Algerian Protesters Clash With Riot Police

MARCH 24, 2011

By DAVID GAUTHIER-VILLARS

ALGIERS—Hundreds of people clashed with riot police in a poor neighborhood of the Algerian capital on Wednesday, in an eruption of violence that speaks to the growing social unrest across the North African country.

The clashes broke out at dawn when city authorities ordered bulldozers to destroy a group of houses built on a public garden on the grounds that they had been illegally constructed. Estimates of the number of people injured differed: Witnesses said about 40 wounded people were evacuated by ambulances. Local police said 20 people, mainly police officers, had been hurt in the clashes.

Wednesday's clashes came amid escalating social tensions in Algeria, where youths, civil servants, and unemployed people in the capital as well as in provincial cities are asking for better living and work conditions in protests that appear to be a growing challenge to the authority of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

In an effort to restore calm and avoid uprisings similar to those that led to the ousting of authoritarian rulers in Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year, Mr. Bouteflika's government has said it will move faster in tapping funds from Algeria's rich oil and gas resources to build more houses, roads and schools.

In a speech read Saturday by one of his aides, Mr. Bouteflika also announced political changes, although he has kept mum on details.

Government officials said changes could include a revision of the constitution to increase the prerogatives of the parliament, anchor the independence of the judicial branch from executive power, and cap the number of presidential terms; there is currently no term limit.

Supporters of Mr. Bouteflika say the president has the right recipe.

"That is how we can modernize Algeria without plunging into uncharted political territory and violence," said Abdelhamid Si Afif, a senior member of Algeria's National Liberation Front, a party that backs Mr. Bouteflika.

The protests are multiplying. On Wednesday, dozens of teachers were protesting across the street from Mr. Bouteflika's presidential palace for the fourth day in a row, saying they wanted proper job contracts.

"I got my diploma as an English teacher in 2002 and I have been bumped around with short-term contracts ever since then," said Ehalima Dahman.

In Climat de France, a poor Algiers neighborhood locked between the sea and surrounding hills, bulldozers arrived before dawn Wednesday to destroy some 30 brick houses that had been built a few months earlier on a parking lot and a public garden.

Several hundred inhabitants of neighboring houses, mainly young men, came down and began pelting the bulldozer drivers and riot police with rocks, bricks and tiles, according to witnesses.

Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. "Look, I nearly lost my eye," said one man, showing his bleeding cheek and a black rubber bullet that he said caused the bruise.

By late Wednesday, the clashes were over but tension remained palpable. The houses deemed illegal had been flattened and the debris removed in trucks. The charred frame of a Russian-made Lada car marked the frontline between the Climat de France inhabitants and hundreds of riot police massed on the hills.

A child threw a small rock in the direction of police."Stop, Faouzi," his father said. "Come home."

Source: The Wall Street Journal.
Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576219062261724224.html.