Algeria. Information.
ALGERIA, is the largest country on the African continent after Sudan. Square - 2,381,741 sq.km. Population - 32,854,000 . apital - Algiers. It is bordered by Tunisia in the northeast, Libya in the east, Niger in the southeast, Mali and Mauritania in the southwest, and Morocco as well as a few kilometers of its annexed territory, Western Sahara in the west. Algeria has been inhabited by Berbers since at least 10,000 BC. From 1000 BC onwards, the Carthaginians became an influence on them, establishing settlements along the coast. Berber kingdoms began to emerge, most notably Numidia, seizing the opportunity offered by the Punic Wars to become independent of Carthage only to be taken over soon after by the Roman Republic in 200 BC. As the western Roman Empire collapsed, the Berbers became independent again in much of the area, while the Vandals took over parts of the area until later expelled by the generals of the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian I. The Byzantine Empire then retained a precarious grip on the east of the country until the coming of the Arabs in the 8th century. After some decades of fierce resistance, the Berbers adopted Islam en masse, but almost immediately expelled the Umayyad caliphate from Algeria, establishing an Ibadi state under the Rustamids. They left Algeria and Tunisia to their Zirid vassals; when the latter rebelled and adopted Sunnism, they sent in a populous Arab tribe, to weaken them, thus incidentally initiating the Arabization of the countryside. The Almoravids and Almohads, Berber dynasties from the west founded by religious reformers, brought a period of relative peace and development; however, with the Almohads' collapse, Algeria became a battleground for their three successor states, the Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Spain started attacking and taking over many coastal cities, prompting some to seek help from the Ottoman Empire. Algeria was brought into the Ottoman Empire by Khair ad-Din, who established Algeria's modern boundaries in the north and made its coast a base for the corsairs; their privateering peaked in Algiers in the 1600s. Those piracy acts were the occasion of a slave trade, reducing people captured on the boats to slavery or attacking coastal villages in southern Europe, At the same time Europe also devoted itself it to piracy. But in the XIX century there was no corsairs. On the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded Algiers in 1830, Algerians were exterminated as explained by Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison . Contrary to Morocco and Tunisia, the conquest of Algeria was long and particularly violent since it resulted in the disappearance of about a third of the Algerian population. In 1794, when France was attacked on all sides, that its territory was invaded on several faces and that its people and his army were likely to be famished, the dey of Algiers Hussein offered to Convention all facilitated to make its purchases of corn since it did not find what nowhere to nourish its soldiers. Under the directory, since the war does not continue any less and that the treasure is empty, the dey of Algiers authorizes a loan of a million without interêts to France. The finished war, France does not honour its debt, any the modes which follow one another do not pay in Algeria the sums due and the dey is thus in cold with the French Consul, understanding that it will recover neither the payment of the deliveries having however been so profitable for the fight of the borrower against the European powers which had been united against the Revolution nor the lent money. In 1827, the dey of Algiers still discovers a fact much more serious, at the end is Regency in Calle, France had the concession of a commercial warehouse. The French government, by the voice of its Deval representative, had promised to the dey that the warehouse would not be strengthened - it was a site to make trade, but anything more - but France had strengthened it. Not obtaining explanations on behalf of the in writing solicited French government, April 30, 1827 the dey asked some the French Consul verbally. Being unaware of his requests openly, not condescending to answer, the consul took the thing top, then furious of such a contempt, the dey carried, insulted, and finally gave to the "representative of France" a blow of his drive out-fly. The government of the restoration and Charles X, anxious to regild the image of France abroad and to reinforce the royal authority in France, then found in this incident a pretext to intervene militarily. However, intense resistance from such muslim personalities as Emir Abdelkader, made for a slow conquest of Algeria, not technically completed until the early 1900s when the last Tuareg were conquered. Meanwhile, however, the French made Algeria an integral part of France, a status that would end only with the collapse of the {Fourth Republic}. Tens of thousands of settlers from France, Italy, Spain, and Malta moved in to farm the Algerian coastal plain and occupy the most prized parts of Algeria's cities, benefiting from the French government's confiscation of communally held land, and the application of modern agriculture techniques that increased the amount of arable land. People of European descent in Algeria settlers (or natives like Spanish people in Oran), as well as the native Algerian Jews (typically Sephardic in origin), became full French citizens