"Sadly Conclusive"

"Almost everywhere, when they could speak without witnesses, detainees complained of having been given the electrical or water treatment* during interrogation ... In some camps, the medical member of the mission was able to carry out physical examinations, the results of which were sadly conclusive." With this stark quotation, France's Le Monde, most respected of Paris newspapers, last week confirmed beyond dispute that the French army in Algeria is still using torture.

The source of Le Monde's story was no French leftist or Arab enemy of France, but a 270-page report written by four International Red Cross Committee delegates who visited 82 Algerian camps and prisons late last year. Submitted to the French government in confidence, the report was marked for quiet burial in the secret archives until Le Monde got hold of a copy, published a full-page summary.

In about one-half of the camps they visited, the Red Cross inspectors found conditions "satisfactory to good." (One of the best, they noted, was run by a French officer who had been an inmate of Nazi Germany's Dachau concentration camp.) But at the "transit camp'' of Cinq-Palmiers in the Algiers military district, the inspectors found six prisoners, three of whom displayed recent contusions, jammed into a single cell; at their feet lay the corpse of yet another Moslem who had died unattended during the preceding night. At Telagh, in Oran military district, the wrists of several prisoners still bore the marks of ropes used to hang them from the ceiling during interrogations. And at the small (152 men) camp of Bou-Gobrine, so many prisoners had been killed "while attempting to escape," that the inspectors dryly suggested that "this question would appear to deserve closer study."

Most camp commandants, when asked about specific charges of torture or ill treatment, professed deep indignation, cited President de Gaulle's strict commands against it, and promised to carry out immediate investigations. But in one camp near Algiers the gendarmerie colonel in command refused even to pretend that he opposed torture, frankly told the inspectors: "The struggle against terrorism makes certain interrogation methods indispensable. These alone allow us to save lives and avoid new attacks."

To minimize Le Monde's report, French Premier Michel Debre issued a hasty communique emphasizing that the Red Cross team had noted "a clear improvement" in the detention camps since a previous inspection. But favorable as Debre professed to find the Red Cross report, Le Monde was promptly seized in Algeria.

* Electrical current sent through the testicles; water forced into the throat through a tube.

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