Algeria
"Nobel Peace Prize for Jacques Chirac"

afrol News, 4 March - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika states that his French colleague, President Jacques Chirac deserves to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize if he manages to avert the planned US attack on Iraq. 

President Chirac currently is on a historic visit to Algeria, the first since the North African country achieved its independence from France in 1962. Mr Chirac was received by exultant crowds wherever he has appeared in public, probably mainly due to France's stubborn rejection of the US initiative to launch a war against Iraq. 

President Bouteflika in an interview with French state radio said Mr Chirac would be a deserving candidate to the Nobel Peace Prize if he is successful in his efforts to avert a new Iraqi war, and he emphasised the world was "tired of war." President Bouteflika is in a position of nominating candidates to the award, such as all other heads of state, MPs and Nobel laureates.

Algerian authorities have, in line with all other North African states, on several occasions demanded all possible efforts must be done to avoid an attack on Iraq. President Bouteflika repeated this today, adding there were still many options to avert the war. In an interview with 'Europe 1', Mr Bouteflika further said he is in favour of "the respect of international equality."

The French President arrived Algiers with a large suite of state officials and representatives of French business. Several lucrative contracts are said to be prepared and the French oil company TotalFinaElf has already announced its plan to invest euro 1 billion in Algeria. 

But it is in particular in the realm of state-to-state relations that the visit promises to create a new era. The heads of state signed an ample declaration on increased co-operation, with special emphasis on the cultural and economic fields. The treaty also outlines that the presidents of France and Algeria are to meet annually from now on.

France and Algeria have a history of tense relations. Algeria was not a French colony but indeed a French province like any other in mainland France. The large number of French settlers in the Algerian province led to a deep-rooted resistance to grant the territory its independence. 

After a long and bloody war in Algeria - where both French troops and the Algerian guerrilla made use of widespread torture and massacres of civilians - the French finally withdraw in 1962. The hate however has survived during the following decades, not the least because leading French personalities such as politician Jean Marie Le Pen still defend French atrocities in Algeria. Mr Le Pen indeed participated in the torture of Algerians in person.

Thus, the symbolic value for Algerians was enormous when the first French President on an official visit laid a wreath at the memorial site for Algerians killed in the fight for independence and later tell parliament in Algiers "we must not forget it or renounce" what has happened.

Even if the visit of Mr Chirac has been in a great act of reconciliation, there are however still a large number of conflict issues between the two nations. The Algerian government is especially annoyed by the fraternal relationship between France and Morocco and the French defence of Moroccan regional interests.

But Algeria has become a more important partner for France and the West at large during the last years. The not-exactly-democratic government of Mr Bouteflika is seen as the last stronghold against Muslim fundamentalism in Algeria, strategically placed in "Europe's backyard". Mr Bouteflika has further become the key Western ally in the fight against terrorism in North Africa.

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