The Algerian War, 1954 - 1962 - Episode 5 - The Suitcase Or The Coffin

[00:03] city to deal with a demonstration by the oas the organization led by ex-general oas the organization led by ex-general sullivan full-scale rising against president to gold's algerian policy so no chances

[00:18] gold's algerian policy so no chances were being

[00:31] during the writing but order was eventually restored without bloodshed

[01:25] as the algerian war neared the end of its seventh year the attempts on the girl's life increased symptomatic of the accelerating violence but they were not by france's algerian opponents the fln the fonte liberacion

[01:37] nacional but by frenchmen principally the oas the organization army sacred the most die-hard of the bodies dedicated to keeping algeria french

[01:50] girl was driving home to colin bay the oas slogan the suitcase or the coffin indicated the stark choice facing european settlers to leave as refugees european settlers to leave as refugees or as corpses

[02:05] begun negotiations with the fln while the fln were furious but the negotiations were not going fast enough they now openly demonstrated on the streets of algiers and however much the french army tried to curb them their

[02:18] numbers and their enthusiasm showed which way the struggle was going

[02:30] solidarity during the girls visit the previous december the european settlers had given up pretending that the fln had little popular support hammered out elsewhere the french soldiers in algiers were left to keep

[02:43] the peace a thankless task not without incident as the distinguished reporter robert key found when visiting for bbc's panorama french forces of order go into action against arab nationalist demonstrators

[02:56] the courtyard of this vast apartment block in algiers the arabs haven't tried to move off out of the courtyard but the troops are seizing all nationalist flags troops are seizing all nationalist flags and aren't particular how they do it

[03:17] door perhaps not the arabs keep their dead to themselves and the french don't [Applause] four dead was the official figure for that building no one in algeria believes official figures much they see for

[03:30] official figures much they see for themselves too often were less fortunate arabs in a shanty town beside a cemetery they too had soon

[03:44] town beside a cemetery they too had soon raised the nationalist fln flag own quarters the fln the nationalist organization had given orders that

[03:58] demonstrations were to be peaceful and stay in their own quarters anyway the french had given orders that there would have been no demonstrations at all but muslim feeling in algiers runs high for independence and the arabs feel

[04:10] rightly that the forces of history if not the french forces of order are on not the french forces of order are on their side from an armored car and troops moved in to break up the demonstrators and seize

[04:25] the nationalist flag [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

[04:39] algerian war opened in algiers [Music] almost empty of traffic and shops were shut the french secret organization of

[04:51] defense of general de gol's self-determination policy had given orders that there was to be no trouble only occasionally were these orders disobeyed as here where a stationary shock was blown up by a plastic bomb

[05:04] because the stationer had refused to subscribe to oas the secret organization's funds and was suspected anyway of getting his own money out to france in preparation for a defeatist flight the torn poster of general salon

[05:16] the oas leader was an almost sacred symbol to these crowds of young europeans who seem to be behind the oas to a man and found the blowing up of the stationar shop a great joke the forces of order arrived to move them politely

[05:29] of order arrived to move them politely on well sealed off by barricades that the real tension was felt that day attention which however familiar in algiers is always sinister always

[05:43] unpleasant europeans can never forget the cruel terror which the fla nationalists unleashed on algiers in the past understandably perhaps they close their minds to all of the future except their

[05:55] fears and they take no chances [Music]

[06:23] anniversary of the revolt is a valley dominated by heights it isn't long before the cries of demonstrators waving flags are heard from the heights above once again troops move off to break them up but this time

[06:37] move off to break them up but this time something different happens apartment building with people on the balconies [Applause] [Music]

[06:51] out the french lieutenant falls wounded the patrol dies for cover delay the road and then aims concentrated fire across the demonstrators at the face of the building

[07:04] the lieutenant's wound is dressed while the firing continues the firing continues [Applause]

[07:19] called normal again the firing ceases and the wounded are brought out or some of them anyway to be tended carefully by the ambulances of the people who wounded them about 20 wounded are taken away two people are

[07:32] said to have been killed not too bad an incident by the standards of algeria fresh troops are brought up the incident is in fact closed the display of force somehow smothers all feeling all need to

[07:45] sort out what had happened and why order is restored the forces of order have done their duty but they've been doing their duty now in algeria for seven long years and algerian arab independence is closer than ever perhaps

