ALGIERS - Negotiations between the Algerian government and leaders of the Berber minority to end a long-running political and social crisis were suspended on Tuesday, a Berber leader said.
Belaid Abrika, spokesman for the Berbers of Algeria's northeastern Kabylie region, announced there was still disagreement over the key issue of recognition of their language.
"Since Saturday, we have been discussing (this) but we've not been able to reach agreement with the government on making the Tamazight (Berber) language official," Abrika said.
He said the talks in Algiers had been suspended so the Berber tribal leaders, or aarchs, could report back to their fellow traditional authorities in Kabylie on Thursday.
Tamazight, spoken by an indigenous people that make up about a fifth of Algeria's population of 31 million, was declared a national language by parliament in April 2002. But the Berbers want it made official on a par with Arabic.
The head of the government delegation to the talks, Ahmed Ouyahia, has said the issue is a national one that should be decided through a referendum. But the aarchs want it dealt with by parliament.
The negotiations with the government focus on a set of demands drawn up by the aarchs in June 2001, designed to end a long-running complaint by Berbers that they are being economically and culturally marginalised by the Arabophone administration in Algiers.
The 15 points in the document include recognition of the Berber language, a plan for economic renewal in the impoverished Kabylie region and a controversial demand for the dissolution of local and regional councils in Kabylie, elected in 2002 in a ballot the aarchs boycotted. The 15 demands are considered non-negotiable by the aarchs.
Riots broke out in the Kabylie regional capital, Tizi Ouzou, in 1980 over Berber demands for an end to their cultural and economic isolation and the whole region was swept by violent unrest in 2001.
In what was known as the "Black Spring" of 2001, more than 100 people were killed and thousands injured, mainly in clashes between disaffected youths and the national security forces.
Last week the government and the aarchs agreed the results of the elections held in Kabylie in 2002 should be annulled, paving the way for the resumption of talks on January 23, Algiers said in a statement the same day.
The accord, which was signed after 13 hours of talks, said "unduly elected officials" voted into office in regional, local and parliamentary elections in Kabylie in 2002 should be removed from office.
In the statement, the government said the revocation had taken effect on January 20 and committed itself to take "the necessary measures with the concerned parties" to overturn the results of the elections "in a climate of calm and within a reasonable timescale".
But the decision between the government and the aarchs to annul the vote has created anger among certain sections of the Berber population, particularly supporters of the party that won most seats in Kabylie's local elections, the Socialist Forces Front (FFS).
The FFS, Algeria's oldest opposition party has traditionally enjoyed the support of Berbers in Kabylie.
It fiercely condemned last week's government-aarch deal as a return to old practices that institutionalised "rule by crooks".
The party in power nationally, the National Liberation Front, said the accord was a "breach of the law".
On Friday, rioters opposed to the accord wrecked an official government building in Tamzalt, a Kabylie stronghold of FFS supporters.
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