France Comes Clean About the Mining of Algeria

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

ALGIERS (AFP) - France has handed Algeria details of where its forces laid

millions of landmines on the country's eastern and western borders

half-a-century ago, the French embassy in Algiers said Saturday. "General

Jean-Louis Georgelin, chief of the armed forces general staff, officially

delivered to his Algerian counterpart, Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaid Salah, the

plans of minefields laid ... by the French army between 1956 and 1959," an

embassy statement said. According to Algiers, some three million

anti-personnel mines planted on Algeria's borders with Morocco and Tunisia to

prevent independence fighters infiltrating the then French colony are still in

place. It has long demanded that France reveal the plans of the minefields

stretching some 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) along the borders. Algerian

newspapers regularly report accidents to local people, particularly herders and

children, while Algiers is committed to destroying all anti-personnel mines on

its territory under the Ottawa Convention. The French statement said Paris

wanted to "move forward in removing the obstacles inherited from the past and

build relations of trust with Algeria." Georgelin, who arrived on Saturday for

a four-day visit, told Salah that the French army was keen to increase military

cooperation between the two countries.

General Jean-Louis Georgelin, seen here in 2006, has handed Algeria the

details of where French forces laid millions of landmines in the African

country's eastern and western borders between 1956 and 1959.(AFP/File/Patrick

Kovarik)

[Ban Hammer 13,110]

what took them so freaking long to tell algeria?

[sarah and hicham 3]

Wahrania what do you know about the number of Algerian immigrants in France and what is your take on that?

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

Wahrania what do you know about the number of Algerian immigrants in France and what is your take on that?

France was genocidal in Algeria......they wiped away the history of Algeria , burned libraries,sent people to death islands, massacred and maimed....They never have apologised or released the archives of the missing and dead..... Shot entire villages... in one massacre in 1945, killed 45,000 people in one week.. over a million during the Algerian war...

My take on the Algerian immigrants is that they would never have been there without France's occupation and exploitation of Algeria. I think they have a right to be there just like any person from a colony that was occupied by France... I do think that France brought everything on themselves by their actions including colonization and abuse including the conscription of Algerian soldiers in 3 different foreign wars against their will..

I do not know how many are in France...but they are of 2 groups. The first group are HARKI desecent and fought on the side of the French and some are not welcome in Algeria. The other group are recent immigrants and those who have french citizenship or are eligible through family or immigration or immigrated years ago. I do not exactly understand your question other than I have absolutely no sympathy for the French whatsover and frankly anything they are dealing with they brought on themselves..

They also have interfered greatly in Morocco, polarising Berbers. They have interfered in Western Sahara by refusing to caste a deciding vote prolonging the conflict. They benefit from the occupation of Iraq yet let the US take the fall. They directly contributed to the war in Rwanda. Look at every single country they colonized in North Africa ( not protectorates like Morocco.. Morocco was a protectorate) and you see genocide and civil war. Not one country in Africa was left unscathed by France.

I don't have any opinion on the number of immigrants. Obviously I am very pro Algerian so I am probably the wrong person to address immigration. I side almost unilaterally with Algerians and Algerian interests...

cheers

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

Wahrania what do you know about the number of Algerian immigrants in France and what is your take on that?

I have been to Paris about 8 times in the last 7 years and to France probably 25 times in my lifetime and frankly I never noticed Algerians until 7 years ago because I had never met any. After meeting my first Algerians about 7 years ago, I fell in love with everything about them. I am very biased in favor of them so I cannot give very objective answers...

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

what took them so freaking long to tell algeria?

Because they now want oil.. Thats why..

They have never returned Algeria s artifacts ( thousands stolen) they have never apologised for their genocidal acts and have pretty much admitted to torture abuse etc

BATTLE OF ALGIERS ( watch this charles.. it explains alot)

[Ban Hammer 13,110]

what took them so freaking long to tell algeria?

Because they now want oil.. Thats why..

They have never returned Algeria s artifacts ( thousands stolen) they have never apologised for their genocidal acts and have pretty much admitted to torture abuse etc

BATTLE OF ALGIERS ( watch this charles.. it explains alot)

what am i supposed to be seeing?

