London streets | George: You need to start a long way from Algeria to find people who can speak freely about the war between the generals who run the country, and the armed Islamic groups who oppose them.
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| In London, you'll find Mohammed Labri Zitout, an exiled Algerian diplomat who says he defected when he discovered the cynical manipulation of the Islamic uprising that's cost thousands of lives.
| 00.19 |
Zitout Interview | Zitout: Most of them are infiltrated. That means that Algerian society is under a huge manipulation because those who are supposed to fight against the regime are in fact just another wing, just another hand, of the regime.
| 00.35 |
| George: Why would the government infiltrate the armed Islamic forces and then allow the violence to go on?
| 00.52 |
Super: MOHAMMED LARBI ZITOUT Former Algerian Diplomat | Zitout: To justify the use of violence, to manage Algerian society as they would like, to take as they want and as they could from the oil and gas money, more than $12 billion a year, and to call for the support from the West, and to stay in power.
| 00.59 |
Dissolve to map of Algeria
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Women at graveyard | George: The images of anguish in Algeria are all too stark, the reasons for the conflict all too murky.
| 01.31 |
| They've built whole graveyards for villages decimated by brutal night time slaughters of whole families - men, women, children, babies.
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Woman interview | Woman: My son, who was thirteen, died like this. Before he died, he cried out, "God is great!" They either shot him or slit his throat. My six year old called out "Mummy!" - that was the last thing. They hit him with an axe and threw his body out the window. |
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Woman mourner | George: They're amongst the thousands caught up in violence they simply do not understand. It's not the way it should be, nor the way it has to be.
| 02.14 |
| Music
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Algerian landscapes | George: Algeria has a lot going for it. Nature has been generous. | 02.37 |
| There is fertile soil, and along the Mediterranean coast, abundant fish stocks. And riches beneath the Sahara desert in the south that make it one of the world's largest exporters of oil and gas.
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Historical ruins | But history has not been so kind. It is full of violence. The Romans left there indelible mark, but plenty of conquerors followed them, amongst them the Vandals, the Byzantines, the Arabs who converted the country to Islam, then the Spanish, the Ottomans, lastly the French.
| 03.03 |
Market scene | FX: Market
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| George: To many people in regions like Boumerdes, east of the capital, that have been hard hit by the violence, the government's claim that the war is a clear cut case of a civilised society fighting against Islamic extremes, rings true.
| 03.32 |
| It rings true to Houriah, whose husband, a local mayor, was assassinated by Islamists.
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| Lynda's husband was a policeman.
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Fashion show | FX: Clapping/music
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| George: The two women now see their role as one of helping to rebuild community morale, undermined by the conflict through events like today's teenage fashion show - Muslim-style - that Islamic extremes would find abhorrent.
| 04.19 |
Houriah in audience | For Houriah, it's a way of fighting back against the Islamists. But it's a bitter-sweet event, held in a hall named after her assassinated husband.
| 04.42 |
Driving through village | FX: Car |
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| George: In the Boumerdes region hardly a town or village remains untouched. The two women travel to them almost daily.
| 04.49 |
| Houriah: This forest was a refuge for terrorists and they used it to get into the village of Corso to launch their attacks.
| 05.07 |
| George: Houriah and Lynda have started an organisation that tries to help some 800 families who've lost members to the conflict. | 05.18 |
Armed man accompanies George, Houriah and Lynda in Corso |
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| In the town of Corso, 23 people have been killed so far; the town hall bombed three times.
| 05.34 |
| This is Drifa. Her husband was a mason, a man of no politics.
| 05.49 |
Inside Drifa's home | But forced to choose between one side or another, Drifa's husband joined a self-defence group, and one night he was shot dead in front of his 11 children.
| 05.57 |
| Houriah: Does he still have hypertension? Has the council done anything about your pension?
Drifa: No, not yet. | 06.10 |
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Drifa interview | Drifa: My husband left hardly anything when he died. Even on the day he died there was hardly any food for dinner.
| 06.17 |
| George: Do you understand why your husband was killed?
| 06.23 |
| Drifa: No, I didn't understand. I didn't understand why they killed him.
| 06.27 |
Lynda | George: Lynda, at least, has no doubt about why her husband died, and who was responsible.
| 06.32 |
Lynda interview | Lynda: He was killed in the course of his duty. I feel I will never get rid of the hatred I have inside me. Ask me to forgive a terrorist? I will never do it.
| 06.39 |
Houriah with Drifa | Houriah: No, nobody knows why people die - why civilians are being killed by Islamists - why a policeman - why a councillor is killed - ordinary citizens. Nobody knows why.
| 06.55 |
Soldiers/Vigilantes | George: The result is a fracturing society. Mistrust and guns spreading through communities.
| 07.11 |
| The government set up vigilante groups called Patriots, and handed out tens of thousands of weapons to those considered loyal.
| 07.21 |
| Yet the nature of the war, and Algeria's terrain, make security from attack anything but certain, as the Mayor of Corso show us.
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George with Mayor | George: Are we going this way?
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| Mayor: Go ahead, Ahmed!
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| George: Many militant Islamists are said to well versed in guerrilla warfare. Men who fought with the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan against Russian occupation, and returned to pursue a new Jihad - a holy war - here in Algeria.
| 07.47 |
| Mayor: There's the foxhole. After a few days' surveillance the patriot forces found this hiding place and the hardware and bombs they found in it were ready for use. | 08.05 |
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| George: A mere two kilometres from Corso, an arms cache once provided a handy point from which to launch night time raids. And there are probably thousands of such hideaways around the country.
| 08.26 |
| Mayor: This is a two hundred litre barrel which they used as an entrance and they'd hide it later with branches - so that's why it's very difficult to find. | 08.39 |
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| George: This is the side of the conflict we're supposed to see. And surrounded, as we constantly are, by security men who eavesdrop on every word, few dare challenge the government line of a battle between good and evil.
| 08.50 |
Drifa's house | Yet back in Drifa's house, a local teacher gingerly risks hinting - but just hinting - at another side to the story. About corruption, and about who benefits from this war.
| 09.10 |
Teacher interview | Teacher: Some people, yes, maybe they have their business or their politics sits, they enjoy this life, because they are out of our life.
| 09.23 |
| George: But you do think that some people, as you say, almost enjoy this life, at least perhaps they make money out of it. They make a new good way of life?
