WASHINGTON, July 12 -- Algerian President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika arrived at the White House on Thursday for talks with President George W. Bush that Bouteflika hopes will better economic and military ties.
Bouteflika's motorcade pulled up to the White House as about 50 demonstrators marched on Pennsylvania Avenue to protest the visit.
"Your guest is the terrorist!" people in the crowd shouted.
Bouteflika -- the first Algerian president to visit Washington in 15 years -- was to meet with Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other high-ranking officials.
His two-day visit came after a U.S. report noted human rights violations in Algeria's nine months of civil strife. The report said hundreds of people were missing and their families accused the government of covering their disappearance.Other sources say that over the last nine years some 200,000 lives have been lost in clashes with security forces.
Bouteflika won the Algerian presidential elections in 1999 with about 74 percent of the votes, which reportedly came from an estimated 7.5 million voters out of 10 million.
Since April, members of Algeria's Berber minority have been battling the government for greater recognition of their cultural roots. In June, an estimated 1 million Berbers demonstrated in Algiers, but according to media reports the government prevented subsequent demonstration in the Algerian capital.
Relations between Algeria and the United States have cooled since 1992 when the internal crisis erupted after the Islamic Salvation Front scored sweeping success during the first round of general elections the previous year. Their success led to the resignation of then-President Chadli Bin Jadid, the Algerian elections were canceled by the Algerian army, and the ISF top leaders were arrested.
Islamic militants have been blamed for grisly massacres of thousands of families, often at night by throat slitting, in villages unable to provide defense. Human rights organizations, however, have accused the government of complicity in many of the cases in the past.
Algeria blames Washington for not understanding the cancellation of the December 1991 elections -- a move that was justified by the government of the time as a way of countering the danger from Islamic hardliners. At the time, the ISF was calling for abolishing the democratic regime in the country. This justification was far from convincing the United States, which considered the ISF the victim of an undemocratic action and thus decided to embargo sales of weapons to Algeria.
Tension between the two countries increased after U.S. officials met with a delegation of the ISF parliamentary executive committee headed by Anwar Haddam, who had been sentenced to death in absentia in Algeria. But at the same time bilateral economic relations have continued to improve.
U.S. interest in Algeria is mostly in the oil sector where U.S. firms invested $3.5 billion in the year 2000. An additional $3 billion is expected to be invested by the year 2005, according to the Algerian daily, Le Tribune.
The oil sector is in the Southern Sahara region of the country, which is well protected from the country's trouble areas.
Some analysts say Algeria is seeking more support from the United States as it is losing ground among the European nations because of the Algerian government's suppression of anti-government opposition.
Military ties also developed after Algeria joined the NATO-Mediterranean dialogue in May 2000, held joint military maneuvers and received U.S. military delegations. Algerian army officers attended training sessions in the United States while Washington encouraged Algeria's plan to transform its army into a professional institution and set a program for selling U.S. weapons to the Arab country.
The Algerian-U.S. coordination led to solving the border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia, which culminated with a visit by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Algeria in December 2000 to attend the signing ceremony for the peace accord between Asmara and Addis Ababa.
U.S. Ambassador in Algiers Janet Sanderson emphasized to the U.S. Congress the need for expanding military, economic and political cooperation with Algeria which made progress in implementing political and economic reforms as well as respecting human rights.
Moreover, the two countries appeared to have a certain security and intelligence cooperation especially after the Algerian security authorities arrested -- but refused to hand over to Washington -- Mohammed Dahouman, an Algerian who was suspected of being linked to Ahmed Rasam. Rasam was seized by the FBI on the Canadian-U.S. border in 1999 and is now held in prison on charges of taking part in preparations for what has been known as the "Millennium explosions" in the United States.
Bouteflika met with U.S. President Bill Clinton during the funerals of Moroccan King Hassan II and his then handshake with then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was viewed as an indication of Algeria's lenient position vis--vis the Arab-Israeli peace process.
The last Algerian president to visit Washington was Chadli Ben Jadid who met President Ronald Reagan in 1986.
