Talk:Algerian Civil War

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To-do list for Algerian Civil War: edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
  1. More pictures if possible.
  2. Better coverage of the military aspects of the conflict, if any documentation even exists.

Last edited: Mustafaa 21:41, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The History Of Algeria series of links would be better at the top of the page, as on others in the series.
Priority 3
It is requested that a photograph or photographs be included in this article to improve its quality, if possible.
Wikipedians in Algeria may be able to help!
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[edit] Naming

It's great to see this article taking shape. Shouldn't it be at Algerian Civil War? Algerian-civil-conflict gives 51 hits on Google; Algerian-Civil-War gives 4,160. Warofdreams 11:24, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There is the problem of confusion with Algeria's war of independance. the real reason though is that the link that I originaly created the article from pointed to algerian civil conflictGeni 18:57, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Warofdreams; while I originally selected "civil conflict" because, as a guerrilla war, it's not quite an archetypal civil war, civil war is clearly the more used term. - Mustafaa 07:51, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

BTW, thanks for moving the page and fixing the references, Warofdreams! - Mustafaa 01:19, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Foreign response

Nice article, folks. Any chance of a section detailing France (and other) responses to the failed election ? I know nothing .. Wizzy 12:47, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Exile.ru link

It is roughly factual - modulo the author's general ignorance - but is of appalling quality. It's a rambling essay by some "war nerd" in Russia, enlivened by randomly thrown insults, with no details of the conflict beyond the vaguest outline. It is not of encyclopedic quality. - Mustafaa 08:29, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I admit it is a bit of a contrast to the style of the article but then People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals links to a Maddox article. No it doesn't go into detail but that is what the article here does and presumebly the other links. But not everyone wants to be bombarded with huge amounts of data. It's another way of writing about the war. (btw despite the location of the newspaper and website the author of that column lives in the US)Geni 08:41, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Well, that brings up a useful issue - this article would certainly benefit from a "summary" section at the top, giving an overview before diving into the details. But as to the link itself, I still think it's inappropriate. The contents and style are calculated to offend any reader whose life was affected by this war, and the minimal summary it contains can surely be found somewhere a little less flippant. - Mustafaa 08:49, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
while maddox is? wikipedia has some links to some very offensive websites (see Nick Berg). Yes it is flipant but so are the horible history books and in the UK at least you will find copies of them in school libiaries and you know what? Kids read them and learn about history. Not everyone wants dry tomes when looking for information.Geni 09:05, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Probably the opening paragraph of the article could do with a little expansion but I'm not sure how to phrase itGeni 09:07, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] GSPC's comparatively sparse activities are the only remaining fighting in Algeria

This bbc article is writen as if the author think there are other small groups around. Does anyone know anything?Geni 00:51, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I suspect he's bearing in mind the theoretical possibility that some GIA cells survive. I haven't heard of any GIA attacks in at least a year or two, though. - Mustafaa 28 June 2005 07:22 (UTC)

[edit] Promoted

"promoted as what?" They were promoted - that is, advertised, boosted, championed, hyped[1]... As I recall, their members were described as heroes, basically. - Mustafaa 20:51, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

"Abderrezak el-Para" means "Abderrezak the Paratrooper", since he had been one once; it's listed here because it's likely to be more familiar to many Algerian readers than his real name. - Mustafaa 20:53, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

"two and a half" doesn't sound good. Does it mean partial support from one party? Elaborate, please.": the issue is described in the linked article Algerian presidential election, 2004. Basically, one wing of the FLN supported him, while another opposed him. - Mustafaa 20:55, 23 July 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Pictures

I agree that the "More pictures if possible" part of the to-do list is important. It's a sad fact that an article with so much text needs a lot of pictures, desperately, if it's to be read by more than the most die-hard war historians. And it's a well-written, informative article, so that's unfortunate. I tried to break up the huge blocks of text a bit by rearranging a few images that were already there, adding two images from the personal Wikipedia pages of the last two Algerian presidents, and uploading a new image I found on a French website of the GIA logo (since we certainly need some sort of GIA-related image in the article (in particular, either "Politics resume, militias emerge" or the second half of "Failed negotiations and guerrilla infighting") and also ", considering their importance in the conflict), but some of the later sections of the article could still use some images; I tried, and failed, to find any good ones that I could be sure of the fair use status of. What do you guys think about the possibility of using one of the image from http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/524/bo2.htm ? If not, got any better ones..?

Also, it honestly might not be a bad idea to include a picture at the top of the article, in the upper-right corner above the infobox. There's certainly room now that I've moved the History of Algeria infobox, and it would draw a lot more people into the article. We'd need a good photo, though, none of the ones currently there will do... -Silence 00:25, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Found a few more photos on http://www.reportage.org/PrintEdition2/Algeria/PagesAlgeria/1title.html , but still nothing of more than peripheral importance, and I don't know about the copyright status of the photos.. Still, if anyone thinks any of them would work for the top of the article or a segment later in the article....? -Silence 00:48, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we have much chance of getting anything much. Fair use wont really help us here and the media never really paid much attention to the war. We don't have many editors in algeria so chances of getting photos of any remaining damage are slim. We might be able to find the logo for the GSPC I supose. It might be an idea to ask our french counterparts since the area is francophone. incerdenty why does this article have no interlanguage links at all?Geni 01:01, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Captions

