Abdelaziz Bouteflika

Barely 24 hours after former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, resigned his position as the country’s president, fresh tensions once
again erupted in another restive North African nation as security forces in Algeria yesterday, clashed with anti-government protesters
chanting “change the power.”

While the clash raged, reports said about 100 protesters had been detained by the police in the nation’s capital, Algiers, according to
the Algerian League for Human Rights, which is one of the main opposition groups that organised the rallies and unauthorised
gatherings a day after Mubarak stepped down.

The demonstrations, according to reports, were said to be peaceful, with police rounding up protesters in small groups to break up the crowds.

Speaking on the protest, the general secretary for the Algerian League, Khalil AbdulMouminm, called the situation “very tense on the
ground” and said police were preventing protesters from assembling,  with authorities blocking all entrances to the capital.

According to him, “We want this rally to break the wall of fear in the first place, and to trigger change in order to reach our legitimate
demands, like lifting the emergency law after all these years, liberating media, freedom of political expression.”

Mubarak’s ouster, which was fuelled by 18 days of angry protests, was preceded by last month’s overthrow of Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine  Ben Ali, helping stoke demands for reform in the Arab world.
 
In the past few weeks, demonstrators in the region have protested against various issues, including unemployment, high food costs and corruption. The problems are similar to those that fueled uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

As Algeria authorities tried to quell unrest in the country, Egypt’s military authorities reaffirmed the country’s commitment to all its
international treaties.

The announcement, which was read by a senior officer on state TV, implicitly confirms that the country’s peace treaty with Israel would
remain intact.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the announcement, saying the treaty was the cornerstone of stability in the Middle East as a whole.

The military also vowed to oversee a peaceful transition to civilian rule. The statement comes as thousands remain in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, celebrating President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation on Friday.

“The Arab Republic of Egypt is committed to all regional and international obligations and treaties,” the military officer said.

The statement should allay the concerns of the United States and Israel, where politicians are anxious that a change in leadership
could jeopardise the 1979 Camp David accords, reported the BBC.

The military also said it had asked the current government to stay on until a new one was formed, which would “pave the way for an elected civil authority to build a free democratic state.”

It gave no official timetable for the transition, but called on the people to cooperate with the police, and for the police to commit to
its motto: “At the service of the people”.

-Punch

Posted by admin on Feb 13 2011. Filed under Africa & World Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry