Algeria's Counter-Terrorism Barbarity

Photo: MC3 David Quillen/AFP and via: Telegraph.co.uk

The following are some examples of the Counter-Terrorism ops that the Algerian regime participated in:

Abderrahmane Meziane-Chérif, once told me [Robert Fisk] of his principles in dealing with “terrorists”. “A farmer can be an eradicator when he pulls weeds from the fields,” he said. “And sometimes a man has to purify water and cleanse things of insects and bugs...” Meziane-Chérif was called the “eradicateur”.

1. The slaughter of the good and the bad at the In Amenas gas plant was thus utterly predictable, because the Algerian military – the real rulers of the nation – were “blooded” in a civil war which taught them to care as little about the innocent as they did about the guilty.

2. It was the Algerian military which sent intelligence officers to Damascus in 1993 to learn how Hafez al-Assad destroyed the Islamists of Hama 11 years earlier – and then used the same tactics to liquidate Algeria's own Islamist insurgency.

3. Word has it that Algerian officers visited Syria last year to return the compliment: by teaching the Syrian military – now fighting a far more dangerous uprising – how the Algerians won their “dirty” war against the Armed Islamic Group and its al-Qa'ida affiliates.

4. The Algerians lent their “expertise” to Tunisia's Ben Ali just before his overthrow and offered the same to Mubarak's goons in Egypt.

... the real marriage of both al-Qa'ida and the Algerian military started after the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

5. It is a largely secret story which even today has never been fully revealed. Desperate to stem their losses, the Soviet government asked their socialist Algerian allies for intelligence help; and the Algerian intelligence services dispatched their own men to Afghanistan to pose as “mujahedin” alongside real Algerian Islamists fighting for Osama bin Laden.

Information from these Algerian military spies allowed Soviet forces to fight back.

But when the Russians left and the Algerians came home, the army ordered their own men to remain undercover with the Islamist groups. 

So when the terrible civil war began, individual officers to keep their cover participated in the massacre of civilians. And thus became contaminated by atrocities. 

This is not a tale which the Algerian government admits to. Nor will the West examine this grim history.

... Algeria's military utter brutality towards its enemies, whatever the cost – have appealed to the Pentagon and to the French, who both maintained their co-operation with the army's elite at Cherchell outside Algiers in the 1990s – when they knew full well that the country's soldiers and paramilitary forces were indulging in an orgy of torture against insurgents and civilians.

Via: "The Independent"

French Colonialism In Africa

One of the most amazing aspects of theAfrican resource wars is that within their own countries, most western powers have been able to stifle opposition for their participation. An incredible achievement considering the state of their economiesand the number of wars that they have been involved in in the last two decades(2011–present, 2003–2010, 1990–2002).

Let’s take France as an example since it appears to have the backing of its citizens in taking the lead role in therecent wars which are set to determine the future of Africa.

“French companies must go on the offensive and fight the growing influence of rival China for a stake in Africa's increasingly competitive markets, France's Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said on Saturday…

“‘It's evident that China is more and more present in Africa...(French) companies that have the means must go on the offensive. They must be more present on the ground. They have to fight,’ Moscovici told journalists during a trip to Ivory Coast…

“‘Africa is booming. Sub-Saharan Africa will have the second highest regional growth after Asia in 2012 with a rate of 5.5 percent,’ he said. ‘The new phenomenon is that African growth has the potential to stimulate growth in France. We want to be present there.’”

To have a full appreciation for the magnitude of the folly of France’s decision to attempt a “total reconquest of Mali” under the supervision of the United States by getting involved in what David Cameron has predicted to be a multi-decade conflict, all we need to do is recap a little history and extrapolate to the present.

“‘It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months, and it requires a response that is patient, that is painstaking, that is tough but also intelligent, but above all has an absolutely iron resolve; and that is what we will deliver over these coming years,’ [David Cameron] said.”

Colonialism in 10 Minutes: The Scramble For Africa:

During the colonial period, France’s domain in Africa was spread across the continent, numbering 20 regions at its peak, and its most important colony was Algeria, which it ruled with an iron fist from 1830 to 1962.

“Long-term French colonization of Africa began in earnest in 1830 with the French invasion of Algeria. The long duration of French occupation, its intense violence, and the large numbers of European colonial settlers made Algeria—in law, in political cultural, and in administrative fact— an entirely unique case in the French colonial world. Indeed, an administrative decree in 1878 ended the status of Algeria as a colony, ostensibly integrating it as part of metropolitan France. This decree merely served to reinforce the two-tiered political system that accorded rights to European settlers while denying them to Algerians, and Algeria largely remained, in fact if not in law, a colony.”

click to enlarge - Source

“The Algerian War of Independence against France lasted from approximately 1954 to 1962. Politically, socially and militarily, this was a multi-layered conflict for the French, one that ultimately led to both Algeria’s independence after 132 years of French colonization, and eventually, the collapse of the French Fourth Republic in 1958.”

“This is where the story of political Islamism in North Africa begins: In the historical flashpoint that was the Battle of Algiers, one sees the spark of ideological opposition and the beginning of armed insurgency against the West.”

What took place in Algeria is brilliantly depicted by the following 1966 movie, ”The Battle of Algiers”. It is a cinematic masterpiece and “the only film in Oscar history to be a nominee in two separate non-consecutive years”.

Battle of Algiers Trailer:

As for what the effects of this insurgency were on the French psyche, I believe the following 7-pages posted below from “Ordinary Victories” by Manu Larcenet depict an accurate account.

“Pretending that one can dissociate torture from war or abjection from massacre is the lie of the powerful”: ’Ordinary Victories’ by Manu Larcenet

The pages deal with the consequences of atrocities committed for lies. Ignore the period referenced if you wish, project to the date of your choice, and adjust the scale of the atrocities accordingly.

Via: "Chycho"

Algeria Conflict Shapes US Military Strategy

By Mathieu Rabechault and Dan De Luce 
Source: "AFP" 
Courtesy Of "Google News"

WASHINGTON — The French military experience in Algeria 50 years ago has left an indelible mark on a new generation of US officers, who have tried to apply the lessons of the conflict to the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As France marks the 50th anniversary of a war that remains a bitter memory, the strategy and tactics employed by French forces have enjoyed a revival inside the US military.

After quickly toppling regimes in Baghdad and Kabul, American commanders were caught off guard by virulent insurgencies in both countries that posed a challenge to a force trained only for conventional combat.

"It is not unfair to say that in 2003, most Army officers knew more about the US civil war than they did about counterinsurgency," John Nagl, a retired colonel who served in Iraq, wrote in the foreword to the army's manual on irregular warfare.

Facing a politically savvy adversary seeking to exploit resentment of foreign troops, US military officers saw parallels in the Algerian war.

In August 2003, the Pentagon organized the showing of the 1966 film "The Battle of Algiers," the Gillo Pontecorvo movie that recounts operations in the Casbah, including the torture of guerrillas by the French.

"How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar?" read a Pentagon flyer for the screening.

Encouraged by senior officers such as General David Petraeus, who served as commander in Iraq and Afghanistan before leading the CIA, the French counter-insurgency doctrine honed in Algeria was gradually rediscovered and promoted.

Petraeus oversaw the writing of a new field manual for counter-insurgency in 2006 that drew heavily on the Algeria era and one French strategist in particular, Lieutenant Colonel David Galula, author of "Counterinsurgency: Theory and Practice."

Galula's book, published first in the United States in 1964, enjoys prominent references in field manual 3-24 and is cited as a "classic" in the bibliography.

"Of the many books that were influential in the writing of Field Manual 3-24, perhaps none was as important as David Galula's 'Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice,'" Nagl wrote.

Reflecting Galula's ideas, American troops conducted sweeps through urban areas, sought to cut off insurgents from the population, trained local forces and pored over intelligence to identify the leaders and motivations of the insurgency.

US strategists also frequently cite "Modern Warfare" by Colonel Roger Trinquier, a veteran of the Algeria war who was critical of his own army's slow adaptation to new tactics.

Trinquier, however, openly advocated torture as a means of extracting vital information from guerrillas. The US counter-insurgency manual explicitly prohibits abusing prisoners, saying the practice plays into the hands of insurgents and undermines America's "moral legitimacy."

Both Trinquier and Galula "captured with considerable nuance the conduct of counter-insurgency operations of that day, and a good bit of the way those operations were conducted remains instructive and relevant," Petraeus wrote in an email to AFP.

As head of the Command and General Staff College, Petraeus ordered the purchase of the English translation of Galula's work and had a copy issued to every one of the more than 1,200 students at the college, he said.

Petraeus and other soldiers have found kindred spirits among their French counterparts in the Algerian war, at least as they are portrayed by French writer and journalist Jean Larteguy in his 1960 novel "The Centurions."

The book, which enjoys a near cult following among American officers, portrays the trials of French paratroopers in Indochina and Algeria who learn to fight insurgents in spite of their own military's bureaucratic mindset.

"For our sort of war," the main character Pierre Raspeguy says, "you need shrewd, cunning men who are capable of fighting far from the herd, who are full of initiative too... who can turn their hand to any trade, poachers and missionaries."

Director of the Pakistan Afghanistan coordination cell, Major General Ben Hodges told AFP in an email he had first read the "excellent book about the French experience coming out of Indochina and then going into Algeria" as a cadet at West Point in the late 1970s.

"I decided to read it again because of my recent deployment to Afghanistan... Some very thought-provoking parts to the story and the impact on the soldiers involved."

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved.

Franve and The Last Genocide Of The 20th Century

French involvement in at least two genocides in Africa during the 20th century is still contested [EPA]


Unspoken History: Despite Evidence To The Contrary, France Still Completely Denies Involvement In Two Of Africa's 20th Century Genocides. 

By Julie Owono 
Julie Owono is a Cameroonian freelance journalist and international relations consultant based in Paris. 
Last Modified: 25 Jan 2012 18:41 
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

Paris, France - The recent publication of French judge Trevidic's report on the assassination of President Habyarimana, which triggered the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and the deaths of moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, revives the debate on the possible role of France in the last genocide of the 20th century. Moreover, it rekindles questions related to the attitude of French authorities and intelligentsia whenever the country is directly involved in a genocide in Africa.

More worrying, these findings question the poison slowly instilled in the veins of the French nation's collective body: A recent poll shows that one third of French citizens share the views of an openly racist and anti-Semite political party, the National Front.

Unspoken history, attempts at denial, and historical smokescreens systematically orchestrated by those who own the means of propaganda challenge the capacity - for those in France who disagree with the far-right - to help a disturbing truth emerge.

In the light of this revelation, one can notice strange similarities in the attitude adopted by those authorities regarding the question of the lesser-known Bamileke genocide orchestrated by the French army at the beginning of the 1960s, which might have caused the death of up to 400,000 people.

'France aided Rwanda genocide'

Equivocation Surrounding Rwanda Genocide

On January 11, 2012, French Judge Marc Trevidic published a 400-page investigation on the circumstances of the shooting of "Presidential Falcon 50", in which President Juvenal Habyarimana and the President of Burundi, along with other officials and three French crew members, were assassinated. The report concludes that the missiles which hit the airplane were shot from Konembe hill which was at that time in the hands of the Presidential guard.

The elucidation of these events will give an explanation to the beginning of the last genocide of the 20th century: the plane crash triggered the systematic murder of 1 million Tutsis in 100 days by extremist Hutus.

The Trevidic Report puts an end to 18 years of uncertainty and attempt to revise history. In fact, a first investigation led by French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière showed that the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) - the army of the actual Tutsi President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame - was responsible for the attack, and thus responsible for the elimination of other Tutsis. This theory was embraced by numerous French politicians and intellectuals, such as journalist Pierre Péan, who in 2005 published Black Furies, White Liars. His book, along the same lines as the legal investigation, not only suggests that RPF was the perpetrator of the presidential assassination, but also upheld that only 280,000 Tutsis had been killed, compared with possibly one million Hutus exterminated in revenge by Kagame's RPF.

Nevertheless, these explanations left many questions unanswered.

In the first place, one can question the position of Agathe Habyarimana, widow of former Rwandan president: it is indubitable that the massacres were started and encouraged by Hutu extremists. This vague expression conceals the name of the informal organisation, recognised by the French National Assembly in 1994, which regrouped these "extremists": the Akazu. Their most influential members were close relatives of President Habyarimana, and might have been headed by Agathe Habyarimana, along with three of her brothers, according to several reports. 

The day following the assassination of her husband, she was exfiltrated to France with the help of the French army. Since then, she has been living in France. Despite an international arrest warrant issued against her in 2009, and a complaint lodged by a French association over her alleged role in the perpetration of the genocide, she hasn't yet been judged by a court.

Listening Post - Rwanda's media 17 years after the genocide

Another enigma surrounds the alleged suicide of François de Grossouvre, former shadow adviser on African Affairs to President François Mittérand, at Elysee Palace, the French president's official residence. He died on April 7, 1994, just a few hours after Habyarimana was assassinated. Voices have been raised to denounce a possible murder and a slapdash investigation.

The role of Paul Barril also raises interesting questions. Barril, the former commander-in-chief of the GIGN (National Gendarmerie Intervention group), may have been introduced in Rwanda as the special adviser to Juvenal Habyarimana on military affairs after the launch of "Operation Noroit", which officially aimed to protect French interests in the country, but also served as a way to train the Rwandan army after the offensive by Paul Kagame's RPF in October 1990. This military help from France resulted in the increase of trained Rwandan soldiers: the army of the country went from 5,000 men in 1990 to 50,000 in 1994.

The aspects of these events obviously explain why French soldiers of "Operation Turquoise", which, in June 1994, was supposed to put an end to the massacres, were welcomed as liberators by the auxiliary of horror, those who were perpetrating the unspeakable crime against other human beings.

Denial Of The Bamileke Genocide

Going to the west of the continent and a few degrees of latitude north, arguably the first genocide in Africa of the 20th century was perpetrated nearly 40 years earlier in Cameroon. The death toll, still debated by many experts, ranges from 100,000 to 400,000 people killed between 1959 and 1964, with a reported 120,000 killed in 1960 alone - just in the country's western region, populated by an ethnic group named the Bamileke.

Training of cadets at the Joint Army School of Cameroon in 1960 [National Archives of Yaounde]

Much less about this is known however, since the archives detailing direct French involvement remain under the seal of secrecy by the French state. The recent publication of ajournalistic and historical thesis by two French journalists and a Cameroonian historian, recounts in detail the war by France on the edge of the independence of Cameroon to impose the first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, to a population which in a majority supported the Cameroonian Independence Party, testimony in support of survivors of the massacres and actors, as well as the paradoxically more accessible archives of the Cameroonian army, and has gradually begun to open the wall of silence in which the French authorities had sealed the question of this genocide.

The answer given by French Prime Minister François Fillon during his official visit in Yaounde in 2009 might therefore attest the same memoricide will: "I absolutely deny that the French forces were involved in anything related to murder in Cameroon. All this is pure invention."

However, the Cameroonian national archives reveals that the training of Cameroonian military loyalists included the French technique named "counter-revolution", which proved its efficiency in Algeria and Indochina a few months earlier; the sending of French troops, who, for months, directly plundered hundreds of villages and hamlets in the mountainous Bamileke area; and the direct implication of the highest French authorities.

The evils of history are alive. Regarding the Bamileke farming villages wiped out by pilots of the French army, terrifying and eloquent figures exist. A French military report counts "43,363 incendiary cartridges of 7.5mm used against the enemy" for the single month of March 1960. According to a witness, the planes flew over the villages in pairs: the first poured fuel and the second shot incendiary bullets. How many Bamileke farmers were killed in these raids?

How many villages were simply wiped off the map? On the use of napalm or other combustible fuel on the Bamileke by the French army. Pierre Messmer, who was defence minister under General de Gaulle for nine years, probably gained his appointment thanks to the success of this "pacification of Cameroon" operation. Then the prime minister answered in a television documentary on French television: "It's not important."

Riz Khan - Rwanda: An African success story?

General Max Briand, named to head the French Expeditionary Corps from December 1959, acknowledged in a report to his superiors 20,000 deaths for the year of 1960 alone. This figure is to be taken with great care; the assessment of the French military is a low figure, in terms of military resources deployed, the ammunition used and the demographics of the country. Unlike Prime Minister Francois Fillon, the soldier nowhere denies direct involvement of French troops in what can be called with no euphemism a mass killing, and even concedes that the "rebels" had almost no weapons: "It seems that the only weapons that were introduced in Cameroon are forty Czech guns..."

If today, General Semengue, a major actor in the Cameroonian forces and Auxiliary of the French army, who later became Chief of Staff of the Cameroonian army, can make jokes before cameras, smile at the corner of the lips, and explain away the decapitation of heads [FR], it is precisely because this memoricide work was conducted in an implacable way.

Contrary to what some will assume, this memory work should not and will not be a pretext for repentance or reparation demands, but will give the possibility to millions of French, Rwandan and Cameroonian citizens to imagine an appeased future. As Urugayan writer Eduardo Galeano writes: "We know that the loss of our memory mortgages the future. Those who cannot learn from their past are condemned to live without the possibility of imagining it."

Julie Owono is a freelance Cameroonian journalist and international relations consultant based in Paris. She blogs at Global Voices and is the Africa Desk Cordinator at Internet Sans Frontières, a French NGO which promotes online freedom of expression.

Follow her on Twitter: @JulieOwono

Turkey Accuses France Of Genocide In Algeria

Recep Tayyip Erdogan's attack follows the passing of a bill by French MPs criminalising the denial of genocide in Armenia in 1915. Photograph: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images


Turkish Prime Minister Ramps Up Diplomatic Spat, Saying French Killed 15% Of Algeria's Population During Postwar Occupation 

By Angelique Chrisafis in Paris 
Friday 23 December 2011 10.08 EST 
Courtesy Of "The Guardian"

Turkey's prime minister has accused France of having committed genocide during its colonial occupation of Algeria in the latest round of the worst diplomatic row between the two Nato allies in more than a century.