The captions in this article are all pretty undescriptive. Simply putting someone's name underneath a picture without even writing about what organization he belonged to, what his job is, or how it's relevant does nothing to draw the reader into the article or give context to the picture. See Wikipedia:Captions for some advice. Scott Ritchie 23:13, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Here's a list of some stuff that can be done that I can see:
  1. The caption for the FIS logo should explain what the logo depicts including what the text means
  2. Similarly, the content of the logo for the GIS should be explained and linked (I've tried doing this myself)
  3. The pictures of both the presidents should have some associated text to draw the reader in
  4. The elections results picture should explain what they mean (I've made a start at this too)
Scott Ritchie 23:31, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template clutter

I'd just like to point out that I think the war template really adds nothing. It clutters up the lead and steals attention from the more relevant history series-template. Overall, I don't in the least approve of use of infoboxes for wars. Historical events are not applicable for the kind of quantifying of facts that's easily done with countries or languages. This holds especially true for low-level civil wars like this.

Peter Isotalo 06:49, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. The template might not adding information that isn't mentioned elsewhere in the article, but what it does do is provide that information in a compact, organized, easy-to-instantly-access format. Its purpose is to give a quick overview of the basic facts of the war, things that are of chief importance and yet might be overlooked if they were only mentioned in the huge text of the article.
I also disagree that this template clutters this page up, though it certainly might do that on some other pages, in which case some alternate solution might be necessary. But on this one, I think the current solution is effective: moving the "History of Algeria" infobox to the "prelude to war" section makes perfect sense, since that's the section dealing with events leading up to the war; the History of Algeria infobox gives a way to get a broader view of those events. I also think the way the text, infobox, and image interact in the "prelude to war" section is really fantastic, a model of how much can be put into one page before it would get overcrowded.
I wouldn't object to the war infobox getting some revision, though. People who aren't familiar with how the infobox works will probably be initially confused by looking over the lower stats, not realizing that the left side deals with the Algerian government and the right with the MIA, GIA, AIS, etc. At the very least we should make this clearer, perhaps with a darker line between the left and right boxes, or making it clearer that the results of the "Combatants" section will actually be the division method for the next few sections. Another problem with that layout is, of course, that there was so much infighting among the groups fighting the government, so making them all seem like allies is slightly strange... In that respect, PI is correct; it's very difficult to effectively and consistency use infoboxes in articles dealing with historical events, due to the complexity and irregularly of history by nature. That doesn't mean using a few historical infoboxes is impossible or a waste of time. Just a challenge. -Silence 22:26, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
How can it not be considered cluttering? It's longer than the section next to it, it's bulky with very undiscrete borders and it completely obscures "History of Algeria"-template. The latter is by far the more relevant, since this article is about history, which military history is merely a sub-discipline of. Wars are nothing but slightly more violent historical events and should not be treated any differently from any other historical period, be it the Renaissance or the Ming dynasty. As a comparison, just imagine how bizarre it would be to try to make infoboxes that apply only to ruling dynasties. Using warboxes is really no different.
Also, by inisisting on cramming information about a very long and complicated chain of events into such a small space, it will be inherently over-simplified, something which serves only to endulge illusions of history being a static narrative of "The Truth". I'm going to demand that there is some sort of consensus for using this kind of template. And I do mean here in this talkpage, not in some obscure project page which is read almost exclusively by war aficionados.
Peter Isotalo 10:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I hardly think that Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Algerian Civil War counts as an obscure project page.Geni 11:40, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
An FAC is neither a project page nor the place to decide the usage or non-usage of templates. Besides, I see three objections to including the warbox, and only one person actually demanding that it be included. Raul claims that it has to be included to adhere to the project standards and the FA criteria, but as far as I can see there is no clear consensus at WP:WARS due to objections similar to mine. The template is currently being worked over (or something) and is used only in a handful of articles. If you look at WP:BATTLES#Templates, you'll see that the battlebox, which is more or less identical to the warbox, is entirely optional. How does any of this amount to consensus for keeping it? Better yet, how does it fix the fact that the template spoils the layout and obscures the article series template which that much more relevant?
Peter Isotalo 15:09, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
If you think this template is unbearably big, your head would probably explode if you saw Friedrich Nietzsche. Now there's a truly absurd template. This one? Not so much. Could use some tidying up, but it's no more redundant than any other template that attempts to provide a few basic facts about a complex and involved subject (of which there are many), and it certainly doesn't do what you accuse it of doing (that is, attempting to summarize and oversimplify the entire war into a single box)—it doesn't list any of a number of things that would cause much more oversimplification, like "causes" or "results" or "motives" or anything. It just lists the basic, important facts that could easily be overlooked if they weren't clearly marked in an infobox: the place, the time, the name, the participants. The main aspect of the infobox that could use improvement or trimming is the combatants section, of course; it's the real source of the complications, confusion, and large size.
Though I don't see the size as remotely an issue on this page, where the box fits quite perfectly into the open space next to the table of contents and opening paragraphs, it could certainly be a problem on other pages. But that's a matter for discussions of the template in general, not of this specific page, where things work unusually well, including the moving of the "History of Algeria" box to a place where. It not only works well in terms of topic in the opening section, which discusses events leading up to the war, but it also gives us an opportunity to do something that's made impossible in the other articles of the "History of Algeria" series by that obnoxious box: having an image at the top of the page! -Silence 06:33, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted Anon edits Feb 11

