T HE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019| 3

World

The side with the guns — the army com-

mand — dares not spill blood, five

months into a popular uprising that

chased out Algeria’s autocratic presi-

dent. 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,

strategically 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, al-

ready signals an unusual victory, one

making this unfolding and so far blood-

less revolution perhaps unique in the

Arab world, say the protesters and Alge-

ria analysts.

“What we’ve lived in five months, the

Arab world hasn’t seen in 40 years,” said

a former government minister and am-

bassador, Abdelaziz Rahabi, who heads

one of the numerous citizen groups that

have sprung up since the uprising began

and pushed out President Abdelaziz

Bouteflika after 20 years in power.

“We’ve removed a president without

exiling him,” as in Tunisia, Mr. Rahabi

said. “Without imprisoning him,” as in

Egypt. “And without killing him,” as in

Libya, he added.

“So don’t tell me things are going

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 si-

lently by — wary of initiating a bloody

confrontation — allowing the protests to

continue marching the streets, chant-

ing, “No to a military state!” and “The

people want it, tomorrow!”

What they want is a democratic gov-

ernment free of the military, devoid of

even a taint of officials beholden to the

old regime, 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 triumph

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 planned elec-

tions, suspicious that the army would

rig them.

The army alternately tightens the

screws on the demonstrations and loos-

ens them, unsure how much pressure to

apply on a popular movement with

broad support across classes and re-

gions in this vast country.

“Who are the real holders of power in

Algeria?” asked one opposition poli-

tician, Mustapha Hadni, at a sweaty po-

litical meeting in the heights of Algiers,

the capital, this month.

In a land of opaque politics, the ques-

tion is perpetual, but it now has new

meaning. Those with the power, he and

his colleagues believe, are on the street.

“There is no dialogue with them as

long as they are trying to impose their

own road map,” Mr. Hadni said, with all

the confidence that it was the opposition

calling the shots.

In interviews, opposition figures —

current and former politicians, human

rights advocates and academics — ex-

pressed pride in what had been accom-

plished so far by Algeria’s low-key revo-

lution.

So did the demonstrators in the

streets. And, whether bluffing or not, the

activists expressed relative 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 constitutional change in this coun-

try.”

“Our advantage is that we have a pop-

ulation that has an interest in defending

the country,” he said.

At a Friday march down the dilapidat-

ed but still grand colonial-era Rue Di-

douche Mourad in Algiers, the crowd

chanted, “Remember, we are the ones

that got rid of Boutef!” referring 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 shopkeeper,

Kasdi M’hend. “Boutef was a facade

president. It’s like a Russian doll,” he

said, referring to the country’s con-

cealed layers of power.

“They’re playing deaf-and-dumb, and

they’re blocking the path,” said another

man at the Friday march, Mohammed

Akli, a lawyer. “This government has

been illegitimate since July,” he said, re-

ferring to the constitutional departure

date for the interim president, ap-

pointed after Mr. Bouteflika was kicked

out.

Gen. Ahmed Gaid 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 ci-

vilian government.

In a bid to appease the protesters,

General Gaid Salah has imprisoned the

cream of the business and political elite

that ran the country for decades under

the deposed president. That appears not

to be enough.

Yet the unschooled general has not

used violence on the crowd.

“It would be very risky for them,” said

Nacer Djabi, a leading political sociolo-

gist here, one of 13 Algerians put for-

ward by a citizens’ group as potential

negotiators with the authorities. “And

then, they can’t be certain of the instru-

ments of repression themselves,” he

added, referring to rank-and-file sol-

diers in Algeria’s all-volunteer army.

“The military authority has all the

powers, but it can’t exercise them,” said

Moussaab Hammoudi, an Algerian po-

litical analyst at the School for Ad-

vanced Studies in the Social Sciences, in

Paris.

“It’s the hirak that has power,” he add-

ed, using Algerians’ name for their pro-

test movement. “Gaid Salah is stuck.”

Government ministers, installed by

Mr. Bouteflika shortly before he was

forced to resign, have been harassed by

angry citizens in rare sorties from their

offices. They have been seen swiftly re-

turning 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 negotiators.

Mr. Belabbas, of the RCD party,

agreed. “They’ve lost their credibility

with the population,” he said “They will

be obligated to leave the country.”

Mr. Bouteflika’s handpicked prime

minister, Noureddine Bedoui, is seen as

particularly vulnerable because he or-

ganized rigged elections under the pre-

vious regime. He appeared nervous and

uncertain in a recent appearance on

state television.

On the protest side, civic groups and

opposition politicians hatch new plans

every week, hoping to see Algeria

through to democracy and setting out

conditions for talks with the regime.

But for now, no single personality or

group has emerged to channel the ener-

gy and demands of the protest move-

ment.

