Resentment and relief in quieter Kabylia

Algeria Interface, 13 March 2003

Two years after the Kabyle Black Spring uprising there is both resentment and relief in provincial capital of Tizi Ouzou and the nearby villages of Beni Douala and Mekla that unrest has abated.

Tizi Ouzou, 13/03/2003 – Climbing the steep slope to Beni Douala in mountainous Kabylia 30 kilometres from regional capital, Tizi Ouzou, the first impression is one of a softly rolling landscape untouched by human hand. Below, magnificent valleys interlace as the sun sparkles on snow-covered peaks and villages scattered on the mountainsides.

The only signs of life on the steep road are children making their way to school. Some of the menfolk are already at work, but many others are still at home brooding over their poverty. Unemployment affects more than half of the working population. One of them is Khelifa Guermah. He once had a café in a hamlet down the mountain from Beni Douala. "I had to close because there were less and less customers. Four hundred people have left in the last two years, almost half the village."

Khelifa is the uncle of Massinissa Guermah, the schoolboy whose death in gendarme custody sparked the Berber Black Spring in Beni Douala in on April 18, 2001. In the months that followed rioting claimed over 100 deaths, mostly young men. They are remembered as martyrs. Banners float around Massinissa’s grave which stands near the Guermah’s house. They sport slogans like "Killer Regime" and "Ulac smah ulac" (no forgiveness).

Massinissa’s grandmother Mina offers visitors cups of coffee. Last year they came in numbers to pay their respects to her grandson. "They were like pilgrims," she remembers, "they came by bus, car, donkey or walked." But the last few months have seen the pilgrims dwindle. Emotion and rage has faded. Massinissa has not been forgotten, but time has passed and weariness has set in. "It’s understandable," says Khelifa. "People are tired of demonstrating, chanting and demanding justice. It couldn’t last. Now people want to feed their children and go to work. But there isn’t any, so go to Algiers or abroad, if they’re lucky."

Non-negotiable demands
Khelifa has been an activist since the early days of protest. He is a village delegate in the grassroots movement known as "the aarouchs", made up of village committees. He is a puzzled man. "I think we’ll have to think of other forms of protest. Not many come on marches any more and there are rumours flying around that smear our movement. They say there’s political manipulation and even vendettas."

He suddenly cuts short as if he had been called to order. He has said too much. The aarouchs have rigid rules. Spokespeople must be mandated. But Khelifa is uneasy and the doubts he harbours are tangible.

Massinissa’s father, Khaled Guermah, who sits close by reading a newspaper appears to harbour no such misgivings. He wears his grief on his fez-like hat on which are his son’s name and the slogan "Killer Regime" are embroidered. He is sad, gloomy and admits to bouts of depression when he is by himself.

"Massinissa was a school who had never been in trouble. He had a bright future, everybody loved him, he was an angel. They killed him for the sake of it, how can I forgive that?" he recalls bitterly.

For a year after his son’s death he was prostrate with grief. Now he is active. He has put his faith in the aarouchs as the only way obtaining some sort of reparation and never misses a sit-in or march either in Algiers or Tizi Ouzou.

He has been arraigned and held overnight three times. It is only recently that the police have dared touch him as the threat of a fresh uprising has receded. Khaled remains defiant, though. "We’ll make no concessions," he asserts in a reference to the El Kseur Platform – a 15-point list of grievances and demands the Kabyle protest movement drew up. "It’s non-negotiable," he adds grimly. One demand that is close to his heart is that all those gendarmes who opened fire on protesters should be held accountable and brought before a court of law. Indeed, there have been reports that his son’s killer has been arrested and tried. "They say he got two years, but it’s probably a lie," rails Khaled. "Everything happened on the quiet, I’ve never even seen the killer’s face. All I know is that his name’s supposed to be Mestari."

They want to relight the fuse
In the nearby village of Mekla another father vents his anger. His name his Omar and his 20-year-old son, Ahmed, has just been sentenced to six months behind bars. Omar recalls bitterly that day in February. "The police raided the home of a family accused of thieving. Things got out of hand, there was fighting and a policeman was stabbed to death. That was on February 20th and at the very moment my son was playing in a football match not far away. Two days later the police picked him up on his way to school and accused him of being an accomplice in the stabbing."

Omar, too, is an aarouch delegate and believes that he has been targeted through his son. "It’s my feeling that the authorities want to relight the fuse, so they can justify repression," he says, "that’s how they’ve handled the unrest since it started. Here things have grown quiet again. But down in Algiers they wanted to make a crime into a political affair. What do they want, more bloodshed?

What about surely the constitutional recognition last year of the Berber language, Amazigh, as a national language. Was that not a gain? Omar believes it was a decoy move not a concession by the authorities. "Amazigh has always been a national language. We wanted it to be official. We wanted to see it taught at school and official documents to be printed in Amazigh."

Mekla is a tense place and people ask journalists to show their press card. "It’s because there are plainclothes cops everywhere," explains Omar.

The aarouchs are currently focusing their action on the release of 30 of their delegates being held in pre-trial custody in Tizi Ouzou, Bouira and Bejaia. Charges are multiples: insulting national institutions, public affray, damage to public property and even illegally wearing a lawyer’s robe.

Christian Lecomte