EVIDENCE that the Algerian security apparatus, under the direction of the blood thirsty 'eradicators' led by General Lamari, has been responsible for the bloodbath in Algeria has been accumulating, over the years. Defectors and victims now in exile have provided a portrait of a junta that is bent on decimating all those who have any sympathy for the Islamists. They are pursuing a scorched earth policy, that is as brutal but more brazen than the Karadzics of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

A former Algerian secret service officer, Captain 'Joseph' Haroun, told a British House of Commons all-party committee that his former colleagues carried out 'dirty jobs, including killing of journalists, officers and children'. He said the security services had infiltrated the GIA and were giving them a free rein. He confessed that the murder of seven Italians in Jenjen in July 1994 was at the hands of state military security death squads, but made to appear as if it was carried out by 'Islamic fundamentalists'. Seven suspects now under arrest are mere scapegoats, forced to sign confessions under torture. He has witnessed the use of blow torch, electric shock treatment and water torture. He also said the Algerian security agents caused two of the 1995 Paris bombings and (hat there are clear links between them and their French counterparts.

At the same hearing Dr Abdelhamid Brahimi, a former Algerian prime minister (1984-1988), told the British parliamentarians that the Algerian government was now attempting nothing less than 'eradication of Islamism'. A former diplomat, Muhammad Larmi Zaitout, also testified that the regime is behind the deaths.

One Inspector Abdessalam, a driver at the Algiers central police station, Dar al Baida, who is now in exile in Britain has confessed that after the army coup, the police came under 'attack' from what they were told were 'Islamist' guerrillas. 'We were terrorised, every day our friends were killed ... we smoked hashish and took [mind altering] tablets when we went out on night operations ... when we had intelligence information, our officers would send us to a location and say, 'Don't bring us live prisoners - kill !' In 1994 they raided 'Islamist' village of Sidi Moussa at five in the morning, killing 90 civilians including women, with three police and army casualties. His eye witness account of the torture perpetrated by the judiciary police' was chilling, as he described how prisoners were forced to drink acid or had their nails and beard pulled out. Some were made to stand with their genitals beaten on the table or forced to sit on broken bottles. Bodies were buried secretly. He left after realising that it was the army killing the police, either because they were not collaborating sufficiently or were suspected of having sympathy with the Islamists.

Another two policemen, who could not reveal their identities for fear of reprisals against family members, told a London newspaper that special forces disguised as 'fundamentalists', with beards and matching dress kill entire families and villages in the middle of the night. They urged any interested person to visit five torture centres in Algiers, at basement of Chateauneuf barracks, a complex beneath Aknoun Zoo, another at Beni Messous and at the basement of the central police station.

The policy of 'eradicating Islam' has been compared to the 'strategic hamlet programme' carried out by the British army in Malaya and the US military in Vietnam. One victim from the Djejil area of Algeria described how one version of the policy works.

First the army, under command of General Boughaba, came to his village and ordered everyone to take up arms and defend themselves against the 'terrorists'. The problem was that if they did that, they would have sided with the regime, thus becoming legitimate targets for 'marauding terrorists'. The area is a FIS stronghold. The village collectively declined the offer.

In response the army sealed the village for two weeks. No food or vehicles were allowed in. The villagers held on grimly. Then one night 14 people were massacred. The next day everyone made a decision: they either took up arms or fled, abandoning everything they owned. Abdullah was asked who massacred the 14 people? "The army. They did it to scare the people into supporting them," he said.

Given this background the assertion of a British television documentary on the Algerian massacres that the,military are directing the hit squads is very plausible. Survivors of the 9 January carnage of almost 200 people at Sidi Hameed tell a typical story of how it is carried out.

On the fateful day, after 'Isha (evening) prayers everyone was relaxing. An assorted group of about 80 men had gathered in a large garage, whose door was shut against the wind, to watch a video. Then two groups entered the village. The first were dressed as civilian 'patriot' militiamen and government soldiers. They knocked on doors and told people to stay inside, before encircling and sealing the village off ' The second group wore the hallmark garb of the GIA: Afghan-style baggy smogs and turbans. Armed mostly with grenades, knives and axes, they began to enter houses systematically at the north end of the village, slaughtering inhabitants.

Mahdi, 51, was sitting in his courtyard with his father, wife and nine children when masked men pounced on them. They grabbed the nearest and stabbed them. He and some of them scrambled over a wall and hid. He was to return to the corpse of his father and three daughters, a fourth taken away.
 
The crowd watching the film in the garage were first tossed a grenade, and the survivors hacked to death as they escaped. For an hour and a half the attackers roamed the village before melting into the night. A survivor who testified to seeing troops on the outskirts of the village, 15 minutes into the mass murder said the soldiers did nothing, until the killers had left. The village is just 500 metres from an army base and ten minutes drive from Algiers international airport.
 
The military security is running amok under by the triumvirate generals, Mohammed Mediene and the two Lamari brothers. Only the reign of terror will maintain the climate of fear, upon which their rule is based. But the state can no longer bear the burden of their rapacious rule.
 
M. Chinade in Impact International, Vol 28 No.2 - February 1998/Shawwal-Dhu Al Qa'adah 1418
 

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