PARIS A bitter controversy over France's use of torture during Algeria's 1954-1962 War of Independence, which once split the French into opposing camps, has erupted again with all the venom of the past. The same left-wingers who during the conflict denounced "La Gegene" torture by electric shock, with electrodes clamped to genitals, ears and tongues are again being accused of treason and turning a blind eye to atrocities by France's enemies.
Their detractors are publishing the same gruesome evidence presented in the past to justify the use of torture: Photographs of children with limbs blown off by Algerian nationalist bombings, pictures of men and women with their throats or bellies slit open with razors, knives and axes. The question remains the same, "Is it morally justifiable to torture one or several people in order to save the lives of many?" The most recent controversy began with the publication several weeks ago of a shock interview with an Algerian woman, Louisette Ighilahriz, on the front page of the influential center-left daily Le Monde. She gave a stomach-churning description of her experience as a young woman guerrilla taken prisoner by French troops and tortured mercilessly for three months.
Manacled to Bed Frame Ighilahriz described being manacled to a steel bed frame and left in her own excrement between torture sessions. What changed in the debate was the reaction to her account by the main French character in the bloody 1957 Battle of Algiers, which pitted French paratroopers against guerrillas who were setting off bombs in the European quarter of Algeria's main city. Retired General Jacques Massu had so far insisted that the torture he ordered after dozens of civilians were killed and many more injured, was justified, since it led to the discovery of dozens of explosive devices and saved countless lives.
Massu's "paras" won the Battle of Algiers but president Charles de Gaulle later decided the cost of staying in Algeria was too high and granted the country independence in 1962. Massu, now 92, caused major surprise when he told Le Monde: "Morally, torture is something pretty dismal. I think (to recognize and condemn) what happened would be positive." Massu said blame should be placed not on the French Army, where he served for more than 40 years, but on the politicians who gave the order to break up the rebel cells at any cost.
He gave no names, but newspapers quickly recalled France's justice minister at the height of the conflict was the late Francois Mitterrand, who later became French president.
French PM Seeks to Cool Row Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who demonstrated against torture as a student in Paris during the Algerian War, has tried to avoid politicians becoming formally involved in the controversy. "It is not a problem for which France can accuse itself and blame itself globally," Jospin said, rejecting communist calls for a parliamentary inquiry and formal act of repentance.
The communists supported the Algerian nationalists during the conflict. "The last people who should lecture others should be those with a long record of fawning admiration for totalitarian regimes," said conservative former prime minister Edouard Balladur.
Newspapers have been filled with letters from embittered former officers fearful that their record will be sullied. General Jacques Norlain wrote that soldiers "wage war on the orders of politicians and, together with terror victims, are among the only people to die for faults they did not commit".
Newspapers have also been filled with testimony from some of the estimated two million conscripts who served in Algeria, witnessed French atrocities and now feel shame for having remained silent.
Jospin said it was up to historians to determine the truth about torture and other abuses, but French law forbids publication of confidential documents for long periods. Those pertaining to the Battle of Algiers are to be released in 2017.
Spotlight on Secretive Officer The controversy has also thrown the spotlight on retired General Paul Aussaresses, once one of the most secretive men in the French security apparatus.
Aussaresses, now 82, was Massu's intelligence chief during the Battle of Algiers after such hair-raising adventures as being parachuted deep into Nazi Germany in 1945 to try to rescue concentration camp victims. He told Le Monde that he personally killed 24 suspected Algerian guerrilla chiefs during the Battle of Algiers, adding that about 3,000 other suspects were killed and their bodies "made to disappear". Aussaresses said he disliked the methods used but would act the same way again in similar circumstances if he had to.
The London-based human rights organization Amnesty International has called on France to put both Massu and Aussaresses on trial.
(Reuter)