Ferhat Mehenni: "Tebboune's visit to Tizi-Ouzou is an insult to Kabylia"
A few days before President Tebboune's visit to Tizi-Ouzou, scheduled for 23 December, Ferhat Mehenni, President of the Movement for Self-Determination in Kabylia, was kind enough to give his opinion exclusively to Atalayar and tell us what the movement he chairs intends to do on this occasion.
A year before the presidential elections in December 2024, Abdelmadjid Tebboune plans to visit Kabylia. It will be on 23/12/2023 in Tizi-Ouzou, in particular. What is your immediate reaction?
It is a provocation! It is an insult to Kabylia! What is he trying to do, humiliate the Kabylie people? After having declared, in the space of thirty-six months, the whole of Kabylia "terrorist", after having set fire to it with phosphorus and from the air, killing more than 500 people, devastating the economy, the fauna and the flora; after having had thousands of Kabyles arrested and tortured; after having ridiculed the Kabyles with endless judicial farces in which hundreds of innocent people were condemned, 54 of them to death, Madjid Tebboune is logically persona non grata in our country. He has come to mock and insult us. He is a disgraceful character. I hope the Algerians understand our suffering and feel sorry for us.
In any case, no Algerian president has ever been welcome in Kabylia. Especially the one who is about to go there these days. His entourage may make him believe that he is going to visit his landowners, but in reality everyone knows that he is venturing into foreign territory, which is totally hostile to arrogant and ill-intentioned visitors.
Kabylia is not Algerian. If it were, it would not be so heavily patrolled by the Algerian army, which has just received more than 4,000 additional troops for the occasion. Two thirds of the PNA and security forces have been deployed there since the Black Spring (2001). The fear of a Kabyle independence revolt continues to haunt supporters of a colonial Algeria more than ever, despite the fact that Kabylia has made pacifism its preferred political weapon to win its right to self-determination and independence.
Symbolically, Kabylia, which has boycotted all Algerian elections since 2001, has cast off all political chains that forcibly bind it to Algeria. It sees Algeria for what it is: a colonial oppressor, an enemy. All the elections of the last 20 years have been rejected by the Kabylie people, who have given them a thrashing, starting with the election of Tebboune himself on 12/12/2019. The same goes for the referendum on the constitutional revision of 01/11/2020 and the legislative elections of 12/06/2021.
Thus, Kabylia has completely dissociated itself from Algerian bodies and institutions in which it has never recognised itself. For an Algerian president to make a state visit, he would first have to recognise that the Kabyle people are free to decide their own future.
What are the objectives of this visit to Kabylia?
This trip has many objectives. Beyond the folklore with which he will cover his visit to Tizi-Ouzou, bringing as usual busloads of applauders from outside Kabylia, the puppet masters who manipulate Madjid Tebboune would above all like to challenge the MAK on its territory by showing international opinion the image of a defeated Kabylia, crushed and subjugated by Algeria. They can afford to do this through repression, torture, political terrorism and intimidation. We are waiting for them on the political front where they want to see us on the military front. As one of the stakes of this trip is to get Kabylia to vote in the next presidential elections, only then will we see if Kabylia is reduced or not. A victory by terror such as the one they will deploy these days in Tizi-ouzou is precisely why the adage "to win is not to convince" takes on its full meaning.
The humiliation of the Kabyles is one of the objectives of this visit, in line with those of the supporters of "Operation Zero Kabyles", of which Tebboune and his chiefs are part.
On the other hand, it is to be feared that the troops deployed in recent days for the occasion will be permanently stationed there. Kabylia is in a state of irrational military over-occupation.
What we fear above all is that the clan of generals opposed to the one Tebboune is manipulating will take advantage of this visit to get rid of him and, as usual, pass the buck to us. Let them settle their differences away from Kabylia and the MAK.
How will Kabylia, which is subjected to unprecedented repression, welcome him?
Kabylia is civilised. It will not respond to this political spittle with violence or vulgarity, but with dignity. It will ignore the man who has come to challenge, provoke and insult it.
In the name of our collective honour, of Kabylie national honour, I call on the whole of Kabylia to boycott this act. The staff of the administration and public enterprises, and the plethora of informers at the disposal of the regime, will form a small community obliged to welcome the event, without heart. But the rest of the cabilas will retain their dignity and their sense of responsibility. They will not go down to Tizi-ouzou, except by force.
We have learned that the Presidency has promised that the mayors of the Wilaya who mobilise the greatest number of their citizens will be promoted to the Senate from the presidential third of this upper house. The mayor who does so will be hated by his own people forever.