Hi, I've reverted the anon edits back to version where I added quotes from FIS leaders. Anon seems to think they're "unsourced" yet they are from a report to the UN and summarised the evidence in their court case "Jane Doe v. Islamic Salvation Front and Anwar Haddam" in the United States Federal Court under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act. It's not credible to dismiss these quotes as "unsourced" when they are part of the background facts of litigation. While it may not be online, it's a safe bet that the various human rights groups involved have legally valid sources for these quotes. By any objective standard this should be a BETTER source than media reports. The same can't be said for the accusations by the Islamists and their apologists that the terrorism in Algeria was simply carried out by the Military. I see no problem including these claims but I think they should be in a "Claims & Counterclaims"-type section rather than included to colour the text. Armon 03:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Suggesting that "it's a safe bet that the various human rights groups involved have legally valid sources for these quotes" is clearly not the same as providing a valid source for these quotes - indeed, it amounts to an admission that the source is not adequate. The mere fact of a claim's inclusion in a report to the UN, let alone to a court, is certainly not evidence of its accuracy, especially in such a contentious topic as this. By contrast, the anonymous edits are thoroughly sourced, and the theory they describe is rather widely believed within the academic and NGO communities, for what should be obvious reasons, and should really receive more mention here than it has so far (although Bentalha massacre covers it a bit.) This is actually part of a broader issue: most English sources on the war stop at 1996 or '97, including many of those I consulted for this article. - Mustafaa 17:26, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  • "rather widely believed within the academic and NGO communities" -depends on what academic or NGOs you quote. The "Shadow Report" was prepared by 2 NGOs who are a bit more skeptical than say, Joffe. Armon 03:03, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking of AI and HRW; Joffe is an academic, not an NGO. - 212.219.237.224 19:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Fine, but it doesn't alter the point that it's debatable that the conspriacy theory is a) "widely believed within the academic and NGO communities" or b) true, even if it was. Hence the sentense "The truth of the claims and counterclaims remains unclear." BTW please log in when you edit, Mustafaa. Armon 00:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
More specifically: the "shadow report" in question gives no dates nor sources for their quotes, and the plaintiffs include a strongly pro-government political group, the Rassemblement Algerien des Femmes Democrates (RAFD).
  • C'mon, it wasn't just the RAFD, and now you seem to be lumping anyone critical of the Islamists as supporters of the military government! Simply not true. Armon 03:03, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, there are plenty of critics of Islamism who don't support the military (Ait-Ahmed is probably the most notable). But Zazi Sadou (the RAFD leader) is certainly not one of them. - 212.219.237.224 19:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
  • 2 points. a) From what I've read, that "support" is more a case of choosing the "lesser of two evils" and b) even if that's a debatable point, if we're going to present the Islamist/FIS's claims in the article (and I agree we should, and we have) then the counterclaims should be as well. Armon 00:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
If you can find actual sources for the quotes, they would be worth putting somewhere - although it's probably better to summarize here and put longer quotes in the FIS article. - Mustafaa 17:37, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, the Report was prepared by the International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic and Women Living Under Muslim Laws so the reference has now been fixed and their sources cited. The quotes are quite short enough and provide the reasons for non-Ialamists/secularists' fears in the run-up to the elections. Armon 03:03, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
The quotes from Ali Belhadj are a fair sample of his statements - although excessively long for this article.
  • Three short sentences which sum up his POV. Hardly "excessively long" -need a better reason than that, especially if it's a "fair sample". Armon 00:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
The quotes from Abbasi Madani, however, are at best misleading; he expressed (sometimes nuanced) support for the idea of democracy more than once during his campaign, and in this case is clearly criticising a particular concept of democracy rather than democracy in general. More on this later. - 212.219.237.224 19:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah, "Liberal democracy" -which is why the Madani quote is not misleading, whereas to suggest that he supported a nebulous concept of "democracy" is. However, if we were going to be precise and put in a sentence saying he did not support "liberal democracy" (i.e. what the vast majority of people reading WP think when they read the word "democracy") then we'd likely have another argument about POV -which is why I think it's better to quote him directly. Armon 00:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
There's nothing nebulous about the concept of a non-liberal democracy: the original example, ancient Athens, would be an excellent example in many respects. But my batteries are dying - more edits later... - Mustafaa 17:09, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RV obvious POV pushing

Removing all information about the respective claimants - and thus making it as difficult as possible for the reader to judge their credibility - could be described as "obvious POV pushing". Adding such information is clearly not. - Mustafaa 15:27, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Here is the offending sentence

However, in both Rais and Bentalha, survivors (according to Amnesty International[2], Human Rights Watch[3], ITN, and in Yous's case their own writings) claimed that the army had arrived, but had stayed outside of the area, even preventing the villagers from fleeing their attackers, and in many cases (e.g., Rais, Bentalha, Si Zerrouk and Beni-Messous), army barracks were stationed within a few hundred meters of the villages, yet did nothing to stop the killing.

The problem is you have stuffed 4 "sources" into an unwieldy sentence, which, in the case of the links, don't say what you claim they do. The Amnesty link says NOTHING which supports your conspiracy theory that the state is behind the massacres. The HRW reports the claims but also states:

"Doubts that all of the killings attributed to the GIA were the responsibility of a single organization acting alone were fueled by the posture of the security forces towards the perpetrators of the massacres in 1997 and 1998 and by a series of statements by former security officials in exile claiming Algeria’s military intelligence apparatus, the Securité Militaire, had both deployed forces masquerading as Islamists and manipulated GIA groups through infiltration. The questions surrounding the massacres received no conclusive answers. Through September, no independent Algerian body had conducted a thorough inquiry. The government allowed no international human rights organization or U.N. human rights rapporteur to investigate the violence.

