Algerian government wins referendum on reconciliation with Islamic rebels

The Algerian government announced Friday that it had overwhelmingly won a reconciliation referendum intended to end more than a decade of civil war with Islamic rebels.

"97.43 percent voted 'yes'" in the referendum, during which almost 80 percent of the country's 18.3 million eligible voters took part, Interior Minister Noureddine Zerhouni told a news conference.

The government victory means a massive approval of a partial amnesty for hundreds of Islamic rebels.

Algerian voters began voting on Thursday morning in the referendum on the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, as about 18 million eligible voters were set to cast their votes at about 40,000 polling stations around the Arab country.

Before the vote, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and government ministers urged voters to support the charter so as to realize a reconciliation in the country plagued by extremism for more than 10 years.

If approved by referendum, the charter would end the legal proceedings against detained, exiled or fugitive extremists "who have already halted their armed activity and surrendered to the authorities."

Only "those involved in mass massacres, rapes and bomb attacks in public places" would be excluded from the amnesty.

About 150,000 people have been killed in various forms of violence since 1992, according to the Algerian authorities.

Source: Xinhua