Algeria Cracks Down

Anti-government protests in Algeria have left 10 more people dead, including five members of the security forces, residents and Algerian newspapers said Tuesday. The government banned all demonstrations in the capital.

Four people including a paramilitary gendarme and a policeman were killed during clashes Monday night in the Berber town of Akbou, about 90 miles east of Algiers, residents said.

In Batna, 270 miles southeast of Algiers, a 15-year-old boy was killed and several public buildings were ransacked as hundreds of youths fought street battles with security forces Monday, residents said.

The daily Liberte said three gendarmes had been killed in clashes in Kabylie, where the protests began in April after the death of a teen-ager in police custody and where at least 52 protesters were shot dead by security forces in April and May.

Near Tebessa, 400 miles southeast of the capital, a hotel owner in the village of Chre killed two protesters who were trying to set his building on fire, Le Matin reported. He was himself seriously wounded and the hotel was eventually set ablaze by rioters.

Four died as a result of a massive protest in the capital last week.

In a statement late Monday, the government said it was determined "to tackle serious excesses … during the tragic and painful events that have taken place in recent days." It said it would ban all protest marches in Algiers until further notice.

It accused unnamed groups of exploiting events to "drag the country into chaos and anarchy."

France, Algeria's former colonial ruler, cast a critical eye on the North African government on Tuesday, calling the people's movement "profoundly legitimate."

France "is very sensitive to the demand, the desire, the call that has risen from the depths of Algeria's people for real change, for a return to political, democratic, economic and social modernization," Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told France's National Assembly.

"We feel that this reasoning and this demand are profoundly legitimate," Vedrine said.

Algeria's wave of unrest was sparked in April after a student was shot and killed while in police custody in Kabyle. Hundreds of young Algerians took to the streets daily across the region, where relations with the Algiers-based authorities have been tense for decades.

The Berbers, who claim to be the original inhabitants of North Africa, have long demanded more recognition, including an official status for their language, Tamazight.

At first the protesters focused on Berber demands and called for an end to alleged "abuses of power" by police in the region.

But the police shooting of dozens of protesters transformed a regional issue into national discontent.

Last Thursday, close to a million people demonstrated in Algiers, in what was described by organizers as a "march for democracy." But the protest turned violent, with riot police using water cannon and tear gas to push back demonstrators trying to rech the presidential palace.

Protesters smashed hotel entrances, threw stones at riot police and set fire to buildings and cars.

Four people were killed, including two journalists, by a bus as it sped away from a burning depot. Authorities said 365 people were injured, including 36 police officers.

The recent protests have overshadowed a nine-year insurgency by Islamic militants who are seeking to topple the government. The uprising has claimed more than 100,000 lives since it started in 1992, when the army canceled elections a Muslim fundamentalist party was set to win.

The recent riots are not linked to the insurgency, and most Berbers dislike the fundamentalists as much as they dislike the army-backed government.

Algeria is more than three times the size of Texas and home to 31.1 million people. It is not clear how many are Berbers, although about 12 million people speak the Berber language, spread through Algeria, Libya and Morocco.

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