Which is exactly the agnostic position we should be taking here. The human rights groups are reporting reports -they don't have any greater insight into what happened than the rest of us, yet you attempt to array them as an appeal to authority by attaching them to your preferred conspiracy theory. You are also attempting to conflate different highly likely issues, such as the the army's lack of response, with the claim that the army was actively complicit. Armon 02:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually I'll restore the sentence, taking out the conspiracy aspect.Armon 02:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, Armon, how many academic works on this war have you read, to be so much more certain than any Algerian alive that you know exactly what took place in it? - Mustafaa 15:27, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to ignore that poisonous little comment because I never made such a claim. The only person referenced in this article who did ACTUAL interviews (note plural) of the survivors, Zazi Sadou, is dismissed by you -why? Is it because her evidence didn't back up your preferred theory - or is it that you consider her too "secular"? Armon 02:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Your reading skills appear to be somewhat lacking. First of all, this paragraph does not claim that the State is behind the massacres: rather, it reports the survivors' claim that "the army had arrived, but had stayed outside of the area, even preventing the villagers from fleeing their attackers". Second, this statement is most certainly borne out by the sources. The AI site says:

"One survivor said: The army and the security forces were right there; they heard and saw everything and did nothing, and they let the terrorists leave.... They waited for the terrorists to finish their dirty task and then they let them leave. What does this mean to you?
People banged on my door screaming. Frightened neighbours wanted to pass through my house to run to the army barrack, which is not far - about 100 metres - to alert the army and seek their protection.
Neighbours telephoned the security forces who refused to intervene saying the matter was under the mandate of the gendarmerie. They called the gendarmerie but received no reply, and the attackers left undisturbed.
More than 200 men, women and children were massacred, right next to five different army and security forces outposts: Survivors say that as the massacre took place, armed forces units with armoured vehicles were stationed outside the village and stopped some of those trying to flee from getting out of the village.

The HRW site says:

The suspicions, however, were reinforced by interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch outside of Algeria and by others on the ground with survivors, witnesses from neighboring communities, rescue workers, journalists, and former security personnel. The attackers, numbering sometimes 200 or more, were found to have moved in and killed and departed freely through militarized areas, without any effort on the spot by the security forces to protect civilians or make arrests. At Rais, where the death toll on the night of August 29, 1997 reportedly reached 335, the killings began when men in military uniforms brazenly arrived in two open-backed trucks, firing on men playing dominoes at the entrance to the community, according to accounts that survivors gave to a rescue worker who arrived shortly after the attackers withdrew.
In Bentalha, as elsewhere, the attackers acted with apparent confidence that the security forces on the scene would not attack them. One of the survivors, who had fled to a rooftop with other residents, told Human Rights Watch he saw two military armored-personnel carriers arrive: “They came up to about one hundred meters away from where we were being attacked. Then they turned on their floodlights—I don’t know why, since they didn’t rescue us. The people started to shout that the military had come to their rescue, but the [leaders] responded by saying, ‘work calmly, the military will not come, don’t worry.’”
Villagers who were interviewed by an Algerian human rights activist stated that on the morning of one of the massacres, communal guards and gendarmes at the regional market warned them to leave their homes that very day; otherwise, said one, “You will count the lives of your children tonight in front of us.”

The ITN thing was unlinked, admittedly - see http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/africa/july-dec97/algeria_10-21.html . As for Nesrouallah Yous, you can find his book yourself. - Mustafaa 23:08, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disciples of Satan?

Has anyone heard of a GIA splinter group called the Disciples of Satan? Supposedly they were driven so crazy by the massacres they were involved in they concluded there was no God and became Satanists. Is there any credibility to this story? Mjk2357 23:25, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Other than war nerd (which I assume is your source) I was never able to find anythign online about them.Geni 19:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a tall tale to me, but you may find Oued El-Had and Mezouara massacre suggestive... - Mustafaa 23:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Not compeletly imposible. There are quite a lot of wierd relgious groups turning up in DRC.Geni 10:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but the religious environment there is far more varied than in Islamic Algeria. The War Nerd is given to tall tales - in fact he is a tall tale himself. Sometimes though there are weird little nuggets in that column that turn out to be true. Mjk2357 15:21, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Thinking about it, the Oued El-Had and Mezouara massacre most probably gave rise to the legend. Probably someone misread the Arabic banners. Mjk2357 15:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Kalyvas says:

One such group, the Ghadhiboune aala Allah (‘those who are angry with God’) is said to have declared itself ‘angry with God’, since God promised them a quick victory but did not deliver it. As a result, this group feels that it can commit all kinds of atrocities until the law of God is imposed on earth.

