Algiers echoes to chants of justice for Berbers
By G.
Dunkel
A protest in Algiers on May 31 against repression of the
Berbers drew hundreds of thousands. One Algerian newspaper
said 100,000; the French press said 200,000; a Swiss report
said 400,000; the organizers, the Front of Socialist Forces
(FFS), said 600,000.
They came in these vast numbers even though they knew they
might be marching into a massacre. The police have killed at
least 70 people by official count in the last six weeks of
protests in the Berber area known as the Kabylie.
The marchers called the regime a "dictatorship" and a
"government of murderers." They demand that the generals
responsible for killing, torturing and disappearing so many
Algerians be "brought to justice." "Oh generals, the people
are in front of you; the courts are behind you. Where are you
going to go?" was a popular chant among student
contingents.
The families and friends of some 30,000 "disappeareds"
made up a large contingent, carrying portraits of their loved
ones.
The only incident reported came as the march was
dispersing, when the cops paid some youths, according to an
eyewitness report in the French newspaper Libération,
to throw stones at the marchers, who threw them back. About
18 people were lightly injured.
The FFS has released an open letter to the Algerian
president and the top generals in the army demanding that
they start talks with all segments of Algerian civil society
to resolve the current crisis.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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