PARIS - President Liamine Zeroual of Algeria vowed yesterday that general elections would be held early next year as part of a pact aimed at ending the nation's crisis and blood shed. He offered clemency to "mistaken" Muslim fundamentalists whose anger at being thwarted in a similar poll five years ago plunged the North African country into violence.
But he warned that the state could not "tolerate practices of criminal hatred and savagery... whose defeat Algeria has irrevocably sealed". Mr Zeroual made his pledge in a speech on state run television as he closed a "National Conference of Understanding". The meeting, swamped in heavy security underlining the fear of possible violence, was boycotted by main opposition parties.
