups characterized the sentence as a “parody of justice” and overly lenient. The ruling may prove to be another major setback in relations between President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s government and the Amazigh community, which has been pressing for greater freedom and recognition of their cultural rights.
This latest disappointment for the Amazigh comes three weeks after a court ruled that one of their leading activists, Belaid Abrika, would remain in custody on a number of charges, including arson and inciting riots. Abrika’s crime, apparently, was demonstrating support for 13 Amazigh youths arrested during the boycott of elections in early October in the Kabylie region. Three other activists arrested with him have been released due to a lack of evidence. Several human rights groups have appealed for Abrika’s release, but it appears that he will be prosecuted.
Though the government has made some grudging concessions to Amazigh demands regarding language rights, it refuses to consider removing paramilitary forces from the Kabylie region, which is predominantly Amazigh. The continued security presence is central to the Amazigh community’s discontent. Not surprisingly, the government maintains that it cannot pull out security forces while the region remains ‘unstable’, despite claims by Amazigh leaders that their heavy hand only serves to add fuel to the conflict.
Though they constitute fully a fifth of Algeria’s population, many Amazigh experience institutionalized discrimination and disenfranchisement. To protest the policies of the current regime, many Amazigh groups called for a boycott of October’s local elections, resulting in a mere 7.6% turnout in Kabylie. Any vote, they argued, would be an endorsement of a corrupt and hostile administration.
