Berber protests shake Algeria's military elite

President stalls as riots spread throughout country

Karen Thomas, The Guardian, June 20, 2001

Algeria's military rulers are facing an unprecedented challenge after two months of protests against police brutality and poverty in the Berber-dominated Kabylia region culminated last week in the largest demonstrations in Algiers since independence. Rioting spread last weekend beyond the main Kabylia towns of Tizi Ouzou and Bejaia to the southern town of Biskra and to Annaba and Khenchela in the east. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has proved unwilling or unable to assert his authority, remaining uncharacteristically silent.

Demonstrations have been banned as the government braces for protests in the Kabylia next Monday to mark the third anniversary of the murder of a Berber nationalist singer, Lounes Matoub, attributed to Islamic groups. A second mass demonstration is planned in Algiers for July 5.

The protests were sparked by the shooting in police custody of a Berber youth on April 18th, and by mounting resentment over the strong-arm tactics of the special police forces. The demonstrations have been led by urban youths alienated by rising unemployment, mounting poverty and a chronic housing shortage.

At least 60 people have died in two months of protests that culminated in last Thursday's riots in central Algiers, in which four people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured in clashes after several hundred thousand Berbers converged on the capital.

They demanded the withdrawal of paramilitary gendarmes from the Kabylia, swift action on Berber poverty and official recognition for their language, Tamazigh.

Algeria's 6m Berbers are concentrated in the Sahara and Kabylia regions, but the Kabylia is no poorer than other parts of the country. Last year saw rioting in the western city of Sidi Bel Abbes in protest at local government corruption, and there are fears of similar unrest in cities such as Constantine, Setif and the western port city of Oran.

Fearing a repeat of the 1988 nationwide protests which destabilised the FLN govern ment which had ruled the country since independence, the authorities have sought to divide and rule. Officials have attacked the latest protests as a Berber nationalist revolt influenced by outsiders, knowing that many Algerian Arabs suspect that France is behind the Berber national demands.

The protesters accused the police of encouraging Arab youths from the impoverished Belcourt district of Algiers to attack last week's march, and claim that the gendarmes deploy minimum force against protests outside the Kabylia.

With strong liberal and secular political traditions, the Berber community has been torn between resenting the Arab-dominated military elite and opposing the Islamic rebels in the civil war in which 100,000 people have died.

However, the Islamist warlord Hassan Hattab has launched a poster campaign in Tizi Ouzou urging the protesters to join the renegade GSPC (Salasi Group Preaching and Combat), raising the new, if unlikely, spectre of an alliance between the Islamic and Berber movements.