Still sounds like a tall tale to me, but a marginally better-referenced one. - Mustafaa 00:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edits

On the massacres, see my latest comment above. On the Kaplan quote: Robert Kaplan, frankly, has no authority in this area. As far as I'm aware, he's only ever been to the deep south of Algeria briefly as an embedded US Army reporter (as opposed to, for example, Robert Fisk.) His opinion - that the government had no role in the massacres - is already represented by Zazi Sadou, someone who at least has lived in Algeria. Bouandel's point is trivially obvious, and entirely uncontroversial; as such, what value does it add to the article? - Mustafaa 02:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

If you read the cited article you'll see that you're incorrect re: Kaplan's Algerian "experience". Just out of curiosity, how much does say, Martinez or Joffe have? How much is needed before a cite which clearly meets WP:RS but not your POV, is acceptable? Armon 12:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
If Joffe and Martinez are not reliable sources, no-one is. They are internationally respected as among the leading academics in this field, and have decades of in-depth high level research behind them. Kaplan, on the other hand, is heavily tied to the US military, which is certainly not a neutral actor in this game. 131.203.101.134 00:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Ahh yes, the conspiracy gets bigger! I suppose Zadou, Bernard-Henri Lévy, the International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic/Women Living Under Muslim Laws, and Youcef Bouandel must all be in on the plot against violent Islamists. Quintan Wiktorowicz, in Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ), writes:

The outbreak of civilian massacres began in 1996 when Antar Zouabri became emir of the GIA. lie inaugurated his new leadership by issuing a foreboding fatwa that charged the entire society with apostasy, reminiscent of Takfir wa Hijra in Egypt. The fatwa authorized attacks against any Algerian who did not join or aid the GIA, including other armed Islamist groups and dissident GIA factions operating independently of the central leadership. This, in effect, created two groups according to GIA doctrine: those that assisted the GIA and those that did not. According to Zouabri, the latter are condemned as apostates and are therefore legitimate targets of jihad. The position is summed up in a GIA communique posted in an Algiers suburb in 1997: "There is no neutrality in the war we are waging. With the exception of those who are with us, all the others are apostates and deserve to die." [19] The GIA argued that support for the armed Islamist groups was an individual responsibility (fard 'ayn), and thus mandatory a ccording to Islam. Anyone who did not offer support became a target of the GIA onslaught.
Most civilian massacres targeted particular villages and even specific families and individuals who no longer supported the GIA. [20] Civilian populations that withdrew their support from the GIA were viewed as apostates according to the narrow definition used in GIA doctrine. This included the families of former GIA members who had left the group, joined other Islamist groups, or surrendered to the regime. According to Moudhir, all of these people "have become the enemies of our fighters, from the youngest of their children to the oldest of their elderly." [21] In response to accusations of indiscriminate killings, he argued that:
It is clear that there is no indiscriminate killing. Our fighters only kill those who deserve to die. We say to those who accuse us of indiscriminate killing that we will fight those traitors who have gone over to the 'taghout' [un-Islamic government]. We do no more than carry out the wishes of God and the Prophet. When you hear of killings and throat-slittings in a town or a village, you should know it is a matter of the death of government partisans, or else it is the application of GIA communiques ordering [us] to do good and combat evil. [22][4]

My "issues" are a) presenting a self-serving conspiracy theory which attempts to shift the blame from those who've already admitted their guilt, as a fact. Something which even Martinez or Joffe and other outside observers sympathetic to the idea don't do. This is roughly equivalent to injecting the idea that OBL is a CIA operative as a "fact" into the 9/11 article. And b) this article, and I give Mustaffaa full credit for his excellent work in general on it, is heavily dependant on Martinez's book and therefore one historian's perspective. Articles, especially history articles, should use as many valid sources as possible even if they don't always agree with one's preferred interpretation of events. Accusations of Zadou being an Algerian government stooge and Kaplan's undisclosed, but presumably sinister, "ties to the US military" are frankly, unconvincing -and I'm not even going to touch the notion that somehow Robert Fisk would be be a preferrable source.
Ahh, on second thought:

In these circumstances it is correct to make sure everyone is equally represented. But in foreign affairs, in a part of the world that is cloaked in injustice, where thousands are torn apart and shredded by weapons every year, you're entering a new kind of world. One in which the standards of neutrality used in a small-town court case fall by the wayside because they are no longer relevant. Robert Fisk [5]

Armon 02:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I've merged text back into the section on the massacres, and specifically, Yous' charges. I still think it's a conspiracy theory, however, it's a notable one. Let me know if that addresses the concerns. Armon 04:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Quintan Wiktorowicz must be part of the same '"self serving conspiracy theory" too. From the same article you quote

In addition, regardless of any possibilities for dialogue, it was never clear whether the regime actively sought a complete cessation of violence. Disturbing details have emerged in the last few years indicating that the regime was at least complicit in a few massacres, refusing to intervene despite the proximity of security forces and the extended duration of the massacres (some were more than four hours long). [51] One former officer even claims that the regime was directly responsible for some of the deadly attacks. [52] Others argue that the new, low intensity conflict suits regime interests, so long as strategic resources, such as oil pipelines, are protected. From this perspective, the continuation of violence provides the regime with a rationale for continued repression against Islamists and other opposition forces. And at least a few observers believe the regime allowed the massacres in order to drive local farmers from government controlled land. Many of the massacres took place in agricultural area s with fertile, state-owned land that is scheduled for privatization. Since any privatization will require compensation for local farmers, the massacres conveniently eliminated high cost expenditures by forcing farmers off the land. [53][6]

