VI.

History

The earliest inhabitants of what is now Algeria were Berbers, tribal peoples of unknown origin. Cave paintings in the Ahaggar Mountains region, dating between 6500 and 1200 bc, depict a people who raised cattle and hunted game in the area.

A.

Ancient Times

About 800 bc, the Phoenicians, a seafaring people from the eastern Mediterranean, founded a North African state at Carthage in what is now Tunisia. During the Punic Wars (3rd-2nd centuries bc) between Carthage and Rome, Masinissa (reigned 202-148 bc), a Berber chief allied with Ancient Rome, established the first Algerian kingdom, Numidia. His grandson, Jugurtha, was subjugated by Rome in 106 bc.

Numidia prospered under Roman rule. Large estates produced so much grain and olive oil that the region became known as the granary of Rome. A system of military roads and garrisoned towns protected the inhabitants from nomadic tribes. In time, these towns, such as Timgad and Tipasa, grew into miniature Roman cities.

The decline of Rome brought many changes. Roman legions were withdrawn to defend other frontiers, and in the 3rd century ad regional independence was briefly expressed in the heretical Donatist movement, a North African Christian sect persecuted by the Roman authorities. Saint Augustine, a native Algerian of the 4th and 5th centuries, particularly denounced Donatism in his prolific writings. The Vandals, a Germanic tribe, invaded the region in the 5th century and stayed on to establish their own kingdom. Barely a century later these warriors were themselves overthrown by an army of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, whose dream was to restore the glory of the Roman Empire.

B.

Medieval Islamic Dynasties

Justinian’s dream was short-lived. In the 7th century the Arabs invaded North Africa, bringing with them a new religion, Islam. In Algeria they were resisted by the Berber leaders Kusayla and Kahina, a supposed prophetess of a tribe that some scholars believe had been converted to Judaism. Eventually, however, the Berbers submitted to Islam and Arab authority, and Algeria became a province of the Umayyad caliphate. The Arabs, however, remained largely an urban elite.

The Abbasids seized the caliphate from the Umayyads in the 8th century. In the ensuing disorder, Algerian Berbers, many of them members of the Kharijite sect of Islam, founded their own autonomous Islamic kingdoms. One of the most prominent was that of the Rustamids at Tahert in central Algeria. Tahert prospered in the 8th and 9th centuries. In the early 10th century Tahert was captured by the Fatimids, who adhered to the Shia branch of Islam. Between the 11th and 13th centuries two successive Berber dynasties, the Almoravids and the Almohads, brought northwest Africa and southern Spain under a single central authority. Tlemcen became a city of fine mosques and schools of Islamic learning, as well as a handicrafts center. Algerian seaports such as Bejaïa, Annaba, and the growing town of Algiers carried on a brisk trade with European cities, supplying the famed Barbary horses, wax, fine leather, and fabrics to European markets.

C.

Ottoman Rule

The Almohad dynasty collapsed in 1269 and was succeeded by the 300-year-long rule of the Abd al-Wadid (or Zayyanid) dynasty, centered in Tlemcen. The period was marked by fierce trade competition among rival Mediterranean seaports, both Christian and Muslim. To gain advantage, city governments began to hire corsairs—pirates who seized merchant ships and held crews and cargo for ransom. Algiers became a primary center of corsair activities.

In the 16th century the Christian Spaniards occupied various North African ports. Algiers was blockaded and forced to pay tribute. Other ports were captured outright. The desperate Muslims called for help from the Ottoman sultan, then the caliph of all Islam. Two corsair brothers, the Barbarossas (“Redbeards”), persuaded the sultan to send them with a fleet to North Africa. They drove the Spaniards out of most of their new possessions, and in 1518 the younger Barbarossa, Khayr ad-Din, was appointed beylerbey, the sultan’s representative in Algeria.

Because of its distance from the Ottoman capital at Constantinople (present-day İstanbul), Algiers was governed as an autonomous province. Externally, the effectiveness of its corsair fleet made Algiers a power in its own right—Algerian pirates dominated the Mediterranean. European states paid tribute regularly to ensure protection for their ships, and prisoner ransom brought a rich income to the province. Internal security was maintained by Ottoman janissary (from Turkish, yeniçeri, “new special troops”) garrisons.

In the late 18th century, as the Ottoman Empire was in decline, improved firepower and ship construction enabled the Europeans to challenge corsair domination. International agreements to outlaw piracy made collective action against Algiers possible. In 1815 the United States sent a naval squadron against the city. The following year an Anglo-Dutch fleet nearly destroyed its defenses, and in 1830 Algiers was captured by a French army.

D.

