Algeria: Poverty & Playthings

The sweet taste of independence has turned bitter for many an Algerian.

Eighteen months after the former French colony won freedom, 2,000,000 of its citizens, or fully two-thirds of the labor force, are unemployed. The mass flight of French capitalists and technicians, plus Strongman Ahmed ben Bella's "socialist" confiscations, have shuttered or snarled factories across the land. Outright starvation has been averted in many areas only by government handouts of U.S. gift wheat. Last week discontent boiled up in Oran—in Ben Bella's own home region.

The blowup occurred after the government suddenly shut down a make-work project—the clearing of refuse from a bidonville (shantytown)—laying off 2,500 men. Next morning angry groups, armed with iron bars, paving stones and bicycle chains, marched on the prefecture, smashing shop windows, overturning market stalls, paralyzing traffic. Before the prefecture the mob, grown to 2,000 persons, chanted "Bread!", "Down with unemployment!" and "Vive Abbas, Vive Benkhedda!" (Ferhat Abbas and Benyoussef Benkhedda, middle-road nationalists who have broken with Ben Bella). Several demonstrators broke into the building, tossed files out of windows. Not until 250 soldiers arrived and opened fire, reportedly wounding ten persons, was the daylong riot quelled.

The disorders were the boldest challenge to Ben Bella since last September's Berber revolt. Fearful that they might spread, Algeria's President set up special "revolutionary criminal courts" to deal with "crimes that create exceptional troubles against public order." In Oran police tribunals efficiently rapped out convictions for 22 accused demonstrators on the first day of the trials, sentenced them to prison terms of up to two years. The stiffest penalties were meted out to three youths accused of looting. But if the fruits of freedom were meager for most Algerians, there were some predictable plums for their left-leaning leader. On the eve of the Oran protests, Ben Bella accepted a New Year's present from Nikita Khrushchev: a Russian-made 11-18 airliner, delivered (complete with Russian crew) for Ben Bella's personal use.