Because that section is so obvious (p22), you're either not reading your sources, or selectively quoting to ignore verifiable sources and push a POV. In the interests of civility, I'm going to assume the former. But I'm reverting you as a result.
And as for Robert D. Kaplan having a close relationship with the military - that's pretty evident from even the most cursory reading of his work. See Robert Kaplan's writing for Atlantic monthly, particularly Five Days in Falluja, Imperial Grunts, Hunting the Taliban in Las Vegas. There's also a large section of An Empire Wilderness describing thoughts on the US military, which describes his close relationship with leading military figures. Tell me to get back to work! 04:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
As for Kaplan's guilt by association, so what? As for Wiktorowicz, he's reporting the theory. If you're attempting to raise the straw-man that I think the Algerian military committed no crimes, think again. I dispute presenting the theory as fact that the military "put the poor GIA up to it", or that the military went to the trouble of setting up a homicidal Islamist movement in order to steal land and resources, rather than do what dictorial governments throughout history have done, which is to simply take them. As for your revert, you didn't raise any problems with the actual text so I returned the favour. In the interests of civility, I'm going to assume it wasn't simply knee-jerk. Armon 05:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Firstly, the problem with Kaplan being an embedded military man is that his information on Algeria is likely to come from the Algerian military itself, and thus isn't going to resemble the truth. We can find more reliable sources who say the same thing.
The blockquote you put in there was reporting as well, so I'm not sure what your point is. I'm not suggesting that the Algerian military 'put the GIA up to it' (although some have) and neither are any of the cited sources. There is however strong evidence that on a number of occasions the military was complicit in allowing these massacres to take place. These aren't 'conspiracy theories', they're simple explanations of what would otherwise be unexplanable actions. How else does a four hour massacre with gunfire and screaming occur only 300 metres from a military base? Tell me to get back to work! 11:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Repressive' is inherently POV

I propose that the word conservative be restored, in place of repressive [7]. The term 'repressive' is inherently POV. Can you imagine a government saying 'We are proud to announce our new campaign of repression of women!' The term 'repressive' is one that you would only attach to your political enemies. That would imply that Wikipedia has political enemies, so on that view WP would have a POV. I argue that neutral descriptive terminology is needed. Even in a case where a group's credo is horrible by many people's standards, you should be able to say what they want to do. They would be unlikely to describe their own program as 'repressive'. EdJohnston 01:43, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The sentence refers to what alarmed non-Islamists about Belhadj, therefore we are describing a POV -so yes, you can say it's POV, but it's clearly stated whose it is. Ironically, the alternative, "conservative", is the Islamist self-description and that POV is just as disputed by traditionalist Muslims and other observers. It's also highly misleading to describe someone who advocates a radical restructuring of society and culture as possessing "conservative views". Armon 08:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I propose that Mustaafa's edits are restored. Mustaafa has extensive knowledge of this subject and pretty much made this an FA from scratch - I'd say the burden of evidence is on the person who wants to exclude his/her edits. I don't see any reason for the subsequent reversions of his additions (done unilaterally and without discussion here I might add), and still hold that Kaplan does not meet the requirements of WP:RS when we have a number of acknowledged experts in the field. Their conclusions were removed. Calling claims that a Government was behind a massacre a conspiracy theory does not make them any less valid. Mostlyharmless 02:57, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to understand the various editors' positions on this conspiracy thing. Wikipedia surely can't form its own conclusion as to whether the government participated in massacres ascribed to the GIA. All it can do is collect the most reliable accounts published by news people and by participants. So this article would ideally just try to gather a set of accounts and say what each side is asserting. I notice claims being made in the edit history that information is being removed from the article. Surely a consensus should be agreed on the Talk page before properly-sourced information is removed. (Removal of correct information comes perilously close to vandalism). If there's too much material, then a separate additional article might be created. EdJohnston 03:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
My position is that the article should not endorse (but should report) the conspiracy theory for the following reasons: 1) as is typical, it lacks evidence -evidence which, if it were true, should be piling up as time goes by. 2) It is clearly the position of the FIS and other Islamist groups as a way of defecting their "guilt", either real or by association, for the atrocities, which is the view of practically everyone else in Algeria, and 3) even the academics sympathetic to the Islamists, don't endorse it as "fact" -they express sympathy for the idea, but, and we're now back to reason 1, -they lack the evidence to do so.
As for Mostlyharmless and Mustaafa's claim that Kaplan and/or the Atlantic does not meet WP:RS, it's frankly bizarre. It seems to be predicated on the idea that he wrote the cited article while "embedded" with the US and Algerian military in southern Algeria -this is incorrect. As I understand the argument, since he is a strong critic of the conspiracy theory and may have been "embedded" at some later point, the military government has somehow "gotten to him" and despite his many trips and interviews with Algerians, the article is Kaplan acting as some sort of stooge for the junta. I find this argument weak and circular -only making sense if we assume the conspiracy theory as fact. It is also a standard of WP:RS applied uniquely to those sources which don't endorse their preferred view, such as Kaplan or Sadou. Armon 08:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm really sorry. I was wrong about removing information. I saw the edit summary, a bunch of green on the dif page, and assumed that the edits were the same as the last time a similar edit summary was used. I apologise for that bad faith assumption. However, I do think that discussion before major changes is more likely to acheive things with a minimum of conflict. I can't give this page any real time til the 1st Nov or later unfortunately - I don't want to seem like I'm just visiting to stir things up. Mostlyharmless 04:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Armon is totally missing the point about Kaplan. It's not that he's embedded that's the problem; it's that he lacks any expertise on Algeria. Everyone cited here is an academic expert on Algeria or an important Algerian personage (or a bare facts news report); Kaplan is neither. (Unlike Sadou, who, despite being utterly biased, is at least a notable Algerian personage, and as such is indeed cited in the article.)

And yes, "repressive" is obviously POV (as everyone else has noticed), and no, the sentence as Armon phrased it did not state it as someone's POV (one could do so, but it would have to be along the lines of "what they considered his repressive views..." or something) - and frankly, "conservative", in the Algerian context, is much more specific, alluding directly to women's traditional house-bound position in Algerian urban society rather than to some vague notion of "repression" spanning footbinding in medieval China, inheritance in Victorian England, etc.