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| Teacher: What can I say? I and everyone, like you, maybe you have a vision more than me, better than me, because you look from outside.
| 09.44 |
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Tennis game | George: You can begin to explore the other side of the conflict in the capital, Algiers.
| 10.03 |
| Here, there's a large Westernised middle class whose way of life feels most threatened by the Islamic movement, and by the armed insurgency.
| 10.11 |
Tennis woman interview | Woman: Perhaps we have to come to private clubs that are secure, guarded and watched over - but relatively speaking, we can live a normal life.
| 10.21 |
Woman 2iInterview | Woman 2: I live normally, I go out during the day, I play sport. But you have to watch out obviously, and take precautions.
| 10.32 |
Outdoor cafe | George: This is the face of a modern, stable, secular Algeria that the generals say they're protecting. And because of this, many in the Westernised classes simply turn a blind eye to the regime's financial corruption and increasing political repression.
| 10.45 |
Algiers street | Beyond the walls of the private clubs are the people who are supposed to be threatening Algerian stability. Poor people, like the so-called ‘wall-leaners', jobless young men in a country becoming increasingly impoverished because billions of dollars in oil profits have been squandered or raked off into private pockets.
| 11.08 |
Men playing pool | Yet those who might question or protest, or even show Islamic tendencies risk imprisonment, torture and death in the name of national stability.
| 11.35 |
| FX: Phone.
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Selima on phone | Selima: Yes, I am Selima Ghezali.
| 11.48 |
| George: She's one of those who dares to speak her mind, but she's condemned as unpatriotic for exposing the other side of the conflict, the way the government takes advantage of the violence.
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| A writer and human rights advocate, her reputation perhaps gives her some protection from arrest. She's won a raft of international awards for her work.
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| But Selima Ghezali despairs of the way other countries, interested only in protecting trade and oil supplies, have cosied up to an increasingly repressive regime.
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| George: Tell me about this one up here.
| 12.27 |
| Selima: Yes, well this one I think it's the bad conscience of the European. Yes, I think they have a bad conscience, because Europe can do a lot for the Algerian people, and they do not. They prefer the economic interests in the gas and the oil.
| 12.29 |
| George: Selima says the regime uses the fear of violence from both sides, to silence the legitimate voice of popular protest.
| 12.52 |
Selima Interview
Super: SELIMA GHEZALI Human Rights Advocate | Selima: Of course they are taken between two fires. You are afraid from people who come and kill all your family, but they are also afraid from the repression from the army, the security services. Especially the young people in the street. They know how their neighbours have been taken by security forces, a lot of them disappeared, a lot of them have been found killed.
| 13.01 |
Missing persons file | Bouchachi: For three years, his mother is looking for her son.
| 13.30 |
| George: There are at least 2,000 unsolved cases of missing people. Pawns, according to human rights lawyers like Moustefa Bouchachi, of a regime that refuses all peace efforts and is determined to hold on to power at whatever cost.
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Bouchachi interview
Super: MOUTEFA BOUCHACHI, Human Rights Lawyer | Bouchachi: They are frightened for democracy. Or democracy does frighten them, because it's a way to lose power. This makes me think that this violence suits a lot of people. People who want to gain economically, financially, and the people who want to stay in power.
| 13.50 |
Countryside
| FX: Chopper/gunfire |
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| George: The war is real enough. But form the suspicion that the battle against the GIA - the Islamic insurgents - suits the government's purpose, it's only a short step to the darker claim, that part of the GIA is now infiltrated and manipulated to ensure the conflict continues.
| 14.19 |
| Zitout: I couldn't work for a government which is killing its people, just for the generals to stay in power.
| 14.42 |
Zitout Interview
Super: MOHAMMED LARBI ZITOUT Former Algerian Diplomat | Former members of the GIA say in fact we have been infiltrated. And I think the manipulation, the infiltration of the Islamic groups is for the regime it's a necessity, but for the Algerian society it is catastrophic.
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Fetiha with George in ruined house | Fetiha: We were fine here. My kids used to play with the neighbours. We were happy. Now all these people are dead.
| 15.15 |
| George: Amidst the ruins of her shattered life is Fetiha Jolef, the woman I first met mourning at the graves of her husband and three sons.
| 15.25 |
Fetiha interview | Fetiha: They're not here, they're buried in the cemetery. They're all there...this one, that one, this one... All dead. No one will come back. They're all dead.
| 15.34 |
Bentalha streets | George: One night, in just six hours, more than 200 adults and children were massacred by Islamic attackers in Bentalha. The nearby military barracks did not intervene.
| 15.49 |
Fetiha | What the extremes on both sides have done is unforgivable. But the most benign view is that the government cannot, will not, end the suffering. And the deep suspicion is that it doesn't want to.
| 16.04 |
| Music
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Women in cemetery | George: Now only international pressure to stop the fighting and start the talking can end the agony of these people. But it had better come soon.
| 16.26 |
Woman | Woman: I can see the shadows of my children coming to me. Sometimes when I'm asleep I can hear my sons calling, "Mummy, Mummy..." but I can't find them - just their voices calling me. | 16.40 |
ENDS |
| 17.06 |