[07:58] one day learn that toughness even in the face of provocation is not enough

[08:11] girl's offer of negotiations in march 1961 because it wasn't clear he was proposing to deal with them alone the revolt of the french generals had then delayed things though it had also strengthened the fln's hand since the

[08:23] army's disarray ruled out a military solution even if one had ever been solution even if one had ever been possible in algeria

[08:35] lake geneva in may 1961 security was tight since the oas in typical fashion had shown what they thought of the proceedings by murdering evian's mayor the previous month there had been earlier contacts between

[08:48] the two sides but they had been in secret this time the meetings were in secret this time the meetings were in the full glare of world publicity

[09:00] territory the fln delegation was housed across the lake for the purpose the emir of qatar had provided his swiss retreat it was a poignant moment for the french officially the representatives of the most relentless rebellion france had

[09:15] ever faced as the diplomat bruno de lis recalls we didn't consider them as enemies you know for a very obvious reason because for us algeria was a part of france uh not only uh

[09:30] not only because on the maps on the scholar school maps algeria was painted in pink as the french retro itself middle pole but because humanly speaking we were so much accustomed to live together

[09:45] nevertheless the talks broke down and the fln leaders returned to tunis the stanley block had been the sahara which the french were anxious to retain arguing that algeria had only ever meant the populist coastal strip

[09:58] but it was clear that without the oil and gas and the atomic bomb test site prolonged the war for acres of empty sand probably too is it was doomed to failure because it was a act the first act of

[10:12] this tragedy it was not it was not possible the end in the first in the first the first movement

[10:27] particularly as the oas bombers were wreaking such havoc within paris for the french this was the last straw the girl was impatient to get on with rejuvenating france and was angry that the continuing war in algeria prevented

[10:39] the oas bombers played into the fln's hands by weakening the french the fln had just to sit back and leave the running to the goal after the putch's failure the oas leader general salong had gone to ground

[10:55] him whether he would negotiate with the fln

[11:23] despite his bluster it was clear salon had little support within mainland france for his views and even less for his bombers actions anti-oas demonstrations were not just confined to the left

[11:35] thousands of ordinary parisians took to the streets in protest when a bomb intended for the girls cabinet colleague andre maro blinded instead a four-year-old child [Music]

[11:49] paris police dealt with the demonstrators leading to complaints that they were totally out of touch with the mood in france and had been infiltrated mood in france and had been infiltrated by oas sympathizers

[12:03] charon metro station where eight demonstrators including three women died

[12:52] creating within france where weariness with the war was only too obvious the oas incidents were having an effect on the fln 2 making them less intransigent replaced his successor might not be so accommodating

[13:06] also men like ben ketter the new fln president were aware of the terrible carnage the oas were causing in algeria among ordinary muslims fed up of the war too incredibly the two sides were now being drawn together to face a common

[13:19] being drawn together to face a common fault

[14:25] high above geneva some 20 or so miles away and just half a mile from the swiss border was the place chosen for the further and hopefully final round of they were to be held in secret and despite the press's efforts the location

[14:38] was never discovered a garage building off the main paris geneva road housing snow clearing equipment it was not a very large house sign with some

[14:53] between and really uh i'm gonna say that there was a friendly atmosphere no it was not possible but there were a very uh comprehensive on both parts atmosphere

[15:07] you know possibility to understand what the other what the other side wanted and really the real work has been made at that time

[15:21] to solve the problem it force people living together without lunching with a dining together certainly not but uh to force them to give them a determined force rosenberg and they knew perfectly well

[15:37] that after six or five or six days it was very difficult to keep the the the meeting secrets so it was necessary to reach an agreement uh within this the reach an agreement uh within this the time of limits

[15:52] lerus away from the glare of publicity though the eyes were dotted and the t's crossed at a second evian meeting in mid-march 1962 the fln made a few concessions but the biggest compromises were by the french

[16:06] who yielded on the sahara rights of the european minority and almost everything ended and the whole dreadful business put behind them

[16:19] oas attacks had been pressing on the goal

[17:43] march 19 1962 both armies were ordered to cease fire parisians could hardly believe it after seven and a half years of war the bloodletting would now end or would it

