By William Maclean
ALGIERS (Reuters) - Sporadic riots in OPEC member Algeriathis year risk triggering wider protests against a politicalelite slow to turn unprecedented oil wealth into jobs andhomes.
Street clashes are a prickly issue in Algeria, a major gasexporter to Europe with a record of rebellion and where youthriots in 1988 forced the authorities to abandon one-party rule.
The country of 33 million people is still searching forstability following an undeclared civil war in the 1990s thatcost more than 150,000 lives. The violence erupted after thecancellation of a general election in 1992 which a now-outlawedMuslim fundamentalist party was poised to win.
There is very little risk of a return to the bloodshed ofthe 1990s, Algerians say. But a return to nationwide civildisturbances that shook the north African country in 2001-02and 1988 cannot be ruled out if violent protests continue.
"We have settled into a rioting phase which augurs nogood," wrote the independent El Watan newspaper.
Unemployed youths in the second city of Oran last weekspent three days ransacking banks, shops, cars and bars andfighting running battles with helmeted riot police firing teargas.
PETTY THUGS
The immediate trigger was anger over the relegation of thetown's soccer team to the second division. Commentators saidthat while the instigators may have been petty thugs, anatmosphere of despair over social ills helped draw in otheryouths and spread the turmoil to central districts.
The unrest followed street protests in dozens of othertowns in recent months over worsening economic and socialconditions.
Police have so far adopted a measured approach in tacklingthe disturbances, using tear gas and baton charges in townssuch as Chlef, Oran and Berriane, but if rioters are killed therisk to national stability would grow, analysts say
Former prime minister Ahmed Benbitour, a critic of what hecalls the unresponsiveness of the army-backed administration,said the unrest showed the authorities should pre-empt moreunrest by promoting transparency and cleaner government.
"We need to work rapidly for change and set the conditionsfor its success in the interest of the Algerian people, orchange will impose itself by force," he told El Khabar daily.
Power is concentrated in the presidency, with parliamentseen as a rubber-stamp. Some 75 percent of under 30-year-oldsare unemployed and despite a state pledge to build a millionnew homes by 2009, demands for more housing are made daily.
"Citizens, above all the young, compare what goes on in thecountry to other nations. They seek a living standard and afuture akin to what they see on foreign TV," Benbitour said.
Communications Minister Abderrachid Boukerzaza said theOran disturbances "were at the centre of the concerns of thepublic authorities" and the government had embarked on aneffort to understand the violence and identify its causes.
Uppermost in many minds is concern to avoid a repeat of2001, when a local revolt in the Kabylie region triggered bythe death of a youth in police custody escalated into anational revolt against what protesters saw as authoritarianrule.
The government only defused the unrest when it agreed todemands to withdrew the paramilitary gendarmerie from Kabylie.
Some secular Algerians fear wider instability would presenta window of opportunity to banned Islamist groups seeking areturn to active politics: They could make political capital byusing their extensive networks of informal influence in mosquesand the black market to stabilize the situation, they argue.
(Editing by Giles Elgood)
