Veteran torturer: "No mercy, no regrets"

[Al-khiyal]

The debates about the U.S. use of torture in its ongoing military campaigns against the people of the Middle East often ring hollow. Listening to many of the impassioned legal and moralistic arguments against the practice, one is reminded of General Paul Aussaresses's observation: "Only too often today condemning others means acquiring a certificate of morality for just about anyone." He was talking about those who criticized his role in the French war against Algeria in the 1950s, but his observation is germane to the issue of torture today.

After 40 years of silence, Aussaresses decided to tell the truth about torture from a military point of view in his book, The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Algeria, 1955-1957 (New York: Enigma Books, 2002). His admission of torture and summary executions caused a furor in France and resulted in a civil lawsuit against him, his publisher, and his editor by several human rights organizations. The charge was "justifying war crimes." Aussaresses, along with his co-defendants, was found guilty and fined in 2002. They have all subsequently appealed the conviction.

Aussaresses's narrative of the campaign of torture and death against the Algerian insurgency is specific and succinct:

Veteran torturer: "No mercy, no regrets"



”Services spéciaux, Algérie 1955-1957” : les aveux du général Paul Aussaresses



La torture pendant la guerre d’Algérie / 1954 – 1962
40 ans après, l’exigence de vérité


Aurès 1957. Cette femme, appelée Hania, a été arrêtée
pour avoir tué avec une hache le soldat qui tentait de la violer. Elle fut ensuite violée, torturée, puis exécutée.

Douze intellectuels français appellent à la condamnation de la torture pendant la guerre d’Algérie



Retour sur la torture en Algérie

[medz]

Listen you are out of control here, you dont need to show the tortured woman, what type of human you are, do you have any shame showing the photo of tortured woman, if you have single respect for the Algerians you should not do that, if the french pigs did that, you dont have to glorify that, i will ask you to remove the photo of the tortured woman immediatly by respect to all Algerians

[Al-khiyal]

salam ya medz

I am going to answer your comment at some length but wish to make it very clear from the outset that I consider it to be extremely offensive and that your view that the image ‘glorifies’ anything is absolutely bizarre. I also reject, utterly, your allegation that the use of the image constitutes ‘disrespect for Algerians’.

Your comment is a personal attack and one that indicates that you have made it without giving much thought at all to the subject matter of this post. In brief, your comment is disgraceful.

I will now tell you why.

You say that the image is ‘disrespectful to Algerians’. Might I suggest that you go to Riadh El Feth in Algiers where you will find the Musée National du Moudjahid. There you might wish to speak to any of the 17 Algerians employed there and demand that they remove the image that you feel is ‘disrespectful to Algerians’ as it is on display there and has been viewed in recent years by hundreds of thousands of Algerians, along with other visitors to the museum. If you do not have time to make the journey right now then you can telephone the museum on +213 (0)2 653488 and say that you wish to overrule the directives of the Ministere des Moudjahidine, a government official tasked with implementing the will of the Algerian people, that have resulted in a permanent record of the savage treatment of the Algerian people at the hands of the French being placed before the Algerian people and before the world.

When you are making your visit or call you might also wish to remove all the other images depicting acts of French savagery as apart from the hundreds of thousands of Algerians who have seen them they are regularly used by Algerian and international researchers whose published work continues to bring to wider attention the stories of Algerians whose lives were brutally snuffed out and who the French thought that they has silenced for all time.

It is Algeria’s Musée National du Moudjahid, built by Algerians, for Algerians, at the request of Algerians, staffed by Algerians, containing records, photographs, artefacts and other items donated by Algerians and visited daily by Algerians that is the source of the image that you are claiming is ‘disrespectful to Algerians’.

The young woman that the photograph depicts, in an image that shames only the perpetrators of the vile acts that gave her such a lonely and savage death, died in 1957. Hers was but one life brutally taken during Algeria’s struggle for independence. Her violators, torturers and killers presumed that they had silenced her forever. Her death, along with all the others and the torture and savage repression that accompanied them, was but one incident during an era when the very idea of an independent Algeria was something that the French were trying to destroy.

From beyond the grave that young woman is still playing a part in holding the French to account for their crimes:

”……«Les musées sont des symboles de tout l’Etat. Leur importance n’est plus à démontrer. C’est la raison pour laquelle nous nous employons à préserver ce lieu afin que la vérité soit pour toujours conservée», souligne M. Bitam qui, justement au sujet de la loi du 23 février, affirme que «le peuple algérien n’oublie pas et n’oubliera jamais. Nous respectons l’avis des penseurs français et nous respectons leur société civile qui a un niveau de conscience élevé mais la vérité n’a qu’un seul visage et il faut le voir tel qu’il est. Les séquelles du napalm sont toujours incrustées dans des visages, l’horreur vécue a encore des voix pour la conter. La France ‘‘mère des libertés’’ et pays ‘‘de l’égalité et des droits de l’Homme’’ n’a autre choix, à mon avis, que de reconnaître les crimes contre l’humanité qu’elle a commis». Un avis partagé même par les intellectuels français dont un groupe de douze, rappelons-le, avait publié, le 31 octobre 2000, un «appel à la condamnation de la torture durant la guerre d’Algérie».

