As a veteran politician with long experience of party and trade union activity, Ammar Saadani was in 2002 elected a member of Parliament for the constituency of El-Oued, then vice-president of the People's National Assembly, he became the presiding officer of the legislative body on June 23, 2004. An eminent member of the Algerian trade union movement, he assumed an important function as head of the Federation of Committees Supporting the Candidacy of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Ammar Saadani recently made an official visit to Lebanon at the head of a large Algerian parliamentary delegation. He gave the following exclusive interview, in which he recalled the long-standing relations of friendship between Lebanon and Algeria and the projects to be jointly carried out by the two countries. Excellent bilateral state-to-state relations
What is the purpose of your visit to Lebanon?
My visit follows the invitation very kindly extended to me by Mr. Nabih Berri, president of the Lebanese National Assembly.
The Algerian People's National Assembly had decided, in the framework of its program of activity in the context of the mandate it exercises, to strengthen its political relations with other legislative bodies in fraternal and friendly countries. And so my visit to this beautiful country falls in the framework of that objective.
I must also tell you that Lebanon is the first country that I have had the honor of visiting in a bilateral parliamentary framework. This choice is not fortuitous; it illustrates, in fact, all the consideration and fraternal feelings that Lebanon inspires in me and in all Algeria; as well as the particular place always occupied by the Lebanese in the hearts of Algerians.
What is the state of cooperation between the Lebanese and Algerian parliaments? What objectives do they wish to attain?
Cooperation between the Algerian and Lebanese legislative assemblies is certainly not at its beginning and we can be glad of all that has been accomplished so far, even if the balance sheet of our cooperation may seem modest.
Our parliamentary relations deserve to be reinforced to give importance and dimension to the political relations between our states, the political state-to-state relations which I can describe as excellent.
The participation of our president, His Excellency Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in the Arab Summit held in Beirut in March 2002, his participation in the same year in the Francophonie Summit as guest of honor of His Excellency the Lebanese president, General Emile Lahoud, and his participation in the Second Congress of Arab Thought, held in Beirut in December 2003, the official visit made to our country by the Lebanese president in July 2002 at President Bouteflika's invitation -- all these meetings at high level bear witness to the excellence of our relations.
Achieving common parliamentary objectives
Mr. Nabih Berri and I share the feeling that in regard to the fundamental importance of the parliamentary institution as a center of popular sovereignty and an authentic expression of political pluralism, our exchanges and legislative cooperation can contribute to an increased mutual knowledge between our peoples and to their rapprochement. For that we base ourselves on the rich heritage of cultural, spiritual and civilizational values we share. It is for us to make this heritage as widely known and appreciated as it deserves to be.
Considering the convergence of our interests on many questions of international policy, Mr. Berri and I have expressed our wish to cooperate for the achievement of common parliamentary aims, and we have committed ourselves, in the framework of a protocol of understanding we signed during my visit, to undertake and pursue joint initiatives that will make possible a deeper mutual understanding and a close collaboration between Algerian and Lebanese parliamentary institutions.
We have also agreed to promote the achievement of our objectives in the triple framework of bilateral parliamentary cooperation, of Arab parliamentary cooperation and of Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary cooperation. And this through ongoing consultation, regular contacts and the holding of periodic meetings for this aim, notably to develop our exchanges, to consolidate our relations and harmonize the stances of our two parliaments regarding Arab and Mediterranean matters.
Strengthening Algerian-Lebanese fraternal ties
We have in particular agreed to exchange parliamentary delegations who would reside in Algeria and in Lebanon, on tours of study and information with the aim of helping to strengthen the feeling of Algerian-Lebanese brotherhood and of Arab solidarity within our two assemblies, and thus to contribute to promotion of objectives on the protocol of understanding and of political consultations linking the foreign ministries of Algeria and Lebanon.
We have in addition decided to exchange documents and the texts of laws or of regulations enforced on one side and the other so that members of Parliament who wish to do so may be informed of the manner in which their Algerian or Lebanese colleagues have already legislated on the dossier submitted to them.
We envisage an exchange between the administrations of our two assemblies of information on good practices and to encourage functionaries of each of our two legislative institutions to make professional stays in the structures of the other in order to promote an increased mutual knowledge and a more effective performance of our parliamentary services.
Reform of the Arab League, essential
There is now discussion of reforming the Arab League. What is Algeria's stand in this respect? What will creation of an Arab parliament contribute to Arab causes and reinforcing the links among the Arab peoples?
The reform of the structures of the League is imperative. This is certainly not true because of a need to satisfy the hankerings for leadership of this or that member state, but because of the need to deal with the alarming reality which now faces the Arab world.
The League -- and this is a view widely held among the Arab peoples -- must attain a greater effectiveness in the external impact of its action and by greater efficiency in its internal functioning.
At a time when walls and other ideological and psychological barriers are, one after another, toppling; at a time when profound changes are taking place in the foundations of the organization of human society; at a time when international frontiers of trade and economies are gradually dissolving in the face of the tide of globalization; at a time when the great geo-political ensembles are being refashioned and when the geographic and political cards are being reshuffled, the Arab world cannot be content with the role of passive spectator which the internal functioning of the first of these organizations risks making it play.
The trains of organizational progress in all its forms are passing at high speed under our eyes, the eyes of as we stand on the 'platform' and frustrated that we are sometimes unable to join the passengers as they travel to a world of innovation. As the space of solidarity and of the safeguard of the present and future interests of the great Arab Nation, the Arab League has a responsibility of the highest order to fulfill.
It must establish its credibility and its will to continue working for the closing of Arab ranks, to make plain its capacity to assimilate all that has been learned from the experience of others, similar organization, to borrow good practices, to adapt itself and open itself more to the principles on which institutional democratic practice is based.
