Toute la Clique au Poteau

A file of soldiers wearing red berets and paratroop uniforms edged through the narrow, dark alleys of Algiers' casbah. A shot from a rooftop tumbled one of the soldiers onto the garbage-strewn cobbles, triggering a savage, five-hour battle in which brother killed brother. As the fighting spread, a veiled Moslem woman in a doorway rocked back and forth in grief, keening, "How can this happen? How can this happen?"

World Shame. Her distraught question got no sensible answer from any of the antagonists. After two months of freedom, Algeria is on the edge of anarchy and civil war, its leaders have been shamed before the world, its people humiliated.

The quarrel in Algeria is one of personalities, not of politics alone; the issue, not how to run the nation but who should run it. The country's six wilayas (military districts) have split into unequal parts.

Four wilaya chiefs support the Politburo, headed by volatile Ahmed ben Bella ; so does the 45,000-man regular army commanded by lean, tuberculous Colonel Houari Boumedienne. In opposition are the 20.000 troops of Wilaya 4, which consists of Algiers and the surrounding countryside, and is commanded by a 28-year-old former medical student, Colonel Si Hassan, who has the same Marxist views as his archfoe, Boumedienne. The 10,000 seasoned guerrilla fighters of Wilaya j, covering the rugged mountains of Kaby-lia, also oppose Ben Bella and have promised to come to Si Hassan's aid if the Politburo and Colonel Boumedienne try to seize Algiers.

For a time during last week's blood letting, no one seemed to know who the enemy was -- or, for that matter, what the shooting was all about. Finally, a Wilaya 4 officer explained that some 500 well-armed men loyal to the Politburo had entered Algiers disguised as civilians and were scattered in small groups all over town. The young leaders of Wilaya 4 vaguely accused the Politburo of "betraying the martyrs of the revolution.'' For their part, the officers admit to murders and lootings but argue, in one officer's words: "Why should we respect the wealth of the colonialists while the families of heroes live in shacks?" The Italian consul was shot by mistake; the wife of the Swedish consul was raped and robbed -- apparently under the impression that she was a Frenchwoman. Complaints by the diplomatic corps were waved aside as coming only from "members of the NATO nations." In a desperate bid for power, Ben Bella last week ordered Boumediejine to use force to liberate Algiers. But it was three days before the first army column crossed into Wilaya 4 and clashed with enemy patrols at Berrouaghia, 75 miles south of Algiers. Ben Bella boasted that the city would fall within 24 hours.

"Bread, Houses, Work." While the Algerian commanders were behaving more and more like old-style Chinese warlords, the Algerian people were wearying of conflict. Mobs surged through the city in defiance of the curfew, disgustedly shouting: "Seven years of war is enough." Said one of their leaders: "We don't want fighting among brothers. We don't want a Congo here." Over and over, the crowds roared: "Toute la clique au poteau [To hell with everybody]." Most ominous note for the squabbling leaders was a silent march by 16,000 members of the powerful Union of Algerian Workers. At the Algiers prefecture they presented a declaration calling for a truce, a reunion of all the leaders of the revolution and immediate elections. Banners carried by the workers read simply: BREAD, HOUSES, WORK. But there was no sign last week of a political leader mature or strong enough to pacify and unite the nation behind those aims.

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