[18:30] tunisia at that time and recorded for posterity the effect of the ceasefire announcement on the young fln troops there who had been trained for a war that thankfully they would not now have to fight

[19:21] for in november 1954. full and complete independence over the entire territory of algeria for the french though relief rather than recrimination was the immediate feeling for the french it was really the end of

[19:35] the drama because algeria was a part of the french of france because of the past was completely put away two for the aegeans

[19:48] deeply concerned with the future of their own states they have understood what was to lead and to to lead a nation in a state

[20:01] ceasefire had been the early release after five and a half years captivity of the hijacked ben bella and his colleagues who undoubtedly were going to play some role in the new state although never present they had been

[20:14] negotiations many had put down the intransigence of many had put down the intransigence of the fln to ben bella's imprisonment the oas's instant reaction was to call a general strike in algiers which

[20:26] ominously was total what was worse they declared that the enemy now was no longer just the fln but also the french army and the forces of law and order their aim was to nullify the evian agreement by proving that neither the

[20:39] french nor the muslim algerians could govern the country without the oas's instead of being halted the bloodshed was to increase indeed algiers was about to witness the most violent period of the whole war

[20:54] had so far been confined to the muslim sectors of the city it was now the european areas that took on the appearance of a battle zone the oas forbade all movement of muslims outside their own quarters and enforced

[21:07] their will with indiscriminate killings when these were extended to the gendarme and the troops themselves the army commander retaliated by laying siege to commander retaliated by laying siege to the european strongholds of the oas

[21:23] an ingenious supply chain to circumvent the army checkpoints and to feed the sixty thousand or so inhabitants of babello ed a working-class suburb of mostly poor whites pie noir who stood to lose most from an algerian algeria

[21:44] it was clear that the oas enjoyed massive support within european algiers

[22:00] throughout the city the army commander tightened his grip on the suburb brought up 20 000 troops complete with tanks and spotter planes and even strike aircraft and prepared to give battle it was one of the most controversial and

[22:13] most criticized decisions of the whole algerian struggle algerian struggle [Music]

[22:52] days and cost the lives of 15 french soldiers as well as 20 european soldiers as well as 20 european inhabitants seriously thousands more were arrested big caches of weapons especially bombs

[23:07] big caches of weapons especially bombs were discovered

[23:41] organized by the oas at the war memorial to protest at the babelo dead up they prompted the authorities to ban it which was to invite a confrontation

[24:01] concentration of gendarmes and riot police since the muslim backlash of police since the muslim backlash of december 1960

[24:19] been strategically placed across many of the main thoroughfares as though waiting and hoping for the action to begin more and more people kept arriving wanting to force their way through to the war memorial

[24:32] the war memorial [Music] harried to the scene [Music] but still the crowds kept coming [Applause]

[24:49] [Applause] [Music] once again troops were called in at this time they were not to be the combat trained forces who would face the oas and babelo end

[25:03] tear gas grenades held from helicopters failed to disperse the crowds the police were clearly relying on the soldiers but they were units fresh from the outback mostly young muslim algerians who would back to the french and in the chain

[25:15] their own future nervous and anxious they were totally unsuited for a situation that demanded tact and experience

[25:29] of the element in city streets they were a prey to provocation without waiting for orders they began firing recklessly all around them the

[25:41] bullets but in vain people were cut down as they ran the people were cut down as they ran the death toll was appalling

[26:17] when all was over 46 bodies were counted and more than 200 wounded many of them seriously had been carried away at least twenty of these were to die nearly two thousand spent cartridges were found in the roads around

[26:33] if the oas had wanted a spectacular massacre they had certainly got one maintaining law and order in algiers during the run-up to the referendum in the other on the avion agreement was going to be a grim business

[26:50] manned the barricades during the abortive revolt of january 1960 but also from the many legionnaires and paratroopers who were deserted the army before indeed the organizational brains came

[27:05] also absconded then the political inspiration however stemmed from the ultras for whom an algerian algeria was anathema and those decolonization and international communist plot

[27:20] that said oas certainly attracted all the psychopaths pathological dropouts had clustered around the honey pot of wartime algiers the near anarchy of its command structure was an open invitation to

[27:34] settle old scores under the guise of pseudo-political action

[27:53] targets when they weren't killing people the daily average in algiers alone was 30 to 40 mostly muslims with the occasional moderate piano thrown in for good measure they were blowing up hospitals clinics schools banks prisons

