Part 4
a) An article by Robert Fisk in The Independent. In the past few years
Robert Fisk has written visited Algeria and written numerous articles
on the situation.
b) An article of the Observer where 2 former policemen seeking asylum in
Britain claim to have been ordered to participate in killings
c) An article from The Observer where a former agent claims that the
bombings in Paris in 1996 were masterminded by Algeria's securite
militaire.
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Item 4-a
The Independent
January 7, 1998
By Robert Fisk
Algeria terror touches the world
The latest horrors perpetrated against the civilians
of Algeria - at least 600 men, women and
children slaughtered in less than a week - have
finally provoked calls for an international inquiry
from the US as well as Europe. But as our
Middle East Correspondent Robert Fisk reports,
the massacres will go on, as Algeria's
military-backed government ignores the outside
world.
Given the lethargy - the near-criminal silence - of
the West, Washington's demand for an
international enquiry into the New Year
massacres must have shocked even Algeria's
normally unperturbable generals. Only a few
weeks ago, the departing US ambassador to
Algiers claimed that President Liamine Zeroual
was on "the right track" in his ruthless war against
the government's armed opponents. But the
carefully crafted appeal for an enquiry shows that
even the US State Department no longer believes
that the Algerian bloodbath can be attributed only
to 'Islamists'.
As Washington called for an investigation into
Algeria's human rights abuses as well as the
massacres - a sure sign of its concern at the
torture now routinely practiced by the country's
state security police - there came news of yet
another mass killing in western Algeria and on a
bus outside the capital. Most of the weekend
dead - including, as always, women and children
- were burned alive in three villages; in last week's
slaughter in four villages near the town of
Relizane, local newspapers report that 412
civilians were decapitated or disembowelled. As
usual in Algeria, the killers had chosen the Muslim
holy month of Ramadan to launch a new wave of
barbarity.
Ironically, there seems little doubt that the
Relizane murders were indeed the work of the
extreme Islamic Armed Group (GIA). The
villagers at Ouled Sahnine, Kherarba, El Abadel
and Ouled Tayeb were themselves Islamists and
had voted in the 1991 elections for the Islamic
Salvation Front (FIS) whose armed wing - the
Islamic Salvation Army (ISA) - declared a
ceasefire last October. In a series of tracts
distributed in the area, the GIA warned that it was
moving into western Algeria, and even the local
military commander, General Kamel
Abderahmane, warned the inhabitants to join
pro-government militias in order to defend
themselves.
"People must either arm or take refuge in the
towns," he said. "The state does not have the
means to put a soldier outside every front door."
That, it seems, was the extent of the army's
'protection'. On the face of it, the Relizane
massacres, which the government says left "only"
78 dead, appear to be the GIA's revenge for the
villagers' loyalty to the rival ISA. In any event, the
killers - who have hitherto used knives, wire and
portable guillotines to butcher civilians - added
yet another grotesque feature to their latest
atrocity: whole families were herded into 'killing
rooms' to have their throats cut, with shovels as
well as knives. One survivor awoke amid the
blood of his relatives to find more than 50
corpses in a single house.
"We would like to see the government do more to
protect its civilians while respecting the rule of
law," the US State Department spokesman James
Rubin said. "We would like to see an international
enquiry get to the bottom of it." Mr Rubin added
that the United States "condemned the massacres
and bombing in Algeria" and wanted
non-governmental organisations to conduct an
investigation. The Algerian authorities, he added,
had already agreed to allow a UN envoy to
conduct a "fact-finding" mission.
But what can the envoy do? He will need
government protection to enter the killing fields of
Algeria - and no-one will speak freely to him in
the presence of policemen. Furthermore, the
Algerian government's total refusal to
countenance any form of outside involvement
suggests that the latest European gestures of
concern will prove useless.
A demand from France - which killed a million
Algerians during the 1954-62 war - that the
government must protect its own people, is likely
to fall on deaf ears. An EU statement expressed
only "deep concern" at the situation.
In Dublin, the Irish foreign minister David
Andrews, who after a 24-hour visit to Algiers last
month urged foreigners to stop condemning
Algeria and described President (and ex-general)
Zeroual as "a fine man, dedicated, a strong decent
man," yesterday (Tuesday) substantially changed
his line.
