Best to the capital. In Baraki and Zghara, people from outlying houses began spending the night outside the nearest police station, rather than in their isolated homes. Rumours - usually false - that the region was being infiltrated by Islamic fundamentalists provoked panics.
Under pressure from the agitated population, the police agreed to distribute arms - this time without the political selection used in recent years to create the regime's Communal Militias. In Baraki, which already has a sizeable military presence, some 1,000 weapons were distributed to the population.
These new self-defence structures are being created in an atmosphere of fear and confusion.
Women and children are moved to safer accommodation, while the men spend the night patrolling, or standing sentry. Most have only sticks and knives. The vigilance is not very effective: sirens wail at the slightest alert, throwing people into confused agitation.
While people used to accuse the army of being responsible for a part Then came the terrible news from Sidi Moussa, cut. Their bodies mutilated. The young women of the massacres, you increasingly hear people criticise the army for not having intervened. And in the streets, many people have resumed normal contact with the police, though the army is still distrusted and avoided.
Who is responsible?
It is hard to find the truth amid the cacophony of rumours circulating among a traumatised, sleepless population. The massacres themselves leave few witnesses. But it. does seem that the army was not -as many people suspected- responsible for these latest massacres.
Nor does the finger point towards the Communal Militias, armed and controlled by the regime. They do seem to have been responsible for some other collective murders earlier this year. But these latest attacks were concentrated in the capital region.
The failure of the armed forces to protect the citizens is not evidence of a Machiavelian plan to collaborate in the attacks. No distribution of police forces can protect 28 million people, spread over Algeria's two million square kilometres of territory.
And in any case, the protection of the citizens is not the primary purpose of the repressive system. It exists to protect the ruling classes, and ensure their continued authority.
On the other hand, it is not impossible that some areas, preparing for the privatisation of agricultural land, are trying to drive the peasants off the most fertile land.
The attacks certainly surprised the regime. It seemed to believe that the worst was over. On August 20th, President Zeroual had even announced "the end of terrorism."
The strategy of the armed fundamentalist groups has changed. They used to impose their own brutal authority on whatever population they could control. But increasingly, their strategy has been to carry out punitive raids against an entire population that they consider to be "ettekfir" (unbelievers).
In this war against the godless, murder and pillage are justified. And virgin girls and cattle are legitimate booty.
These groups have taken refuge in inaccessible mountain regions like Chréa and Zbarbar. From these base-camps they organise punitive expeditions, local genocide, in or-. der to remind the world that they exist, at a moment when the regime is proclaiming a military victory, and reasserting its political domis nation of Algeria.
In this desperate situation the growing structures of popular self-defence are the only act of civil dignity which can respond adequately - to the horror facing Algeria.
Armed self-defence is the only way to fight the type of aggression Algerians are suffering - providing that it can be properly armed and structured.