The common denominator for discus-

sions about elections is an insistence

that the 60-odd protesters who have

been jailed — mainly for brandishing

the flag of the Berber minority — be lib-

erated, that gestures of harassment

aimed at media outlets be stopped and

that Algerians’ newfound appetite for

denouncing past abuses and demanding

democracy not be interfered with.

If not willing to unleash a violent

crackdown, the authorities have begun

tiptoeing toward repression.

“The regime has begun to restrict the

protest space,” said Abdelwahab Fer-

saoui, recalling the moment two weeks

ago when dozens of police showed up to

break up his meeting of a protest organi-

zation, the Youth Action Group.

Others have had similar episodes. Mr.

Bouchachi, the human rights lawyer, is

no longer given authorization by the au-

thorities to speak at the universities.

He and others in the protest move-

ment have been infuriated by the im-

prisonment of a legendary figure from

Algeria’s near-sacred war of independ-

ence against France 60 years ago,

Lakhdar Bouregaa. He is accused of

making anti-army statements, and

there is a widespread call for his release.

The interim president whose term ex-

pired earlier this month but who is still

in office, the Bouteflika loyalist Abdelka-

der Bensalah, said that he was “avail-

able” 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 opposition.

“I had hoped that this country would

have changed, already. We are the fu-

ture here,” said Yousra Nemouchi, a 20-

year-old student who marched on a re-

cent day. “We want to be heard by this

government.”

“We’ve gotten rid of the president, but

they are still arresting people for talk-

ing,’’ Ms. Nemouchi said. ‘‘But still, I

think already we have achieved a lot.”

Standoff over who’s in charge in Algeria

ALGIERS

Street protests continue

as regime wavers between

suppression and reform

BY ADAM NOSSITER

Above, demonstrators in Algiers taking

part in a pro-democracy march. Algeria’s

de facto ruler, Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah,

left, has denounced the “poisonous ideas”

of the twice-a-week protests but has

avoided using violence on the crowds.

RAMZI BOUDINA/REUTERS

ANIS BELGHOUL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Over more than 20 years as a Spanish

police commissioner, José Manuel Vil-

larejo rubbed shoulders with politicians,

judges, journalists, aristocrats and busi-

ness leaders. He was decorated six

times, including for helping Spain fight

terrorists. Still, he was a relatively un-

known figure to the Spanish public.

All of that changed 20 months ago, af-

ter he was arrested.

Today the onetime police hero sits at

the center of a tangle of 10 investigations

by Spanish prosecutors. They accuse

him of having worked an illicit and lu-

crative sideline for years as a secret

fixer for Spain’s rich and powerful, who

they say used his services to spy on

their rivals and smear their enemies.

With his trim white beard, glasses and

cap, Mr. Villarejo, 67, is now one of

Spain’s most recognized faces. But it is

his voice that has sent shock waves

through nearly every part of the Span-

ish establishment.

Mr. Villarejo secretly recorded his nu-

merous dealings. Even as he sits in jail,

snippets of those conversations are sur-

facing in the Spanish news media. The

leaks have made it clear that the retired

police commissioner may well have dirt

on just about everyone who is anyone

among Spain’s political and business

elite.

“He recorded absolutely everything

— all his phone calls and meetings — so

we know that it’s a huge archive,” said

Joaquín Vidal, the director of Moncloa-

.com, an online publication that has re-

leased several of Mr. Villarejo’s record-

ings without explaining how it got them.

“He was somehow allowed to operate

from the shadows while becoming a

front-line actor in some of the key events

of the recent history of Spain,” Mr. Vidal

said.

The recordings, combined with Mr.

Villarejo’s court testimony, have opened

a window onto a world of dirty tricks at

the top reaches of power in Spain. They

have spawned numerous investiga-

tions, including whether Spain’s former

conservative government used the spe-

cial “patriotic police” — a secretive unit

working for the Interior Ministry — to

tarnish political opponents.

Mr. Villarejo learned his way around

the underworld while stationed in the

Basque region, as part of an antiterror-

ism unit responsible for dismantling the

separatist group ETA, for which he re-

ceived his first medal in the 1970s.

He then spent a decade on leave from

the police, dedicating himself to un-

specified business activities, before re-

joining the police in Madrid in the 1990s

and resuming his rise up the ranks. But

his undercover work also stretched far

beyond Spain.

His career began to unravel in 2016 af-

ter investigators stumbled across mil-

lions of euros that they say Mr. Villarejo

had hidden offshore.

Among their discoveries, prosecutors

say, Mr. Villarejo was paid 5.3 million eu-

ros, or $5.9 million, from the govern-

ment of President Teodoro Obiang

Nguema Mbasogo — who has been in

power in Equatorial Guinea, a former

Spanish colony, since 1979 — to help the

African leader tarnish his political oppo-

nents.

