THE ALGERIAN capital no longer sleeps, since the massacre of hundreds of people in the eastern suburb of Haouch Rais. The population is arming itsell, for protection against whoever is responsible for the waves of violence in the country.
As a new wave of violence hits Algeria, Western powers are beginning to doubt whether the Zeroual regime is capable of assuring control, for itself and on behalf of the west, over the regions of Algeria where the fundamentalists are active.
The Algerian élite may have been reassured by the US ambassador, who, in the wake of the latest massacres, confirmed his country's support for "military measures" by the Algerian regime against its Islamic fundamentalist opponents.
But only the élite will sleep safer. Outside a few, well protected rich districts, the people of Algiers now pass the night in their fields or on their balconies, armed in self-defence with stones, axes, kitchen knives and sometimes Molotov cocktails.
The Haouch Rais massacre came after months of systematic attacks on isolated villages in the regions of Tlemen, Média and Blida. All were planned massacres, with all the horrible details you have heard about.
But the urban population was not as worried about this far-off threat as by the dozens of bomb attacks in busy urban settings. Collective panics regularly emptied the busiest streets, and unfamiliar parked cars provoked a huge number of false alerts.
And yet, life went on. The parliamentary election on June 5 was preceded by thousands of meetings, squeezed in between the bomb scares. And the beaches were packed with people all summer.
Privatisation begins Despite popular distrust, and public accusations of massive fraud, President Zeroual succeeded in using the June election to give a varnish of respectability to his regime.
Immediately after the results were announced, and before the new government was formed, the most painful parts of Zeroúal's neoliberal reform programme were implemented.
A range of enterprises in the construction, publishing and retail sectors- were liquidated. The almost total privatisation of the chemical sector was announced, as well as the partial privatisation of the mechanical and electronic sectors. Everywhere, redundancies were predicted or announced.
Coffin-chasers from all over the world flocked to Algiers to divide up the remains of the state industrial sector. Most nationalised companies had been unable to overcome the isolation and withdrawal of foreign investment which began in 1994 when the Armed Islamic Group began attacking foreigners.
A few deals have already been announced. Daewoo will take over a truck factory in Rouiba and a television factory in Sidi Bel Abbes. The Korean group promises to invest $2 billion. Pfizer and other pharmaceutical groups have also announced investment plans.
The International Monetary Fund is insisting that land, too, be privatised, something the regime has been nervous about attempting. The IMF also demands the lifting of Algeria's remaining protective barriers around the national economy.
When the government presented this reactionary programme, most of the parliamentary parties, except the Berber minority's CulturalDemocratic Rally (RCD), expressed the population's concerns about the measures called for by the IMF.
Ait Ahmed's Front of Socialist Forces (FFS), which used to encourage Western economic pressure on the Algerian dictatorship, denounced the interference of IMF Chairman Michel Camdessus in Algerian internal affairs.
Many members of parliament from the government coalition (RND, FLN, Hamas) said they would only support Prime Minister Ouyahia if his government abandoned plans to privatise agricultural land and parts of the education system, and if it reversed the planned closure of a number of enterprises.
Social and labour struggles are again on the increase. After three months of strikes, workers at ENAL are increasing the number of sit-ins. Workers at the Sider metalworking complex in Annaba, near the Tunisian border, challenged management's announcement of 6,000 redundancies.
In July, workers at the Rouiba truck factory, facing the loss of several thousand jobs, became the centre of unitary «days of action" involving 30,000 workers in Algeria's main industrial zone, just outside the capital.
This movement of protest grew and spread across the country, but had no spokesperson or organised centre. The UGTA trade union federation, one of the bases of President Zeroual's new party, only exists during its "negotiations" with the regime, in the name of the working class.
But here and there, local union bodies did emerge as the leaders of the protests, like in Skikda (a petrochemical and gas-extraction region) and above all in Rouiba, where the union played a central role in the mobilisation.
Obviously, these were expressions of defensive resistance, by groups of workers threatened by job cuts and the dismantling of the nationalised industries. Their presCounting the dead: the afterath of the Baraki massacre sure is above all an attempt to stop. the flood of redundancies which have been announced.
In general, the context of insecurity in the country reduces people's 'militant energy. Economic policies which are dissolving the working class have atomised the workers.
Nevertheless, this anti-liberal awakening, late as it is, is an important step in the possible reconstruction of the organised working class, in a way that will prevent the Islamic fundamentalists from capitalising on the widespread social despair.
The shock of Haouch Rais These challenges to privatisation, on the ground and in parliament, showed that Algerians were increasingly able to contain the burden of fear under which they live within "manageable proportions." As public security pressures subsided, society began to live again, and to debate matters of great importance.
At this point there was a new sean eastern suburb of Algiers itself. More than 400 people had been murdered. Their throats kidnapped. The cattle stolen. ries of bomb attacks in Algiers, and a wave of rural massacres, starting in Média and moving past Chréa closer and closer to the capital. Then 'came the terribte news from Sidi Moussa, an eastern suburb of Algiers itself. More than 400 people had been murdered.
Their throats cut. Their bodies mutilated. The young women kidnapped. The cattle stolen.
Then, in the western outskirts of Algiers, on the road to the topsecurity residences of the elite, 63 residents of Beni Messous village were killed.
This was the first in a series of attacks in and near the Bainem forest, normally a popular destination for day-trippers from Algiers.
Panic spread in the villages closSocialist Duroo