Charlotte Touati, PhD – Affiliate researcher, University of Lausanne

 Tala Hamza is presented by the Algerian government as a national priority, a success story in the making, and a symbol of Africa taking control of its natural resources. But behind this official narrative lies a much darker reality—one marked by environmental destruction, suppression of the local population, and the creeping militarization of Kabylia.

Located near Bejaïa (Vgayet), the Tala Hamza zinc and lead mine spans 134 km² across the communes of Tala Hamza, Amizour, Boukhelifa, El Kseur, and Oued Ghir. The project has been underway since the mid-2000s, navigating a bumpy path shaped by high geopolitical stakes, clashes over sovereignty, local resistance, and foreign corporate involvement.

In 2006, Algeria’s National Company for Non-Ferrous Mining Products (ENOF), under the state group Manadjim El Djazaïr (Manal), entered a joint venture with Australian-listed company Terramin. This new entity, Western Mediterranean Zinc (WMZ), was initially 65% owned by Terramin and 35% by Algeria. The estimated deposit exceeds 60 million tons of ore, rich in zinc and lead.

Despite optimistic feasibility studies, the project faced significant delays. Local communities resisted, citing environmental and agricultural concerns. Disputes over profit sharing and a push by the Algerian state to regain control over strategic resources further stalled progress.

Eventually, the Algerian side gained a majority stake (51%) in 2022, and the project shifted from an open-pit to an underground mine. On September 6, 2023, the government issued Executive Decree No. 23-320, declaring the project a “public utility operation,” which allowed for the declassification of agricultural land and fast-tracked expropriation, bypassing public consultation.

In November 2024, the Chinese state-owned Sinosteel Equipment & Engineering Co. Ltd signed a $336 million EPC contract to build the mine, a processing plant, roads, waste systems, and security infrastructure. As of 2025, construction is underway, and production is set to begin in July 2026 with a projected output of 170,000 tons of zinc concentrate and 30,000 tons of lead annually over 19 years.

A Mine in a Protected Paradise

Tala Hamza sits in the Soummam watershed, a Ramsar-listed wetland with unique biodiversity including mountain marshes and a coastal lagoon. Its waters flow into the Mediterranean through the Eyragues estuary, an important fish nursery. Though the area is officially a protected reserve, the government bypassed protections by declaring the mine a strategic national project.

This decree enables expropriations and strips communities of legal recourse. There was no public consultation, despite the region’s deep historical and cultural ties to the land. In Kabyle tradition, mountains are sacred: home, memory, and history all converge in these landscapes. Even the burial grounds, often perched high, symbolize the spiritual and political bond between the people and their territory.

Any assault on this environment—through mining or forest fires—is experienced as a form of cultural and existential violence.

Ecological and Health Catastrophes Looming

The mine will generate 52 million tons of tailings, stored on the surface with the risk of acid drainage. Terramin proposed partial burial, but concerns remain. The flotation process for refining lead and zinc releases toxic particles, threatening the Soummam alluvial aquifer—Kabylia’s largest source of potable water.

The aquifer flows into the Mediterranean, meaning both marine life and fisheries are at risk. The processing plant will be located in El-Kseur, an agro-industrial zone, raising concerns about sulfur emissions contaminating food production. No official environmental or health impact assessments have been published. An internal source claims a study was commissioned by the government, carried out by a politically connected academic who set up a one-man consulting firm. Meanwhile, the mining concessions cover vital agricultural land in a densely populated area of 320,000 people. Any pollution of air, water, or food could have catastrophic consequences.

A Paris-based sustainable development expert argues that the mine’s profitability and job prospects do not outweigh the risks. Promoters highlight Bejaïa airport to attract foreign technicians, while locals fear the return of colonial dynamics: poor, marginalized populations given only low-level jobs while losing their land.

Voices were raised at the beginning of the project, but they have henceforth been silenced by fear. Any opposition to the regime in Algiers is labeled as separatism and a threat to national interests, and since the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK) was declared a terrorist group in 2021 without any legal proceedings, it has become very easy for the Algerian regime to impose very heavy penalties for “apology for terrorism.”

Operation “Zero Kabyle” and Ethnic Repression

Since 2001, the marginalization of Kabylia has intensified, leading to the birth of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK). The rupture became complete, and a discourse of racial hatred against the Kabyles took hold in the media and was echoed by officials.

Between August 18 and 20, 2019, a so-called “awareness colloquium” took place near Mostaganem on the theme of Operation Zero Kabyle. The venue was made available by the municipality, and the event was secured by the gendarmerie. Nothing happens in Algeria without the authorities’ knowledge and approval. The event was organized by a retired gendarme, and the movement’s ideologue present was Lakhdar Benkoula, a Franco-Algerian. He argues that there was no Arab colonization, and that the language spoken in Algeria descends from Punic (i.e., Phoenician), directly linked to the Middle East. As a result, he denies the existence of the Berbers—and especially the Kabyles. This theory contradicts all scientific evidence (epigraphic, linguistic, anthropological). Though largely ignored internationally, it was recently spotlighted by Mohammed Lamine Belghit on Sky News. Claiming to be a historian, he stated that Amazigh identity doesn’t exist: “The Amazigh question is a Franco-Zionist ideological project, a creation of French and Zionist intelligence services aimed at undermining the foundations of Arab Maghreb unity. […] The Berbers, indigenous peoples of North Africa, are of Arab origin.”

