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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
3 May 2001
AI Index EUR 21/002/2001 - News Service Nr. 80
France/Algeria : France must now face up to its judicial obligations
In a book entitled AServices
SpJciaux: AlgJrie 1995-1957", published today,
a former French Government was directly implicated in the torture and
summary executions of Algerians during the Algerian war. The allegation was
made by General Paul Aussaresses, a high-ranking French military officer in
the Algerian war, and coordinator of the intelligence services during the
Battle of Algiers in 1957.
Although Amnesty International
cannot know whether today=s claims by
General Aussaresses, directly implicating the French Government in crimes
against humanity, are well founded, they are clearly extremely serious and
require full and prompt investigation.
AIf France is able to
bring to trial war criminals from the Vichy
period it must also be possible for France to live up to its legal
obligations in relation to the Algerian war,@ Amnesty International said
today.
In the book , General
Aussaresses not only justifies the use of
torture and summary executions, in which he personally took part, and
describes in detail the way in which these systematically took place, but
also claims that the French Government - notably through the then Justice
Minister, FranHois Mitterrand, later the President of the Republic - was
regularly informed about, and tolerated, the use of torture, summary
executions and forced displacements of populations. The general alleges
that the office of FranHois Mitterrand was kept personally informed by an
investigating judge who acted as his emissary in Algeria.
On 24 November 2000, when
a number of military officers, including
Generals Aussaresses and Jacques Massu, publicly admitted their involvement
in torture and extrajudicial executions, Amnesty International called on
the French authorities to bring to trial those responsible for war crimes
and crimes against humanity.The organization stated that it was not enough
to recognize that such crimes had taken place; the real question was the
continuing impunity of those responsible.
"Legal proceedings
in France against a number of war criminals
-including Barbie, Papon and Touvier - in connection with crimes committed
under the Vichy regime during the Second World War - had shown that there
is no limit on the time within which crimes against humanity could be
tried," Amnesty International added.
However, despite the fact
that the French Government had welcomed the
arrest of General Pinochet in England, the French authorities have, since
that time, continued to resist such moves, or even to set up a commission
of inquiry into the use of torture. On 14 December President Jacques Chirac
rejected calls for a formal apology for the use of torture by French
soldiers during the war.
The allegations contained
in the book increase the urgency of the need
for France to face up to its legal obligations, not only under the Geneva
Conventions but also under Article 212-1 of its own Penal Code, where
crimes against humanity are defined, inter alia, as the massive and
systematic practice of summary execution and torture for political,
philosophical, racial or social purposes and are recognized as
imprescriptible.
"Given these new
and serious claims and revelations by General
Aussaresses, there can be no possible justification for the authorities to
continue to fail to seek a judicial resolution,@ Amnesty International
added.
\ENDS
public document
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