The Algerian government, he now said, was guilty
of "committing atrocities and human rights
transgressions." The Algerian government was not
democratic but the massacres had to be brought
to an end. It is a pious hope - and one that will,
almost certainly, go unfulfilled.
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Item 4-b
Excerpt:
"Two policemen seeking asylum in Britain told the Observer
they took part in massacres and torture of defenceless
civilians, under orders. The defectors said special forces
disguised as 'fundamentalists' with beards and Muslim dress
slaughtered entire families in the middle of the night."
Full text below:
The Observer
Sunday January 11, 1998
Police role in Algerian killings exposed
By John Sweeney
Fresh evidence that at least some of the massacres in
Algeria are the work of the regime's military security
force emerged last night against the backdrop of yet
another rural mass killing.
The slaughter of 55 civilians in Algeria's killing fields -
added to the 1,000 murdered in the first 10 days of Ramadan
- amounts to the worst violence in Algeria's six-year civil
war. The latest massacres followed an all too familiar
pattern of unarmed villagers being surprised and
overwhelmed by armed men. All that is left is dozens of
hacked corpses, including those of women, children and even
infants and those responsible escape into the dark. The
three latest massacres reportedly involved armed gunmen,
who also abducted young women. More commonly knives and
axes are used for the slaughter.
The massacres have renewed pressure on Foreign Secretary
Robin Cook, now leading the European Union's belated
efforts to allay Algeria's agony.
Two policemen seeking asylum in Britain told the Observer
they took part in massacres and torture of defenceless
civilians, under orders. The defectors said special forces
disguised as 'fundamentalists' with beards and Muslim dress
slaughtered entire families in the middle of the night.
International rage is growing at evidence that the Algerian
regime is deliberately not protecting its people and that
the unpopular generals are colluding in killings.
Algiers still rejects any United Nations investigation into
the massacres, but as a sop to European sensitivity has
agreed to a strictly limited EU diplomatic mission. Algeria
said talks should concentrate on confronting 'terrorism'
and ruled out any inquiry into the killings.
The two policemen who spoke to the Observer recommend that
the European mission should visit five torture complexes in
Algiers. They include the basement of the Châteauneuf
barracks, a complex beneath the barracks in Ben Aknoun Zoo
- the zoo station, the torture complex at Beni-Messous, and
the torture complex in the basement of the central police
headquarters.
Copyright Guardian Media Group plc 1998
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Item 4-c
Algerian Regime Responsible for Massacres
Algeria regime 'was behind Paris bombs'
by John Sweeney and Leonard Doyle
Front Page, Manchester Guardian Weekly, November 16, 1997
BOMBS in Paris, help for Saddam Hussein's programme to produce
weapons
of mass
destruction, the regime
of terror at home -- today Algeria's secret police state is
indicted by
one of its own
members or crimes against
humanity.
"Yussuf-Joseph" was a career secret agent in Algeria's securite
militaire until he
defected to Britain, bringing with
him the deepest secrets of the regime's links with President
Saddam.
His wife an
children were spirited out. Two
and a half years later they are still waiting for political asylum.
"Joseph" spent 14
years as part of the Algerian
police state. In one gulag torture chamber he saw "a human eye
lying on
a table, and in
the eye a fork". He now
risks assassination for speaking out publicly.
He said: "The bombs that outraged Paris in 1995 -- blamed on Muslim
fanatics -- were
the handiwork of the
Algerian secret service. They were part of a propaganda war aimed
at
galvanising French
public opinio n against
the Islamists."
The Algerian police state is hiding material for President Saddam's
nuclear, chemical
and biological warfare
programme. Intelligence agents from the two countries are
collaborating
to defeat the
United Nations sanctions
against Iraq.The relentless massacres in Algeria are the work of
secret
police and army
death squads.
Algerian intelligence agents routinely bribe Eurpean police,
journalists and MPs.
Joseph said he paid one French
MP, who cannot be named for legal reasons, more than 500,000 francs
(about $90,000) in
bribes.
