The New York Times - 30.07.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALTUESDAY, JULY 30, 2019 N A

ALGIERS — The side with the
guns — the army command —
dares not spill blood, five months
into a popular uprising that
chased out Algeria’s autocratic
president. The side without — the
protesters — remains mobilized,
still coursing through the capital’s
sun-blasted streets twice a week.
The street has stared down the
army, and the army has blinked.
So the epic standoff in Algeria —
Africa’s largest country, the oil-
rich neighbor of Libya, stra-
tegically situated on the rim of the
Mediterranean Sea, gateway to
the deep Sahara — continues.
That it does, even if Algeria is
still far from the democracy the
street wants, already signals an
unusual victory, one making this
unfolding and so far bloodless rev-
olution perhaps unique in the
Arab world, say the protesters
and Algeria analysts.
“What we’ve lived in five
months, the Arab world hasn’t
seen in 40 years,” said a former
government minister and ambas-
sador, Abdelaziz Rahabi, who
leads one of the numerous citizen
groups that have sprung up since
the uprising began and pushed
out President Abdelaziz Boute-
flika after 20 years in power.
“We’ve removed a president
without exiling him,” as in Tunisia,
Mr. Rahabi said. “Without impris-
oning him,” as in Egypt. “And
without killing him,” as in Libya,
he added.
“So don’t tell me things are go-
ing badly,’’ he said. ‘‘And nobody
has been killed. There’s nothing
similar in the Arab world.”
The police and their armored
vehicles line the marchers’ route
but stand silently by — wary of ini-
tiating a bloody confrontation —
allowing the protests to continue
marching the streets, chanting
“No to a military state!” and “The
people want it, tomorrow!”
What they want is a democratic
government free of the military,
devoid of even a taint of officials
beholden to the old leader, and a
full voice in laying out the road
map on how to get there, even if
the precise path is unclear.
Equally unclear — a relative tri-
umph for the street — is who has
the upper hand as the two sides
circle each other cautiously. The
protesters have already forced the
cancellation of two projected elec-
tions, suspicious that the army
would rig them.
The army alternately tightens
the screws on the demonstrations
and loosens them, unsure how
much pressure to apply on a popu-
lar movement with broad support
across classes and regions in this
vast country.
“Who are the real holders of
power in Algeria?” asked one op-
position politician, Mustapha
Hadni, at a sweaty political meet-
ing in the heights of Algiers this
month.
In a land of opaque politics, the
question is perpetual but now has
new meaning. Those with the
power, he and his colleagues be-
lieve, are on the street.
“There is no dialogue with them
as long as they are trying to im-
pose their own road map,” Mr.
Hadni said, with all the confidence
that it was the opposition calling
the shots.
In interviews, opposition fig-
ures — current and former poli-
ticians, human rights advocates,
and academics — expressed pride
in what had been accomplished so
far by Algeria’s low-key revolu-
tion.

So did the demonstrators in the

streets. And, whether bluffing or

not, the activists expressed rela-

tive serenity about the future.

“It’s a question of the balance of

power,” said Mohcine Belabbas,

head of the opposition RCD party.

“And for now, the strength is on

the side of those who want consti-

tutional change in this country.”

“Our advantage is that we have

a population that has an interest

in defending the country,” he said.

At a Friday march down the di-

lapidated but still grand colonial-

era Rue Didouche Mourad in Al-

giers, the capital, the crowd

chanted, “Remember, we are the

ones that got rid of Boutef!” refer-

ring to Mr. Bouteflika. “It’s us or

you, and we’re not going to stop!”

they yelled.

“The people are not dupes,” said

one marcher, a 55-year-old shop-

keeper, Kasdi M’hend. “Boutef

was a facade president. It’s like a

Russian doll,” he said, referring to

the country’s concealed layers of

power.

“They’re playing deaf and

dumb, and they’re blocking the

path,” said another man at the Fri-

day march, Mohammed Akli, a

lawyer. “This government has

been illegitimate since July,” he

said, referring to the constitu-

tional departure date for the inter-

im president, appointed after Mr.

Bouteflika was kicked out.

Gen. Ahmed Gaïd Salah, the

country’s rough-hewed de facto

ruler since Mr. Bouteflika’s forced

departure, makes Soviet-style

speeches threatening “traitors”

and denouncing “poisonous

ideas” like the street’s insistence

on a civilian government.

In a bid to appease the pro-

testers, General Gaïd Salah has

imprisoned the cream of the busi-

ness and political elite that ran the

country for decades under the de-

posed president. That appears not

to be enough.

Yet the unschooled general has

not pulled the trigger on the

crowd.