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

what took them so freaking long to tell algeria?

Because they now want oil.. Thats why..

They have never returned Algeria s artifacts ( thousands stolen) they have never apologised for their genocidal acts and have pretty much admitted to torture abuse etc

BATTLE OF ALGIERS ( watch this charles.. it explains alot)

what am i supposed to be seeing?

I am not sure how to post this link or make it appear as a movie

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lCTvZ2hDuA&rel=1"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lCTvZ2hDuA&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lCTvZ2hDuA&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

battle of algiers

what took them so freaking long to tell algeria?

Because they now want oil.. Thats why..

They have never returned Algeria s artifacts ( thousands stolen) they have never apologised for their genocidal acts and have pretty much admitted to torture abuse etc

BATTLE OF ALGIERS ( watch this charles.. it explains alot)

what am i supposed to be seeing?

[monnik 0]

[MrsAmera 41]

France has a horrible reputation in the colonial world. I think its' pretty obvious if you look at the break up of those colonized by the French and those by the British - those by the British are generally pretty stable and lack any real "bad" feelings towards the British aside from that they didn't want to be colonized. Whereas those who dealt with French colonization really have a bad taste in their mouths, dislike the French and in general their countries are a mess because they were never allowed or permitted to participate in the government and other infastructure so they really have no idea how to. Then add in the independence movement and urging of the west for democratic systems, that they have no idea how to run or create it's a mess. This went way more political than I had intended but yea I agree - France's colonization was awful.

[mybackpages 0]

They directly contributed to the war in Rwanda. Look at every single country they colonized in North Africa ( not protectorates like Morocco.. Morocco was a protectorate) and you see genocide and civil war. Not one country in Africa was left unscathed by France.

NOt sure what you meant here, but Rwanda was colonized by Belgium, not the French.

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

They directly contributed to the war in Rwanda. Look at every single country they colonized in North Africa ( not protectorates like Morocco.. Morocco was a protectorate) and you see genocide and civil war. Not one country in Africa was left unscathed by France.

NOt sure what you meant here, but Rwanda was colonized by Belgium, not the French.

Everyone knows that it was a Belgian colony what they do not know is that France harbored the leaders of the genocide and sold arms to them...

read on

France "should be charged" for Rwanda genocide

afrol News, 6 April - Rwandan government officials claim that new proof of France's role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide has emerged during the UN's Rwanda court hearings. Not only was France training the genocidal militias prior to the genocide, the French government was even today providing perpetrators of the genocide a refuge. France has earlier been criticised by a European court for not trying genocide suspects.

Aloys Mutabingwa, the Rwandan government's envoy to the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), yesterday made strong statements to the press in Arusha (Tanzania), where the ICTR is based. Mr Mutabingwa said the French government had part of the responsibility for the 1994 genocide and for not letting the ICTR doing its job properly.

The Rwandan envoy was quoted by the French news agency AFP as saying that the ICTR's ten-year investigations had produced "sufficient and credible evidence" to try French government officials. Many witnesses had told the tribunal about French soldiers training the Interahamwe militia of Hutu extremists. It was only because the ICTR wanted to avoid "a diplomatic incident" that French officials had not been charged.

Mr Mutabingwa also repeated the more known allegations that France keeps interfering with justice by providing a shelter for suspected genocide perpetrators. Several main suspects are still said to be at large in France, allegedly under the protection of the Paris government.

These allegations against France are not new. In June last year, the European Court of Human Rights slammed the French judiciary for using unreasonable long time in proceeding against a Rwandan clergyman, who had been charged with genocide compliancy nine years before. The European court found that the French judiciary was not satisfying the 'reasonable time' requirement" in the European Convention on Human Rights.

Also international human rights groups have criticised France for its seeming unwillingness to contribute to justice for Rwanda's genocide victims. The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) claims that cases related to the Rwandan genocide had in general been met by "a certain coolness by French judiciary authorities."

