FELICITATION MESSAGES DO NOT MAKE FRIENDSHIP AGREEMENTS
By Sabeur Blidi

Al-Arab online, UK
Nov 27 2006

It was planned to be concluded before 2005; now we are in the end
of 2006, and nothing looms on the horizon concerning the Friendship
Agreement between France and Algeria. In fact, there is no hope for
it, because the lauding that accompanied speaking about it on the
occasion of the rapprochement between the two countries since the
beginning of the 21st Century has forgotten, or feigned to forget,
the most important elements in the bilateral relations between Algeria
and Paris.

Then the vision of decision makers in both countries was not taken
into consideration. The Muradia (government headquarters in Algiers)
looked at the Agreement as a new key to relationships based on equality
and mutual respect, and an opportunity to invest French capital in
promoting the local economy. The Elysee however viewed it as promoting
influence, making use of the enticing financial advantages, and take
monopoly of the opportunities offered by the oil prosperity.

Accordingly, the discrepancy of views and the conflict in goals floated
to the surface with the first uncovering of the French intentions. That
was with the issue of the February 2005 Act that considered the role
of the French Army overseas, and in North Africa in particular, as
a positive act, and described the French colonisation of the region
as spread of civilisation. This act provoked official as well as
popular angry reactions that set France’s recognition of and apology
for its army’s violations committed in Algeria during the 1830-1962
colonisation period a basic condition for concluding the Friendship
Agreement between the two countries.

A Normal Message in an Abnormal Time Since the ice wall is thick,
everything has gone back to point zero.

The warmth formerly circulating in the Algiers-Paris axis, where
Bouteflika and Chirac nearly signed the said agreement, has turned
into coldness. Now the relationship is limited to the diplomacy
of felicitation messages on occasions and national days of the two
countries, the latest of which was Chirac’s message on the occasion
of celebrating the 52nd commemorations of the start of November
Liberation Revolution. Though its echo cannot be bigger than its
size, it may carry a sort of qualm felt by Paris because of losing
many interests in Algeria due to its colonial mentality and haughty
attitude toward the people of former colonies.

Despite the slogans raised in the world as one of the influential
powers in world decisions in addition to its leading role in Europe,
France still looks at the human values and the human history from
a multitude of angles. Such a position, in fact, translates the
state of ethical and civilised bankruptcy reached by France, and
the West in general. Though it boasts the French Revolution trinity,
France still classifies the war victims from a region to another. In
Armenia, they are victims of a human tragedy, and therefore France
punishes anyone denying the atrocities committed by the Turkish Army
against the Armenians during the WWI, using that as pressure and an
extortion card against Ankara, which is seeking entry into the EU. On
the other hand, it does not consider as a crime the killing of millions
of Algerians by its own army throughout the decades of colonisation;
and the same applies to the people of the African Continent.

A Mark of Disgrace Perhaps it is France’s misfortune to find itself in
a tight corner because of the coinciding of the law it lately issued
with the talk raised about the violations of the French Army during
Rwanda’s civil war in the 1990’s. Rwanda is holding public hearing
sessions about France’s role in the genocide of 800,000 people in 1994.

Jacques Bihozagara, a former leader of the National Front, gave his
testimony and said that France was seeking to preserve its influence in
Africa, for its leaders saw that a Francophile state had been attacked
by an Anglo-Saxon one – alluding to the rebellion bases in neighbouring
Uganda. Bihozagara, who had been Ambassador to Paris, also said that
France had sent in soldiers and arms, trained the murderers and set
roadblocks to facilitate their mission of exterminating the Tutsi. Then
it protected these murderers when it was heading the UN delegation
in the Turquoise operation. One of the most violent massacres was
the one that took place in Bisisiru village, in the west of Rwanda,
where 50,000 Tutsis were killed. The French soldiers are accused of
having misled the victims and made them leave their hiding places.

The accusations do not come from Rwanda alone, but from Paris too. A
former French soldier has accused his army of training the militias
responsible for the killing. Also, six Rwandans put a case to a French
court against Paris accusing it of participation in the genocides. A
French Parliamentary Committee had acquitted the Government from this
accusation in 1998, although it alluded to genocide by ‘strategic
mistakes’.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress