Former ambassador brutally relieved of his duties in 2016 after a stroke of blood by Saïd Bouteflika, this career diplomat was appointed Algeria’s representative to the UN to defend, among other things, the “Sahrawi cause”.
There are diplomats whose shelving may last an eternity before they are admitted to a peaceful and comfortable retirement. Amar Bendjama could easily have been in this category, his career having suddenly come to a halt, one day in December 2016, when he least expected it.
On Monday, December 5, Amar Bendjama, Algeria’s ambassador to France since the summer of 2013, met his collaborators at 5 rue de Lisbon, in Paris, to announce to them that he had been relieved of his duties. Back in Algiers on January 1, he will be admitted to automatic retirement ten days later.
An alleged crime of lèse-majesté
It is not in Algerian diplomatic practice to justify and comment on the dismissal of an ambassador. What is more when he occupied the prestigious Parisian position. Amar Bendjama’s fault? An alleged crime of lèse-majesté. Saïd Bouteflika, then a powerful adviser to the presidency, had indeed heard that Bendjama, during his visit to the Algerian consulate in Marseilles, had ordered that the official portrait of the President of the Republic be taken down. A false accusation that had been enough to cost the diplomat his post.
The great friendship that bound Amar Bendjama to Prime Minister at the time, Abdelmalek Sellal (who is languishing today in prison), whom the presidential clan suspected, again wrongly, of targeting the succession of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, had no Nor have they arranged Bendjama’s affairs. So goodbye Paris, hello the cupboard in Algiers
Duty of reserve and monastic discretion
Since his return to the country in January 2017, Amar Bendjama has strictly observed the duty of reserve to which he is bound, showing himself with monastic discretion. His shelving lasted six and a half years before the tide turned in his favor with the arrival of Ahmed Attaf at the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last March, replacing Ramtane Lamamra.
Attaf and Bendjama being longtime friends – graduates of the ENA, class of 1975, the same as a certain Ahmed Ouyahia – the first proposed the name of the second for the post of Algerian ambassador to the mission of the United Nations, to which he will be appointed by presidential decree on April 11.
It is in a way a homecoming for Amar Bendjama, who was deputy ambassador to the UN between 1989 and 1991. And this is also one of the reasons for his appointment.
“A little gruff, but actually sensitive”
Aged 72, this native of Skikda (in the East) has had a long career in diplomacy. His former colleagues and acquaintances describe him as a man with excellent training, proven skills and “an ambassador who knows how to build and lead a team” of employees. “He has a somewhat gruff character, bloody in appearance, but in reality, he is sensitive to the personal ordeals of diplomats and staff,” confides one of his friends.
Another relative says that, shortly after his dismissal and his admission to retirement in January 2017, Amar Bendjama declined a decoration from France, offered to him by Bernard Emié, then French ambassador to Algiers. “He did not even consult his superiors when he said no,” adds this relative.
Bendjama joined the Foreign Office in 1975, where he rose through the ranks before becoming ambassador to Addis Ababa and London, after his stint at the UN mission in New York. The period that probably marked him the most was when he worked directly with Ahmed Attaf as Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, between 1996 and 2000.
The Sahrawi question: a priority
The trust, friendship and complicity that have linked the two men since the benches of the ENA weighed heavily in his appointment to New York. “Ahmed Attaf wants to exercise direct authority over the major diplomatic posts, says a relative. The Western Sahara dossier is a priority in this regard.”
It is an understatement to say that the Sahrawi question is a priority for Algerian diplomacy. It is even more so since the rupture of relations with Morocco in August 2021. Moreover, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune never misses the opportunity, at each of his media appearances, to reaffirm his country’s unwavering support for the “Sahrawi cause” and to defend the option of a referendum under the aegis of the United Nations as the only solution to settle this conflict which has lasted for forty-eight years.
Within the permanent UN mission in New York, Amar Bendjama will therefore have the main mission of defending this file and will have to cross swords with his Moroccan counterpart, Omar Hilale, whose every media outlet has the gift of ulcerating the Algerian leaders.