The claim by Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday follows French MPs' approval of a law that would make it a criminal offence to deny that the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 by Ottoman Turks was genocide.

Turkey has frozen political and diplomatic relations with France, recalling its ambassador to Paris and suspending all economic, political and military meetings. Erdogan has withdrawn permission for French military planes to land and warships to dock in Turkey and annulled joint military exercises. He said he would decide, case by case, whether to allow the French military to use Turkish airspace.

"What the French did in Algeria was genocide," he said in a deeply personal speech laced with criticism of France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Erdogan said that about 15% of the Algerian population was massacred during the French occupation from 1945 to 1962. "They were mercilessly martyred. If Mr Sarkozy doesn't know there was a genocide, he can ask his father, Pal Sarkozy … who was a legionnaire in Algeria in the 1940s. I'm sure he has a lot to tell his son about the massacres committed by the French in Algeria."

Pal Sarkozy told French TV: "I was never in Algeria. I didn't get further than Marseille, I was in the [foreign] legion for four months."

The row has simmered for weeks, but erupted on Thursday after French MPs approved a bill which would make denying the Armenian genocide a criminal offence punishable by a one-year prison sentence and a fine of €45,000.

Erdogan said the bill was "a clear example of how racism, discrimination and anti-Muslim sentiment have reached new heights in France and in Europe." He said: "President Sarkozy's ambition is to win an election based on promoting animosity against Turks and Muslims."

Under Sarkozy, who has opposed Turkey's stalled bid to join the EU, Paris-Ankara relations have been tricky. Turkey has accused his rightwing UMP party of using the genocide bill to court the 500,000 French-Armenian voters in next year's presidential and parliamentary elections. Socialists also supported criminalising genocide denial.

"I respect the convictions of our Turkish friends – it's a great country, a great civilisation – and they should respect ours," Sarkozy said on Friday, after arriving in Prague for the funeral of the former Czech president Václav Havel.

The French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, who has tried to smooth tensions, called for "restraint", saying he wanted to preserve "trust and friendship". He added that some declarations had been "no doubt excessive".

Most historians contend the Ottoman killings of the Armenians constituted the first genocide of the 20th century. Ankara denies the killings constitute genocide and says many Muslim Turks and Kurds were also put to death as Russian troops invaded eastern Anatolia, often aided by Armenian militias. The issue weighs heavily on political pride and Turkey's international relations. In Washington Barack Obama has stopped short of calling the killings genocide.

The French parliament recognised the Armenian killings as genocide in 2001. The bill to criminalise genocide denial must go before the senate next year.

The Turkish-French Connection

Will Turkey's Anger Over France's Move To Criminalise any Denial Of The 1915 Killing Of Armenians As Genocide Sour Ties? 

Inside Story 
Last Modified: 23 Dec 2011 15:32 
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

The lower house of the French parliament has approved a bill on Thursday that would make it a crime to deny that the killings by Ottoman Turks more than 90 years ago were genocide.

"It's part of the French election campaign and it's unfortunate that Turkish frustrations have [fallen victim to] political aspirations. But I disagree that the new French law is a reflection of what already exists in European law because the French law is penalising or criminalising freedom of thought." - Yusuf Kanli, Turkish columnist

The proposed sentence is one year in prison and a $59,000 fine.

Turkey vehemently rejects the term genocide and has withdrawn its ambassador because of the vote.

The dispute is expected to further harm Turkish-French relations - already strained by French President Nicolas Sarkozy's repeated rejection of Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

In this show we ask: What are the motives of the French move and to what extent is it politically motivated? And why is Turkey so angry?

Inside Story with presenter Mike Hanna discusses with guests: Claire Mouradian, an Armenian specialist at the Institute for Scientific Research; Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, a French political journalist and columnist for the Sunday Telegraph; and Yusuf Kanli, a columnist for the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News.

Algerian War Of Independence From The French

1954-1962 

Submitted By "Sayf Maslul" 
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera" 

24 minutes documentary about the Algerian war. Great vintage footage and interviews of veteran French men who were drafted, of Harkis (Algerians fighting for the French) and european settlers who had to leave Algeria after it became independent again in 1962. Many Algerians in turn immigrated to France and all whop were involved one way or another in the fight bear the scars of the conflict even t More..o this day.

Until 1999 this war was unacknowledged by the French government. It was only after Jacques Chirac recognized it officially that the oppressive silence was lifted and people concerned started to talk about it.

What strikes me the most is to see old men weep. Men are supposed not to let their emotions out but how good is it for a society when mental agony remains a taboo subject? How good can such a man be to his wife and children? To society at large? What values will he transmit to the generation that is following him if essential issues of human rights expressed through war and foreign policy cannot be addressed?

