Terror Without End

The eagerly awaited broadcast of the Secret Army Organization came on after its usual theme, a few opening bars of a twist tune. The announcer warned that "the coming week will be primordial, decisive, for us Algerians." He hinted broadly that secret talks were under way between the S.A.O. and the Moslem F.L.N., and promised soon to be able to "definitely tell you whether to stay in this country or to leave it."

The S.A.O. made no secret of its demands: 1) recognition as the legitimate representative of the 1,000,000 European population, 2) amnesty for all S.A.O. killers, and 3) enlistment of 12.000 Europeans in the largely Moslem Force Locale, which will keep order after the July 1 referendum results in Algeria's independence. To emphasize that they meant business, S.A.O. terrorists again began bombing and setting fire to public buildings, schools and hospitals. S.A.O. gunmen, continuing to hunt down French army officers loyal to De Gaulle, seriously wounded the French general commanding in western Algeria.

Last Plea. Vice Premier Belkacem Krim of the Moslem F.L.N. flew in from his headquarters in Tunis to confer with members of the Provisional Government at Le Rocher Noir, the administrative center near Algiers. If anyone could talk to the killers and terrorists of the S.A.O. it was Krim, who had last appeared in Algeria in 1957 as a leader of the F.L.N. underground, which was spreading death and destruction among the Europeans. The S.A.O. had sworn never to allow an F.L.N. leader to enter Algeria alive, but the rightist newspaper L'Anrore hailed his presence and the prospect of talks between terrorists: "Perhaps in this way a nation will be born!"

But disappeared from view, the F.L.N. high command issued a communique that blasted the S.A.O. as "criminals" and flatly declared that the only "road to salvation" for Europeans was to depend on the Evian agreement signed last March by representatives of the F.L.N. and De Gaulle's government. The Evian accord allows Europeans to retain their French nationality for three years even though they participate in Algerian elections as voters or candidates, and promises that they "shall enjoy the benefits of resident aliens" if they then choose to remain French. Pleaded the F.L.N. statement: "The Evian agreements are the charter of your future in Algeria. Study them and you will see that they leave open to you all your chances, that they permit you to live in Algeria and to live there in security and dignity . . . Accept reality. With us you can participate in the building of a new country to guarantee the future of all our children."

Panicky Exodus. Despite the ringing words, the F.L.N. refusal to add specific guarantees to the Evian accord was discouraging to European liberals and non-F.L.N. Moslems. It enraged the S.A.O., whose transmitter broke into a regular

Algeria radio program to announce that "the ban is now lifted" on the departure of European men of fighting age. The panicky exodus--already reaching 70,000 Europeans a week--was spurred by the threat that those who remained would have "no schools, no homes, no services." An S.A.O. rear guard promised to carry out the destruction of the emptied cities.

Having already destroyed 145 schools, the terrorists last week blew up Algiers city hall and part of the 2,400-bed Mustapha Hospital.

The fleeing Europeans seem determined to leave nothing to the Moslem inheritors of Algeria. The plumbing in abandoned homes was savagely broken; refrigerators were thrown into the Mediterranean; cars driven to the airport and docks were wrecked as a final gesture. In the cities of Algiers and Oran, Bone and Constantine last week, Europeans no longer greeted each other with "Bonjour, comment ca va?" Now they say: "When are you leaving?"

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