A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (95 page)

But there were still some arduous battles to be fought in New York. As usual, France was boycotting the debates concerning Algeria, but Jacques Soustelle was there in a semi-private capacity representing the
Algérie française
lobby. Resorting to the American media in a way that no French representative before him had ever done, with his brilliant intellect and mordant wit the former governor-general had won some telling points. But all arguments had been swept away by the totally unexpected force of the Muslim riots during de Gaulle’s December visit, which appeared to make a nonsense of Soustelle’s prime contention that the F.L.N. represented nothing more than a minority clique terrorising the Algerian majority.

The Algiers riots organised by the F.L.N. during de Gaulle’s visit could hardly have been better co-ordinated or more effective. On 6 December the Political Committee began its debate on the “Algerian Question”; on the 11th Belcourt and the Casbah had exploded. Of the thirteen new “francophone” African nations who had recently gained their sovereignty from de Gaulle, and on whom in return de Gaulle had counted for assistance at the United Nations, a critical number wavered under the impact of the December events, whipped on by the eloquence of M’hamed Yazid. After more than a dozen sessions and innumerable speeches, the F.L.N. carried the day, with the Political Committee accepting its principle that any referendum on Algeria should be supervised by the United Nations. It was a slap in the face for de Gaulle’s ideal of a purely French supervised referendum; however, a last-minute face-saving compromise granted “France and her Algerian interlocutors” the right to define the supervisory body — a typical United Nations formula requiring untold further ergs of discussion before anything watertight would emerge.

On 20 December the General Assembly voted paragraph by paragraph on the motion framed by its Political Committee. By a massive vote of sixty-three to eight, with twenty-seven abstentions, it recognised:

The right of the Algerian people to self-determination and independence.

The imperative necessity for adequate and effective guarantees to assure successfully the just application of the principle of free determination, on the basis of the territorial unity and integrity of Algeria.

The responsibility of the United Nations to contribute to the success of implementing this principle.

The fourth paragraph, dealing with the referendum technicalities, failed to pass through the Assembly by one solitary vote, meaning that it would have to carry over to the next session. In effect, for de Gaulle this signified that a “suspended sentence” had been pronounced upon his policy by the United Nations. What really counted, however, was the sheer weight of support which the G.P.R.A. was now able to muster to its side, and in almost total compliance to its will. The United Nations having played its role to the full, the antagonists in the Algerian war were now virtually to leave its floor forever for the arena of a single combat between “champions” of each side.

To de Gaulle’s 4 November speech which, with its first mention of
Algérie algérienne
, pushed the rebel French generals over the brink, the G.P.R.A. had reacted with its customary blend of reservation and mistrust. It had, declared Yazid, “been presented with a tricolour bouquet, with at least five cacti inside it!” All signs pointed then to de Gaulle being in utmost earnest about ending the war on any reasonable terms, but once again it sounded to the hypersensitive Algerians as if the enigmatic and lofty French leader might still be endeavouring to impose “his” peace.

As the peace wranglings drag on from one stage to another, one needs to bear sympathetically in mind the various deep-seated neuroses and inhibitions besetting the Algerian negotiators; an underprivileged people who for over six years had fought the grimmest of wars against a nation gifted to the full with every advantage of civilisation; a people aware that several times in the past their birthright had been stolen by guile, whether by fraudulent elections or unfulfilled promises (and how easily, on the very edge of success, might they be cheated yet again by French wiles or a foot placed incautiously!). On the other hand — as time passes on, moving ever to the disadvantage of the French — one must not ignore that all too human instinct of mankind to ask for more as soon as it realises that its adversary is floundering.

Because of their basic mistrust there were a number of principles on which the F.L.N. negotiators could never yield. Chief among these was their intransigent refusal to permit any cease-fire in advance of a full political settlement. Against this, from Mendès-France onwards, successive French governments had insisted on a cease-fire first. This had been the impassable stumbling-block. The F.L.N.’s motivation here was basically quite simple; once the military revolt in the “interior” was stood down, if for whatever reason the emergent solution proved unacceptable, it would be extremely hard to get it going again. A second principle for which the F.L.N. had fought with equal persistence was that it, and it alone, represented the sole Algerian
interlocuteur valable
with whom France could discuss peace. There could be no other partner, no “third force”, whatever.