This conflict bears striking similarities with the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. People, men, fight to free their country from foreign occupation. As simple as that. They are "irregulars" because they are not part of a state-ruled army but what if their leader is corrupt and a traitor, then who will fight to free their country? Are they supposed to accept the occupation? Of course not! But by joinint the resistance they become "unlawful combatants" and are not protected by the Geneva convention. The French used this reasoning, just like Busk Jr did after the invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

History repeats itself, nothing new under the sun.

The Strategic Alliance Between Algeria and The US

Two-Sided Love Affair

By ROB PRINCE
Weekend Edition
April 1 - 3, 2011
Courtesy Of "CounterPunch"

At about the time that the United States, the European Union and NATO were putting the final touches on their not-so `humanitarian’ interventionalism in Libya, U.S. Middle East policy was developing along quite different lines in Algeria.

On March 4-7, in Algiers, the United States and Algeria formed what both countries are referring to as `a new contact group’ for counter-terrorism collaboration, cementing even further a decade of close intelligence and military cooperation between the two countries.

Underlining the importance of the security arrangement, the United States sent Daniel Benjamin, the U.S. State Department’s Coordinator for Counter Terrorism, to attend. The Algerian side was represented by Algerian presidential advisor, Kamel Rezzag Bara.

At a press conference Benjamin welcomed `the inaugural meeting of the bilateral contact group,’. 

He asserted the U.S. intended to work with Algeria to `counter groups that seek to launch attacks against innocents’. The crusader bombast and confrontational style of the Bush years has been replaced by a much softer touch stylistically at least. Poised, cutting a handsome `Kennedy-like’ image, Benjamin chose his words carefully.

'Algeria’s future should be in its own hands’, Benjamin told an audience of Algerian journalists. He continued, `The U.S. supports the democratization process in Algeria and elsewhere in the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel.’ In response to a question, Benjamin categorically stated that `the United States does not seek any more military bases in Africa’.   Benjamin went on to state `the future of Algeria is for Algerians to determine”.

In response to a question, Benjamin categorically stated that `the United States does not seek any more military bases in Africa’.

Indeed, the rhetoric was impeccable. If only it matched the reality!

Take, for instance, the comment that the United States does not seek military bases in Africa. The United States has been `frantically’ looking for an African home for AFRICOM, the African command center created during the Bush years to deal with Africa’s strategic importance in terms of oil and rare minerals, and to counter China’s growing influence throughout the continent.

It seems African countries – even allies – don’t believe that AFRICOM is a Peace Corps-like outfit concerned with development and fighting AIDs. Despite repeated U.S. denials to the contrary, African leaders fear it is something more sinister, Imagine!

Furthermore the United States has at least one military base of some size and significance in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. There is  evidence that another one existed for a number of years in Tamanrassett, deep in the Algerian Sahara out of which U.S. Special Forces operated.

U.S. and Algerian security cooperation is more than a decade old, beginning sometime just after the ending of Algeria’s `dirty war’ in 1999. One could argue it began even earlier with a number of visits by then Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney to Algeria to cut oil and gas deals with the North African country despite the fact that Algeria was bogged down in what is referred to as `The Dirty War’, a civil war that nearly split the country apart.

Willing to open its oil and gas deposits to U.S. companies, the Algerian government was also able to convince the Bush Administration in the days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack that it stood with the United States as a partner in global war on terrorism; unbeknownst to many, the relations between the two countries improved considerably. Then in 2002-2003, the US, in collusion with its new regional ally Algeria, launched a second front in its global war on terrorism across the Sahara and Sahelian regions of Africa.

What seems to be the chemistry to bring these unlikely allies together? If British anthropologist Jeremy Keenan is to be believed – and he makes an excellent case – U.S.-Algerian cooperation `countering terrorism’ has been little more than a pretext for a strategic military alliance in which both countries gained in different ways. The actual relationship bears little of the moral rectitude suggested in Benjamin’s remarks.

“For Algeria, the partnership has meant increased access to U.S. military and surveillance technology which it was denied during the 1990s due to the `dirty war’. In the name of fighting terrorism, the alliance also extends Algerian influence over its southern neighbors in the Sahara and Sahel:  Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania. 

“For the United States, the arrangement permits Washington to `piggy back’ on Algerian security concerns, real and imagined, to create a security network that today extends in the north, from Algeria in the north – one of Africa’s most prolific oil and natural gas producing countries, to Nigeria on Africa’s western coast, another of the continent’s great oil producing countries.

