These mobilizations represent an important break in the 10-year-long civil war--which began when the government annulled elections won by the Islamic Salvation Front in 1991--in which 100,000 people have been killed, many as a result of government repression and right-wing attacks.

The recent mass actions, including a protest by hundreds of thousands May 21 in the city of Tizi Ouzou, are a response to a capitalist government that has pushed too far once too often. The mobilizations began in response to the death of an 18-year-old Berber high school student while in police custody, the latest of repeated abuses. Thousands took to the streets and battled cops in the city, galvanizing opposition to government brutality.

The actions have won support across the country, including among students in the capital who have staged their own demonstrations to back the demands of the Berbers. The protests have roots in the deteriorating economic conditions in the region, and demands for jobs, better housing, and an end to the growing impoverishment of workers and farmers have been raised at the demonstrations as well.

Over the past month government forces have killed up to 80 people, mostly youth. Fearing the mobilizations, the solidarity they have won, and some of the truth coming out in the media, the regime issued sharp curbs on the press. A number of actions opposing press restrictions have been organized by journalists and their supporters.

Algeria, like every other semicolonial country under the boot of imperialism, is crushed by an enormous foreign debt, suffers from high unemployment, and is saddled with an economy and infrastructure condemned to underdevelopment by the workings of the imperialist system of exploitation and oppression. In addition, the government in France--Algeria’s former colonial master, whose ruling families retain extensive interests in oil and other resources there--backed the annulment of the 1991 elections and armed the military junta to carry out widespread repression.

The struggle being waged by the Berbers and other working people in Algeria deserves the support of workers and farmers worldwide. To appreciate the significance of these events, it is worth reading and studying the lessons of the Algerian Revolution--how working people there waged a successful revolutionary struggle against French colonial rule and brought to power a workers and farmers government in 1963, which lasted for several years. These lessons are contained in The Workers and Farmers Government, by Joseph Hansen; "The Fight for A Workers and Farmers Government in the United States," in New International no. 4, by Jack Barnes; and For a Workers and Farmers Government in the United States, by Jack Barnes. The article by Mary-Alice Waters reprinted in this issue is a useful addition to this wealth of material.  
 
 
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