“It would be very risky for

them,” said Nacer Djabi, a leading

political sociologist here, one of 13

Algerians put forward by a citi-

zens’ group as potential negotia-

tors with the authorities. “And

then, they can’t be certain of the

instruments of repression them-

selves,” he added, referring to

rank-and-file soldiers in Algeria’s

all-volunteer army.

“The military authority has all

the powers, but it can’t exercise

them,” said Moussaab Ham-

moudi, an Algerian political ana-

lyst at the Paris EHESS, the

School for Advanced Studies in

the Social Sciences.

“It’s the hirak that has power,”

he added, using Algerians’ name

for their protest movement. “Gaïd

Salah is stuck.”

Government ministers, in-

stalled by Mr. Bouteflika shortly

before he was forced to resign,

have been harassed by angry citi-

zens in rare sorties from their of-

fices. They have been seen swiftly

returning to their cars.

“They are afraid of their own

people,” said Mostepha

Bouchachi, a prominent human

rights lawyer who is also one of

the 13 potential civilian negotia-

tors.

Mr. Belabbas, of the opposition

RCD party, agreed. “They’ve lost

their credibility with the popula-

tion,” he said “They will be obli-

gated to leave the country.”

Mr. Bouteflika’s handpicked

prime minister, Noureddine

Bedoui, is seen as particularly vul-

nerable because he organized

rigged elections under the previ-

ous leadership. He appeared ner-

vous and uncertain in a recent ap-

pearance on state television.

Meanwhile, civic groups and

opposition politicians hatch new

plans every week, hoping to see

Algeria through to hoped-for de-

mocracy, and setting out condi-

tions for talks with the govern-

ment.

But for now, no single person-

ality or group has emerged to

channel the energy and demands

of the protest movement.

The common denominator for

discussions about elections is an

insistence that the 60-odd pro-

testers who have been jailed —

mainly for brandishing the flag of

the Berber minority — be liber-

ated, that gestures of harassment

aimed at the news media be

stopped, and that Algerians’ new-

found appetite for denouncing

past abuses and demanding de-

mocracy not be interfered with.

If not willing to unleash a vio-

lent crackdown, the authorities

have begun tiptoeing toward re-

pression.

“The regime has begun to re-

strict the protest space,” said Ab-

delwahab Fersaoui, recalling the

moment two weeks ago when doz-

ens of police showed up to break

up his meeting of a youth protest

group, the RAJ or Youth Action

Group.

After they had gathered at a

symbolic spot in downtown Al-

giers, the neo-Moorish Grande

Poste or central post office, “They

said, ‘You can’t meet here.’ They

told us, ‘You can’t organize this,’ ”

he recalled.

Others have had similar

episodes. “They are making pre-

ventive arrests in the mornings,”

before the weekly marches, said

Noureddine Benissad, head of the

Algerian human rights league.

Mr. Bouchachi, the human

rights lawyer, is no longer given

authorization by the authorities to

speak at the universities.

He and others in the protest

movement have been infuriated

by the imprisonment of a figure

from Algeria’s near-sacred war of

independence against France 60

years ago, Lakhdar Bouregaâ. He

is accused of making anti-army

statements, and all groups are de-

manding his release.

The interim president whose

term expired earlier this month

but who is still in office, the Boute-

flika loyalist Abdelkader Ben-

salah, said he was “available” to

“study” the demands of the pro-

testers.

The protesters remain vigilant,

wary that such gestures are

merely a trap, a way to blunt their

momentum or divide the opposi-

tion.

“I had hoped that this country

would have changed already. We

are the future here,” said Yousra

Nemouchi, a 20-year-old student

who marched on a recent day. “We

want to be heard by this govern-

ment.”

“We’ve gotten rid of the presi-

dent, but they are still arresting

people for talking,’’ Ms. Nemouchi

said. ‘‘But still, I think already we

have achieved a lot.”

In Algeria, Protesters Seem to Hold Much of the Power, if Not the Guns

By ADAM NOSSITER

An unusally peaceful Arab uprising in Algeria pushed out President Abdelaziz Bouteflika after 20

years in power. Gen. Ahmed Gaïd Salah, left, is the de facto ruler, and protesters still march

through the streets of Algiers twice a week, calling for a government free of the military.

