Faith's Fearsome Sword

By LARA MARLOWE ALGIERS

EVERYONE LIKED RAYMOND LOUzoum. Children would stop to stare at the marionettes in the window of his optical shop in downtown Algiers. With his fair hair and blue eyes, the tall, garrulous Tunisian Jew was often mistaken for a Frenchman. During 30 years in the city, Louzoum even played the role of a French colonel in an Algerian film on the war of independence. But in a city where foreigners are now targeted for death by Islamic militants, few people were surprised when a young man walked into Louzoum's shop in broad daylight last week and shot him dead, just a few hundred yards from a police checkpoint. His murder mocked government claims that "security and order are being restored."

Louzoum's assassination was a reminder that no one is safe in Algeria as a populist Islamic fundamentalist movement struggles to take power from the army-backed state. Despite an official state of emergency under strict military enforcement, more than 3,500 Algerians have been killed in the past two years, the head of state was assassinated 18 months ago, and two former Prime Ministers have packed their bags and moved to Paris.

In the two years since the powerful military canceled the first free parliamentary elections to forestall a Muslim fundamentalist victory, Algeria has plunged into its bloodiest crisis since the 1954-62 war of independence from France. The Islamic Salvation Front, seeking to turn the country into a religious state, has attracted the allegiance of millions in a population ripe with discontent after 30 years of misrule by the one-party socialist government. Declining oil revenues, crushing unemployment, rampant inflation and widespread government corruption have fueled a revolt against the old leadership and a crisis in national identity.

Under a harsh military crackdown on the Islamic Front, outlawed in 1992, the battle for Algeria has only worsened. Armed militants ambush police, assassinate officials and murder intellectuals and others opposed to the fundamentalist movement. Security forces arrest suspects at will, torture prisoners and sentence alleged rebels to death in extraconstitutional courts. The government attributes the daily civilian slayings to the Islamists. But Algerian and Western sources say antifundamentalist death squads, suspected of links to the security services, also operate during the nightly curfews, kidnapping Islamists or their relatives from home and dumping their bodies nearby.

The dangers are especially frightening for thousands of alien residents. Last autumn, militant Islamists threatened death to all foreigners who did not quit the country. "The terrorists play on people's nerves until they crack up and leave," says a member of the dwindling French community. Raymond Louzoum, who was married to a Muslim and had applied for Algerian nationality, did not want to go and so became the 27th victim. "He fitted my first pair of glasses when I was four years old," said a young woman who works in an office opposite the optician's shop, choking back tears. "If they had let the Islamists come to power, none of this would have happened."

Ordinary citizens have lost their bearings. In an attempt to turn Algerians against the Islamists, state television has been broadcasting a Swiss documentary on the murderous feuding among the mujahedin vying for power in Afghanistan. "I couldn't sleep after I saw it," says an Algiers housewife. "All those destroyed buildings and destroyed people. Is Kabul going to be our future?" But like many of her friends, this middle-class woman started wearing an Islamic head scarf after a female French diplomat was slain in an Algiers parking lot. "When I went shopping without a scarf, the vendors spoke to me in French and called me madame," she explains. "When I wear the scarf, they call me sister in Arabic."

For those who cannot obtain visas and the foreign currency to flee, life grows ever more difficult. Breadlines form outside bakeries at 6 a.m. Cooking oil, meat and basic medicines are virtually unobtainable for the poor. Garbage is no longer collected regularly, and refuse piles up in the streets.

For security forces, fundamentalist supporters and civilians alike, the threat of violence is everywhere at all times. In much of the countryside and in the poor slums of the capital, Algerians refer to security forces as the "government of the day" and the Islamic guerrillas as the "government of the night." Even in heavily policed areas of Algiers, the fundamentalists impose their rule by threats: residents are ordered to disconnect the "diabolic" satellite TV dishes that broadcast Western programs. Some shops selling alcohol, pop music and videocassettes have been forced to change merchandise or close. A police officer had his throat slashed in front of his wife and children last month when he was caught at a checkpoint set up by fundamentalist guerrillas wearing stolen police uniforms. These fake roadblocks, set up steadily closer to the capital, deter residents from venturing out after dark.

When the state of emergency was proclaimed two years ago, the government promised a conference of national dialogue to choose a new President and map out a transition back to stability and democratic elections. Algerians saw the plan as a last-ditch effort by the country's political class to cling to power, but it at least offered some hope of salvaging the nation's institutions. Last week all the main political parties, including the banned Islamic Front, boycotted the meeting, and the few that did attend walked out. "They keep bringing out the same old leaders. We don't want them anymore," said an Algerian journalist.

The military-dominated High Security Council is expected to name an army officer as President this week. Algerians are divided at the prospect. Those who regard themselves as democrats are clamoring for military rule as the best hope of avoiding a fundamentalist takeover. But on the streets of Algiers, support for the Islamic Front still runs high. "The authorities say they want a modern, democratic republic," says one supporter. "Instead they have given us corruption, poverty and a total absence of democracy."

Algerians have so far ignored Islamist appeals to rise up en masse. But as the economy continues to sink and violence spins toward anarchy, there are no signs of a real compromise between the military and the fundamentalists. Islamic leaders are losing authority to new, more militant armed insurrectionists who would probably continue their attacks even if a settlement were achieved. The army itself could split: while top brass are vehemently antifundamentalist, some junior officers and conscripts are believed to lean toward the Islamists. "It would mean civil war with tanks and MiG-27s," says a military analyst in Algiers.

"The victory of the fundamentalists is inevitable," says a French Defense Ministry official, who fears the Algerian government is too corrupt, inept and unpopular to last long. Paris is fearful, says another official, that a huge influx of refugees, up to 500,000, "would shake up the whole French political scene, giving strength to the far right and waking up a lot of evil genies." France and the U.S. both warn that if Algeria goes Islamic, a domino effect could ripple through North Africa, putting mounting pressure on nations like Tunisia and Morocco to negotiate better political deals with their own fundamentalist opposition. But the ultimate impact, say Washington analysts, would be on Egypt, already contending with a series of violent attacks by religious militants. For that reason, the U.S. has turned a blind eye to the draconian measures of the Algerian government to crush the Islamic threat by any means.

At the heart of the deepening crisis lies the conundrum of democracy. When a party calling for Islamic law stands to win a free election, should their wishes be respected if their use of democracy endangers the lives and freedom of opponents? It is an explosive question with powerful repercussions not only for Algeria but also for the rest of the Arab world.

With reporting by THOMAS SANCTON/PARIS