afrol News, 9 December - Algeria's commission on "disappearances" needs greater investigative powers and a broader mandate if it is to be credible and effective, a report released today concluded. More than 7,000 Algerians are "missing" after being arrested by the security forces in the 1990s.

The New York-based group Human Rights Watch today published the 32-page report 'Truth and Justice on Hold: The New State Commission on Disappearances,' which examines the "disappearances" commission announced in September by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

- President Bouteflika's initiative to address 'disappearances' is welcome, but it doesn't sufficiently address the need for justice, said Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch. "Verifying cases and offering families compensation, steps that are both long overdue, cannot substitute for thoroughly investigating these crimes against humanity and holding the perpetrators accountable."

The human rights group holds that the more than 7,000 victims mostly had "disappeared" at the hands of Algerian security forces-during the civil conflict of the 1990s. This was at the height of the political violence that ravaged Algeria.

That violence became endemic in 1992, after a military-backed coup halted elections that the Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut, or FIS) was poised to win.

In addition, there are hundreds - if not thousands - of cases of persons who remain missing after being abducted by armed Islamist groups fighting the government.

According to its mandate, defined by a presidential decree made public in November, the new commission will focus on confirming cases of "disappearance", securing legal assistance for families, and drafting proposals for state compensation and assistance to the victims' relatives.

The Human Rights Watch report however reveals that the commission will have to push the limits of this mandate if it is to probe how each "disappearance" was carried out and who the perpetrators were.

The commission cannot compel testimony, or force the state security services to produce documents. President Bouteflika himself had warned that the commission would not take on the role of the judicial authorities.

New cases of "disappearances," though rare, demonstrate that authorities had not institutionalised legal safeguards to deter the practice, the group concluded.

In addition, the Algerian authorities periodically break up public rallies by relatives of the "disappeared," and since 2000 have failed to approve a standing request for a visit by the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.

- Algeria must confront impunity if it is serious about stopping abuses like 'disappearances'," said Mr Stork. "The commission needs stronger powers to investigate these crimes, to establish responsibility for them, to secure the release of any person found to be alive and in secret detention."

Human Rights Watch in a statement urged the EU and the US to encourage Algeria's efforts toward addressing the issue of the "disappeared," and to "insist on serious investigations that provide Algerians with a full picture of the truth surrounding 'disappearances' and criminal liability for the perpetrators."

By staff writer

© afrol News

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