The End & the Beginning

"At last!"

Those were the words, repeated countless times around the world, that greeted the long-delayed truce in Algeria. After seven years, four months and 18 days, the fighting stopped. The war had cost hundreds of thousands of dead, ranging from illiterate Moslem peasants to the blueblooded elite of the French army. On one side stood France, which had carried Western civilization into the desert and, despite vast errors of judgment, had built a country in North Africa that had been part of France for more than a century. On the other side were the poor, scattered Arab tribes of Algeria, which found their nationhood in the war. On both sides, there had been fanaticism, brutality and torture. For a time, it seemed as if the Moslems had lost all moderation, as if France had lost her conscience.

Charles de Gaulle, the man who had worked to end the war with patience, skill, trickery, courage and a never-failing sense of destiny, finally this week could announce the ceasefire. In a seven-minute radio and TV speech, he declared that it was France's "national interest" which had commanded her to let the Algerians govern themselves. He asked the million disaffected Europeans to stay on and cooperate with the new Algeria. Paying tribute to "the glorious losses" sustained by the French army, De Gaulle applauded its discipline, despite "the solicitations of criminal adventurers." He alluded to General Raoul Salan's terrorist S.A.O. by announcing that a common-sense solution had won out in Algeria over "the frenzy of some, the blindness of others."

Stumbling Blocks. For the past twelve days, France and the world have gone through cliffhanging suspense as the cease-fire negotiators wrangled at Evian-les-Bains. The major issues had all been settled: a transition period for Algeria, leased bases for the French, guarantees for Europeans. But last-minute stumbling blocks appeared. Among the chief problems was the composition of the Provisional Executive, which is to govern Algeria during the ceasefire; on this, the F.L.N. demanded a twelve-man French-Moslem committee with an F.L.N. nominee as chairman. Another issue: the powers and strength of the Force Locale to police the ceasefire; here the F.L.N. wanted more Moslem members, while Paris wanted a French commander. Compromise finally settled all the issues.

In Algeria, the announcement of the cease-fire seemed little more than a formality. What really matters is the S.A.O. For months, its gunmen have been indiscriminately shooting and bombing Moslems. As the cease-fire drew near last week, the S.A.O. killers concentrated on the relatively few Moslem intellectuals. In Algiers, a carload of S.A.O. terrorists raided the Algerian Social Center and coldbloodedly mowed down six educators--three of them Europeans--including Moslem Author Mouloud Feraoun, a close friend of the late Algerian-born author, Albert (The Plague) Camus. Next, S.A.O. gunmen attacked drugstores, killing seven Moslem pharmacists.

Secret Letter. The French intercepted a letter from Salan himself to regional S.A.O. commanders which ordered a "generalized offensive" to begin the instant the cease-fire was announced. Among the instructions: 1) in cities like Oran and Algiers, French security is to be tied up through an "increase in revolutionary disorders," i.e., hit-and-run attacks, demonstrations, strikes, refusals to obey curfew; 2) in the countryside, where Salan noted that Europeans seemed lukewarm in supporting the S.A.O., guerrilla bands are to set up "insurrectionary zones."

In Algeria, the seven-year war ended this week, but the new war with the S.A.O. was just getting under way.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.