France lets go Algerian general

By Vaiju Naravane

PARIS, APRIL 27. ``Unfortunately, France is not Britain which detained General Augusto Pinochet in his hospital bed and put him under house arrest for a year and a half. Paris has allowed a very big fish to slip through its fingers, despite an official complaint lodged with the police,'' sighed human rights lawyer Michel Puechavy.

Mr. Puechavy was referring to the former Algerian Defence Minister, Gen. Khaled Nezzar, who was allowed to leave France quietly and without fuss, despite three complaints of ``torture'' officially lodged against him with the French police. Not only was the general allowed to sneak away in the middle of the night - he took off from Le Bourget airport in a private plane very shortly after the complaints were lodged - but the police have since been harassing the complainants. ``The special crime branch has carried out muscled interrogation of the Algerian family which lodged one of the three complaints against the General. Their son died under torture. The two other complaints were lodged by former political prisoners, William Bourdon and Antoine Comte, both of whom were tortured by the army after the proclamation of a state of emergency in Algeria in 1992,'' explains Mr. Puechavy.

As soon as the French Interior Ministry received news of the complaints Paris contacted Algiers. A diplomatic incident was to be avoided at any cost. The retired General was not in France on an official mission and does not enjoy diplomatic immunity. Algiers immediately sent a fax to Paris saying Gen. Nezzar was in Paris ``on a five-day official mission''. The fax was sent hastily, a mere four hours after the complaints were registered.

For a long time now human rights organisations have denounced the role of the Algerian army in the terrible and senseless massacres which have shaken the country. Over 600,000 persons have allegedly been killed in the civil war between the army and Islamic fundamentalists which began in 1992 when the Islamic Salvation Front was poised to win the elections. The Government of then President Chadli Bendjadid imposed a state of emergency and the Front went underground. Since then populations of entire villages have been killed indiscriminately. Women, children and old people have been put to the sword, their throats slit in the dead of the night. The army and the Government has always put the blame for these bloody massacres on the Islamic Salvation Front and its armed wing, the GIA or the Armed Islamic Group. There is now evidence to believe that many of the massacres have been committed by the army itself.

William Bourdonand Antoine Comte who lodged the complaint against the former Algerian Defence Minister said by letting the General flee the country on a trumped up ``official mission'' France has ``chosen to avoid its international commitments. The international convention on torture forces a signatory country to take steps against the presumed perpetrators of such crimes.'' They say there has been executive interference in the powers of the judiciary.

France has very close links with Algeria, its former colony, which fought a bloody war of independence from France from 1954 to 1962. The two countries have since had a love-hate relationship. In 1997, the French Prime Minister, Mr. Lionel Jospin observed that ``the French Government is constrained'' in its response to the army's exactions in Algeria. Paris is afraid of attacks against its substantial interests in Algeria - economic and otherwise. Over four million north African Arabs live in France, making them the single largest minority in this country. Radicalisation of this population is also one of Paris's fears.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : Tory MP stirs trouble again
Next     : Cabinet plea for Wahid