Angry Algerians

SOYMB previously reported on the troubles in Tunisia and it appears that Algeria is not immune to similar discontent.

Algeria has seen three days of unrest over the rising costs of living and unemployment, which government figures show standing at about 10 per cent, but which independent organisations put closer to 25 per cent. Algerian authorities have vowed to punish those responsible for nationwide food riots in which at least four people were reported killed and more than 800 injured. Around 1,000 protestors had been arrested, many of them minors, during the weekend disturbances.

The government on Saturday said it will cut taxes and import duties on some staple foods, amid a series of deadly riots that have killed at least three people. According to state media, a meeting of ministers in the capital Algiers agreed to measures which would reduce the price of sugar and cooking oil by 41 per cent.

Layachi Ansar, professor of sociology at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera that the cutting of food taxes and duties was "a superficial measure" that doesn't address "the deep crisis" going on in Algeria, connected with the "unequal distribution of wealth - this wealth is spoilt by corruption, by bad governance and lack of accountability of government officials and state civil servants".

Dalila Hanache, an Algerian journalist with the news website Echorouk, said that the protests went beyond just rising prices. "I hear young people in the neighbourhood who say these clashes and protests are not the result of high food prices only, they think there are lots of problems in this country - educational, problems in the health sectors, in all sectors of government," she told Al Jazeera.

Mohamed Ben Madani, editor of The Maghreb Review, said the situation was "out of control" and that the protests could continue for weeks. "The government simply ignored the people since they were elected to office and basically now they [the people] have come out into the streets asking the authorities to give them jobs and to share the wealth of the nation," he told Al Jazeera.

Mohamed Zitout, a former Algerian diplomat, told Al Jazeera: "It is a revolt, and probably a revolution, of an oppressed people who have, for 50 years, been waiting for housing, employment, and a proper and decent life in a very rich country. "But unfortunately it is ruled by a very rich elite that does not care about what is happening in the country - because they did not give people what they want, even though the government has the means to do so, the people are now revolting.