In the new year of 1961, as soon as memories of the bitter December days in Algiers had begun to fade, the complex spider’s web of pre-negotiations was spinning again. The ever-ready, helpful and hopeful Bourguiba was at Rambouillet in February, and a Swiss journalist close to the G.P.R.A. brought encouraging noises from Tunis. In great secrecy de Gaulle despatched his trusted banker friend, Georges Pompidou (whom he had called upon to help draw up his first cabinet back in 1958) to the quiet and
bürgerlich
Swiss cuckoo-clock city of Lucerne. It was not quite Pompidou’s scene, nevertheless it provided an inconspicuous backdrop against which he could meet the jovial Algerian lawyer, Ahmed Boumendjel, who had led the unsuccessful talks at Melun the previous year. The two men got on well enough together, and the mere fact of Pompidou’s presence was accepted by the main body of the G.P.R.A. as a measure of de Gaulle’s seriousness. He then followed it up by making an immense concession. He would abandon the
sine qua non
of a prior ceasefire. He would go further; he would — at the risk of serious trouble with his army — order it to assume a unilateral truce, not shooting at the A.L.N. and carrying out only defensive patrolling operations, even if the A.L.N. would not respond in kind. He would also release several thousand more F.L.N. militants from French prisons. And what would his Algerian
interlocuteurs valables
offer by way of concession in exchange? They would simply agree to talk.

Yet, as a G.P.R.A. minister was quoted as saying by
L’Express
after the conference: “We are not in agreement on any subject. We don’t even know what we are going to talk about. We are going to Evian purely so that international opinion can be the judge.” There was still a vast no-man’s-land of disagreement to be explored and charted at the conference table. There was the role of Ben Bella and his fellow prisoners, always a sore subject for the F.L.N.; there was the question of “guarantees” for the European minority in an
Algérie algérienne
; there was the fate of Algeria’s vast Saharan under-belly, which de Gaulle — who liked to compare it to “an interior sea, with its archipelagos and its treasures” — insisted should be held separate from the rest of Algeria; there was the question of defence interests construed vital by the French, such as the great base of Mers-el-Kébir; and finally there was the quest for a formula of “association” rather than of “abandoning Algeria to her own devices”, in de Gaulle’s words. Nevertheless, after the second “information” meeting between Pompidou and Boumendjel in the first week of March, it seemed that enough had been agreed for talks to begin. By the end of the month a place and a date had been appointed; Evian and 7 April. It was not to de Gaulle the most inspiriting ambience (“
Ce n’est pas très gai
,” he had once remarked to Macmillan in another diplomatic context. “
Le lac. Et puis toute cette histoire de ce Monsieur Calvin. Non. Ce n’est pas très gai. Tout de même
….”) He had few illusions of speedy success. But even before the conference could sit a series of shipwrecking squalls was being whipped up on the surface of the wintry, grey and cheerless lake.

Evian: Round One

On the day of the publication of simultaneous communiqués announcing the Evian talks, Louis Joxe, de Gaulle’s Minister for Algeria, committed what looked like a major gaffe. He announced that he would “be meeting the M.N.A. in parallel with the F.L.N.”. It was a last final attempt by France to resurrect the idea of a “third force” — and a thoroughly unsuccessful one. The G.P.R.A. exploded; here at the eleventh hour was France trying to turn the peace talks into a round-table affair; trying to do just what Ahmed Francis had always warned they would do — “produce a Bao-Dai out of a hat”. Within twenty-four hours of their own acceptance, on 31 March the G.P.R.A. proclaimed that the conference was off. Meanwhile, the infant O.A.S. marked the same day by murdering the innocent mayor of Evian, describing it as an act of “national salubrity” — a deed that was as senseless and brutal as any of their subsequent actions. Next, taking advantage of the Evian adjournment, the generals’ putsch had broken out in Algiers. As soon as order had been restored, de Gaulle informed the G.P.R.A. coolly: “The Algiers parenthesis is now closed. Let us resume our affairs.” On 20 May the negotiations began in Evian. But, in their post-putsch debility, the French had had to concede to the F.L.N. all notion of there being any other negotiating partner but themselves. Yet another major trick had been lost to the F.L.N. It was going to be like the peeling of an onion, layer after layer.