[28:05] libraries garages shops factories town halls laboratories small businesses large businesses you name it they destroyed it

[28:24] robberies in both france and algeria contributions from rich colon levies on companies operating or trying to operate in the country and finds onpura piano holiday the total of these funds must have been

[28:38] considerable and what happened to them afterwards remains a mystery like that of the fln treasury secreted in swiss bank accounts whose numbers were known only to a discrete few many of whom were to meet violent deaths in strange

[28:50] to meet violent deaths in strange circumstances in the years to come to that but so had the presence of troops few cinemas or cafes remained

[29:03] open at night even during the daytime no one lingered to gossip anymore wives would become frantic if husbands were merely minutes late returning home friends were not trusted neighbor suspected neighbor

[29:16] the two communities were now irretrievably divided

[32:15] bent over backwards to try to justify their actions at this time but there was no doubt it was mindless murder blind indiscriminate bloodletting yeah for example

[33:03] uh it was also a very brutal period because the oes was indulging in because the oes was indulging in a very nasty war uh between the uh so-called barbuzas the people who'd been sent by the goddess regime to

[33:18] to eliminate the oas and who very soon got eliminated by by the oas itself and there were very strange and terrifying things that one would see for instance i uh at the height of the oas action in algiers going to

[33:34] belku they're seeing the corpse of a vietnamese secret agent babu's hanging from secret agent babu's hanging from from a tramway line

[33:59] indiscriminately one of the most ghastly things that i remember that whole period was a mortar shelling of perfectly innocent algerian civilians on what was then called the place de granoma near the casbah

[34:13] and i just happened to be within a 50 yards of it happening grabbed a photographer who was then at the hote rushed back we went to the main hospital where they were being given first aid and i remember being inside a ward and

[34:28] watching all these people many of them dying and hideously injured and listening eavesdropping on a conversation between doctors medical horror that one of the doctors had in fact

[34:41] taken part in the attack so that was the kind of war it was there were effectively three governments there was went through the motions of governing but really apart from uh

[34:54] rubbish and and that sort of thing really had no authority at all and in the arab areas a great deal of policing done with the same sort of vigor that the ira now exercises in its

[35:10] ireland very effective they were and the oas their military deserters

[35:22] in parts of the of the certainly working class co-long areas of the city political assassinations were a dime a dozen it was a kind of uh uh ugliness where people were

[35:35] uh muslims and just covering them over newspapers the oas had deliberately set out to perpetrate such appalling atrocities on the arab population

[35:50] that they would provoke the arab population into hitting back perfectly simple and straightforward which were leading straight to

[36:02] and forced the french army back into the field against the fln and bring the enterprise of moving to independence to a halt so that these absolutely dreadful atrocities were not

[36:17] just the result of pathological murderers although god knows there were but the actual deliberate policy of the very senior french ex-army officers who were in charge of the oas it was an outrage

[36:32] the intelligence of those operations the the precision of what the oas was doing what they were blowing up their ability to strike with impunity obviously meant that the very important parts of the army

[36:47] information and allowing them to pass through road uh roadblocks the whole works the most terrible one of all i suppose was a case in which um

[37:00] an oas squad had uh detected what it believed to be a hospital catering for fln wounded whether that was the case or not we never discovered but they certainly went all fln in that hospital and they blew

[37:15] it up and after the dust had settled they went into the hospital and machine gunned the people in their beds the and that was the sort of thing that was intended to cause such outrage in the

[37:28] casbah and other areas like that that it would lead to a mob running wild with meat hooks in the way that they did some years earlier

[37:45] standards were becoming ever more desperate symptomatic of the fact that for some weeks now they had been without any real leaders general duo salons number two had been arrested in late march roger de geld who

[37:58] head of the delta commandos the most deadly gang of oas killers had been captured in mid april later that same month salon himself had been caught month salon himself had been caught [Music]

[38:11] the blowing up of the bp oil storage unit at iran was the oas's last fling both salon and zhuo from the mainland prisons had been persuaded to help end even so with just a couple of weeks to go to the referendum on june 17th

[38:28] algiers france and indeed the interested world was flabbergasted to learn that a truce had been negotiated between the oas and the fln it began to look as if the war at long last was truly over