Having the article endorse any particular theory has never even been considered by me (although at one point Armon was all for having it endorse the theory of complete government innocence); I have consistently attempted to ensure that the "conspiracy theory" is mentioned as a theory held by some, and - much more importantly - that the factual reports that motivated this theory (along with those that contradict it) are mentioned and not glossed over, or simply deleted as Armon has repeatedly attempted to do. If Armon would read, I will not say the books in the references, or the newer works of Hugh Roberts that I have not yet been able to access, but even the articles in Category:Algerian_massacres_of_the_1990s - all of which I wrote, incidentally - he might come to understand the importance of the latter point. Or he might simply start deleting information there too...

Oh, and as for "the view of practically everyone else in Algeria" - rubbish. - Mustafaa 01:48, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Other, than the Islamists/FIS pushing that theory, pretty much yes. Also see the cite below that EdJohnston has produced. Armon 02:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Strike that. I concede I'm overstating my case. Obviously it's a notable conspiracy theory, my issue is with giving it "equal time" as explanations/evidence which aren't dependent on them.
Mustafaa, I do think it's unfair of you to misrepresent my position as "having it endorse the theory of complete government innocence" or imply that might "vandalize" the other articles you wrote. I do believe you have some WP:OWN issues, but, on reflection, they are perfectly understandable. You have produced an excellent body of work here on the subject, and I want to make it clear that although I think the points I'm raising are important, they're tweaks. On your user page under How not to NPOV an article you state: Common themes in such cases include vagueness about who holds the alleged views, straw man arguments misrepresenting opponents' views the better to knock them down, and—worst of all—a refusal to address the issue of what actually happened or did not happen, as opposed to what X thinks about it.
I agree completely and this is what I'm attempting to do here. The problem is we've got off on the wrong foot. I have a propensity to quickly enter "adversarial debate" mode which I need to resist, but consider it a bit of stress testing if you will.
Please take a look at Regimes of (Un)Truth: Conspiracy Theory and the Transnationalization of the Algerian Civil War and The Kabyle Riots: Repression and Alienation in Algeria when the reporter notes, "Conspiracy theories are never long to be invoked when there is a significant political development in Algeria." ...and give me your thoughts.
I will also email you a copy of the Kaplan article if you like. Armon 12:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kaplan's article is a commentary, not really a source

Noting a disagreement by editors on this page about the value of Roger Kaplan's 1998 article in the Atlantic, I decided to read the thing. Now that I've done so, I wouldn't object if it's left out. I'd be wary of using it as a source for any actual claims it includes, though it could have some value as a commentary or an editorial. Here's an example of one of Kaplan's observations that I think makes it NOT source-worthy:

"Hume's predecessor, Ronald Neumann... stated: 'I do not believe there is a government policy of sending out death squads.'

Neumann was the American ambassador. So the American government believes there was not an official Algerian policy of sending out death squads. How much stock can we put in that? The actual data in Kaplan's article isn't really enough to prove the claims that he advances. Even his title is pretty strong, 'The Libel of Moral Equivalence.' It's likely that many of the actual events mentioned by Kaplan can be Googled and then studied from press accounts. But wouldn't it be simpler to start from a real article that provides references? Google Scholar only finds three citations to Kaplan's article, while Stathis Kalyvas's 1999 article [8] gets 80 citations. We should count ourselves successful if the WP article were as well-sourced as Kalyvas's. EdJohnston 02:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

C'mon Ed, you've read it. Kaplan cites numerous other people, not just Neumann. In any case, quoting Neumann only discredits the article if we apply the logic of the conspiracy theory to it. Having said that, I think it is presented as Kaplan's commentary at the moment, but I've no problem with your suggestion to start with Kalyvas' article. Looking at his evidence, it may be proper to explicitly call the theory a "conspiracy theory" in the article. Armon 02:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Kaplan clearly is commentary. If one user insists on including it, so be it, but then a "Commentary" section should be made. The quote provided present itself as commentary based on personal assumptions. The stuff of which conspiracy theorists thrive. The very nature of insurgency and counter-insurgency is based on "conspiracy", that is infiltration, false flag attacks, etc.: that's special warfare, like a thread going from The Battle of Algiers and Bigeard's paratroopers to South America, Vietnam, etc., etc., and back to Algeria. French rule in Algeria had some lasting influence on the use of state violence... Maybe using more subsections will help us find a common agreement? Tazmaniacs 23:32, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Kaplan is a expert in an RS. The proponents of the conspiracy theory we already have in the article are themselves engaging in (less reliable) commentary. The best scholarly source we have is Kalyvas, which deserves more a lot more space. Kalyvas debunks the conspiracy theories. Spinning out more conspiracy theory into more subheadings would be a bad idea -it would simply grant even more undue weight. <<-armon->> 00:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Speaking of "conspiracy theory" when Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, and various testimonies from inside the security services, uphold the fact that state security also engaged in false flag attacks, which would surprise no one familiar with counter-insurgency doctrine and strategy, only shows your POV and most of all your refusal to talk. But this is a talk page, and edit-warring is not the way to proceed. Tazmaniacs 01:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Reread AI etc. They reported the conspiracy theory and were disturbed by it -as they should be as a Human Rights activist org. This isn't evidence of anything other than their reaction. <<-armon->> 01:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I've read it lots of times. They reported it, and said that it was not credible that an armed group could engage in a sustained massacre with gunfire and screaming within a short distance of a military base without the knowledge and complicity of the army. AI is quite cautious about what they put into their reports. They do not report claims unless they have 3 independent sources for that claim. The Kaplan's writing is emotive commentary, and deserves to be removed. How about we try and sort out the paragraph and replace his writing with more reliable (and frankly more informative) sources. Mostlyharmless 05:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On deletion & accusations of "conspiracy theories"