“The Algerian-U.S. relationship,  a marriage of convenience,  was cemented not long after 9-11 by a rather bizarre, if not surrealistic and apparently heavily contrived set of circumstances that fit the needs of both. The Bush Administration, with Dick Cheney taking the lead, wanted to open a second front on the `global war on terrorism’  (GWOT)  in Africa focusing on the Sahara.”  

Only one minor problem: there was virtually no terrorism, no terrorist groups in the area. Indeed, despite its natural hazards, in 2001-2, the Sahara was arguably one of the safest places to travel anywhere in the world. If Keenan is correct, the Algerian Departement de Reseignement et Securite (DRS), the Algerian Security Service, in cooperation with the U.S. military – under the auspices then of EUCOM based in Germany -fabricated an incident and then blew it all out of proportion in the medias of both countries.

In The Dark Sahara, Keenan makes the case that the kidnapping of German speaking tourists from Germany, Austria and Switzerland in 2002 was managed by the Algerian DRS with the knowledge if not complicity of the U.S. Special Forces with whom the Algerians worked rather closely. He substantiates claims that:

“The so-called Islamic groups which participated in the kidnappings were either penetrated or run by the DRS.

There was no `terrorist' pipeline from Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda in Afghanstan through to Africa.

“The whole kidnapping incident was essentially staged, and then blown out of proportion by both the Algerian press (with close ties to its security establishment) to create the myth of the Saharan terrorist threat.

My favorite part of this pervasive scam is the likelihood that the `leader’ of the Islamic fundamentalist group, a fellow named El Para, was an Algerian DRS operative who trained in counter insurgency for two years at Ft. Bragg North Carolina. Keenan claims El Para was in constant contact with his Algerian security handlers during the entire time of the 2002 kidnapping.” 

As a result, the Algerian military and security forces got their high tech death and communication toys, and the Bush Administration its pretext to deepen its military involvement in Africa.

Keenan’s hypothesis fits the Bush GWOT pattern to a tee: Military intervention requires embellishing or fabricating an impending threat. An elaborate disinformation campaign is launched.

The remoteness of the Sahara makes verifying fabrication difficult, permitting Algerians and the U.S. military to liberally embellish the truth. Who could disprove what was or was not going on in the southeastern corner of Algeria or northwestern Niger?

But then they didn’t reckon with Jeremy Keenan, with his encyclopedic knowledge of the Sahara, his decades long human connection with the Tuareg peoples who live there, and his unflagging sense of decency and unwillingness not to go along with a dangerous political charade.

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; across the Sahara and the Sahel, a terrorist threat with links to Al Qaeda was more a scheme hatched by the DRS in Algiers than a viable Islamic resistance movement. We’ve been conned once again.

Rob Prince lectures in International Studies at the University of Denver. He can be reached at robertjprince@comcast.net

Gaddafi's Ace In The Hole? Algeria

By Rob Prince,
March 4, 2011
Courtesy Of "Foreign Policy In Focus"

At this moment when it appears that Muammar Gaddafi's days in power are numbered, the Libyan leader has made it clear repeatedly that he will stay and fight. So far he has. His domestic support is evaporating around him, leaders of the country's 140 tribes siding with the rebels, military units siding with the rebellion in larger and larger numbers, air force pilots and naval vessels defecting to Malta. Much of his government, other than his sons, has abandoned him as well.

What is left?

Those heavily armed private militias controlled by his sons? The army of mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa? Some Mirage jet fighter planes with, until now, pilots less than willing to bomb rebel strongholds? All that is true. Yet while the U.S. and Europe work to isolate Gaddafi,  he is not completely alone and without allies.

Libya appears more and more headed for civil war. Given his ever shrinking domestic base, one has to wonder how it is that Gaddafi can appear so defiant? It might come from the fact that he is not entirely isolated and alone. Indeed, the support that Gaddafi is garnering has stiffened the colonel's backbone.

Gaddafi has the support of at least one important regional ally, the Algerian government, which has both militarily and diplomatically thrown its full (and substantial) weight behind his effort to retain power. In so doing, it would appear that Algeria, which has long cooperated with the US and NATO on its North and Sub-Saharan Africa anti-terrorism policies, is breaking ranks to protect its regime's very survival.

Since its independence, Algeria has been controlled by its military which lives high off the country's oil profits at the expense of its own people. Algeria's leaders fear that if Gaddafi falls, their hold on power will be that much more fragile. Their support of Gaddafi is very much one to save their own skins.

