Algeria - History

[هاني_سات]

Algeria - History

Algeria´s first inhabitants were Berbers, who still represent a significant minority. Algeria has been occupied many times during its history by - Phoenicians and Romans among others -
but the Arab invasions of the 8th and 11th centuries A.D. had the greatest cultural impact.

In 1492 Moors and Jews expelled from Spain settled in Algeria. Between 1518 and 1830 Algeria was an integral part of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1830 Algeria became a French territory and in 1848 was made a département attached to France. During this period political and economic power were held mainly by the minority of white settlers, and the indigenous Moslem minority did not have equal rights.

Moslems were killed before independence was declared on July 5, 1962. Later that year the Algerian provisional government transferred authority to the Political Bureau of the FLN, the National Constituent Assembly was elected from a list of FLN candidates, and a republic was proclaimed with Ahmed Ben Bella, one of the original leaders of the FLN, as president. Nearly one million French and other Europeans (pieds noirs, or black feet) left the country when the French army withdrew.

During the 1960s and 1970s Algeria went through a difficult period of adjustment and change, emerging as a staunch socialist state: the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria. Houari Boumedienne, who became president after a 1965 coup, died in December 1978.

In February 1979 Chadli Bendjedid was named president. Chadli, a former colonel, had played key roles in the war of independence and in the military coup that brought Boumedienne to power in 1965. Chadli´s government has vowed to root out government corruption; affirm Algeria´s Arab-Islamic culture, Moslem religion, and traditional social values; and liberalize the rigidly structured socialist economy. Chadli was reelected to a third five-year term in December 1988.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s the protracted struggle in Western Sahara embittered Algeria´s relations with France, which supported the claims of Morocco. Algeria also criticized French military intervention elsewhere in Africa, while further grievances were the trade imbalance in favour of the former colonial power, and recurrent disputes over the price of Algerian exports of gas to France; the French Government´s determination to reduce the number of Algerians residing in France was another source of *******ion.
27 April 1999 - Algerian voters elected Abdelaziz Bouteflika, considered the choice of Algeria´s powerful military to lead the country, as president after a race in which all six opponents pulled out. The political establishment in Algeria is going through a political roller coaster, which started with a controversial presidential election and continues with the surrender of the Islamic Salvation Army or AIS and the conditions in which this event was negotiated by the new President, Mr. Abdelaziz Bouteflika.