Anonymous Comrade writes
Algeria: Anniversary riots amidst political disarray
A report from Kabylia on the double anniversary of the Black Spring of 2001 and the Berber Spring of 1980
MPRSND Algeria Correspondent
21 April 2005

The restive region of Kabylia remained relatively calm on the double anniversary of the Black Spring of 2001 and the Berber Spring of 1980. The day was marked by a series of peaceful marches, meetings, and galas throughout the region to comemmorate the martyrs of the past 25 years of struggle in the Berber regions of Algeria.

The only reports of unrest came from the city of Akbou, where, throughout the day, youths engaged in running battles with police. The confrontations began when youths from the city, having been refused a bus to travel to Bejaia for the commemorative march called by the arch (village assemblies), attacked the central police station with stones and other projectiles. After being driven back, they blocked the streets in front of Haroun-Mohamed secondary school with tires and other rubbish and set them alight. Police responded with tear gas. No injuries were reported. The goverment had replaced the gendarmes in Akbou with police officers following the fierce rioting of 2001 and the demands of the people- largely an illusory political move, which has seemed to fool no one.

Elsewhere, in Bejaia, hundreds marched through the city center chanting “Pouvoir assassin! (Killer Regime!)” and “Ulac smah ulac! (No forgiveness, none!)” both slogans which have echoed throughout Kabylia since the killing of the young Massinissa Guermah by gendarmes ignited a series of riots and mobilizations across the region in 2001. The march also disrupted an FFS (Socialist Forces Front) meeting and snatched its banners from near the Cultural Center.

Angry chants of “Abrika-Ouyahia charika-khabitha! (twin-traitors!)” also resounded throughout the poorly-attended march. Two days prior, Chief of Government Ahmed Ouyahia visited the tomb of Guermah without incident. To the dismay and confusion of most Kabyles, arch delegate Belaid Abrika and the father of the late Massinissa met Ouyahia with open arms. Photos of the three, standing hand-in-hand, plastered the newspapers the following day and angered many in the region and deepened the rift between those in the arch movement who want dialog with the regime and those who do not.

For many, these photos were yet another sign that the arch movement is in disarray and increasingly disconnected from the people of Kabylia- a far cry from what the movement had been in late 2001. A dejected young student from the University of Bejaia proclaimed, “Sometimes there are many hopes, sometimes none.”

To coincide with the march in Bejaia, the arch also called for a general strike, which was largely ignored by shopowners, possibly as a warning to the arch delegates to withdraw from the dialogue with the regime and return to their horizontal roots. Later in the day, at an improvised rally, the anti-dialogists in the arch reiterated their chief objective: the satisfaction of all the points of the El-Kseur Platform. Meanwhile, the dialogists held a small meeting where speakers celebrated the gains of the dialogue.

In Tizi Ouzou, a large march, called for by the students of Mouloud Mameri University, passed without incident. The RCD (Rally for Culture and Democracy) and the MCB (Cultural Berber Movement), both of which had been ostracized and labeled traitors during the unrest of the last four years, were permitted to join the march. Demonstrators chanted “We are still Imazighen” and “Judge the terrorists and liberate the journalists” in response to an ongoing government crackdown on freedom of the press.

In Bouira, tensions between arch dialogists and anti-dialogists threatened to stall plans for a march, but in the end, everyone marched together peacefully. Like in Bejaia, speakers announced the results of months of dialogue, including the status of “martyr” for all &é- demonstrators killed in the last four years of struggle, a civil trial for all accused gendarmes, the installation of a Berber Academy and television station, and the formation of teachers of the Tamazigth language.

Four years of political wrangling between the regime and different factions of Kabylia, from the political parties ofthe FFS and RCD to the movement of the arch, has exhausted many citizens. A young shopowner in Bejaia put it simply: “All these different factions- the FFS, RCD, even the dialogists within the arch- are being played like cards by the regime.” But the feeling still remains among many here in Kabylia that things could once again explode at any moment and the movement could be instantly refocused, as happened in 1980, 1988, and again in 2001 with the pull of a trigger by a gendarme.

http://www.mprsnd.org

Background on the situation can be found in the booklet, “You cannot kill us, we are already dead.” Available for free download here:
http://www.zinelibrary.net"