ALGERIA: Algerian security forces members are believed responsible for the deaths of 5,200 civilians who disappeared during a decade-long struggle with Islamic rebels and should face justice, a government-appointed official said.
"I think this is the case because individually agents of the state carried out these illegal acts," Farouk Ksentini, appointed by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to investigate the disappearances, said yesterday.
"The war was terrible and there were excesses. But the state itself has not committed any crime," said Mr Ksentini, a lawyer, who is also president of a government-appointed rights commission.
The number of people killed at the hands of rebels during the war is estimated at between 100,000 and 200,000. Mr Ksentini believes it is well above 100,000.
Last year he said he believed as many as 7,200 people had also gone missing and were presumed killed during the conflict but yesterday was the first time he laid the blame for the disappearances on security force members.
He is expected to deliver his report to Mr Bouteflika in March.
It forms part of the president's national reconciliation programme to unite the country and move beyond its bloody past.
Algeria plunged into near civil war when militants unleashed a holy war or "jihad" after the army cancelled parliamentary elections in 1992 that the radical Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was set to win. Authorities feared an Iranian-style revolution.
Mr Ksentini said he had so far documented that 5,200 Algerians, suspected of providing support for militants, were taken in for interrogation by security forces in the 1990s and never seen again. Security forces have admitted interrogating them but say they were later released, he said.
In addition to documenting the disappearances, Mr Ksentini is also tasked with offering compensation to victims' families.
Families may use the information to pursue prosecution, but his commission cannot.
"The position of my commission is clear - people responsible for killings must be brought to justice," he said.
This is a demand long made by the European Union and foreign human rights groups, such as Amnesty International.
Public discussion about the security forces or the military's possible involvement in unlawful killings have been taboo in Algeria, where the army has long wielded much power.
"The families have a right to know the truth of what happened to their loved ones," Mr Ksentini said.
It was important to find the bodies, which may require the co-operation of those believed responsible for the killings, he said. "We know some of the areas they were executed and their bodies dumped and with DNA, we can identify them."
Mr Bouteflika, who won a sweeping re-election in April largely due to ending most of the Islamic uprising, recently suggested a second amnesty for those willing to surrender.
The first 1999 amnesty, which expired in 2001, saw the surrender of thousands of rebels but some 400 remain, most belonging to the al-Qaeda-aligned Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and still kill hundreds of people a year.
"A general amnesty is necessary...I expect it to take place next year and it will be approved by the population," Mr Ksentini said.
He expected it to involve both rebels and security forces members found guilty of killing civilians who disappeared. But he said it was too early to say whether all rebels regardless of their crimes would be included.
Algeria's main independent rights group is calling for an international commission to investigate crimes against humanity and whether leaders, including those in the military, were involved.
Mr Ksentini said Algeria should not dig too deep into its past because of the risks of social ruptures, at least not just yet.
"We must turn the page because too much blood has been spilt in this country. We lived through a Khmer Rouge-style war where people killed just to kill," he said.