RAMZI BOUDINA/REUTERS

ANIS BELGHOUL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Five months into a

bloodless uprising that

ousted an autocrat.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Vil-
lagers in northeastern Nigeria are
fleeing their homes, leaving ev-
erything behind, after armed men
on motorbikes roared into their
area and gunned down funeral
mourners on Saturday, killing at
least 65 people, officials said on
Monday.
Officials attributed the attack to
Boko Haram, the Islamist extre-
mist group that has terrorized the
region for the last 10 years, al-
though there was no immediate
claim of responsibility for the as-
sault.
The attack on Saturday, in the
village of Badu Abachari, north of
the city of Maiduguri, was in re-
taliation for an earlier clash, offi-
cials said.
Villagers have formed defense
groups, armed with hunting guns
and knives, to resist Boko Haram.
People in the village that was at-
tacked had repelled a militant as-
sault two weeks earlier, said Mo-
hammed Bulama, council chair-
man of the Nganzai area in Borno
state. He said the villagers had
killed 11 Boko Haram fighters and
seized 10 AK-47 rifles.
Mr. Bulama said that Boko
Haram gunmen had been moving
freely around Borno state,

rustling cattle and “carting away

foodstuff from our people.” Vil-

lagers who inherited their cattle

and had spent all their lives herd-

ing them felt the “unbearable

pain” of losing them, he said.

Around noon on Saturday, the

Boko Haram fighters “came on a

reprisal mission, attacking

mourners at a graveyard in the

area,” Mr. Bulama said. In addi-

tion to those confirmed killed, at

least 10 people were injured and

dozens were still missing, so the

toll could rise.

One survivor, Aji Gaji Mallam,

said he had escaped death by pre-

tending that he was dead as the

slaughter went on around him, ly-

ing still for three hours. He said

that four of his brothers had been

killed in previous Boko Haram at-

tacks.

“These people have been steal-

ing from us, so we decided to come

together because we could no

longer wait for an eternity for sol-

diers to defend us,” Mr. Mallam

said.

Another villager, Ba’ na Modu

survived the attacks with gunshot

wounds in his upper arms and was

taken to a hospital in Maiduguri.

But he had not heard from his wife

and seven children since the at-

tack and no one could tell him

what had become of them.

“I don’t know their where-

abouts,” he said. “It is just unbear-

able for me. Where do I start

from?”

Villagers said that the militants

had attacked the funeral proces-

sion and then returned and at-

tacked people who went to help.

Most of the dead were in Badu

Abachari, but the killings spread

to at least two other villages, and

bodies were recovered from the

bush around several other vil-

lages.

The attack came a little more

than a month after at least 30 peo-

ple were killed in a triple suicide

bombing in Borno that bore the

hallmarks of a Boko Haram opera-

tion.

Last week marked 10 years

since the first outbreak of violence

by the group, which has declared

allegiance to the Islamic State but

has operated independently.

In a region devastated by vio-

lence, displacement, climate

change and the resulting wide-

spread malnutrition, confronta-

tions have occurred when Boko

Haram fighters demand food from

villagers who are themselves hun-

gry and dependent on donations

from humanitarian organizations,

said Hamsatu Allamin, a Nigerian

human rights advocate who has

worked with foreign aid groups.

“Food insecurity is an issue for

everyone,” she said. “So these

Boko Haram boys now go to these

villagers demanding food, de-

manding money, demanding the

animals. The pressure is all on the

common man. And if you deny

them, the government will not

come to your aid.”

Beginning in 2015, Nigeria’s

government and military have

claimed repeatedly that Boko

Haram was being subdued, even

on the brink of defeat, its hiding

places decimated.

But human rights groups, aid

organizations and local Nigerians

have long disputed such claims,

and attacks have persisted.

“People like us who have been

operating in the field, we know

that what the government is say-

ing is far from the true reality on

the ground,” Ms. Allamin said.

President Muhammadu Buhari

condemned the attack in a state-

ment issued on Sunday and or-

dered the military to hunt down

those who carried it out.

Boko Haram, whose name is of-

ten approximately translated as

“Western education is forbidden,”

has been blamed for tens of thou-

sands of deaths, and has

prompted more than two million

people to flee their homes in

northeastern Nigeria and neigh-

boring areas of Cameroon, Chad

and Niger.

The group has kidnapped wom-

en and girls, forcing them into

marriage and slavery, and has

used children as suicide bombers.

It is perhaps best known for hav-

ing kidnapped more than 200

schoolgirls from the village of Chi-

bok in April 2014, many of whom

are still missing.

Gunmen on Motorbikes Kill at Least 65 Mourners, Causing Nigerian Villagers to Flee

This article is by Ibrahim Sawab,
Anemona Hartocollis and Mike
Ives.

Ibrahim Sawab reported from
Maiduguri, Anemona Hartocollis
from Dakar, Senegal, and Mike
Ives from Hong Kong. Olatunji
Omirin contributed reporting from
Maiduguri.

Smoldering ashes and charred items after an attack on a funeral in northeast Nigeria on Saturday.

AUDU MARTE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

A retaliatory attack by

members of Boko

Haram, officials say.