Les signataires dont Henri Alleg, auteur de la Question, et les historiens Madeleine Rebérioux, Pierre Vidal-Naquet et Jean-Pierre Vernant ont demandé au président français, Jacques Chirac, de «condamner ces pratiques par une déclaration publique». En 2001, un second appel, qui réitère leur demande après la publication du livre du général Aussaresses, a été publié. Dans le premier appel, il est fait référence à un document du Musée national du moudjahid : «Aurès 1957. Cette femme, appelée Hania, a été arrêtée pour avoir tué avec une hache le soldat qui tentait de la violer. Elle fut ensuite violée, torturée, puis execute…..
….Il est évident que, pour les intellectuels des deux côtés de la Méditerranée, la mémoire française et la mémoire algérienne resteront hantées par les horreurs qui ont marqué la guerre d’Algérie tant que la vérité n’aura pas été dite et reconnue….

The question of French acknowledgement of the crimes committed against the Algerian people is not a dead issue. It received yet another airing only last week at the time of the visit to Algeria made by the French Foreign Minister. France’s recent decision to revise the history of its colonial experience and paint it in a more positive light is no less controversial.

The Musée National du Moudjahid., the exhibits and records it contains and the memories of the Algerian people whose lives were touched by the horrors inflicted on them by the French are a damning indictment of any French attempt to sanitize the history of that period. And Hania is shaming them still.

Recently, in another conflict, photographs surfaced that revealed some of the savagery and brutality meted out to helpless prisoners. There was an outcry from all around the world and attempts were made by the nation responsible to suppress publication of the images. For over two years it fought a legal battle to prevent further proofs of what its personnel had done being seen by the world. One of its first responses to the unfolding scandal was to ban its military personnel from using cameras of any kind in their bases.

This was to miss the point, just as you have missed it. The ‘crime’ lies not in the images but in the savagery that the images record.

If you had taken the time to read the link that the image is taken from you would have seen for yourself that the image is on display to Algerians in Algeria. If you had given more thought to the reasons why it is on display and why it is still an image used by Algerians in their quest for an acknowledgement of the crimes committed against them then you would have had no need to level your offensive and baseless allegation that it is ‘disrespectful to Algerians’.

I suggest that you exercise a little more care and respect before contemplating posting such comments here. I also suggest that you acknowledge that your comment is completely out of touch with the views of Algerians who see no glory but only another nation’s shame in the image and who wish it to be seen both in Algeria and throughout the world where it still speaks, almost fifty years after it was taken, of a truth that has yet to be acknowledged.

maa3assalaama

[phylay]

Originally posted by medz
Listen you are out of control here,

I read this somewhere... Hope u're not copying other members

I was curious to see how u were going to prove your point but you used irrelevant, wrong and pointless arguments... No surprise.
Well, I don't blame you as I know it is not easy to prove unjustifiable allegations


Posting pics and facts of torture is not glorifying it, and closing your eyes doesn't mean they don't exist

[medz]

Originally posted by phylay

Originally posted by medz
Listen you are out of control here,

I read this somewhere... Hope u're not copying other members

I was curious to see how u were going to prove your point but you used irrelevant, wrong and pointless arguments... No surprise.
Well, I don't blame you as I know it is not easy to prove unjustifiable allegations


Posting pics and facts of torture is not glorifying it, and closing your eyes doesn't mean they don't exist

Dont give stupid pretext, what i am saying he doesnt have to show nake totured woman to make a point, it is too disturbing image and for the respect of the memory of that brave woman.
We all know what the french animals did in Algeria, mass killings and tortures were used at large scale by the french animals. but there are some limits here, i am not really concerned about the other pics, except the one with the tortured brave woman.

Let suppose it was your mother, what will be your reaction...

[Al-khiyal]

ya medz

What is it about the fact that the picture is on public display in Algiers and has been published in a number of books and newspaper articles all around the world that you do not understand?

Why are you suggesting that Algerians and others using this site should not see something that is an iconic image viewed daily by Algerians in Algiers?

[medz]

Originally posted by Al-khiyal
ya medz

What is it about the fact that the picture is on public display in Algiers and has been published in a number of books and newspaper articles all around the world that you do not understand?

Why are you suggesting that Algerians and others using this site should not see something that is an iconic image viewed daily by Algerians in Algiers?

No you are wrong, being muslim you SHOULD NOT POST THAT PHOTO HERE PERIOD., i have no problem with other stuff you posted...that image was never shown in public in Algeria, i know there is one copy in the algerian musuem el djeich.
it was shown in the western medias and some western books not Algeria. i dont need the french pigs media le "monde" telling me the history of my country.