ALGERIA: An unnatural disaster

BY AMANDA ZIVCIC

"This building went up two years ago. It was corruption that brought it down", Algerian student Abelzak told Reuters, as he surveyed the damage of the vastly under-reported May 21 earthquake that left 2200 Algerians dead and more than 8000 wounded.

"The realtors are all crooks! If you see the buildings that date to the French colonial period, some of them are 150 years old! They didn't budge ... [The realtors'] buildings, made of cement watered down with sand, collapsed", an exasperated Algerian taxi driver explained to the press.

Following the earthquake, many families slept in parks and in the streets instead of their homes, fearing aftershocks would bring down the remaining houses. Algerians are blaming rampant corruption, and the resulting violations of building codes, for much of the massive death t oll and devastation of the earth quake.

This corruption throughout much of Algeria's industry, including construction, is just another effect of the government's massive privatisation plan, justified by the claim that it would boost the tourist economy.

This "boost", however, has not translated into an easier life for Algeria's population. Rather, it has brought an increase in outsourcing at the expense of local unionised employment, profit-driven shortcuts at the expense of building regulations and construction on land of dubious stability. The people who live in these newly constructed buildings are the ones who can only afford housing of this standard.

The savings have certainly not translated into more funding for Algeria's basic services. When Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia visited the injured in a hospital in the quake zone, he greeted dozens of "patients" who were lying on the grass outside the building.

The government unsuccessfully attempted to ban the formation of local, cooperatively run, community collectives to combat the effects of the earthquake, which measured 6.8 on the Richter scale. Instead, the ministry recommended that people wait for "endorsed services". Most of the official aid ended up, not in Thenia — the epicentre of the quake — but in Algiers, 65 kilometres away.

This earthquake did not have to be this bad. The enormous death toll, the inability of hospitals to cope with the influx of wounded, the disproportionate effect on the poor — all these could have been avoided. The earthquake may have been a "natural disaster", but there was nothing natural about the devastating effect it has had.

From Green Left Weekly, June 25, 2003.

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From GLW issue 543