I remain confident of the League's ability to achieve these objectives.
Algeria always mobilized at Lebanon's side
The Taef Agreement has been applied only selectively. As a member of the Tripartite Arab Committee tasked with supervising its application, does Algeria envisage taking some initiative to see that it is fully implemented?
It is true that the Taef Agreement was certainly not perfect; no one has ever said it was. I wonder if any agreement is ever perfect. An accord, you see, provides for a situation of mutual concessions that somehow keep the sides away from the ideal they would have hoped for.
In fact, agreements gain their value through each side's willingness to compromise, giving away a little of what one thought to be one's own 'space of rights' in order to be able to fully enjoy the remainder of the space; to make one step towards the other so that the other will take a step towards you.
That's what happened at Taef, which has perhaps been implemented insufficiently, selectively as you say, or too slowly applied but applied nevertheless. And this thanks above all to the intelligence of the Lebanese, who had become aware of the fact that continuing the civil war could lead again to ruin. Today the implementation, even insufficiently, of the Taef accord, has produced tangible results. By the grace of God, and through realism, dynamism and the entrepreneurial spirit of the Lebanese, the country has emerged from the state of civil war into which it was plunged. It is binding up its wounds with courage, rebuilding rapidly and its new institutions are opening up to the democratic process.
Edifices continue to rise from their ashes; the country is recovering the place that once belonged to it in the Middle East and in the concert of nations as a beacon of culture and modernity in the Arab world.
Certainly there are many things to do in political, economic and social terms and stages to cross to ensure that the objectives laid out by the Taef Agreement do not remain only pious hopes. But I personally have good hope that Lebanon will move forward, and for that I count as much on the intelligence of the Lebanese as on the spirit of solidarity and brotherhood that inspires their Arab neighbors.
Algeria, which as you point out, is a member of the Tripartite Arab Committee tasked with supervising implementation of the Taef Agreement, still considers itself mobilized to help the Lebanese people and government to support them in all that they undertake themselves to consolidate the edifice of peace in Lebanon, and Algeria will continue to spare no effort to attain that objective.
The Sahara conflict, an inherent part of the decolonization process
How do you assess the relations of Algeria with its near neighbors and its Euro-Mediterranean partners? What of the conflict between Algiers and Rabat over the Western Sahara?
Algeria's relations with its neighbors are good. As a man of peace, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is striving to make those relations excellent. Progress is being made in every sphere, particularly in the political domain. Our efforts are being accelerated at the same time that our field of convergence of opinions is widening on many shared problems.
That's how it is with our partners on the northern shore of the Mediterranean, but it's also the case with our brethren of the Arab Maghreb Union and with the countries bordering the African Sahel.
To illustrate my statements, I need only point to the treaties of friendship, cooperation and good neighborhood that link Algeria with a number of the countries around it, or the instruments of cooperation and political consultation like the one in force between the Algerian and Lebanese foreign ministries. You mention the conflict over the Western Sahara. I should draw your attention, first of all, to the fact that the conflict is in no way that of Algeria and Morocco. Algeria is not, in any sense of the term, a party to the conflict, which is one between the fraternal Sahrawi people and fraternal Morocco. This conflict, which as you know is the source of unacceptable suffering for innocent people, has created a humanitarian situation which is today difficult to bear.
Polisario has accepted the UN peace plan
We consider, like many other countries of the world, that the question of the Western Sahara must be seen in the framework of the completion of the decolonization process of the African continent, a process which it is the duty of the United Nations to continue, enabling the Sahrawi people freely to exercise their right of self-determination through an impartial referendum whose witness will be the whole international community.
It will be thus, I believe, that the cause of a just and lasting solution of the Western Sahara conflict will make progress and that the ideals of peace and stability, so deeply aspired to by the peoples of our region, will be given concrete form.
Resolutions 1495 of July 31, 2003 and 1541 of April 29, 2004, unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council, bear the hopes of many in the world who have spared no effort to bring about a return of peace to the Western Sahara.
These UN resolutions are today a real opportunity to be seized for a definitive and just settlement of the dispute between the two parties in conflict.
A resolution recently voted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe unreservedly supports the efforts made by the United Nations, the MINURSO and the personal envoy of the UN secretary-general to help the parties concerned to find a solution to the conflict and, in particular, to lead the parties to implement the UN peace plan for the self-determination of the people of the Western Sahara; just as it also fully supports Resolution 1541 of the UN Security Council, adopted on April 29, 2004.
It should also be noted that the Polisario Front has, in a confidence-building measure, set free 843 Moroccan prisoners n February 2003 and has officially accepted the UN peace plan of July 6, 2003. Unfortunately, the other party to the conflict continues to reject the essential elements of the said plan.
In favor of a democratic process in Iraq and Palestine
What is Algiers' stand towards the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Iraq crisis?
Even if one can only welcome the hopes engendered by the democratic process in Iraq, which have begun in a context that remains one of occupation and violence, it is nonetheless essential that the said process should be applied in a setting of equality and unity, today and in the future. Iraqi society in its entirety must be consulted and all the constituent religious and ethnic parts of the population must be allowed to express themselves and be given the opportunity to adhere to the project.
Only this approach will give to the democratic process the credibility required to launch it and thus to guarantee a lasting return to the peace and stability of which that country and its people have for too long been deprived.
A just and lasting peace is required also in regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and it is evident that this will come about through the restitution by Israel of all occupied Arab lands and the enshrining of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including that of setting up an independent and sovereign state having Jerusalem as its capital.
© Monday Morning 2005
