Canadian Governor General visits Algeria

[Al-khiyal]

Algerian daily La Tribune reported Tuesday (November 14th) that Michaelle Jean, Governor General of Canada will begin a four-day working visit on November 19th to Algeria at the head of an important delegation.

This is the first visit of its kind for a Canadian governor. The trip is intended to promote co-operation between the two trading partners. For several years now, Algeria has been the number one trading partner for Canada in Africa and the Middle East.

Canadian Governor General to visit Algeria

[Al-khiyal]

ALGIERS (CP) - Governor General Michaelle Jean was saluted by a brass band playing 'O Canada' as she kicked off a three-week state visit to Africa.

Jean stepped off a government plane to a musical salute on the tarmac, and was escorted by motorcade to a lavish estate where she will be staying during her stop in Algeria.

The governor general was greeted at the airport by Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and planned to take a walking tour of the local casbah.

Jean's first state visit to Africa will include stops in Mali, Ghana, Morocco and South Africa, where she will meet with the renowned anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu.

Algerian authorities provided her with an elaborate welcome.

After her red-carpet arrival, Jean was whisked by motorcade down a local highway decorated with Canadian flags and lined with posters carrying her picture.

Sword-wielding horsemen formed an honour guard that awaited her as she arrived at her temporary living quarters in the lush government estate on the outskirts of the capital.

Jean begins three week state visit to Africa with Algeria stop

[Al-khiyal]

ALGIERS, Algeria: Canadian Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean began a four-day official visit to Algeria on Sunday and met with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Accompanied by a delegation of lawmakers and representatives of Canadian businesses, Jean hopes to strengthen ties with Algeria in a number of spheres from agriculture to energy, according to news reports.

Algeria "is a country that is truly in the midst of construction," she said in an interview with national television. "I will need to hear the expectations of Algerians, see if what we are doing and our participation, our presence, matches the expectations and aspirations of Algerians."

Jean is the first governor general of Canada to visit Algeria, but this is not the first time she has met Bouteflika, who greeted her at the airport. Formerly a journalist, she interviewed him in 2000.

In May 2000, Bouteflika visited Canada, helping to increase ties of friendship and cooperation, according to Algerian officials.

Canada's governor-general in Algeria on four-day visit

[Al-khiyal]

Governor General of Canada in Algiers

[Al-khiyal]

Governor General of Canada Michaelle Jean smiles as she looks up as she is acknowledged by people from balconies of their homes in the casbah as she tours the old part of the city of Algiers during the first part of her state vist to Africa, Sunday.

ALGIERS, Algeria (CP) - A chorus of celebratory wails rained down on Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean as she strolled the cobblestone streets of the ancient casbah on her first day in Africa.

It was one of several memorable scenes as Jean kicked off a three-week state visit that is her first as governor general and also her first trip to her ancestral continent.

"Since my appointment (as governor general) I had this dream," Jean said Sunday. "I was hoping that my first state visits would be in Africa. You can sense the warmth of the people, and the beauty. . . ."

"I can't explain it but I feel like I'm home here."

The locals did their best to make her feel welcome as Jean arrived in Algeria, where she began an African tour that will also take her to Mali, Ghana, South Africa and Morocco.

Posters with Jean's picture and Canadian flags lined several kilometres of highway from the airport, where she was given a red-carpet greeting that included a brass band playing O Canada.

Sword-wielding horsemen formed an honour guard that awaited her as she arrived at her temporary living quarters at a lush government estate on the outskirts of the capital.

Later, children scampered toward her at every twist and turn of the casbah.

Hundreds of heads peered down for curious glimpses of Jean as she toured the maze-like citadel.

The governor general looked up, clutched her heart, and whispered, "Merci," when young girls ululated in celebration from the rooftops of aging whitewashed buildings.

Mindful of the country's violent history and its international reputation, Algerian security forces took no chances with Jean's safety.

They elbowed members of her entourage aside and even treated the enthusiastic grade-schoolers like potential security threats.

The kept shooing the children away, sometimes picking them up and placing them aside when they approached the throng of official delegates, local guards and Algerian news crews surrounding Jean.

But throughout the three-hour tour, the kids kept coming back.

Jean described her African roots in her maiden speech to Parliament last year, when she noted that she was the descendent of slaves shipped to Haiti.

As a former TV journalist she hosted many documentary shows on Africa but had never set foot on the continent. She said she wanted her visit to carry a hopeful message.

That message was splashed on the front page of the Algiers tabloid El Moudjahid - one of several media outlets to provide prominent coverage of Jean's arrival.

The paper carried a two-page interview transcript with her, a cover picture and a headline that quoted her saying: "Algeria can be a beacon."

Following a disastrous civil war that saw its economic output shrink by 28 per cent, Algeria's GDP grew more than five per cent last year and officials now plan billions in infrastructure investments.

"This is a continent of hope," Jean said in an interview.

"Most of the time when we think of Africa, we think of misery. There's a lot of Afro-pessimism in our view of Africa."

"There are situations that are troubling. But there are so many uplifting things."

Jean plans visits to charity programs run by women, to two African peacekeeping schools that Canada has supported as well as to microcredit institutions, lending bodies run by non-government organizations that make credit available to small businesses in developing countries.

She will be named honorary chief of a village in Mali and, in South Africa, will meet with Bishop Desmond Tutu, the renowned anti-apartheid activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

On Sunday, she held her first of two planned meetings with Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Jean is the first Canadian governor general to visit Algeria but this was not the first time she has met Bouteflika. In her former role as a journalist, she interviewed him in 2000 during his visit to Canada.

Chanting children, curious crowds greet Governor General Jean on first visit to Africa

[Al-khiyal]

Canada's Governor General Michaelle Jean is welcomed by Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika at Algiers airport, Sunday, November 19th.

[Al-khiyal]

Algiers, Algeria — Governor-General Michaëlle Jean has drawn attention to the bitter legacy of European colonialism in Africa.

Speaking at a state dinner in Algeria on Monday, Ms. Jean told of how her own ancestors were enslaved, stripped of their culture and dignity, and deported to Haiti.

Earlier, the governor general laid a wreath at a martyr's sanctuary in honour of Algerians killed in the struggle to end French colonial rule.

Ms. Jean, on a three-week official visit to several African countries, was also given a tour of the nearby Moudjahid museum.

The museum halls are filled with pictures of slaughtered Algerians from the anti-colonial uprising and with artifacts from the revolution that resulted in Algeria's independence in 1962.

Ms. Jean also noted that Algeria has more recently suffered a devastating civil war, and listed ways that Canada is helping the country rebuild.

She said the two countries' ties run deep, mentioning the 50,000 Algerians living in Canada and the $4.5-billion in annual bilateral trade.

Jean speaks of Africa's bitter legacy of colonialism