as Cheb Hasni, and in late August added a new practice to its activities: threatening insufficiently Islamist schools with arson. At the end of October, the government announced the failure of its negotiations with the FIS. Instead, Zéroual embarked on a new plan: he scheduled presidential elections for 1995, while promoting "eradicationists" such as Lamari within the army and organizing "self-defense militias" in villages to fight the guerrillas. The end of 1994 saw a noticeable upsurge in violence. Over 1994, Algeria's isolation deepened; most foreign press agencies, such as Reuters, left the country this year, while the Moroccan border closed and the main foreign airlines cancelled all routes. The resulting gap in news coverage was further worsened by a government order in June banning Algerian media from reporting any terrorism-related news not covered in official press releases. A few FIS leaders, notably Rabah Kebir, had escaped into exile abroad. Upon the invitation of the Rome-based Community of Sant'Egidio, in November 1994, they began negotiations in Rome with other opposition parties, both Islamist and secular (FLN, FFS, FIS, MDA, PT, JMC). They came out with a mutual agreement on 14 January 1995: the Sant'Egidio platform. This presented a set of principles: respect for human rights and multi-party democracy, rejection of army rule and dictatorship, recognition of Islam, Arab and Berber ethnic identity as essential aspects of Algeria's national identity, demand for the release of FIS leaders, and an end to extrajudicial killing and torture on all sides. To the surprise of many, even Ali Belhadj endorsed the agreement, which meant that the FIS had returned into the legal framework, along with the other opposition parties. The initiative was also received favorably by "influential circles" in the United States. However, for the agreement to work, the FIS still had to have the support of its original power base, when in fact the pious bourgeous had abandon it for the collaborationist Hamas party and the urban poor for jihad; and the other side, the government, had to be interested in the agreement. Those two features being lacking, the platform's effect was at best limited – though some argue that, in the words of Andrea Riccardi who brokered the negotiations for the Community of Sant'Egidio, "the platform made the Algerian military leave the cage of a solely military confrontation and forced them to react with a political act", the 1995 presidential elections. The next