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Algerian protests gather momentum
Barbara Miller reported this story on Monday, February 14, 2011 18:31:00
MARK COLVIN: Unrest in another North African country Algeria is gathering momentum.
The French paper Le Monde estimated that 2,000 to 3,000 people took part in an anti-government rally in Algiers at the weekend, confronting about 30,000 police. And more demonstrations are in the offing.
It's a protest movement given momentum by recent turmoil in the region but analysts say that it would be misleading to make direct comparisons with the situation in Egypt and Tunisia.
Barbara Miller prepared this report.
(Sound of protests)
BARBARA MILLER: Unsurprisingly there were wide discrepancies in estimates of the number of protesters who gathered in downtown Algiers calling for reform - organisers said thousands; the police said just 250.
What's certain is that the authorities weren't taking any chances and riot police far outnumbered the protesters.
Algeria has a long history of violence and only emerged a decade ago from a civil conflict which claimed up to 200,000 lives.
In recent years food riots have again turned bloody.
But events in Egypt appear to have given impetus to the current wave of unrest.
Dr Benjamin MacQueen is a lecturer in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University.
BENJAMIN MACQUEEN: It hasn't really kick-started it. It has provided some sort of momentum and direction to it but these protests, this current round of protests has been going on since late last year, actually in a way pre-dated the events that happened in Tunisia earlier on too.
So it added momentum into the struggle against the regime but it's been sort of a longstanding tension.
(Sound of protests)
BARBARA MILLER: Members of France's sizeable Algerian community also staged protests at the weekend. Some called for the Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down. Others said that wasn't the issue.
VOX POP (translated): It's something that I hope will be realised in my lifetime, that this system gets kicked out. But Bouteflika himself is not important. It's the whole system behind him.
BARBARA MILLER: Benjamin MacQueen says unlike in Egypt he doesn't think in Algeria that the resignation of the president would be a make or break issue.
BENJAMIN MACQUEEN: There's some calls for him to go but he heads up a regime that is more sort of clearly split and has been split for a while between the military high command and this political elite.
And there's a much greater deal of pluralism within the Algerian political system than there is in Egypt. They run reasonably open parliamentary elections. You do have a number of organised political parties etc.
So the protests are calling for reform in terms of the state machinery itself, addressing needs, addressing unemployment, addressing housing shortages.
And particularly in terms of that I mean Algeria is, in theory, a wealth country with its oil and gas revenues and there's a great disparity of wealth that is born of that. So it's also a call for some more redistribution of that money.
BARBARA MILLER: Overnight the US State Department issued this statement:
US STATE DEPARTMENT STATEMENT: We note the ongoing protests in Algeria and call for restraint on the part of the security services.
In addition we reaffirm our support for the universal rights of the Algerian people, including assembly and expression. These rights apply on the internet. Moreover these rights must be respected.
We'll continue to follow the situation closely in the days ahead.
BARBARA MILLER: Benjamin MacQueen from Monash University says it's not just Washington closely monitoring developments in Algeria.
BENJAMIN MACQUEEN: Algeria's regime does symbolise a similar type of governmental arrangement that is present across many other Arab countries where you have a very strong executive and this sort of semi-open parliamentary system that does have some powers. You get a similar situation in Jordan, in Morocco, even to some extent in the Gulf.
So a challenge to that style of regime would hold, you know, quite significant implications for those countries.
But Algeria also is a major exporter of particularly natural gas to Europe and North America. So there is that added incentive there for global powers to try to maintain some measure of stability in terms of access to natural resources.
BARBARA MILLER: Algerian opposition groups say they're planning another demonstration this Friday.
MARK COLVIN: Barbara Miller.
The French paper Le Monde estimated that 2,000 to 3,000 people took part in an anti-government rally in Algiers at the weekend, confronting about 30,000 police. And more demonstrations are in the offing.
It's a protest movement given momentum by recent turmoil in the region but analysts say that it would be misleading to make direct comparisons with the situation in Egypt and Tunisia.
Barbara Miller prepared this report.
(Sound of protests)
BARBARA MILLER: Unsurprisingly there were wide discrepancies in estimates of the number of protesters who gathered in downtown Algiers calling for reform - organisers said thousands; the police said just 250.
What's certain is that the authorities weren't taking any chances and riot police far outnumbered the protesters.
Algeria has a long history of violence and only emerged a decade ago from a civil conflict which claimed up to 200,000 lives.
In recent years food riots have again turned bloody.
But events in Egypt appear to have given impetus to the current wave of unrest.
Dr Benjamin MacQueen is a lecturer in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University.
BENJAMIN MACQUEEN: It hasn't really kick-started it. It has provided some sort of momentum and direction to it but these protests, this current round of protests has been going on since late last year, actually in a way pre-dated the events that happened in Tunisia earlier on too.
So it added momentum into the struggle against the regime but it's been sort of a longstanding tension.
(Sound of protests)
BARBARA MILLER: Members of France's sizeable Algerian community also staged protests at the weekend. Some called for the Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down. Others said that wasn't the issue.
VOX POP (translated): It's something that I hope will be realised in my lifetime, that this system gets kicked out. But Bouteflika himself is not important. It's the whole system behind him.
BARBARA MILLER: Benjamin MacQueen says unlike in Egypt he doesn't think in Algeria that the resignation of the president would be a make or break issue.
BENJAMIN MACQUEEN: There's some calls for him to go but he heads up a regime that is more sort of clearly split and has been split for a while between the military high command and this political elite.
And there's a much greater deal of pluralism within the Algerian political system than there is in Egypt. They run reasonably open parliamentary elections. You do have a number of organised political parties etc.
So the protests are calling for reform in terms of the state machinery itself, addressing needs, addressing unemployment, addressing housing shortages.
And particularly in terms of that I mean Algeria is, in theory, a wealth country with its oil and gas revenues and there's a great disparity of wealth that is born of that. So it's also a call for some more redistribution of that money.
BARBARA MILLER: Overnight the US State Department issued this statement:
US STATE DEPARTMENT STATEMENT: We note the ongoing protests in Algeria and call for restraint on the part of the security services.
In addition we reaffirm our support for the universal rights of the Algerian people, including assembly and expression. These rights apply on the internet. Moreover these rights must be respected.
We'll continue to follow the situation closely in the days ahead.
BARBARA MILLER: Benjamin MacQueen from Monash University says it's not just Washington closely monitoring developments in Algeria.
BENJAMIN MACQUEEN: Algeria's regime does symbolise a similar type of governmental arrangement that is present across many other Arab countries where you have a very strong executive and this sort of semi-open parliamentary system that does have some powers. You get a similar situation in Jordan, in Morocco, even to some extent in the Gulf.
So a challenge to that style of regime would hold, you know, quite significant implications for those countries.
But Algeria also is a major exporter of particularly natural gas to Europe and North America. So there is that added incentive there for global powers to try to maintain some measure of stability in terms of access to natural resources.
BARBARA MILLER: Algerian opposition groups say they're planning another demonstration this Friday.
MARK COLVIN: Barbara Miller.
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