The Violent Ending of War

The bloody, seven-year Algerian War, which has cost an estimated 400,000 lives, was nearly over. In a green-shuttered Parliament building in Libya's capital city of Tripoli, 54 members of the Algerian National Revolutionary Council met last week behind heavily guarded doors to vote on the cease-fire agreement with France that will lead to Algerian independence.

The accord had been hammered out between teams of negotiators headed by Louis Joxe, De Gaulle's Minister of State for Algerian Affairs (see box) and the F.L.N. Vice Premier, burly Belkacem Krim. Already approved by the French Cabinet, the agreement needed only the approval of four-fifths of the Revolutionary Council, which could not reject it without also rejecting Premier Benyoussef Benkhedda who, only six months ago, was designated by the Council to replace ill and aging (62) Ferhat Abbas in the task of swiftly bringing the war to a close.

The Timetable. Once the Council endorsed the agreement, the following timetable was to be set in motion:

> French and F.L.N. representatives (including army commanders) will formally sign the cease-fire convention and call upon their forces to put a stop to terrorism and fighting.

> Simultaneously, France will release Rebel Leader Mohammed ben Bella and four of his colleagues, who were seized five years ago when the French pilot of their Moroccan plane landed at Algiers. Ben Bella and his friends will be flown from their place of detention, the Chateau d'Aulnoy near Paris, to Rabat, where a heroes' welcome is being prepared for them by Morocco's King Hassan.

> Both sides will begin a general release of prisoners, the F.L.N. freeing some 400 captive French soldiers, the French some 5,000 F.L.N. soldiers. De Gaulle's government will then proclaim a series of amnesties covering those sentenced or awaiting judgment for political crimes ranging from nonviolent acts to murder. All Moslem prisoners under death sentence have already been transferred from Algerian to French jails to prevent European terrorists from breaking into the prisons and killing them.

> Nominations to Algeria's "Provisional Executive" will be made by the French government and the F.L.N. No top-ranking members of the F.L.N. will be included, but a number of Moslem lawyers, civil servants and professional men who have never hidden their nationalist sympathies are expected to serve. De Gaulle's government concedes that the nomination of Europeans to the executive may be difficult because the vast majority hate and fear the F.L.N., and that "outsiders," i.e., Metropolitan Frenchmen, may have to be brought in. The specific tasks of the Provisional Executive will be: 1) to set up and command a 90,000-member Force Publique that will maintain law and order in Algeria along with the French army, and will consist of Moslem militiamen and conscripts together with French security police and gendarmes; and 2) organize the referendum by which Moslems and Europeans in Algeria will answer yes or no to the question: "Do you approve of Algerian independence and cooperation with France?"

Burned Bodies. An overwhelmingly affirmative vote is expected, especially since the Europeans will probably abstain. The French government will then formally hand over sovereignty to the F.L.N. The first of the F.L.N. exiles--including the 35,000-man F.L.N. army based in Tunisia and Morocco--will return home. The referendum is to be followed by a three-year transitional period during which the French army will carry out a phased withdrawal, though still retaining the Mers-el-Kebir naval base and the Reggane atomic testing grounds in the Sahara. At the end of that period, general elections will be held, and the Europeans still remaining can opt for either French or Algerian citizenship.

While the war was ending, the desperate extremists of the Secret Army Organization stepped up their terrorist campaign in Algeria to an unprecedented pitch. Two French army pilots took off in their planes and strafed an F.L.N. army camp across the Moroccan border. While veiled Moslem women mourned the slain, the pilots returned to their base in Algeria and promptly deserted. In a single day in Algeria, 75 people were killed or wounded. In Algiers, European gunmen spread chaos, killing at least 20 anti-S.A.O. commandos of De Gaulle's government. The police received emergency calls reporting murders, arson or bombing every quarter of an hour until curfew. Dead, dying or wounded men lay every 500 yards along the Rue Michelet.

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