The Kabyles, who are one branch of the Amazigh peoples—but the only politically structured one with specific laws and enduring institutions—are clearly the main target of this denial of existence. Denying the ancestry or even the existence of Amazigh peoples aims to strip the Kabyles of their status as an indigenous people, although they meet all the UN criteria (ancestry, distinct identity, self-identification, relationship to the land, marginalization).

Operation Zero Kabyle first manifested as a purge in government institutions, the army, and business circles. Hate speech and death threats are expressed openly, without any reprimand from the authorities.

In July 2020, the Ministry of Defense published a statement on the discovery of weapons and explosives allegedly destined for the MAK. The government’s statements became tangled, and the affair turned into a media war. In the summer of 2021, Kabylia went up in flames. Giant, criminally set fires ravaged the mountains. A young man, accused of arson, was lynched by a crowd while he was supposed to be secured in a gendarmerie van. The Algerian government accused the MAK, which was then declared a terrorist organization, and 49 of its members were sentenced to death. Many doubt the official version. As with the Tala Hamza mine, the Kabyles’ link to their land is sacred: “Kabyles would never set fire to their own olive trees!”

Since 2021, repression has intensified in Kabylia. Fundamental freedoms have been suppressed; any display of pride (flag, exclusive use of the Kabyle language) is considered separatism. Prison sentences abound.

Strategic Control Under the Guise of Mining

The Tala Hamza project is not as profitable as oil extraction or the gold mines of Tamanrasset. So why declare Tala Hamza a “public utility operation”? The answer may lie in the militarization of Kabylia. Infrastructures such as large mines are always secured. The Tala Hamza mine is operated by Sinosteel, one of China’s state-owned companies. In its mining projects across Africa, such companies rely either on regular armies or militias, often with major abuses.

Chinese “trainers”—likely private security consultants—are reportedly already in Bejaïa, supervising local forces. The port will export the ore, and the Soummam corridor from Tala Hamza to Bejaïa must be secured. It may be this grip on Bejaïa that interests the Algerian government more than the mineral resources themselves.

Very opportunistically, the Ministry of Defense published a press release on August 14, 2024, reporting a weapons seizure in Bejaïa allegedly linked to separatists, while MAK is not an armed group, —just like in 2021, right before major fires. Critics claim it’s a setup to justify militarizing the region.

Indeed, being a rural or peri-urban area, security in Tala Hamza falls under the gendarmerie—at the heart of Operation Zero Kabyle. Unlike the police, the gendarmerie is a military body reporting to the Ministry of National Defense. It is perceived in Kabylia as the armed hand of the regime.

In 2001, after the Black Spring triggered by the death of Massinissa Guermah, killed by the gendarmerie on April 18, massive riots shook Kabylia. 126 young people were killed by law enforcement, and 21 gendarmerie stations had to close their doors, including 7 in Bejaia. Citizens’ committees (aârch, or arouch in plural) formed, and a major march toward Algiers was organized. This was the Aarch Movement. A 15-point document called the “El-Kseur Platform” was issued on June 11, 2001, calling, among other things, for the immediate withdrawal of the gendarmerie from all Kabylia and for security forces to be placed under the authority of democratically elected bodies. Therefore, the choice of El-Kseur as the site for the processing plant for minerals extracted at Tala Hamza is not accidental. It will be heavily monitored, with Chinese collaboration. It will also be the epicenter of pollution. It is hard not to see it as a retaliatory measure.

Furthermore, the destruction of pastoral and agricultural areas and water reserves threatens Kabylia’s food sovereignty. The population will then depend on external food sources, undermining any aspiration for independence. In addition to direct expropriations authorized by Executive Decree No. 23-320 for the development of the mine and the plant, the environmental, social, and economic impact will be such that it will cause population displacement. This may indeed be the intended effect: to disperse the Kabyle population, dissolve cultural and linguistic dynamics, and crush potential hotbeds of revolt.

A Global Pattern of Exploitation and Repression

Algeria’s interest in denying the Kabyles the status of an indigenous people thus aligns with the interests of mining companies. But under international law, indigenous peoples hold specific ownership rights over mineral deposits on their lands. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted in 2007, affirms the right of indigenous communities to self-determination, which includes the right to control their lands, territories, and resources. Article 26 specifies that indigenous peoples have the inherent right to own, use, and manage resources on their traditional lands.

Moreover, the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) is essential in international law, as it requires states and companies to obtain the consent of indigenous communities before initiating projects that affect their resources. This principle acknowledges the unique spiritual, cultural, and economic ties indigenous peoples have to their lands—and that these ties must be respected in all resource extraction activities.

Several international treaties signed by Algeria, such as the ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, reinforce these communities’ rights not only to the physical land but also to the minerals, forests, and water found there—and mandate their involvement in all decision-making processes affecting their lands and livelihoods.