Vol. 493 No. 5
100 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs whether he has monitored events in Algeria with particular reference to the measures which might be helpful to the situation there; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16805/98]
The Government is following closely developments in Algeria. Since my visit to Algiers last December we have been active in discussions on Algeria in multilateral fora and have also maintained close bilateral contacts with the Algerian authorities.
The most recent spate of violence and tension in Algeria was sparked off by the violent murder of Lounes Matoub, a popular Berber singer and outspoken anti-government figure. Matoub was a staunch anti-Islamist, a vociferous advocate of the Berber cause and a committed democrat who often targeted the authorities through his music. As a response to his killing, there were riots at the weekend in Tizi Ouzou, capital of the Berber-dominated north-eastern Kabylie region.
Unfortunately, this has been a familiar pattern of events ever since Algeria erupted in violence in early 1992, when the authorities cancelled a general election in which radical Islamists appeared to have secured the greatest number of votes. More than 65,000 people have been killed since then, and, although there has been some improvement in recent months, the killings have continued.
In March at the annual session of the Commission of Human Rights in Geneva, Ireland which is a member of the commission strongly supported the tabling of a resolution by the EU on the situation in Algeria. Although this was not agreed, the Presidency of the European Union made a statement to the commission criticising the failure of Algeria to co-operate with the Commission of Human Rights and to accept visits by UN Special Rapporteurs on extra-judicial executions and torture.
The EU statement said:
It is incumbent upon all Member States of the United Nations to co-operate fully and without conditions with the procedures and mechanisms of United Nations bodies. Failure to do so calls our work here into question, and makes more difficult the implementation of our primary task: the promotion and protection of human rights throughout the world. The EU itself takes this obligation very seriously, and acts accordingly in its relations with other Member States.