French Colonization

France annexed Algiers and the surrounding territory in 1834 and began occupying other coastal and inland areas. The new regime, led by a French governor-general, aroused fierce resistance from tribes accustomed to indirect Ottoman rule. Military leader Abd al-Qadir, the head of the Sufi Islamic brotherhood known as the Qadiriyya, used hit-and-run tactics that were highly effective against the French forces. A hero to Algerian nationalists to this day, al-Qadir was not completely subdued until 1847. Berber forces continued to resist the French in the 1850s, and in 1871 Kabyle Berbers staged a fierce rebellion in Kabylia, in eastern Algeria. French colonial forces finally put the revolt down in 1872, and subsequently confiscated large amounts of land from the Berbers.

With these insurrections out of the way, France began to colonize Algeria in earnest, and European settlers poured into the country. To encourage settlement, the French confiscated or purchased lands at low prices from Muslim owners. Algeria was divided into three overseas departments of France, controlled for all practical purposes by the European settlers. The settlers formed a privileged elite. With the help of large infusions of capital, they developed a modern economy, with industries, banks, schools, shops, and services similar to those at home. The settlers developed Algerian agriculture, gearing it to support the French economy. Large estates produced wines and citrus fruit for export to France, just as North Africa once produced grain for Rome. Some Europeans made vast fortunes, but the majority were small farmers, tradespeople, shopkeepers, and factory workers. All, however, shared a passionate belief in Algérie Française—a French Algeria.

The displaced and deprived Muslim population remained a disadvantaged majority, subject to many restrictions. By French law they could not hold public meetings, carry firearms, or leave their homes or villages without permission. Legally, they were French subjects, but to become French citizens, with full rights, they had to renounce Islam. Few did so. Beginning in the late 19th century, thousands emigrated to France to find work.

The Muslim population grew steadily; by 1930, it numbered 5 million. A small minority, educated in French schools, adopted French culture, although they were not accepted as equals by the settlers. From this group came the initial impetus for Algerian nationalism.

E.

Rise of Algerian Nationalism

Algerian nationalism developed after World War I (1914-1918) among groups of Muslims who at first wanted only equality with the Europeans. Ferhat Abbas, Ahmed Messali Hadj, and Shaykh Abd al-Hamid Ben Badis were among the most prominent Algerian leaders in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1936 the French government devised a plan providing full equality for Muslim war veterans and professionals, but it was scuttled by colonial deputies in the French National Assembly. Frustrated by the settlers’ stubborn resistance to reform, Abbas joined forces with Messali during World War II (1939-1945) to organize a militant anti-French party, the Friends of the Manifesto and Liberty. After the war the Algerian Organic Statute (1947) set up Algeria’s first parliamentary assembly. The bicameral (two-chambered) body had separate houses (“colleges”) for settlers (and a few select Algerians) and indigenous Algerians. The political power of the assembly, along with that of the governor-general, was weighted in favor of settler interests. The system satisfied neither Algerians nor settlers and proved ineffective. The more militant, younger nationalists were by then beginning to favor armed revolt. In the early 1950s many went into hiding or exile.

F.

War of Independence

In March 1954 Algerian nationalists formed the Revolutionary Committee for Unity and Action, out of which developed the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale, FLN). On October 31 and November 1 the FLN launched its bid for Algerian independence with coordinated attacks on public buildings, military and police posts, and communications installations.

A steady rise in guerrilla action over the next two years forced the French to bring in reinforcements; eventually, 400,000 French troops were stationed in Algeria. The FLN’s National Liberation Army (Armée de Libération Nationale, ALN) combined Abd al-Qadir’s guerrilla tactics with the deliberate use of terrorism. The guerrilla tactics effectively immobilized superior French forces, while killings and kidnappings of Europeans and Muslims who did not actively support the FLN created a climate of fear throughout the country. This in turn brought counterterrorism, as settlers and French army units raided villages and urban neighborhoods, killing Muslims. Certain villages suspected of aiding guerrillas were subjected to collective punishment in the form of massacres, bombings, or forced relocation of the population.

In 1956 the war spread to the cities. In Algiers, cafés, schools, and shops became targets, as the nationalists sought to weaken French morale and draw international attention to their cause. This so-called Battle of Algiers was ruthlessly put down, but it publicized the Algerian struggle to the world. Elsewhere, the French gradually gained the upper hand by using new tactics, such as using aircraft to bomb suspected ALN centers. The French also forced Algerians into relocation centers to prevent them from aiding the ALN. Electrified fences along the Tunisian and Moroccan borders effectively cut off ALN soldiers outside Algeria from units inside the country.

Despite their military superiority, the French were unable to find a political solution satisfactory to both the settlers and the FLN. International criticism of France increased in forums such as the United Nations (UN), and France’s allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) worried about the commitment of French forces to an unpopular war.