France, which supported Rwanda's Hutu government in power when the genocide started, has kept a distance to Rwanda's new leadership. French government and judiciary sources continuously are trying to put Rwanda's current President Paul Kagame in connection with a 1994 rocket attack on an aircraft in Kigali, killing the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi and setting off the genocide.

Meanwhile, in Rwanda, the government and people at large are preparing for tomorrow's 11th anniversary of the 1994 genocide. During the commemoration week of mourning, many local communities focus on the exhumation of mass graves. Many of the estimated 800,000 bodies placed in mass graves during the genocide are exhumed and reburied in dignity during the annual commemoration week.

By staff writer

They directly contributed to the war in Rwanda. Look at every single country they colonized in North Africa ( not protectorates like Morocco.. Morocco was a protectorate) and you see genocide and civil war. Not one country in Africa was left unscathed by France.

NOt sure what you meant here, but Rwanda was colonized by Belgium, not the French.

POLITICS: France Fails to Accept Responsibility over Rwanda

By Julio Godoy

PARIS, Apr 7 (IPS) - In the face of overwhelming evidence that France backed the Hutu-dominated Rwandan army responsible for the massacre of some 800,000 people ten years ago, it continues to deny its responsibility in the tragedy.

On the contrary, former minister for foreign affairs Dominique de Villepin claimed three weeks ago that ”French intervention in Rwanda saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”

New Rwandan leader Paul Kagamé, a Tutsi, corrected De Villepin. ”Yes, the French saved many lives -- of those who committed the genocide.”

De Villepin was referring to Operation Turquoise, a peacekeeping mission launched by the French government with UN authorisation on June 23, 1994 -- when the genocide was mostly over.

Experts who have studied the events say Kagamé is right. Operation Turquoise protected Hutu authorities who had led the massacres since April 1994, partly to flee Rwanda and to seek refuge in neighbouring Zaire, then controlled by another Francophile dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko.

France had been involved in Rwandan politics for many years before the civil war peaked in the spring of 1994.

Rwandan dictator Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, had enjoyed strong French and Belgian military support since the late 1980s despite strong evidence that Hutu militias linked to the Rwandan army (FAR, after its French name) had been massacring opposition leaders, especially Tutsis.

FAR had been fighting back the guerrilla rebellion of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) led by exiled Tutsis, including now president Paul Kagamé. The exiles were based in Uganda.

Rwanda, a small country of barely 24,000 square kilometres, is located at the centre of the Great Lakes region, bordering Uganda, Tanzania, the former Zaire, and Burundi. Hutus are about 80 percent of a population of some eight million. The Tutsi community forms most of the rest.

Tutsis were being massacred since 1990, but the major genocide began after the aircraft carrying Habyarimana was brought down on April 6, 1994. The Rwandan dictator was returning from peace negotiations in Arusha in neighbouring Tanzania.

Tutsi rebels were blamed for the killing of Habyarimana. In retaliation the Hutu-controlled army and militias led waves of massacres of Tutsis, but also of moderate Hutus.

The Hutu militias killed up to 800,000 people over the following three months, according to United Nations reports.

Classified documents and testimonies from international observers confirm that the French government knew of Hutu plans to carry out the massacres.

French military officers posted with the Rwandan army in their headquarters ”necessarily knew what was going on in the Rwanda military structures, they were fully informed that massacres were in preparation,” says Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who headed the UN mission sent to Rwanda in 1993.

French journalist Patrick de Saint-Exupery, author of a book on the Rwandan genocide confirms Dallaire's accusations against French military advisers.

”French military officers trained the killers in the genocide,” De Saint-Exupéry says in his book 'L'Inavouable - La France in Ruanda' (The unspeakable - France in Rwanda). ”They did that on orders, by teaching the Rwandan army counter-insurgency strategies and tactics.”

Dallaire believes that French officers even participated in skirmishes between the Rwandan army and the guerrillas. ”In the days that followed the killing of Habyarimana, we saw Europeans soldiers wearing the Rwandan military uniform, taking part in manoeuvres,” he had said in a statement made following the massacres.

These European soldiers, apparently French nationals, later joined Operation Turquoise. By then most of the massacres had taken place, and the operation served only to protect fleeing Hutu leaders.

