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Algerians on September 29, approved the 2005 Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation that will put an end to over a decade of bloody civil war, which claimed more than 150,000 lives. The first offer of amnesty, approved in a 1999 referendum, expired in 2001. Some 4,500 Islamist insurgents reportedly gave themselves up to the authorities at that time, and the government hopes others will do the same under the new amnesty.

The Charter proposes to give amnesty or reduce punishment for Islamist insurgents who surrender their arms, even though some may have been responsible for serious human rights abuses. Legal proceedings will be cancelled against all Islamist militants who cease their armed activities and surrender their weapons, provided they are not implicated in mass killings, rape or placing explosives in public places. Yet the Charter is silent about state agents, whose de facto impunity remains unchanged.

According to Human Rights Watch, the perpetrators of one or more individual murders, or acts of torture causing permanent injury, who were ineligible for amnesty under the 1999 law, could be eligible under the new Charter — contrary to the fundamental principles of international law.

The Charter also proposes to ban from political life those “responsible for instrumentalizing religion” for political ends, a reference to the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and its leaders. It was the prospect of a FIS victory in the 1992 elections that sparked Algeria’s civil conflict. The army, who de facto took the helm, abruptly put an end to the parliamentary election, declared a state of emergency, banned the FIS and made sweeping arrests, including detention and internment without trial. But the crackdown failed. The guerilla movement grew stronger, particularly in the north, and terrorism reached into the heart of Algeria’s urban areas. Increased violence prompted the security forces to launch a complex anti-terror campaign to fight Islamist armed groups in central Algeria.

At the time, the Algerian socialist revolution was running out of steam and the army was losing its grip on power. The collapse of the Soviet Union, Algeria’s main arms supplier, and the demise of the socialist dream meant the regime had to re-position itself vis-à-vis the Western model of democracy and free markets if it wanted to survive. Through a swift take-over in 1992, Algerian army commanders emerged as the defenders of a secular and republican order against the threat of a potential Islamist dictatorship.

What looks like a managed crisis and controlled polarization of society between radical Islamism and secularism proved to be a risky, but fruitful, brinkmanship for the Algerian military and its political establishment. In the post 9/11 world, Algeria’s strongmen can claim ambiguous credentials as saviors of the constitutional order and indispensable anti-guarantors against terrorism.

How Algeria deals with its past also poses a challenge for the US administration. The now popular “Algerian syndrome” of using the threat of political Islam to justify a political and economic status quo should test Washington’s newly-found determination to no longer let democratic reforms and human rights stall for the sake of political stability.

Washington should not be swayed by a growing US-Algeria trade, including oil and gas deals, and cooperation on counter-terrorism, to avoid some tough questions for a few of Algeria’s generals, even behind closed doors.

The referendum and amnesty appear a smooth, if unelegant, exit strategy for a partially self-inflicted decade-long civil war that helped keep power in the hands of the old Algerian revolutionary establishment and the powerful army. Algeria paid the cost in the setback to genuine democratic reforms and economic liberalization.

Referendums and amnesties are often the episodic tools of lonely rulers in search of popular support. Without a strong civil society and genuine debate, they rely on a top-down exercise of power that defeats the very purpose of democracy.

Amnesty is not amnesia: without its own painstaking narrative, amnesty will yield neither truth nor reconciliation.