More than 5,000,000 Algerians last week voted for their nation's first Parliament. In the big coastal cities, a few of the 200,000 Europeans still remaining in Algeria lined up with turbaned Arabs. In the rugged Aurès Mountains, blond and blue-eyed Berbers gathered at the polling places. In the Sahara, "the veiled men in blue" of the Tuareg tribes and the secretive Mozabites cast their ballots beneath the feathery palms of remote oases.
Despite the show of democracy, the voters were apathetic, sickened by war and the clawing fights among their own leaders. By last week,...
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