A report by a group of independent observers said state-owned French banks delivered about six million dollars to the Hutu army and militias at the time.

All this information has been publicly known for years, but France has refused to accept any responsibility for the Rwandan genocide. A parliamentary assessment of French intervention in Rwanda published in 1998 spoke only of ”institutional dysfunctions” in French aid to the Rwandan army, and called the French policy in Rwanda ”a strategic error.”

But Pierre Banner who headed the parliamentary commission admits now that France was heavily involved in leading the Rwandan army. ”We did support a racist army, and didn't take the necessary distance at the moment of the genocide. I think France would do a good thing in accepting its responsibility.” (END/2004)

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

They directly contributed to the war in Rwanda. Look at every single country they colonized in North Africa ( not protectorates like Morocco.. Morocco was a protectorate) and you see genocide and civil war. Not one country in Africa was left unscathed by France.

NOt sure what you meant here, but Rwanda was colonized by Belgium, not the French.

My back pages to understand France's complicity in the genocide in Algeria, Rwanda its going to take a whole lot more than a message board to explain it.

Another very interesting but very touchy subject for Moroccans is the Western Sahara..... I would love to know exactly what you know about that conflict. There of course is the view from the United Nations and Minurso and then there is the Moroccan view..

Autonomy versus self determination

the green march versus the illegal occupation of a sovereign nation upheld by yearly proclamations by the UN of Morocco's lack of any legal right to be there...

Now that would be an interesting interesting interesting set of threads.(.UN RESOLUTION 1754 APRIL 2007 reaffirming the Western Sahara's right to self determinination)

But staying on the France thing...... Did you know that France gave spain gas and gassed the berbers in the riff? Did you know that the French Foreign Legion was known for raping little girls all across Algeria and was actually established in Sidi Bel Abbes Algeria ? Did you know that the fact they would take people and give them a new identity resulted in rapists , murderers and child molesters running all over algeria untouched by the law? Hence the new identity that people who joined the legion got. There is alot you do not know back pages because its just now that all this information is coming out... water torture, rape, mass graves.....electric applied to genitals... oh France.... you are so lovely... bastards....Its all come out in the last 5 years... and its continuing.. and continuing and continuing.. I hope this answers the connection of RWANDA to FRANCE... They were pulling strings....

[mybackpages 0]

I've actually been to Rwanda...spend the summer in Kigali working. As far as the issue of Western Sahara goes, I've worked really hard to find my way to the answer on that question. What helped most was the conversations I had with the Saharawi one on one.

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

I've actually been to Rwanda...spend the summer in Kigali working. As far as the issue of Western Sahara goes, I've worked really hard to find my way to the answer on that question. What helped most was the conversations I had with the Saharawi one on one.

Interesting about RWANDA... I am sure that you heard lots of horror stories and saw the devastation firsthand... Interesting that France had so much to do with sheltering the murderers..

Interesting video of police brutality in Layoune

I am not quite sure how to inbed this. The pictures speak for themselves.

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I've actually been to Rwanda...spend the summer in Kigali working. As far as the issue of Western Sahara goes, I've worked really hard to find my way to the answer on that question. What helped most was the conversations I had with the Saharawi one on one.

Interesting about RWANDA... I am sure that you heard lots of horror stories and saw the devastation firsthand... Interesting that France had so much to do with sheltering the murderers..

Interesting video of police brutality in Layoune

I am not quite sure how to inbed this. The pictures speak for themselves.

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw5sCVB_HHQ&rel=1"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw5sCVB_HHQ&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw5sCVB_HHQ&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

I've actually been to Rwanda...spend the summer in Kigali working. As far as the issue of Western Sahara goes, I've worked really hard to find my way to the answer on that question. What helped most was the conversations I had with the Saharawi one on one.

I am sorry .. I cannot get the youtube to post ...

I've actually been to Rwanda...spend the summer in Kigali working. As far as the issue of Western Sahara goes, I've worked really hard to find my way to the answer on that question. What helped most was the conversations I had with the Saharawi one on one.

I will go to the sahara this winter... There are alot of saharawis living in western Algeria... It should be interesting