If Mubarak saw the writing on the wall as Ben Ali's little castle in Tunisia crumbled, so the Algerian military leadership understands that if Gaddafi falls, it very likely is next in line, or if not, not very far down the list. Desperate to cling to power, the Algerian government is – offering a few political and economic concessions it is true – essentially reorganizing the state's substantial repressive apparatus to weather the protest storm. But in addition, it is pulling out all stops to support Gaddafi's increasingly feeble hold on power.

Maybe it is the support of its North African oil producing ally Algeria that has given Gaddafi that confident appearance that he can indeed – with a little help from his friends – hold out longer. An alliance of two of Africa's most important oil producing countries is nothing to sneeze at, and could have all kinds of implications, consequences. Should the alliance between the two tighten, and they engage  in a common front oil embargo, which some news outlets speculate could happen, oil prices could jump to as high as $220 a barrel.

Less than a week ago, an Algerian human rights group based in Germany Algeria Watch published a statement alleging that the Algerian government is providing material aid – in the form of armed military units – to Muammar Gaddafi to help prop up his shrinking (and sinking) regime. The statement is found on the website of an Algerian youth group, Mouvement Rachad, involved in the current protests against the current Algerian government.

The statement opens as such:

It is with both sadness and anger that we have learned that the Algerian government  has sent armed detachments to Libya to commit crimes against our Libyan brothers and sisters who have risen up against the bloody and corrupt regime of Muammar Khadafi [their spelling]. These armed detachments were first identified in western Libya in the city of Zaouia where some among them have been arrested. This has been reported in the media and confirmed by eye witnesses. (Prince translation)

Zaouia is the site of fierce fire fights between the residents of Zaouia, now a zone liberated from Tripoli's control and under the authority of rebel forces on the one hand, and the military elements still faithful to Gaddafi on the others. There were reports today of a 6-8 hour battle in which Gaddafi's forces, led by one of his sons, tried to recapture the city but were repulsed by the city's defenders and pushed back after fierce fighting.

Algeria Watch goes on to accuse the Algerian government of having provided the air transport planes that have carried sub-Saharan African mercenaries from Niger, Chad and the Dafur province of Sudan to Libya to strengthen Gaddafi's position militarily. It goes on to add that Algeria had played a similar role in transporting troops to Somalia to support the U.S. directed government military offensive against rebellious Somali tribes.

The statement goes on to allege that on the diplomatic front that the Algerian government has been lobbying different European powers (which are presumably France, Italy, German, Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain) pressing them to continue to support Gaddafi. These diplomatic efforts are being led by Abdelkader Messahel, Algerian Minister of Magrebian and African Affairs. On the all-European level, Amar Bendjama, Algerian ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as Algeria's representative to the European Union and NATO and Belkacem Belgaid, another Algerian diplomat whose responsibilities include NATO and the EU, have together opened up an active lobbying campaign in support of Gaddafi.

The political approach that Bendjama and Belgaid are pursuing echoes Gaddafi's own statements – that if his government were to fall, Libya would fall into the hands of radical Islamic fundamentalists – all this nonsense about Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden being behind the national uprising. Gaddafi's argument is identical to what Ben Ali and Mubarak have been arguing for decades: that they are the alternative to an Islamic takeover. The West might not like them, but better Gaddafi than Osama. This kind of fear mongering – the threat of Islamic radicalism – has lost its appeal in the current protest wave in which the Islamic fundamentalist element has been marginalized or irrelevant.

The lobbying is similar to what has happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, where the first offer of concessions consists of ceding as little as possible. Bendjama and Belgaid appear to be pressing (unsuccessfully) for a solution that would see Gaddafi's son, Saif, replace his father. It is not clear if they are asking for some kind of arrangement that would protect Gaddafi from prosecution in exchange for stepping down, but such an approach is more than likely. But as one of the first demands in the Tunisian, Egyptian and Yemeni protests was precisely that no family member (sons or family member) succeed these elder and now disgraced statements to power, it is not likely that such arguments or suggestions will carry much if any weight. There is more.

Under the direction of Colonel Djamel Bouzghaia, an advisor to Algerian President Bouteflika on security matters, Algeria has, according to the statement, 'embraced' a large number of elements of disposed Tunisian president Zine Ben Ali's private security force and republican guard. These are the same units that were used as snipers to assassinate demonstrators in Kasserine, Sidi Bouzid and Thala in Tunisia. Now in the employ of Algeria, they too have been sent to Libya to shore up Gaddafi's regime. Bouzghaia works directly under Major General Rachid Laalali (alias Attafi), head of Algeria's external relations bureau.

Who else is helping Gaddafi? Will be interesting to see what shakes out.

Rob Prince is the publisher of the Colorado Progressive Jewish News.