[38:43] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music]

[40:01] burning buildings as the piano prepared to quit preferring to put to the torch what they could not take with them rather than leave it for the muslims rather than leave it for the muslims it was the same with their cars

[40:20] some solved the problem by simply pushing them off cliffs into the sea soon cleared from the streets as the muslims prepared for the referendum that

[40:32] would ratify their independence it was a far less sinister kind of it was a far less sinister kind of graffiti that now put in an appearance

[40:56] curfew that had been algier's way of life for so long was at last lifted on the evian agreement to the tune of a massive 90 percent yes vote the muslim

[41:09] turnout and support in algeria was to be in excess of that

[41:29] extraordinary population movements in modern history was taking place the piano after 132 years were leaving algeria on not in the few thousands that paris had expected and the avion agreement had

[41:42] provided for but in their hundreds of thousands and nothing that the flow it wasn't just the rich colon who were pulling out nor simply the oas diehards but ordinary citizens poor whites who

[41:56] competition for their jobs by the end of the summer suburbs like babyloed would be empty and dead by the end of the year there will be only 30 000 europeans left in the whole of algeria compared to the million plus

[42:11] of algeria compared to the million plus there at the beginning you don't have to be right morally or historically to really suffer

[42:25] very deeply i think the piano are historically they were wrong morally at the time of the oas they were wrong but their their suffering in the exodus

[42:40] was real the people responsible for the ultimate misery of the colon were the oas by their very tactic of trying to outrage the arab population they made

[42:53] the colon so petrified of the consequences of staying after independence that they just had to leave and there were really quite harrowing scenes at the airport towards the end people trying to

[43:05] and some people making a very good living out of black markets and tickets was really a very weird scene would be 350 000 european settlers left algeria

[43:21] in june the month of the oas fln ceasefire one hundred thousand had already quit in the weeks before despite threats of another half a million were to depart before the year was out the suitcase was

[43:35] before the year was out the suitcase was taking preference over the coffin whatever they could get and then simply closed their doors forever

[43:48] bars and cafes favored by the piano for generations changed hands at knockdown prices teachers doctors nurses policemen engineers lawyers a whole professional class quit just like that

[44:08] some drove via morocco to spain with their belongings but most left by ship officially they were allowed only to take two suitcases each but many seem to smuggle out much more virtually the whole of algeria's 200 000

[44:24] strong jewish community upped and left mostly to france which was the destination of the majority of the piano though it was a country many of them had sizable groups did find their way to canada israel and even argentina as well

[44:38] the numbers that made it to france were enough to fill the mainland's two biggest cities after paris liang and marseilles

[44:51] saddened at the extent of the exodus but not the fln hardliners who had already decided that there was no place in their algeria for the piano algeria for the piano [Applause]

[45:11] pickings for their muslim neighbors less lucky were those muslim soldiers of the quarter of a million who had done so only fifteen thousand escaped so only fifteen thousand escaped [Music]

[45:26] [Music] foreign

[47:25] brothers who had fought against them was not uppermost in the minds of ben bella and the other fln leaders as they met their army for the first time since of french captivity they could reflect that the goal and his

[47:38] either for the hundred thousand or so aki who died in the bloody aftermath of the algerian war theirs is a story of which no one can be and the men who took part in the push of april 1961 however muddled their motives

[47:53] draw attention to it but ben bella and co's thoughts at this moment were on the political struggle ahead for control of their country

[48:11] hysteria by a 201 majority the referendum had declared for independence referendum had declared for independence and 132 years of french rule was over [Applause]

[48:35] been premature benkida provisional governor premier was hero vr but his rival ben bella says he commands the allegiance of ten thousand troops not even yet is it peace in algeria [Music]

[48:54] the new nation of algeria was truly launched independence the possibility of further strife must have seemed remote of their countrymen who had died that they might enjoy this moment

[49:09] it was also the occasion for sober reflection on the outcome joy satisfaction and at the very beginning i would say 20 years ago it was fear fear of

[49:22] which is more difficult than fighting for independence in my view for independence in my view [Music]

[49:41] is [Music]

[50:05] [Music] foreign

[50:25] [Music] m

[50:43] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause]

[51:08] foreign [Music]

[51:47] foreign [Music]