North Africa's time bomb

The death of Mohamed Bouazizi has sparked a wave of protests throughout Tunisia, which have now extended to neighboring Algeria. Bouazizi, a computer science graduate who had been unemployed since leaving university, set fire to himself in front of a police station after officers destroyed his fruit stand and arrested him for not having a license to sell his wares on the street.

His desperate gesture has ignited long-simmering anger among young people with no hope of a decent future, who are ruled over by corrupt and dictatorial regimes. For the moment, the protests in Tunisia have left at least eight people dead, and an estimated 100 arrests. In Algeria news is beginning to emerge, with an official figure of three deaths after a series of violent clashes between demonstrators and the police in different towns and cities around the country.

The potentially explosive situation in North Africa has long been known, but after the latest incidents, the international community- notably the United States and the European Union- will be obliged to reconsider the policies it has pursued in recent years. Washington and Brussels' security needs cannot be the only basis for relations with these regimes, with the need for democratization and economic development in the region pushed aside.

Finding a way to balance all three requirements may not be easy, but if the political and social situation there continues to deteriorate, it will be harder still. The Tunisian president, Ben Ali, won his fifth consecutive five-year term of office in the country's first multi-party elections last year, which were regarded as fraudulent by many outsiders. The incumbent won more than 86 percent of the vote. The governments of Europe kept their silence, and only Washington expressed concern at the absence of independent observers.

In return for the West's tacit support, Ben Ali has offered himself as an ally in the so-called war on terrorism, and has made Tunisia among the more outwardly modern states of the region, particularly regarding women's rights. But this appearance of modernity is no excuse for Ben Ali to continue holding on to power. The situation in Algeria differs little, despite the regime there paying lip service to vague principles of socialism.

Just because Islamist radicals have sought to capitalize on the unrest does not mean that there are not serious and deep-rooted problems in North Africa. This has been shown by the lightning speed with which the protests have spread following the shocking suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi.

These countries are also blighted by corruption and a lack of basic freedoms. The current unrest is a new sign- simply the latest- of a situation that cannot last indefinitely, demonstrating that we cannot count on the support of these regimes if it comes at the expense of their populations. Such a policy is taking the West down a dead end, and is for North Africa itself a time bomb which, if it goes off, will be very difficult to control.