Anger at squalid housing unleashes Algeria protest
LAGHOUAT (Reuters) – In Laghouat, a provincial capital of 200,000 people, anger at living conditions has already touched off unrest – several hundred people have been protesting for the past week outside the offices of the regional governor.
Local human rights activists said police used truncheons and tear gas to break up the protest early on Tuesday. More than 40 protesters were arrested, though most have since been released, activists said.
On Wednesday the protesters were back in a square about 300 meters from the governor’s office. Lines of police, in riot gear and carrying truncheons and shields, blocked the road to prevent them from getting closer.
The spark for the protests was the re-housing of dozens of families from a shantytown on the edge of Laghouat to a new apartment complex paid for by the state.
Thousands of families across the country have already been moved to new accommodations under the plan, part of a state program to build 1 million new housing units by 2014.
But in Laghouat, thousands have been on waiting lists for years and the protesters say the latest resettlement is symptomatic of a process that is riddled with corruption. They said people who paid bribes or had connections with local officials were given new apartments, while families in greater need were left off the list.
According to a list seen by Reuters, many of the people allocated new apartments were not from Laghouat, and multiple apartments were given to members of the same family.
Despite Algeria’s wealth, the government has been unable to build new homes fast enough to satisfy millions of families who live in inadequate accommodation or to provide jobs for the millions of unemployed. It was anger over miserable living conditions in a provincial town in neighboring Tunisia that set off the first “Arab Spring” revolution.
Leaders in Algeria, which has many of the same problems as other countries swept up in the upheavals around the Middle East over the past 12 months, worry the same scenario could be repeated in their country.
“The system is corrupt,” said Mohamed Mamir, a 45-yearold unemployed man at the protest. “Local officials... give housing to their own cousins.” An official at the headquarters of the regional administration told Reuters the wali, or governor, and his chief of staff were out of the office and unavailable for interview. The official said no one else was able to comment.
Yacine Zaid, a local human rights activist who has been monitoring the protests, said that late on Wednesday the wali passed a message to the protesters to say the list would be changed. It was not clear if that meant the authorities would evict people from the apartments they had just been given.
The anger in Laghouat is heightened by the fact that the region itself is rich in resources. To the south is Hassi R’mel, a massive natural gas field.
“We supply [gas] to Europe, to Spain and Italy, but there is a contradiction,” said Faisal Bessegur, 35, an unemployed man. “In Laghouat we have injustice, the problem of housing, corruption and unemployment.”
The operation to re-house residents from the shantytown at the edge of Laghouat left some people even worse off than they were before. As soon as residents were rehoused, bulldozers were sent in to demolish their old homes but a handful of people did not qualify and so were left with nowhere to live. Although it is on the edge of the Sahara, Laghouat is on a high plateau and bitterly cold, especially at night.
On Wednesday morning, 67year-old Haniyah Ziyani was tending a fire in front of a makeshift tent assembled from blankets, tarpaulin sheets and some oil drums. Inside was her 34-year-old mentally-handicapped daughter.
Ziyani wept as a bulldozer worked about 100 meters away, clearing the rubble.
Asked why she had not qualified for re-housing, she said: “They demanded bribes. I do not even have money for food. How am I going to pay a bribe?”
A short distance away stood Bouzid Beli, 75. His home now is a tarpaulin supported by a wooden pole, with some sheets of corrugated iron around the side. The bed was a few blankets laid on the bare earth.
He had the same explanation for what happened: corruption.
“It’s very cold,” he said, shivering and fighting back tears. “I have nowhere to go.”