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William B. Quandt served for many years on the National Security Council and was actively involved in the Camp David Accords and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty. In the fall of 1994, Quandt joined the Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia, where he holds the Edward R. Stettinius chair and currently serves as Vice Provost for International Affairs.

Prior to this appointment, he was a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, where he conducted research on the Middle East, American policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, and energy policy. Quandt has written numerous books, and his articles have appeared in a wide variety of publications. His books include: Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967, (Brookings, 2001, 1993) and Between Ballots and Bullets: Algeria’s Transition from Authoritarianism (Brookings, 1998). What brought you to focus your scholar’s attention on North Africa ?

I lived in France in 1960-61 and followed closely the debate over Algeria. Later when I was preparing to become a political scientist, I thought that it would be interesting to do research on how Algeria’s path to independence affected the building of the new state institutions. So I spent the year 1966-67 living in Algeria doing research for my doctoral dissertation. That led to the publication of my first book, Revolution and Political Leadership: Algeria 1954-1968.

What does the US administration (or even the US public) know about Kabylia’s situation? What is its position on this matter (if it has any at all)?

I cannot speak for the US administration and what it does or does not know. As for US public opinion, there is not much knowledge about Maghreb affairs in general. The situation in Algeria and the specific issues of Kabylia are known by a small number of experts but there is no obvious consensus position.

What is the US position regarding ethnic minorities inside the so-called Arab world? Since the Iraq war and the attention that focused on the Kurds and the role they played in toppling Saddam Hussein and helping establish a democracy of sorts, has this view evolved in any way?

Up until recently, it would have been difficult to identify an official American position on the question of minorities in the Arab world. But with President Bush’s focus on democracy in the region, we are likely to hear more about the issue of minority rights as a central part of democracy building. Right now in Iraq the status of the Kurdish minority is turning out to be a major issue.

You’ve just come back from Algeria. Lately (namely since Kabylia’s Black Spring in 2001) ideas of federalism, regionalization, devolution and regional autonomy have made their way into the Algerian public debate. Do you reckon they have any chance of starting to being implemented in Algeria any time soon?

During my recent visit to Algeria I did not have the opportunity to investigate these issues in any detail. I am aware from the press that there has been a lot of discussion of the Kseur platform and some efforts to address the issues raised there. Compared to the past, it seems to me that Algerians today are more willing to acknowledge the plurality of their society and to see it as a source of strength rather than weakness. The old model of a unified people being represented by a single party was never a very good reflection of Algerian reality, in my opinion.

The current US administration talks of reforming the “Greater Middle East”, an area in which it includes all of North Africa. However, many Kabyles and other Berbers hotly contest this appellation and claim they belong to a Western Mediterranean region, linguistically and culturally very distinct from the Arabic heartland of the Middle East. Why is this expression of “Greater Middle East” in use?

I actually do not think the terminology matters all that much. As far as I know, there was an interest in focusing on some term other than “the Arab world”. Those who coined the term wanted to address issues in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey as well. That is the only reason that I know of for this particular terms. The current usage is “Broader Middle East” rather than “Greater”, suggesting that it is just a geographical designation and not necessarily a political project.

What do you think of the Algerian president’s policy of “national reconciliation”, which grants an amnesty to radical Islamic militants with bloods on their hand and let members of the security services who murdered 123 unarmed Kabyles in 2001 and 2002 roam unbothered and free?

This is a sensitive matter and one that Algerians will have to sort out for themselves. Some countries have had moderate success with “truth and reconciliation” commissions --- South Africa and Peru stand out. Other such as Mozambique have counted on a political negotiation and blanket amnesty, and so far that seems to have worked well. Lebanon has simply turned its back on its costly civil war, to the point where it can hardly be discussed in public, even though it resulted in some 200,000 deaths (in a population of less than 4 million). The worst example of how to deal with the legacies of violence seems to be Rwanda, where there is supposed to be a judicial process to hold those guilty of genocide to account. But the process is going nowhere, people are not reconciling, and justice is not being done at all. So I do not know of a single formula that has worked perfectly, but I do think that the more Algerians can look to a prosperous democratic future, the more the scars of the past can be left behind.

It clearly appears that in Kabylia, beyond the cultural and civilization gap with the rest of the country, the region is subject to a harsh economic repression at the hands of Algiers, which has been running for 25 years by now (since the Berber Spring of 1980). Do you think an alternative solution (apart from begging for subsidies from the state) exists to lift the region out of poverty?

I am not an expert on economic development and what would make most sense for Algeria. But it does seem to me that Algeria has had a very centralized tradition (perhaps influenced by the French and the Soviets in the old days) and that good economic management requires more decentralization. The problem is compounded by the flow of oil resources to the central government, and it is extremely difficult for all oil exporting countries to avoid some of the distortions that come with this form of economy. Once again, the solution, in my view, is more transparency and more participation from the grass roots in shaping policy. Exactly how this can be done is not clear to me, but the themes of democratization, building of civic institutions at the grass roots, strengthening political parties, and reforming the bureaucracy would all be good steps.

Azzedine Ait Khelifa, Yiddir Djeddaï