Algeria at the brink

European Perspectives Within southern European capitals, quiet consultations have been initiated to prepare contingency plans should the government in Algiers collapse under Islamic radical pressures. The betting at present is that such a denouement is not imminent, nor do the governments of France, Italy, and Spain share the sentiment of Willy Claes, NATO's Secretary-General, who publicly suggested in March that radical Islam constitutes the biggest threat to the West, taking over where communism has left off. (He has since receded from this view.) Nevertheless, all three of these NATO member states are fearful that a takeover of Algeria by radical Islamic groups would have dire consequences: * Widening conflict would produce massive refugee flows to France, Italy and Spain beyond the capacities of the three to absorb; * Algeria, inevitably, would become a center for support of radical Islamic groups in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, attempting to destabilize these countries and, ultimately, adding to the already heavy economic and social burdens of southern Europe. The French government has been divided in its Algerian policy, with the foreign ministry urging a negotiated settlement and the defense ministry supporting the Algerian military. However, confidence in the latter has eroded witness declining French economic aid and the newly installed Chirac presidency may tilt policy in favor of a negotiated settlement. The primary challenge, from the perspective of southern Europe's governments, is to develop an appropriate strategy to cope with a looming crisis laden with far-reaching consequences for their own political and economic orders. To date, NATO's northern European members have evinced little inclination to fashion approaches to deal with Algeria's political turbulence. The preferred European outcome is a constructive dialogue among contending Algerian factions leading to a cease-fire and new elections to form a government of national reconciliation. In the interim, Europeans condemn ongoing violence and political extremism. As a prudent measure, France, Italy and Spain have developed plans for emergency evacuation of their nationals including Algerians with dual citizen-ship in the case of France which would number tens of thousands. Reportedly, military preparations for evacuation are well advanced. The last two major WEU defense exercises TRAMONTANA in Spain this year and ARDENT in 1994 in Italy included practice evacuations. At present, the U.S. military is not directly involved in the plans, but has been kept apprised. Alignment of Forces The struggle for Algeria's political and cultural future continues unabated, despite occasional attempts at dialogue by the Algerian government and the FIS leadership. For a brief period in 1994, the President, General Lamine Zeroual, appeared to signal a desire to enter into serious discussions with the two FIS leaders Madani and Belhadj who were transferred from prison to house arrest. The effort failed for several reasons: the senior military leadership was unwilling to make major concessions to jump-start talks; the Zeroual initiative was ill-received by the majority of Algerian political parties and labor organizations; the FIS leadership, for its part, suspected the Zeroual approach was a deception intended to allow the security services time to prepare for a major campaign to eradicate the Islamic opposition. The failed government-FIS dialogue, and mounting casualties approaching 40,000 dead and wounded over three years of conflict, led eight Algerian groups to meet in Rome early in January. Their avowed purpose was to establish a National Contract, a formula for ending the crisis and establishing a democratic government. The key participants were (1) the FIS main line group; (2) FLN, which, through participation, was apparently breaking with its military partner of 30 years; and (3) the Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS), which claimed to represent Algeria's distinct Berber ethnic population of 3 million located in the Kabylie-Aures mountain regions. …