starting from the end of the 19th century (the so-called {Pieds-Noirs} after the independence); by contrast, the vast majority of Muslim Algerians (even veterans of the French army) received neither French citizenship nor the right to vote. Algeria's social fabric was stretched to breaking point during this period: literacy plummeted{[1]}, while land confiscation uprooted much of the population. However, the population increased steadily{[2]}. Before the putsch of December 2, 1851 in France, even though the extension of colonisation was made difficult due to the maintain of intagibillity of individual property and banning transactions over tribe's territory, 131 000 Europeans including 66 000 French were installed in Algeria. This name replaces the old name "Possessions françaises dans le Nord de l'Afrique" not because of an official act, like a decree or an ordonance. Indeed, a letter from General SCHNEIDER, Ministre of War, dated from October 14, 1839 to Marechal VALEE General Governor states that the name Algeria shorter and most sgnificant, must be used in all acts and certificates issued by military and civil authorities. In 1954, the National Liberation Front (FLN) launched the guerrilla; after nearly a decade of urban and rural warfare, they succeeded in pushing France out in 1962. Most of the 1,025,000 Pieds-Noirs, as well as 91,000 Harkis (pro-French Muslim Algerians serving in the French Army), together forming about 10% of the population of Algeria in 1962, fled Algeria for France in just a few months in the middle of that year. Algeria's first president, the FLN leader Ahmed Ben Bella, was overthrown by his former ally and defense minister, Houari Boumedienne in 1965. Under Ben Bella the government had already become increasingly socialist and dictatorial, and this trend continued throughout Boumedienne's government; however, Boumedienne relied much more heavily on the army, and reduced the sole legal party to a merely symbolic role. Agriculture was collectivised, and a massive industrialization drive launched. Oil extraction facilities were nationalized and this increased the state's wealth, especially after the 1973 oil crisis, but the Algerian economy became increasingly dependent on oil, bringing hardship when the price collapsed in the 1980s. In foreign policy Algeria was a member and leader of the 'non-aligned' nations. A dispute with Morocco over the {Western Sahara} nearly led to war. Dissent was rarely tolerated, and the state's control over the media and the outlawing of political parties other than the FLN was cemented in the repressive constitution of 1976. Boumédienne died in 1978, but the rule of his successor, {Chadli Bendjedid}, was little more open. The state took on a strongly bureaucratic character and corruption was widespread. The modernization drive brought considerable demographic changes to Algeria. Village traditions underwent significant change as urbanization increased, new industries emerged, agriculture was substantially reduced, and education, a rarity in colonial times, was extended nationwide, raising the literacy rate from less than 10% to over 60%. Improvements in healthcare led to a dramatic increase in the birthrate (7-8 children per mother) which had two consequences: a very youthful population, and a housing crisis. The new generation struggled to relate to the cultural obsession with the war years and two conflicting protest movements developed: left-wingers, including Berber identity movements, and Islamic 'intégristes'. Both protested against one-party rule but also clashed with each other in universities and on the streets during the 1980s. Mass protests from both camps in autumn 1988 forced Benjedid to concede the end of one-party rule, and elections were announced for 1991. In December 1991, the Islamic Salvation Front won the first round of the country's first multiparty elections. The military then canceled the second round, forced then-president Bendjedid to resign, and banned the Islamic Salvation Front. The ensuing conflict engulfed Algeria in the violent Algerian Civil War. More than 160,000 people were killed (17-Jan-1992 to June 2002), often in unprovoked massacres of civilians. The question of who was responsible for these massacres remains controversial among academic observers; many were claimed by the Armed Islamic Group. After 1998, the war waned, and by 2002 the main guerrilla groups had either been destroyed or surrendered, taking advantage of an amnesty program, though sporadic fighting continued in some areas. Elections resumed in 1995, and on 27 April 1999, after a series of short-term leaders representing the military, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the current president, was elected. The issue of Berber language and identity increased in significance, particularly after the extensive Kabyle protests of 2001 and the near-total boycott of local elections in Kabylie; the government responded with concessions including naming of Berber as a national language and teaching it in schools. Much of Algeria is now recovering, developing into an emerging economy. The high prices of oil & gas are being used by the new government to improve the county's infrastructure and especially improve industry and agricultural land. Recent overseas investment in Algeria has increased. Currency : 1 dinar = 100 centims.
Full information about stamps of
Algeria
you can find on site:
http://www.poste.dz
and
http://www.algeriephilatelie.com