In May 1958 settlers and French army officers joined forces in Algiers to overthrow the French government, charging it with vacillation. A Committee of Public Safety demanded the return to office of General Charles de Gaulle, the wartime leader of the Free French, as the only one who could settle the war and preserve French Algeria. De Gaulle, however, was a realist, and once in power he recognized that the war was unwinnable. In 1959 he announced his intention of allowing Algerians a measure of self-determination.

The plan struck the settlers like a thunderbolt. Outraged, they staged an unsuccessful revolt against de Gaulle in early 1960, and in 1961 a group of army generals again tried to overthrow the government. Both times, however, the bulk of the army remained loyal to the government. Associated with the generals’ plot was a group of military and settler extremists, called the Secret Army Organization, which at the same time carried on a brutal campaign of counterterrorism against both the FLN and French authorities.

In March 1962 a cease-fire was finally arranged between government and FLN representatives at Evian, France. In the long-awaited referendum, held the following July, Algeria voted overwhelmingly for independence. The settlers began a mass evacuation; before the end of the year most of them had left the country.

The material and human costs of the war were staggering. Approximately 500,000 people perished in the conflict, the vast majority of them Algerians. The fighting was so chaotic—besides combat casualties, tens of thousands of pro-French Algerians were killed by other Algerians, numerous settlers were abducted and disappeared, and rival ALN units fought each other for power—that a precise number of casualties is impossible to calculate. See Algerian War of Independence.

G.

Independence

The Evian agreements provided for immediate independence for Algeria, with special aid from France—referred to as “cooperation”—to help the country recover from eight years of devastation. On its side, the FLN guaranteed protection and full civil rights for the remaining settlers. After a three-year period they would choose between Algerian and French citizenship. The Evian agreements also allowed the French to continue to exploit the Saharan oil and gas fields they had discovered and developed during the war.

The departure of the majority of Europeans deprived Algeria of nearly all its skilled labor force. To make matters worse, factional rivalries within the FLN, kept in the background during the war, now became visible. At a meeting in Tripoli, Libya, FLN leaders approved a program that specified Algeria as a socialist state, with the FLN as the only legal political organization. The leaders were able to agree on little else, and open warfare soon broke out between factions. Colonel Houari Boumedienne, chief of staff of the Army of National Liberation, threw his support to Ahmed Ben Bella, one of the founders of the FLN, who in September 1962 was elected the first premier of independent Algeria.

Ben Bella started putting the country back on its feet. The first constitution was approved by voters in 1963, providing a presidential form of government. Ben Bella was then elected president. The only check on the president’s power would be censure by two-thirds of the National Assembly. With such unrestricted authority, Ben Bella became totally absorbed in his personal power and prestige, more and more preoccupied with international leadership, and at the same time more autocratic at home. By mid-1965 Boumedienne, then minister of defense, felt Ben Bella had gone too far; he had Ben Bella arrested in a bloodless coup and assumed supreme power.

H.

Boumedienne’s Rule

Under Boumedienne Algeria finally began to capitalize on its vast resources. The army—rather than the FLN—became the dominant force. Boumedienne formed a 26-member Council of the Revolution as supreme authority; its members were army commanders and his close civilian associates. Factionalism and personal rule were strictly prohibited. Although Boumedienne remained first among equals—he was simultaneously president, prime minister, and minister of defense—the principle of collegial leadership was maintained. Nevertheless, Algeria’s political system remained autocratic and undemocratic.

Boumedienne pursued a socialist state-building strategy for Algeria. By 1966 all of the land abandoned by emigrating settlers, amounting to most of the farmland in the country, was appropriated by the government and incorporated into state-run farms. Boumedienne also inaugurated state plans to develop industry, particularly the hydrocarbon sector. One of his great accomplishments was the nationalization of the French-controlled oil fields in February 1971. In the early 1970s Boumedienne distributed state-owned farmland to peasant cooperatives in an unsuccessful attempt to boost productivity. He also promoted the use of the Arabic language and the study of Arabic culture, an action that was resented and resisted by the Berber population.

In 1976 a national charter and subsequent new constitution reaffirmed Algeria as a socialist state under solely FLN leadership. Boumedienne was legally elected president. When he died in 1978, Colonel Chadli Benjedid was selected by the army to succeed Boumedienne. An election officially placed Benjedid in the presidency. Benjedid initially continued his predecessor’s policies but relaxed some of Boumedienne’s strict political controls; he released and pardoned former president Ben Bella in 1980. He also began to reorient and liberalize the economy. His state plans gave greater attention to agriculture, and farmland was privatized. Benjedid was reelected in 1984, running unopposed.

I.

