ALGERIA: Inhabitants of Algeria's Cilest slum expect nothing from upcoming parliamentary elections

Record ID: 573543

  • Title: ALGERIA: Inhabitants of Algeria's Cilest slum expect nothing from upcoming parliamentary elections
  • Date: 15th May 2007
  • Summary: SLATE INFORMATION
  • Embargoed: 30th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Algeria
  • Country: Algeria
  • Topics: Domestic Politics,Social Services / Welfare
  • Reuters ID: LVA5HKK1J700DQ57M8KDMPV2NJ4I
  • Story Text: As Algeria prepares to go to the polls in a parliamentary election, poverty and discontent are rife in the Cilast slum in Algiers, similar to the slum where the suicide bombers who carried out attacks in the city in April came from.
    Visit the tin-roofed shacks of Algiers' Cilest slum and you will find plenty of poverty and discontent but little expectation that parliamentary polls set for tthursday (May 17) will bring change for the better.
    Like many in Algeria, a north African oil-exporting country, inhabitants of this pocket of urban poverty feel the polls -- which the ruling FLN party is expected to dominate -- are unlikely to be transparent and parliament serves little purpose.
    And many see peril in such disillusion -- it was a shantytown similar to Cilest, after all, where one of the suicide bombers who carried attacks in Algiers on April 11 that killed 33 people came from.
    That shantytown has since been re-named "Kamikaze", and was home to Marwan Boudin, who grew up in the huddle of 200 brick, corrugated iron and plastic shanty homes.
    Like the inhabitants of Kamikaze, the 50 or so families of Cilest in the Beni Masous area in west Algiers, one of the capital's oldest slums, have little hope the May 17 polls will usher in solutions to the unemployment and homelessness that plague Algeria.
    Cilest resident Lakhdar Farsi says they simply want the candidates to pay more attention to their plight.
    "We would want them to show concern for us, this shantytown is a major crisis in my opinion," he said.
    Providing jobs, improving housing, health and education and reducing reliance on oil are key to stabilizing Algerian society, which is still reeling from a decade of violence in the 1990s and shocked by a recent resurgence in bombings by Islamist armed groups.
    One of Africa's most brutal conflicts, the 1990s struggle between the army and Islamist armed groups cost an estimated 200,000 lives and caused damage estimated at $20 billion.
    But the abiding conviction is that the 389-seat assembly is dominated by a powerful executive and made up of politicians happy to rubber stamp its decisions.
    Cilast resident Mohammed says the candidates visit when it is politically opportune, and then vanish.
    "All of the candidates come here before elections but they don't come back after the elections," he said.
    For the forgotten residents of slums like Cilest and Kamikaze the April attacks have brought sudden notoriety and often unwelcome attention from the media.
    The bombs were a reminder that the social failings that helped fuel the rise of Islamist parties in the 1980s and early 1990s fester still, despite the current oil and gas bonanza.
    Critics blame incompetent management and reliance on Soviet-style command economics.
    Whatever the root cause of the attacks, they have undoubtedly increased anxiety in Algiers on the cusp of the elections, and raised fears of a return to the violence of the 1990s.
    The triple suicide bombing on April 11 was claimed by Al Qaeda's North Africa wing, and which called on Algerians to boycott the elections, which it condemned as a "farce", according to news reports.
    In this video, released by an unnamed group, the suicide bomber who carried out the first attack nears Algiers' airport, Marwan Boudin, is seen giving a statement with video of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden above him and footage of the aftermath of the attack in the background.
    The blasts were believed to be the country's first suicide bomb attacks. One ripped off part of the facade of the prime minister's headquarters, while two others hit a police station and a neighbouring gendarmerie office in the eastern outskirts of the capital.
    Only two of the bombers have been identified - Boudin and Hocine BenChihab, who was from a middle class area in Algiers.
    Other videos released on the internet show the actual explosions from the attack on the police station as well as footage of militant groups training in the 1990's and carrying out attacks on Algerian soldiers.
    The group that carried out the April 11 attacks was previously known as the Salafist Group for Combat and Training (GSPC) and had previously focused its attacks on police and army targets.
    In January, however, the group changed its name to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and began focusing on attacks in urban areas where the danger of killing civilians is much higher.
    There had been cautious optimism that the government was winning its war against militants until recently, with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika having offered an amnesty for Islamist rebels last year as part of a peace and reconciliation policy aimed at ending almost 15 years of political violence.
    But al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb's chief, Abdelmalek Droudkel, has rejected the amnesty offer and vowed to fight on until purist Islamic rule is established.
    And with the country mired in economic stagnation and political discontent, there is little hope that tomorrow's elections will solve the deep seated problems that have caused so much Algerian blood to be spilt over the years.
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