Oran Now ‘Ghost City’

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31449, 16 August 1967, Page 8

Oran Now ‘Ghost City’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter)

ORAN (Western Algeria).

The once thriving Mediterranean port of Oran, the only city to have an European majority in pre-independ-ent Algeria, is a ghost of its former self. This city of 320,000 inhabitants, almost all of them Algerians, appears to have made little progress on the road to rehabilitation after the seven-year war which culminated in independence in 1962.

Once, its population included about 210,000 Spaniards, Frenchmen, Greeks, Italians and Maltese. But they have now dwindled to only about one tenth of that total.

Flats and villas hurriedly abandoned by them during the exodus which accompanied independence lie j-huttered and empty. Steel grilles cover the windows of scores of shops. Huge skyscraper blocks of unfinished flats mar the city’s skyline, looking as if their French builders have just left for lunch, instead of five years ago. Unemployment, according to “El Djeich,” the Algerian Army’s monthly, is considerable. Business is bad and money tight. But the biggest chance for

I some old-time inhabitants is that Oran has become a sad city. Before independence its cafes and bars hummed with life; its restaurants were crowded late into the night, Spanish style. There are still nightclubs in Oran. But many are deserted. The Martinez, one of the city’s leading hotels and once a hive of activity, was described by one recent traveller as a first-class undertaker’s parlour. Its walls need a coat of paint, its carpets are worn, all its clocks appear to have stopped. But food and service are good. Outside, in the Avenue Clemenceau, now renamed Emir Abdelkader, after an Algerian national hero, the window displays are attractive. But residents complain that shops open irregularly and stocks are limited.

“El Djeich” estimated that shipping was down 50 per cent, although one expert, with pre-independence experience of Oran, put it at only about one third of its former level. Banks report a similar trend.

There are only about 100 doctors in the city, compared with more than four times that number before independence. Many young people are reported to feel that emigration to France is one of the few ways to ensure their future.

In recent municipal elections, about 56,000 people, out of an electorate of 150,000, cast spoiled ballots in voting for the single list of candidates sponsored by the ruling National Liberation Front Usually reliable sources report that the subsequent inquest led to the dismissal of the local party chief and one of bis principal assistants. Yet Oran is still an elegant city, palm-lined boulevards, colonial rococo buildings and modern skyscrapers. In the theatre on the main square, crowds turned out to watch a recent performance by Marcel Marceau, a gifted French mimic. Few scars remain of the last-ditch terrorist action by the clandestine Secret Army Organisation which vowed to keep Algeria French. Oran wu one of its last strongholds, and the scene of countless plastic bomb outrages. In addition, the Oran area, the basic source of wealth, of which is agriculture, was faced with a bad harvest last year, as well as difficulties over exporting its wine production to France.

The Algerian Government is acutely aware of the economic problems which face Oran. Its main hope of a remedy are based on the neighbouring petroleum port of Arzew, and three major industrial plants—a steel mill.

a glass works, and a textile factory. Arzew has developed out of all recognition since independence. It is one of Algeria’s main petroleum exporting points and the port through which the country's natural gas exports pass to Britain and France. Both the steel mill and the glass works were Frenchowned before independence. They are still believed to be the largest plants of their kind in North Africa. The steel plant, now in the hands of a workers’ selfmanagement committee, produced more than 50,000 tons of steel and steel products last year, although it had difficulty in finding markets for the latter.

The glass works, which are run directly by the state, produced 16,000,000 tons of products, 50 per cent of them for export. The $6,000,000 textile factory, a relatively new industry for the area, was opened just over a year ago with Jugoslav aid.