The killing of many foreigners was orga nised by the secret police,
not
Islamic
extremists.Joseph, a strained,
pale, intense man, described the most secret workings of the
Algerian
police state. He
revealed that the constant
terror! in which civilians live is orchestrated by two shadowy
figures,
more powerful
than the nominal president,
General Liamine Zeroual. The police state is run as the private
fiefdom
of two men:
Mohammed Mediane,
codename "Tewfik", and General Smain Lamari, the most feared names
in
Algeria. They
are, respectively, head
of the Algeri n secret service, the DRS, and its sub-department,
the
counter
intelligence agency, the DCE.
"[President] Zeroual is just the cherry on the cake," said Joseph.
"Tewfik is much more
important and Smain is
his enforcer." Since the military coup in 1992 after the first
round of
elections in
which the Islamic Salvation
Front (FIS) was set to take power, the violence has escalated to
make
Algeria the most
dangerous country in
the world. The carnage in Algeria and the bombs in France have been
blamed on a group
of Muslim fanatics,
the Armed Islamic Group, or GIA. Joseph said: "The GIA is a pure
product of Smain's
secret service." His
testimony is supported by a former diplomat, Mohammed Larbi Zitout,
No
2 at the
Algerian embassy in Libya
until he defected to Britain. "I used to read all the secret
telexes,"
Joseph said. "I
know that the GIA has been
infiltrated and manipulated by the government. The GIA has been
completely turned by
the government."
Joseph said secret agents who flew in from Algeria, sent by Smain,
organised "at least"
two of the bombs in
Paris in the summer of 1995, in which several people were killed.
The
operation was run
by Colonel Souames
Mahmoud, alias Habib, head of the secret service at the Algerian
embassy in Paris. Two
men were later seized
by French police. One, Khaled Kelkal, was shot in cold blood, his
killing caught on
camera. The second, Karim
Moussa, was captured, injured. He has since disappeared and th
French
authorities have
failed to explain what
happened to this most-wanted suspect.
Joseph said Tewfik and Smain spent some of Algeria's oil and gas
billions to bribe
politicians and security
officials in Europe. Joseph said: "I personally delivered a
suitcase
containing 500,000
francs to one French MP
with strong links to the French intelligence services." The MP, who
lost his seat at
the last election, is a noted
apologist for the Algerian and Iraqi regimes.
The power of the securite militaire is such that it murdered a
president, Joseph said.
President Mohammed
Boudiaf was assassinated in June 1992 by people within le pouvoir.
He
knows because two
of the killers were
associates in the securite militaire. "Boudiaf was killed because
he
had very sensitive
files on corrupt generals.
The generals have made millions from corruption, held in Swiss
banks.
Boudiaf started
an inquiry." Fatiha
Boudiaf, the president's widow, said last week: "Boudiaf knew that
he
would be killed
by those who brought
him to power" -- a coded reference to the secret police.
Joseph said the massacres, in which tens of thousands of Algerians
have
been killed
since the civil war started in
1992, have been carried out by the regime's death squads. "Le
pouvoir
are behind th
massacres and other
killings besides. It's to maintain the state of fear," he said. "In
1992 Smain created
a special group, L'Escadron
de la Mort [the Squadron of Death]. One of its main missions to
begin
with was to kill
officers, colonels. The
death squads organise the massacres. If anyone inside the killing
machine hesitates to
torture or kill, they are
automatically killed . . . The FIS aren't doing the massacres. All
the
intelligence
services in Europe know the
government is doing it, but they are keeping quiet because they
want to
protect their
supplies of oil."
Joseph said he had witnessed torture. "I have seen the blowtorch
used
in Chateauneuf.
The smell is awful. . . . It
has a very special smell of burning hair and flesh." But the
blowtorch
was not the
worst. "I have seen in Antar, a
torture centre near Algiers zoo, a human eye on a table with a fork
in
it . . . I have
terrible nightmares."
He described electrode torture he had seen. "They manacle a person
to a
bed, no
mattress, just the springs.
Then they get a live electric wire and touch the person -- he made
a
swishing movement,
his right hand coming
down in a lash. "Smain used to go to the torture zoo and my
colleagues
would say: 'The
Boss is here. He is
working.' That meant he was supervising the torture himself." --
The Guardian Weekly, Week ending November 16, 1997