CHAPTER TWO: HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND CURRENT CHALLENGES 1986, President Chadli decided to crack down on revolts. In October 1988, the army shot at rioters, resulting in over 500 deaths. The authorities ended up making concessions, including a new Constitution, introduction of political pluralism and freedom of the press. Box 2: Algeria’s historical role in pan-Africanism and the decolonisation of Africa ―Algeria has always supported just causes in the world and settled conflict through peaceful dialogue,‖ declared President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war of independence. After this long war, which caused the death of 1.5 million people, Algeria regained its independence. If a militant and progressive Africa had fought for the independence of Algeria, the latter was in turn to be in the vanguard of the fight for the decolonisation of the continent. Algeria burst onto the African scene in the 1960s, showing its indomitable will to bring all its resources to bear on the continent‘s efforts to rid itself of all forms of colonialism, racial discrimination and apartheid. In its support of just causes, the Algerian capital was to become the intellectual home of international revolutionary contestation and was fêted as the ―Mecca of revolutionaries‖, according to Amilcar Cabral‘s famous dictum. Indeed, in Algiers were to be found liberation fighters from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, and manyleaders of African liberation movements. Algeria‘s logical policy was rooted in its historical desire to make a singular contribution to the liberation struggle on the continent, a contribution that was supported by its anti-imperialist approach to the world. Thus, at the summit of the heads of African states at Addis Ababa in May 1963, at the time of the foundation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), President Ahmed Ben Bella was to launch a solemn appeal to his peers, calling for the creation of a ―blood bank‖ as their contribution to the struggle against colonialism recently declared by combatants from Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. ―We must accept to die a little so that Africa can survive forever,‖ was the essence of his declaration. Putting action to words, Algeria opened its doors to all African liberation movements that were able to send combatants to training camps. Thus, the African National Congress (ANC) from South Africa, Frelimo from Mozambique, Swapo from Namibia and other movements were able to train their first combatants. These people went on to engage in and strengthen their liberation battle against the colonial forces or segregation in their respective countries, with the results that are well known today. It is estimated that, in 1963, Algeria alone was host to over 1000 future freedom fighters from Africa. In addition to providing training, Algeria also provided military aid, as well as political and diplomatic support. Algiers welcomed several liberation movements, which established important representation there, and became the preferred destination of freedom fighters and African revolutionaries such as Nelson Mandela, Eduardo Mondlane, Samora Machel, Agostinho Neto, Amilcar Cabral, Aristides Pereira and many other leaders of African liberation movements from Lusophone, Francophone and Anglophone Africa. Algiers also received other combatants fighting for just causes in the rest of the world. One of the most powerful figures of the Black movement in the United States, Malcolm X, spent time in Algiers in 1964, and Ernesto Che Guevara passed through Algiers in 1965, before making contact with the resistance movement in Congo. It was in Algeria that Nelson Mandela, one of the founders of the armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, was initiated into military tactics and sabotage before returning to South Africa where, following action, he and his comrades were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. It was also in Algeria that the future president of 44