Black Spring (Algeria)

The Black Spring (Kabyle: Tafsut Taberkant) was a series of protests and political demonstrations by Kabyle activists in the Kabylie region of Algeria in 2001, which were met by repressive and violent police measures and became a potent symbol of Kabyle discontent with the national government. The protests took place against a backdrop of long-standing cultural marginalization of the Highlander Kabyle, a homogeneous Berber linguistic group in Algeria (Berber speakers form some 25%–35% of the total population, although exact numbers are disputed) despite the most rigid government-sponsored Arabization measures of the 1960s through the 1980s having been lifted. The name "Black Spring" alludes to the events known as the Berber Spring of the 1980s, in which mainly Kabyle civil society activists challenged the ban on Berber culture then in place, demanding cultural rights and democracy.

In 2001, a young Kabyle student, Massinissa Guermah, was arrested by Algeriangendarmes and later died inside the gendarmerie. This provoked large-scale riots in the Kabyle region, that lasted for months.

PresidentAbdelaziz Bouteflika's government claimed that the real name of Massinissa was in fact Karim and that he was a jobless criminal aged 26. Several months after these statements, the government admitted that his real name was in fact Massinissa (named after the historical Berber king of ancient Algeria), and that he was an innocent high school student. The Minister of the Interior Yazid Zerhouni said that he "was badly informed". No apologies were given to the victim's family, however, and the riots did not stop. Bouteflika's government maintained that the Kabyles were being "manipulated by a foreign hand".

As of April 2001 (few days after the beginning of the black spring) there were 43 young Kabyles killed. As of July 2001, there were 267 young people shot by bullets, of which 50 died (18,7%). The Issad commission notes that "It is only comparable to military losses in very tough battles during war time, The security forces, at the same time and at the same place do not present any wounded man by bullets, nor anyone killed by bullets."

As of April 2002, the Algerian Human Rights League reports 128 Kabyles killed, 5000 wounded of which 200 have become permanently disabled, and thousands of arrests, bad treatment, torture and arbitrary detentions.

في نهاية أحداث الربيع الأسود، ذكرت الصحافة الجزائرية أن 128 من القبائل قتلوا، ^{[ 1 ]} وأصيب الآلاف بجروح بالغة في أعمال الشغب، أو تعرضوا للتعذيب على أيدي قوات الدرك شبه العسكرية.

في النهاية، وافق بوتفليقة على بعض مطالب القبائل. تم سحب قوات الدرك من القبائل، وأصبحت اللغة الأمازيغية (التمازيغت) "لغة وطنية" في دستور الجزائر لعام 2002 (ولكنها لم تكن لغة "رسمية"، على قدم المساواة مع اللغة العربية ، حتى عام 2016 ^{[ 2 ]} ).

لقد تم تهميش الأحزاب السياسية البربرية التقليدية ، حزب التجمع من أجل الثقافة والديمقراطية الليبرالي بزعامة سعيد سعدي ، وجبهة القوى الاشتراكية الاشتراكية بزعامة حسين آيت أحمد ، جزئياً بفعل النشاط الشعبي الراديكالي وأشكال الاحتجاج العنيفة. في المقابل، برزت حركات جديدة في المشهد السياسي القبلي: حركة عروش وحركة الحكم الذاتي القبلي ، اللتان مثّلت طموحاتهما الإقليمية للاستقلال الذاتي تطوراً جديداً في السياسة القبلي.

تمكنت منطقة برباشة من الحصول على درجة كبيرة من الحكم الذاتي ، مما أعطى الأمل للعديد من النشطاء القبائليين. ^{[ 3 ]}

• قائمة الصراعات الحديثة في شمال أفريقيا

• تقرير رابطة حقوق الإنسان الجزائرية
• تقرير لجنة إساد، التي أنشأها الرئيس بوتفليقة
• قائمة شهداء بلاك سبرينغ