Since Mr. Villarejo’s arrest, judges

have frozen millions of euros’ worth of

assets controlled by companies that he

and associates used to buy properties in

Spain, as well as a hotel in Punta del

Este, the fashionable beach resort in

Uruguay.

Today, prosecutors are pursuing

charges against him, including bribery

and money laundering. About 50 other

people, including some other police

chiefs, have also been indicted in the

sprawling series of investigations.

Mr. Villarejo denies the accusations

and says his companies were set up as

part of his undercover work, mandated

by the highest levels of government.

In fact, he says, he carried out his

work on behalf of the Spanish state. He

has portrayed himself as a loyal soldier

of the Spanish government, its police

and even its secret service, which he

says has now betrayed him.

“There has been an attempt to de-

monize him as the public enemy No. 1

when it is exactly the opposite,” Mr. Vil-

larejo’s lawyer, Antonio José García Ca-

brera, told reporters in January.

“Mr. Villarejo forms part of the state

structure, he has helped political parties

and governments in the missions that he

was assigned as an undercover agent,”

the lawyer said. “If things have to come

out, then everything should come out

and be made public.”

That defense has deepened questions

of whether parts of the Spanish state

and government improperly deployed

members of the police and security

services to smear and attack opponents.

“This is a very serious scandal,” said

Diego Muro, a Spanish lecturer at the

University of St Andrews in Scotland.

The big question, he said, is whether

Mr. Villarejo’s activities provide “proof

that there is a ‘deep state’ that governs

in the shadows.’’

In a television interview shortly be-

fore entering jail, Mr. Villarejo said that

he was ready to disclose his secrets “be-

fore I suffer a traffic accident.” At the

time of his arrest, the police and pros-

ecutors say, they confiscated about 20

terabytes of encrypted material from

Mr. Villarejo’s computers.

It is not clear who leaked the record-

ings. But their authenticity has not been

challenged; the people recorded by Mr.

Villarejo have only denied wrongdoing;

they don’t deny having talked to him.

Many are paying a price already.

Dolores Delgado, Spain’s justice min-

ister, told Parliament that she had been

the victim of “political blackmail” by

right-wing opponents after a recording

was leaked in which Mr. Villarejo asked

her during a group lunch to identify any

gay person among her entourage. Ms.

Delgado named Fernando Grande-Mar-

laska, who is now Spain’s interior min-

ister and is openly gay.

In one of his recordings, Mr. Villarejo

talks about having seven copies of the

conversations that relate to the mon-

archy’s finances.

In another, a Danish-born aristocrat,

Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, who was

romantically linked to King Juan Carlos,

can be heard complaining about being

used by the monarch to hide some of his

wealth offshore.

A spokesman for the royal household

declined to comment.

In one recording, Mr. Villarejo

boasted of earning “a lot of cash” to pro-

vide damaging information on behalf of

the Spanish state against Catalan poli-

ticians, at a time when a secessionist

conflict was reaching a boiling point.

That claim is now part of a court investi-

gation into whether Spain’s former con-

servative government also tried to tar-

nish opponents in the left-wing Pode-

mos party.

Shortly after Podemos entered Parlia-

ment in 2015, shattering Spain’s long-

standing two-party system, the Spanish

news media published articles about

how the party and its founder, Pablo

Iglesias, were illegally financed by Ira-

nian and Venezuelan money, citing an

undisclosed police report. The conser-

vative party of Mariano Rajoy, the prime

minister at the time, used the news to

set up a Senate commission to scrutinize

the financing of Podemos and other rival

parties.

In March, Mr. Villarejo acknowledged

in court having investigated Mr. Iglesias

as part of a police operation. But he de-

nied being part of a political campaign to

discredit Podemos. Mr. Iglesias has de-

nied receiving illegal financing.

Some journalists have been indicted

as part of an investigation into whether

they helped Mr. Villarejo spread fake

media scandals as part of government

campaigns to smear opponents.

But Mr. Villarejo is also accused of

spying on reporters, like Iñigo de Bar-

ron, a financial journalist at the newspa-

per El País. The journalist has said that

his cellphone was tapped by Mr. Vil-

larejo in the summer of 2016, while he

was reporting on management changes

at BBVA, one of Spain’s largest banks.

BBVA has confirmed that Mr. Vil-

larejo worked for the bank during the

long tenure of its former chairman,

Francisco González, but it would not say

what he was paid for, pending the result

of a court investigation in which several

other executives of the bank have been

indicted.

Mr. González stepped down in De-

cember, three months ahead of sched-

ule, just before the Spanish news media

released recordings in which Mr. Vil-

larejo and the bank’s security chief can

be heard discussing their wiretapping

work.

The voice sending shudders through Spain’s establishment

MADRID

BY RAPHAEL MINDER

José Manuel Villarejo, a former police

commissioner accused of bribery, in 2016.

He secretly taped top officials in Spain.

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