Kamira Nait Sid aux USA
Greetings Madame Chair, my brothers and sisters, I am Madame Nait Sid Kamira, President of the Women's Collective of the Black Spring of Kabylia, a member of the Amazigh World Congress and a member of the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylia, and a member of IPACC. Idedicate my talk to the economic situation in my region of Kabylia.....
Kamira Nait Sid aux USA
Greetings Madame Chair, my brothers and sisters, I am Madame Nait Sid Kamira, President of the Women's Collective of the Black Spring of Kabylia, a member of the Amazigh World Congress for the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylia, and a member of IPACC. I dedicate my talk to the economic situation in my region of Kabylia.
The Amazighs of Algeria
The Amazighs (Berbers) have existed in North Africa since the prehistoric era. A vast
and rich territory, the land of the Amazighs became very desirable. Since antiquity, North Africa
has experienced many waves of invaders: the Romans would succeed the Phoenicians, followed
by the Vandals, the Byzantines, the Arabs (7th century), the Spanish (15th century), the Turks
(1515), and finally by the French (1830). The Amazighs, the Indigenous people of North Africa,
are dispersed today throughout more than ten countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt
(Siwa), Spain (The Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla), Niger, Mali, Burkina-Faso and Mauritania
(Touareg populations). One can count today more than 40 million Amazigh speakers, of which
approximately 75% live in Morocco and Algeria. These peoples possess their own language and
culture. The Amazigh language benefits from an original system of writing, Tifinah, developed
4000 years ago, and preserved even today. Another, more recent system of transcription in Latin
characters also exists, and its use is spreading. In Algeria, the Amazighophone populations
represent around one third of the total population, or more than 10 million individuals living
primarily in the regions of Kabylia, Aures, Chenoua, M'zab, and in the case of the Touaregs, in
the extreme Southern regions. However, Kabylia remains the region that hosts the largest
number of Amazighophones (6-7 million people). It is also important to note that in Algerian
territory, hundreds of places exist in which people speak Tamazight (the Amazigh language)
daily.
The situation of the Amazighs of Algeria
Since the independence of the country in 1962, Algeria has always practiced the same
policy of negation and exclusion of the Amazigh identity. Algerian constitutions have regularly
reaffirmed the same definition of the nation, one that rests solely on Arab and Islamic
constituents, thus excluding the Amazigh constituents. The current Constitution (dating from
1996), if it finally introduces areference to Amazigh, next to Islam and Arabic, as foundations of
Algerian identity, it is only in its Preamble, which later insists on "Algeria, land of Islam (...) and
Arab country." Articles 1-2 and 1-3 later raise ambiguity in stipulating that « Islam is the religion
of the State » and « Arabic is the national and official language .» Under pressure from street
demonstrations in 2002, the Algerian government recognized Tamazight as a national language,
but in practice nothing changed. Thus, their existence as a population of several million Algerian
Amazighs, along with their history, language and culture dating back many millennia, is simply
concealed, denied, and refused.
All of the violations of the political, economic, social, and cultural rights of the Amazigh
populations stem from this constitutional negation and thus are practiced in all legality.
Although Algeria is a wealthy country, predominantly due to its petroleum and natural
gas resources, the living conditions of a large majority of the population continue to deteriorate
because the energy revenue is monopolized by the clans who share power at the State level. The .
pauperization particularly affects the mountainous zones like the regions of Aures and Kabylia,
where the unemployment rate is much higher than the national average (national average of 30%,
50% in Kabylia). In the wilaya of Tizi-Ouzou, for example, not a single industrial investment of
any significance has occurred in the past twenty years. On the other hand, the two principal
factories of Cotitex (textiles) and Eniem (household electrical appliances) have seen their
revenues decline astonishingly. Private investments are particularly discouraged in Kabylia by a
large number of legal and administrative obstacles, the goal of which is to preserve certain
monopolies. These investments are then diverted to other regions of the country. The
unemployment and hardships that result from these obstacles affect young people more severely,
as they tend to flee their painful realities by turning to the consumption of alcohol and drugs,
exile, and as a last resort, suicide.
Since the State is the country's sole owner and banker, it is able to exert, for its own
benefit, economic and financial blackmail on any group, or on any collectivity of its territory. It is
thus that Kabylia finds itself in a situation of grave economic depression due to the
disengagement of the State, which refuses to introduce any of its capital into our region, as it
remains politically hostile. This situation was aggravated by the revolt in Kabylia in 2001.
The aggression of April 2001 (the Kabylian revolt of the Black Spring), was a ploy
aimed at destabilizing the region, and remains.consistent proof of the central authorities' desire to
drown Kabylia in a bloodbath. This diabolical strategy was sanctioned by a most macabre death
toll: more than 126 youths assassinated and thousands wounded. In addition to this genocide,
there were also consequences -that were not at all minor, among others, the total paralysis of
economic development in our region. The central administration's political resolve was
expressed by a delay that set a record in the annals of the execution of public facility programs.
At the moment, the execution of the normal public facility program in our region is characterized
by persistent obstacles, while the government endows the rest of the country with multiple special
programs financed by ongoing subsidies that reflect the importance of the petroleum deposits
(natural riches that should belong to all Algerians). With their revenue from the deposits, the
government launched a special Greater South program, a special High Plateau program, and a
special Greater Algiers program; if one attempts to situate these programs geographically, one
remarks that it is practically only Kabylia that is excluded.
The government is not satisfied only with disregarding and blocking investments in
Kabylia, it even relocated large projects designated for Kabylia for the first time, as in the case of
the insulin factory. Furthermore, the Tizi-Ouzou sports complex in Kabylia was deferred to the
Greek calendar despite the performances of our team, the JSK (The Athletic Kabyle Youth), on a
national and continental scale. Another grave discrimination is seen in the layout of the East-
West Highway that barely grazed Kabylia due to the cancellation of many interchanges and
access roads that existed in the preliminary study, in particular, throughout the Soumamam
Valley; this was a government strategy designed to neutralize the port of Bgayet, a principal
economic sector.
The autonomy of Kabylia as a solution to the crisis
The Kabyles request:
- A statute providing for the comprehensive autonomy of our region as the ultimate solution to
this crisis that has persisted since the independence of the country in 1962.
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In order to remedy the Algerian authorities' obstruction of the development of Kabylia,
we believe that through autonomy, our people will reclaim economic initiative, which guarantees
economic development.
The autonomy of our region will allow us to avoid the Algerian authorities' obstacles and
lack of understanding, from which we have suffered for decades. It will als.o allow us to shelter
our children from the violence of the State and to take charge of our language, our culture, and
our identity.
We also request:
The cessation of the obstruction of investment projects in Kabylia.
In conclusion, I would like to pay homage to all the martyrs of the Black Spring of
Kabylia, to all the victims, and to all those who continue peaceful civilian resistance.