CHAPTER TWO: HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND CURRENT CHALLENGES 69. Mohammed Boudiaf was made President in 1992. Following his assassination a few months later, the High Committee of State appointed Ali Kafi. The FIS still did not loosen its grip and its armed wing, the Armed Islamic Association (GIA), increased its attacks, subjecting the country to a reign of terror. Police officers and journalists were assassinated, detention camps were set up in the South, institutions were razed to the ground, bombings and suicide attacks were commonplace and villages were decimated. 70. Armed groups led what they referred to as Jihad or a Holy War. On its part, the regime suppressed freedom of expression and placed restrictions on the activities of political parties and local and international non-governmental organisations. On 30 January 1994, General Liamine Zeroual was appointed head of state by the High Committee of State. He was then confirmed President after elections were held in 1995. 71. President Zeroual promulgated the Er-Rahma law or clemency law in 1996, targeting repentant terrorists. During this period, the GIA was responsible for numerous massacres in Algiers, resulting in more than 1000 civilian deaths. In 1999, Liamine Zeroual announced the holding of early presidential elections and declared that he would not contest the seat. 72. During the 1999 presidential elections, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, stood as an independent presidential candidate and was elected President of the Republic on 15 April 1999. His accession to power significantly changed the order, there being more emphasis on civil peace. He held power with the support of a political coalition made up of the FLN, the National Democratic Movement, and the Movement of Society for Peace. 73. The peace process was initiated with the Civil Concord, a clemency project carrying amnesty, which was put to a referendum by President Bouteflika in September 1999. The Civil Concord Project won the support of three-quarters of the electorate and was implemented in January 2000. Over 6000 fighters of the FIS surrendered their weapons and were reintegrated into the society. 74. President Bouteflika submitted the draft Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation to the vote in 2005. Adopted by referendum, the Charter came into force in March 2006. Approximately 2000 Islamists sentenced for subversive activities were then released, about 7000 cases of disappearance attributed to the security forces were officially recognised and over DA15 billion were raised to take care of victims of the national tragedy. The Algerian government indicated that over DA4 billion were given to 10 000 of the 45 000 families identified by regional committees. 75. To understand the importance of this journey, the origins of the crisis need to be revisited. In the early 1980s, the political model and its economic system began developing cracks. The stranglehold of the state machinery and its omnipresence in the control of citizens‟ lives, combined with its failures or weaknesses in the management of development, or at least in some key sectors, ended up frustrating the population and some of the active forces of 46