Algeria: The Movement for the Autodetermination of Kabylia (MAK) mobilises

Algeria: The Movement for the Autodetermination of Kabylia (MAK) mobilises
The MAK is today the standard-bearer of a struggle of more than four decades: that of a community that intends to take charge of its destiny in a repressive and oppressive country, incapable of building a democratic and united society, based on the rule of law and the principles of equity and justice. Kabylia is not a region: it is the history of a territory that the Kabyles traditionally call “Tamurt” (country). A struggle. An identity struggle of a Kabyle people of more than 12 million people on a territory of some 40,000 km2. Yes, there is no doubt that reference must be made to the qualification of ‘people’. It is based first of all on an objective fact, on historical, ethnic, linguistic and cultural factors; it then looks at a collective will to live, a strong feeling of belonging as well as an attachment and a shared vision around a common future, a destiny… The Kabyle people want their emancipation, their autonomy, their self-determination. They consider that the prerequisites they have met are legitimate in relation to the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law.

This people intends to separate itself from the present Algeria. They are an indigenous people whose existence is denied by the current government. And all history since the middle of the previous century bears witness to this situation, marked by a demand for identity: in 1949 with the so-called ‘Berberist’ crisis, then in 1963 with the FFS uprising of Hocine Ait Ahmed, the ‘Berber Spring’ of 1980 and the Black Spring of April 2001 with more than 120 young victims. For three years, the Kabyle territory thus lived practically in de facto autonomy on the basis of an ancestral Kabyle social and political organisation, the “Archs”. It was at this time, in June 2001, that the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylia (MAK) was created, which has since carried the project of regional autonomy. It then evolved towards self-determination with the objective of independence. Its president is Ferhat Mehenni, a historical activist for decades and co-founder of the Algerian League of Human Rights – the most representative in this field and which was dissolved at the end of last September. A political leader, writer and Kabyle poet-singer, he was awarded the Gusi Peace Prize in 2013.
The stranglehold of repression has practically never stopped in Kabylia and against the activists of the pro-independence movement who claim to be part of it. Officials in Algiers are tightening the measures and even developing racist anti-Kabylian calls. Deputies and members of the government distinguish themselves in this register with impunity. Such as the parliamentarian Naima Salhi, president of the Party of Equity and Proclamation, pouring out her hatred by calling for the extermination of the Kabyles, qualified as “Jews of the worst kind”… It is worth noting that the Islamists are also using an eradicating discourse: the leader of the Rachad party, Mohamed Larbi Zitout, calls for “taking up arms against the MAK separatists”. 

The Kabyle opposition is demonised and criminalised. The security apparatus sets up a “case” of seizure of weapons of war and explosives intended for the execution of criminal and terrorist plans by referring to the confession of a man called “H. Nourredine”, presented as an ex-member of the MAK. This movement reacts, counter-attacks and challenges the Algerian authorities to present evidence of such accusations. It recalls that since its creation, twenty years ago, its action is based on the political and peaceful struggle for “the right of peoples to self-determination”. The official television station resorts to broadcasting an interview with the alleged ex-member of the MAK, who then delivers a bizarre version: it was while “walking around that he came across weapons that he intended to sell”… Amateurism: it is established that he is only a trafficker and a criminal.
On 11 May 2021, the website of the official newspaper of the ANAVAD (Kabyle provisional government) published the promulgation of the law governing the vote in the referendum for the self-determination of Kabylia. A week later, the Algerian High Security Council (HCS), chaired by Abdelmajid Tebboune, classified the MAK on the “list of terrorist organisations”. Ferhat Mehenni was placed in police custody in Paris and then released. Algiers did not succeed in using the bilateral extradition agreement with France by raising the ‘spectre’ of MAK terrorism to extradite its leader. On 24 May 2021, the latter referred the matter to the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, to denounce the classification of the MAK peace movement as a terrorist movement. He recalls that self-determination is a matter of political action: “In order to assume our responsibilities, we have asked our leaders and supporters never to go underground and to assume our political and peaceful choices as women and men of peace, regardless of the ferocity of the repression. He invites the UN Commission on Human Rights to study whether the MAK or the Algerian government “should be banished from the international community”.
On 10 June 2021, the Algerian Penal Code was amended with a new definition of a terrorist act: “Any act aimed at State security, national unity, stability and the normal functioning of institutions is considered a terrorist act or sabotage by any action whose purpose is to: (…) work or incite, by any means whatsoever, to gain access to power or to change the system of governance by non-constitutional means; undermine or incite to do so, by any means whatsoever”. Hundreds of MAK activists are then imprisoned. Kabylia boycotts the presidential election of December 2019 as well as the constitutional referendum. Justice sentences Ferhat Mehenni and 49 other MAK leaders to death.
The US State Department report, published three weeks ago, rejects the classification of the MAK as a terrorist organisation by the generals’ regime. In the United States and North America, many human rights groups have taken a stand in favour of the Kabyle movement and the Hirak of 22 February 2019 (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,…). The President of the MAK has just referred the issue of the Kabyle question to the Fourth Committee of the United Nations on the occasion of the International Day of the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination. It asks for an examination of the situation in this territory under the heading of decolonisation. This is a big paving stone in the pond that puts Algiers in front of a contradiction: how can it defend the self-determination of the separatist movement of the ‘Polisario’, of some 40,000 refugees in the camps of Tindouf, in Algerian territory, and oppose that of the Kabyle people? In the first case, it is a puppet entity where only 20% of the Saharawis live, whereas in the second, it is a historical, cultural and identity-based community that has its own legitimacy. A just cause…
By Mustapha Sehimi
The 09/04/2023