Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
160. The War of Algeria’s Independence – 6
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
Even as the National Assembly in Paris was divided over the war, unable to take decisive action, the power of the army in Algeria had grown. By 1958, the bulk of the French army was deployed in Algeria. It was backed by an air wing, airborne commandos, naval power and intelligence units.
The balance of power in the Fourth Republic had shifted in favor of the army in Algeria which was suspicious that the politicians in Paris would sell out French interests in Algeria and precipitously withdraw as they had done from Indochina in 1954. In May 1958, the army units based in Algeria staged an insurrection. General Salan displaced the civil authority in Algieri and declared himself the head of a Committee for Public Safety. On May 13, French paratroopers were dropped in the island of Corsica and took it over. An ultimatum was sent to the government in Paris to hand over powers to General De Gaulle, hero of World War II, who the army felt would keep Algeria French and safeguard the interests of the European settlers. On May 29, the National Assembly capitulated and ratified the transfer of power to De Gaulle. The Fourth Republic had come to an end, a victim of the Algerian War of Independence.
De Gaulle had deep misgivings about the French colonial venture in North Africa but he was politically suave enough to realize that extrication from the military quagmire had to come in slow, deliberate steps. He promulgated social and political reforms for the Algerian Muslims and constituted a committee to draft a new constitution for the Fifth Republic with strong powers vested in the Presidency. He called on the FLN to lay down their arms and engage in the political process. The FLN saw in the reforms an attempt to weaken the movement towards independence. It rejected the call to lay down arms declaring that the problem of Algeria was a political, not a military one. Its response was to set up a Provision Government with headquarters in Tunis which was quickly recognized by the Arab states and the Soviet Bloc. In spite of FLN opposition, when the reforms were put to a vote, a majority of Algerians cast their ballots in favor.
Support for Algerian independence was also growing within France. The communist party of France openly supported it. Europe was moving away from the age of overt colonialism. New alliances were emerging that would shape the destinies of the nations of the world and De Gaulle desired France to be a key player in these alliances. Intellectuals, abhorred at news of torture inflicted by the army, argued for an exit strategy. It was time for change.
De Gaulle was the man of the hour. A man of extraordinary eloquence, Del Gaulle had a grand vision of France as part of a united Europe that would play a central role in world affairs. Algeria was a distraction from the pursuit of this grand vision that France had to shake off. He backed the movement towards a united Europe that was sweeping the continent in the post-World War II climate. The center piece of this unity was a political and economic relationship between Germany and France. De Gaulle backed the Treaty of Rome in March 1957 that created the European Economic Community, or the Common Market. The signatories included, in addition to France and West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Italy.
The right-wing elements in the army as well as the colons felt let down by De Gaulle’s moves to grant greater autonomy to the Algerians. They were alarmed that he was beginning to talk about self-determination for the people of Algeria. Resentment boiled over in early 1960. On January 24, student leader Pierre Lagellairde organized an insurrection in Algiers. Some of the military units, led by Colonel Jean Garde, joined in. The rebels seized government buildings and erected barricades all over the city. The bulk of the army stood by and did not intervene. General Challe, who commanded the Algerian armies, did not commit his troops.
De Gaulle went on the air and made a passionate appeal to the army to back his moves for an end to the Algerian war and support self-determination for the Algerian people. The bulk of the army heeded his call and remained loyal. The leaders of the insurrection surrendered on February 1, 1960 and Lagellairde was moved to Paris where he was imprisoned. While on parole, he escaped to Spain where he joined hands with a renegade general Raoul Salan and the two together founded a terrorist organization, Organisation Armee Secrete (Secret Army Organization commonly known as the OAS) with the objective of sabotaging any moves towards Algerian independence.
A second attempt was made by some army generals in 1961 to topple the government but failed. Discredited, the army stayed out of politics for the remainder of the Algerian war. Undeterred, De Gaulle negotiated a ceasefire with the FLN in March 1962 at Evian. The terms of the Evian accords guaranteed the safety as well as the social, political and property rights of the colons who were given the right to stay in Algeria as Algerian citizens or be repatriated to France. De Gaulle placed the question of Algeria’s independence before the French electorate. A referendum was called for July 1, 1962.
The OAS, opposed as it was to Algerian independence, let loose a reign of terror bombing schools, hospitals, mosques, cafes and torturing innocent men, women and children. This was one of the deadliest periods in the history of the war. Thousands died. The political objective was to draw the FLN into a tit for tat war of attribution thereby sabotaging any hope of compromise between the government and the FLN. They were, however, not successful in their diabolical plot, and the referendum took place on July 1, 1962.
Over 91 percent of the French voters who took part in the referendum voted for independence. De Gaulle declared Algeria independent on July 3. The FLN declared July 5 to be their Independence Day to coincide with the day the French had landed in Algiers in 1840. The long night of horrors was over for the Algerians. The sun rose in its splendor on the morning of July 5, 1962 in the desert sands of Algeria bringing with it the glad tidings of freedom, joy and hope.
The FLN negotiated a truce with the OAS but pent up feelings of hatred were so high that on July 5, Algerian mobs seeking retribution for past crimes, killed a number of Europeans. With no guarantees of security, the settler population moved en masse to the continent. More than 1.2 million Europeans as well as Algerians who had fought for the French against the FLN left North African shores and became refugees in France. A large number of Muslim refugees settled in the shanty towns surrounding Paris. Over the decades, their population has grown, augmented by fresh immigration from North Africa and their presence continues to strain the cultural and social fabric of France to this day.
The ravages of war continue to haunt the national psyche of both the perpetrators and the recipients of torture. The French look at the Algerian presence through colored glasses of Eurocentric prejudice. There is a measure of denial on the part of the French for what they did to the Algerians. Most French school children do not even know about the Algerian war. Many documents relating to the war are still classified and not accessible to historians so that a complete picture of the horrors must await another half a century when memories fade, those associated with the war have passed away and future generations may dispassionately look at the events of this monumental tragedy.
On the Algerian side, the success of the FLN cemented a one-party political structure making it more difficult for a multi-party democratic setup to take hold. This was evident during the municipal elections of 1991 when the prospect of victory by the Islamist parties brought on a massive military intervention. Civil war ensured and consumed tens of thousands of innocent people. The Algerian army, backed by western powers, has shown just as much fear of Islam as had the French in the heyday of colonial rule. There has been a measure of stability in recent years, with amnesty for all sides, while the phenomenal rise in energy prices has enabled the Algerian economy to get back on its feet and embark on the path of economic reconstruction.
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
