Bomb Kills 8 in Algeria as Election Campaign Opens

A powerful car bomb on the first day of Algeria’s presidential election campaign killed eight people and wounded 82 amid fears that the election could provoke more bloodshed in the violence-plagued North African nation.

Three children between the ages of 6 and 9 were among the dead in Sunday’s blast, officials said. State-controlled media said the explosion also damaged 20 houses in the town of Relizane, 150 miles southwest of Algiers, the Algerian capital.

As many as 50,000 people may have died in nearly four years of civil strife in Algeria, and the tempo of killing increased even before campaigning started for the Nov. 16 election.

Four men, including incumbent President Liamine Zeroual, are running in the election, which is being boycotted by the main legal opposition parties.

In New York, Zeroual canceled a controversial meeting he was to have held with French President Jacques Chirac, adding political shock waves to the campaign countdown.

Chirac and Zeroual, who had planned to talk while in New York to mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, did meet briefly with U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to lay out terms for a fuller meeting. Zeroual, however, insisted on opening the meeting to reporters and called the whole thing off after Chirac insisted on private talks.

France, the former colonial authority in Algeria, has been sucked into that country’s growing violence. Bomb attacks in France have killed seven people and injured more than 140 since July 25, and Paris has blamed Algerians trying to end what militants see as French backing for the Algerian government.

French politicians and Algeria’s secular opposition parties warned Chirac against giving his apparent blessing to Zeroual as a candidate merely by meeting him.

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An Arabic newspaper said Algeria’s militant Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, had sent an ultimatum to France saying Chirac must not meet Zeroual and Paris must suspend all aid to and diplomatic relations with Algiers.

Many Algerians fear that, despite increased security evident in road checkpoints, the election campaign will see more deaths before any political or other benefit can come from the election.

Similar fears have been expressed overseas. The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said last month that the slaughter of civilians had increased in the run-up to the election and that more efforts must be made to halt the carnage.