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Algeria - The Country Ever since one of the 20 companions of Hercules founded a trading center here, Algeria has been rocked by rebellion and warfare. The Romans, Vandals, Hafsids, Merenids, pirates (the famous home base of Barbarossa, aka Red Beard and the Barbary pirates), Spanish, Arabs, Turks and French all pillaged, abused and destroyed the former breadbasket of the Roman Empire. The current killing is gaining rapidly on the 250,000 body count racked up by the French in their eight-year "Vietnam" from 1954-1962. Today the war is a sick soap opera where the former terrorists (FLN) and current leaders let the new rebels (GIA) destroy their own people and future political legitimacy. There is also firm suspicion that the body count is helped by right-wing killers who play tit-for-tat. Most of the killing takes place just outside Algiers and in Algeria's Mitidja Plain. This fertile, and now dirt-cheap and deadly, farmland stretches southward from the outskirts of Algiers, and is called the Triangle of Death. An apt name for what may well be the most deadly real estate since Cambodia's Killing Fields. This is the stomping grounds of the insurgent Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the radical, genocidal rebel group trying to oust the presidency of Abdelaziz Bouteflika and the lingering influence of Liamine Zeroual, Algeria's most recent leader. Between 80,000 and 120,000 people have died (with at least 500,000 displaced), many of them fertilizing this valley with their blood. Here, the most common item can become an executioner's weapon: rusty knives, axes, homemade bombs, hoes, grenades fashioned from Coke cans and rakes. All are used to slaughter old men, schoolgirls, farmboys, teachers and anyone else who gets in the GIA's way, or even stays out of it. In February 1997, the GIA said it would "slash the throats of all apostates and their allies" and set "explosions in the very heart of Algiers and Blida." They have certainly made good on their threats. On September 22, 1997, in Bentalha, eight miles south of Algiers, some 300 villagers were killed in a six-hour orgy of violence as army helicopters observed the slaughter from overhead, doing nothing to stop the carnage. The guerrillas slipped away at sunrise as easily as they entered Bentalha, though surrounded by the army's tanks. During the holy month of Ramadan in early 1998, Muslim insurgents slaughtered more than 1,200 civilians (some estimates say 2,000). The worst single incident of 1998 occurred on January 11 during Ramadan, when GIA extremists massacred more than 100 civilians in Sidi Hamed. On April 11, 1999, rebels slashed the throats of 18 civilians at a fake roadblock in the Zelamta area of Mascara province about 250 miles southwest of Algiers. Ten civilians had their throats slit near Mellah area in Mascara Province about 187 miles west of Algiers the same day. On April 27, 1998, GIA guerrillas cut the throats of 43 villagers in Madea Province, south of Algiers. On May 14, 1997, more than 30 villagers were slaughtered by the rebels in the sleepy hamlet of Douar Daoud, including 2 infants, 15 other children and 7 women. On April 16, the bodies of 4 young girls were found outside the village of Chaib Mohammed. They had been raped before their throats were slit. During only one week in April 1997, more than 140 people were slaughtered. These are only samplings of the daily nightlife in Algeria. More than 100 foreigners have been killed here since 1992, though none were killed during 1998 (namely because there were none left to kill). The GIA sends DP crudely assembled and energetically written faxes claiming that all singers, artists, journalists, soldiers and policemen are nonbelievers, and that they will be killed. There was no mention of lawyers, boxing promoters and used-car salesmen, but take it for granted you are marked for death if you enter Algiers or the Triangle of Death. (Despite the warnings, DP visited Algiers to see these rabid dumpster dogs and share the negative vibes.) Since the cancelled 1991 Algerian elections, radical fundamentalists have murdered more than 22,000 innocent people, including more than 100 foreigners, in an effort to topple the government. Among the victims are playwrights, artists, singers, journalists, politicians, and even schoolgirls who refuse to don the hejab, or traditional Muslim head covering. The number of slain Muslim militants is thought to be over 20,000. The GIA brags that they have sent Cheb Hasni (a popular Algerian singer whom they shot to death) to hell. They whacked Berber singer Lounes Matoub in June 1998 for dissing the Arabic language (see "Dangerous Things"). The Berbers are the country's largest ethnic minority and a group ready to explode after a July 1998 law essentially outlawed their language.The GIA communique to DP went on to say, "Now we will start with the journalists, the poets and the soldiers. Belly dancing is a prayer to Satan. When Satan's messengers give a direction to people, they dance." They ask that if you dance, please stay out of Algeria. Not an entirely surprising request in post-disco Algeria. The fundamentalists' threats are not just the rhetoric of bored bullies. Journalists are under a direct threat of immediate execution if they enter the country; more than 70 have been killed and 700 have fled. Wearing glasses, Western clothes or even looking educated can make you a target. It is estimated that the entire wealth of this country of 28 million is in the hands of only about 5,000 people. Algeria is no stranger to hatred and death. Eight years of cruel warfare with the French started back in 1954. During this period, a quarter of a million people were killed and more than a million pied noirs (black feet), or white colonists, were forced out. Despite the messy divorce, Algeria's 133-year marriage to France has made it more French than Arabic. France has always had a love-hate relationship with Algeria, due more to its geographical proximity than to its cultural dissimilarities. In Algeria, Russia has found a major customer for its military hardware and expertise, and Italy makes sure Algeria continues to pump out the oil and gas it needs to keep those Fiats and Ferraris topped off. Algerian militants are training at military bases in Sudan, and financially supported by Iran. Most of the trainees were veterans of the Afghan war and traveled to Sudan via Iran. These militants are trained to add to the core of the underground Islamic fundamentalist movement held responsible for the killing of hundreds of members of Algeria's security forces. For now the world pretends that Algeria doesn't exist. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