A sleepy spa on the French side of Lake Geneva, opposite Lausanne, Evian had been chosen carefully out of deference to F.L.N. susceptibilities, so that the Algerians should not feel themselves “prisoners in a golden cage” as they had within the confines of the prefecture at Melun the previous summer. In fact, if anything (it was indicative of trends) the Algerian delegates were accommodated in rather greater luxury than their French opposite numbers. Guests of the opulent Emir of Qatar at his charming and sumptuous Swiss chateau of Bois d’Avault, surrounded by lush meadows, the F.L.N. representatives were ferried each day across the lake to Evian by Swiss army helicopters. After the murder of the unhappy mayor by the O.A.S., the utmost security precautions had been taken, both by the Swiss and the French; the air space over Lake Geneva was forbidden to all outside aircraft, while frogmen patrolled round the helicopter landing-pad; the grounds of the Edwardian Hôtel du Parc, the actual site of the conference, had been turned into a virtual armed camp. Powerfully supported by experts, each team mounted about thirty members. Leading the French was Louis Joxe, suave historian and diplomat, wearing that hall-mark of the
carrière
, an Anthony Eden hat, and backed by Bernard Tricot from the Elysée. The Algerians were even more strongly represented, headed by Krim himself and seconded by the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Ahmed Francis, with the negotiators of Melun, Boumendjel and Ben Yahia, standing behind them. Also in attendance was a figure recently emerged on the international scene, Saad Dahlab, Krim’s second-in-command in Foreign Affairs and a converted Messalist. Significantly, two senior officers from the A.L.N. General Staff, Boumedienne’s closest deputies, Major Slimane and Major Mendjli, were constantly hovering in the background as well. Physically absent, but very much present in spirit, were Ben Bella and his imprisoned colleagues; they had been transferred to more luxurious internment at the Châteaux de Turquant as an additional
douceur
to the F.L.N. by de Gaulle, but still not permitted to join in the negotiations.

There was a moment of tense anticipation as Krim made his début at Evian; Krim, the last of the
neuf historiques
who had launched the revolt in 1954 still alive and at liberty; founder-member of the Kabyle maquis and former French army corporal, now with the eyes of the world upon him. Nattily dressed and his normally flaccid features rendered even less taut by a recent gall-bladder operation and four years of city life following his flight from Algeria during the Battle of Algiers, Krim could have passed more readily as a Corsican mafioso than a veteran maquisard. He did not look like a hard-liner, and from the dossier compiled on Krim over the years the French negotiators regarded his presence as a hopeful sign. After the formal introductions were over, Joxe with utmost deference to Krim proposed that the Algerian should have the first word; Krim, meeting courtesy with courtesy, refused, insisting that the privilege belonged to the French host. Resorting to an Arab aphorism, Joxe declared, “the page must be turned” and stressed de Gaulle’s determination to reach a peace settlement. But once these initial
politesses
had been exchanged, the French were swiftly disabused of any hopes of a smooth passage for the talks. Whatever might have been expected of Krim, rightly or wrongly, it was at once apparent that over his one shoulder there stared the uncompromising gaze of Boumedienne and the General Staff; over the other, that of Ben Bella and his colleagues, unforgiving and implacably militant after their four and a half years of sequestration.

If ever there was a moment when the birds of that French folly, the hijacking of 1956, were coming home to roost it was now, when prospects of peace seemed closest. The imprisoned leaders of the “exterior” had spent the long hours of confinement following football results, playing ping-pong among themselves (at which Boudiaf emerged the steady champion), listening to records, and endlessly reading. As well as numerous books on Algeria published by the pro-F.L.N. Paris house of Maspéro, they were plentifully provided with works by such diverse writers as Lenin, Sartre, Malraux and Ibn Khaldoun. In the latter months Ben Bella dedicated himself to perfecting his Spanish and classical Arabic, while Ait Ahmed concentrated on English literature. Maintaining from the very earliest days a remarkable constancy of communication with the leadership of the “new exterior” in Tunis, the detainees had only been helped to improve these contacts by de Gaulle’s successive concessions. As 1961 went on they were holding regular telephone conversations with their families abroad, and even with Nasser in Cairo as well as with members of the G.P.R.A. Yet, inevitably, their isolation from many of the true facts of life — particularly the state of war-weariness within the Wilayas — was profound. Boredom and bitterness against the French proliferated as the months of imprisonment spun out, regardless of all efforts by de Gaulle to improve their circumstances. Many hours were spent in argument on the present, and future, of Algeria, and there were rifts (notably between Ait Ahmed and Ben Bella) reflecting those that had perpetually plagued the free F.L.N. leadership.