Unrest and Civil War

Declining oil prices in the mid-1980s had severe economic consequences for Algeria. In 1988 frustrated youthful protestors clashed with government troops throughout the country. After a severe suppression of the rioters, Benjedid initiated reforms and was reelected to a third five-year term. A revised constitution and legislation in 1989 allowed for a multiparty democratic system. Political parties were legalized; one of the new parties to be formed was an Islamist one—the Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut, FIS).

Conflict between the Islamist FIS and the military-backed FLN dominated the 1990s. In 1990 provincial and municipal elections, the FIS defeated the FLN by an overwhelming margin. Following violent FIS demonstrations, parliamentary elections scheduled for 1991 were suspended and rescheduled, and the FIS’s chief leaders—Abassi Madani and Ali Benhadj—were arrested. Parliamentary elections were canceled in 1992, after a first round of balloting made it likely that the Islamists would win control of parliament, and Benjedid was forced to resign. Military and civilian officials established an executive High Council of State (HCS) with Mohammed Boudiaff, an exiled FLN hero of the war of independence, as president. Violence erupted and the FIS was officially outlawed. Boudiaff was assassinated in 1992, and fighting escalated between government forces and Islamist militants. Although the FIS had lost its legal status, it quickly mobilized its military wing. An even more extremist Islamic group emerged and began a campaign of assassinations and bombings.

Defense minister Liamine Zeroual, a former diplomat and career soldier, was named president in early 1994. The following year he won election in Algeria’s first successful multiparty presidential elections since independence. Zeroual began to gain international support. International lenders rescheduled the country’s foreign debt, a move that helped the beleaguered Algerian government.

Another revised constitution came into effect in 1996. Most notably, this constitution banned political parties based exclusively on religion, language, race, gender, or region. In addition, the constitution created a new, bicameral legislature, composed of the National People’s Assembly and the Council of the Nation. The widespread victory of the National Democratic Rally (Rassemblement National Démocratique, RND), a newly formed pro-government party, in parliamentary elections in 1997 prompted allegations of election fraud among opposition parties and sparked protests in Algiers. In late 1998 Zeroual announced that he would step down. Just before the presidential elections were held in 1999, six of the seven candidates withdrew. They cited election fraud that made the victory of the remaining candidate, whom they claimed had the backing of the military establishment, a foregone conclusion. The remaining candidate, former foreign minister Abdelaziz Bouteflika, won the uncontested election. Later in 1999 Bouteflika presented a “Civil Concord” calling for national reconciliation. It was enthusiastically endorsed in a referendum. Bouteflika offered amnesty to militant Muslims, and thousands of them laid down their arms. One group that did not was reportedly supported by al-Qaeda, the international terrorist network of Osama bin Laden.

Algeria has suffered greatly from its civil war. The widespread violence since the suppression of the 1992 elections claimed more than 100,000 lives, and assaults by Islamist groups in this war-weary country still occur. In their efforts to undermine the government, Islamist militants and extremists have attacked members of the military and government as well as individuals expressing secular or non-Muslim views, including journalists, teachers, writers, intellectuals, foreigners, and both Muslim and Christian clerics. Extremists also resorted to indiscriminate car bombings. Algeria reeled from savage atrocities in the second half of the 1990s, especially from mid-1997 to early 1998. Retaliation by government security forces and civilian militias trained and armed by the government was brutal in kind.

Although the Algerian government routinely blamed violence on Islamist guerrillas, human rights organizations began to question whether the government was doing enough to protect civilians and if government forces were involved in atrocities themselves. A UN panel was allowed to conduct a limited investigation into the violence in late 1998. The panel blamed the Islamist groups for most of the violence but also urged the Algerian government to make improvements in the areas of human rights and democracy.

J.

Recent Developments

At the start of the 21st century, human rights and democracy had not made substantial progress in Algeria. However, Bouteflika attempted to polish Algeria’s tarnished international image and strengthen Algeria’s relationship with the United States and the European Union (EU). Reelected in 2004, Bouteflika brought relative stability to Algeria by releasing imprisoned opposition leaders and granting amnesty to Islamist rebels. In 2005 Algerians voted their approval of the president’s Charter on Peace and National Reconciliation, which was meant to close the chapter on a decade of violence. It pardoned Islamist militants so long as they renounced violence, but it also protected the army and security forces from bearing responsibility for the thousands of Algerians who “disappeared” after arrest.

Although most political observers believed that real power in Algeria belonged to the president, the army, and the security services, Algeria conducted its third multiparty parliamentary elections in 2007. The parliamentary coalition loyal to Bouteflika, consisting of the FLN, the pro-business National Democratic Rally, and the moderate Islamist Movement for a Peaceful Society, won the largest bloc of seats, 249, in the 389-member National People’s Assembly. The Islamic Salvation Front remained a banned party. Political observers were struck by the relative lack of violence leading up to and during the elections.