Is It Peace ?
From DARSIE GILLIE
PARIS
IN the middle of November, after President de Gaulle's press conference, optimism about Peace in Algeria was general. To the promise of self-determination made on September 16 the President had added the assurance that all sections of Algerian opinion would have their say in the organisation of the referendum; he had revived from his press conference words of appreciation for the courage of the rebels; he had repeated the invitation to rebel leaders to come to Paris for conversations, avowed or secret. What he could not do was to offer political negotiations or to recognise the rebels as sole spokesmen of the Moslem population. The mere promise of self- determination had created a crisis of confidence in Algerian European circles. If the Algerians could vote themselves out of France and even out of the French Community, what was property Worth? As to the second point, how could the French Government abandon those Algerian Moslems who, with various shades of intention and with motives of very different value, have Preferred some co-operation with France to co- operation with the rebels? The Moslem deputies elected on the integrationist ticket at the last elections are not unreasonable when they describe themselves as under suspended death sentence. If the FLN is now the most powerful organisation amongst Algerians in France, everyone knows that a shooting war with the rival nationalist organisa- tion. the MNA, has put them there. From a French point of view, therefore, the one hope of bridging the gap between the standpoints of the two sides was President de Gaulle's personal guarantee of fair play.
But from the rebel point of view this was scarcely acceptable. Again and again when the President had spoken, the lower instances, Prime Minister, Commander-in-Chief and even the Delegate-General, had started to interpret his words so as to reassure the army and the Right. To keep the army from again falling into the arms of the Right is indeed a perfectly legitimate pre- occupation, but to assure the army that short of a surrender the 'pacification' will go on, and that at all events rebel leaders would only be able to return to their villages as isolated individuals, i.e., not as members of an organisation, is to keep the army happy at the cost of any political settlement.
If the French President has to think of military and other sectors of opinion, the Algerian 'pro- visional government,' which disposes of no such single dominating personality, has to think of its fighting men and of its Right wing. It also has to Weigh the risk of basing its policy on President de Gaulle's assurances, when President de Gaulle himself may no longer be there in three or four Years' time. It has, too, to cultivate its own press nge. It is an elementary precaution not to negotiate when the leader of the other side has just stolen all the limelight. The rebel counter- proposal was, from this point of view, very clever. Its drawback was that it could not lead to any advance towards peace. It was not possible for the President to open negotiations with five prisoners, so that not a single one of the now active leaders of the rebellion would have committed himself in any way. It was not possible to accept a negotia- tion on precisely those political points on which the President had declared to his own followers that he would not negotiate. The rebels, by forcing the French to say no, may have put themselves in an advantageous position—but peace was a . little farther away.
The rebel government's next move was to seek to obtain a UN resolution that would recommend negotiation between the two parties to the dispute, `Of course, we had to compromise a little.. . thereby giving to the rebels precisely that status which the French Government refuses to recog- nise. The recognition would be of limited value in that all successive French governments have declined to recognise events in Algeria as of legitimate concern to any international body. Whether wise or not. this attitude is sound law. Legally, Algeria is as French as Wales is British. The attitude has nothing to do with a policy of `greatness.' M. Pinay, when Foreign Minister, walked out when the UN Assembly began to dis- cuss Algeria. M. Pineau, his successor, sat through the debates, ignoring them. The French delegation has reverted to M. Pinay's line of action. It is true that when, as two years ago, the UN motion could be misquoted to suit the French army's book, it has not been above peppering Algeria with posters to say that the UN recognised Algeria as French. On this occasion, therefore, a resolution (even if unrecognised by the French) that clearly said something to the advantage of the Algerian `government' might be used to strengthen the • hands of the more moderate elements. But the UN Assembly seems likely to vote something much more anodyne than the text which failed to win a two-thirds majority in committee. There is some danger, therefore, that the upshot of pro- ceedings in New York will again reduce the pos- sibilities of advance towards peace. The Algerian `government' will have again committed itself to an action involving a claim to an international status, but will not have pulled it off in a manner that gives credit to the civilian elements which recommend diplomacy, alongside of bloodshed, as a means of achieving national purposes.
Meanwhile the horrid record goes on from week to week. Recently the French losses ran up to sixty-six in seven days with rebel losses, as usual, nearly ten times as many. The next week there was a drop in both by a third. Indiscriminate terrorism is again to the fore, though not as prominent as in the winter of 1956-57. A student was killed and several others wounded on the occasion of the University's fiftieth anniversary. Four agrarian reform officials and the wife of one of them were murdered up-country. Regroup- ing scattered peasants in villages that can be guarded continues, and there are still many cases in which civilian intervention, administrative or private, is necessary to avoid human disaster. In Western Algeria a real and effective effort has been made by the general in command to reduce interrogation under torture, but this is still not universally the case.
But above all, nobody really knows what the great mass of Algerians is ,.thinking. President de Gaulle's supporters urge btat if his policy of economic investment and social promotion is pursued there will in two or three years' time be a majority for some form of close association be- tween an autonomous Algeria and France. But according to President de Gaulle's own last state- ment to the press, the death roll of the rebels is 145,000. This is a very high figure in a community of between eight and nine millions. No doubt not all went willingly into the hills. But they went, and they are now dead. Perhaps, as the French con- stantly assert, the Algerians have not hitherto constituted a nation. But 145,000 dead may prove quite enough to constitute one in the future. If more French commentators would face this pos- sibility, it would be easier to have hope of peace,
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