Hello Armon. You are entitled to think what you want, but not to rule on what other people can say. Journalist Marie-Monique Robin is far from being just anybody, and everything is quoted, sourced, etc. Beside, you're about the only one who will call that a conspiracy theory. We can discuss the expression, but you can't discuss the fact that Algeria-Watch issued a report, that Marie-Monique Robin has quoted it. For info, the text you unilaterally deleted is the following one (Tazmaniacs 22:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)):

Marie-Monique Robin has an article you wrote, so we can assume you think she's notable, fine. The problem is that this is still conspiracy theory and it has already been reported in the article. Better sources dispute it, and adding the lengthy passage below grants a huge amount of WP:UNDUE to an unproven (and probably unprovable) thesis. <<-armon->> 01:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] False flag attacks by the military intelligence agency

In the conclusion of Escadrons de la mort, l'école française [9], journalist Marie-Monique Robin refers to false flag attacks committed by the military intelligence agency disguised as Islamist terrorists. She cites the 2003 report by Algeria-Watch titled Algérie, la machine de mort, which stated:

"To conserve their power and their fortunes nurtured by corruption, those who have been called the généraux janviéristes (Generals of January) — Generals Larbi Belkheir, Khaled Nezzar, Mohamed Lamari, Mohamed Médiène, Smaïl Lamari, Kamal Abderrahmane and several others — did not hesitate in triggering against their people a salvage repression, using, at a unpreceded scale in the history of civil wars of the second half of the XXth century, the "secret war" technics theorized by certain French officers during the Algerian War for Independence, from 1954 to 1962: death squads, systemic torture, kidnapping and disappearances, manipulation of the violence of opponents, desinformation and "psychological action", etc." [1], Marie-Monique Robin refers to false flag attacks committed by Algerian death squads formed by secret agents who disguised as Islamist terrorists:

As the French Main rouge [a terrorist group during the 1960s which may have been constituted by French secret services ] or the Argentine Triple A, [the Algerian military] created, end of 1993, the Organisation des jeunes Algériens libres (OJAL) and the OSSRA (Organisation secrète de sauvegarde de la République algérienne, Secret Organisation of Safeguard of the Algerian Republic) : they were, purely and simply, commandos composed of men from the regime's political police, the sinister DRS. After having liquidated tens of opponents, passing as anti-Islamist civils, these pseudo-organisations disappeared in mid-1994. Because at the same moment, the leaders of the DRS prefered to generalise the unfolding and action of death squads also composed of their men, but passing by as Islamist terrorists. [2]

[edit] Using Algeria Watch as a source

While I respect the work of Algeria Watch, my personal opinion is not enough to make their information encyclopedic. Algeria Watch is still an activist website. Since they are pretty good at citing things like newspapers in their reports, I believe that we should use the regular press and peer-reviewed articles for sourcing whenever possible. We can use Algeria Watch as a way of tracking down further citations, but shouldn't use them as the only source for any items. EdJohnston 23:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree. <<-armon->> 00:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Algeria Watch is a human rights NGO and clearly satisfies WP:RS. It would be very ironic to make an article on the Algerian Civil War with only news article from Algerian newspapers of the time... Tazmaniacs 01:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I think you're missing Ed's point. <<-armon->> 01:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Tazmaniacs, I'd be surprised if you can find anywhere in Wikipedia policy that a human rights NGO is a reliable source. We certainly have to treat them as having a POV. When many factions are keeping secrets from the public, it may not be easy to learn the truth. And if reliable secondary sources don't yet know the truth about Algeria, it's hard for us to know any better than they do. Lowering our usual standards for sourcing is not a good way to solve the problem. EdJohnston 02:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with EdJohnston. I know that Algeria Watch host and link to enough content written by scholars and investigative journalists, that we have plenty to choose from without having to use AW's writings. Plenty others make the same points they do.Mostlyharmless 05:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
If they are other sources which you prefer, why not? But I find your suggestion that nowhere in Wikipedia "human rights NGO" are considered WP:RS very strange. I gather you've never heard of articles such as extraordinary renditions, "War on Terror", Guantanamo Bay, etc., etc. Neither I are you aware that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch report are used as sources by the United Nations and all of the media. Tazmaniacs 02:31, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

Hi. Good work here, but I have found some strange repetitions in section "Massacres and reconciliation". You can find it by looking for "that rivalry with other groups (e.g., Mustapha Kartali's breakaway faction) played a part." in the text. It is repeated twice. Which one do you prefer? :) Also happens with "army barracks were stationed within a few hundred meters of the villages". Notes 23 and 30 are the same. The fragment "Regardless of the explanations one may have..." appears in note 21 and in the main text. In consequence, note 21 is an expansion of note 32. That section may require a review. Chabacano 04:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Major edits

Hi Armon, do you care to explain your removal of a large body of text? Or should I just revert it back again? The whole major changes without explanation thing is quite frustrating for other editors. Cheers. Mostlyharmless 03:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

It was redundant and I cleaned it up as was requested. <<-armon->> 03:14, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
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