Algeria's Tireless "Postmen"

By Frederick Painton

Without the help of a sometime foe, there would be no deal

Americans and Iranians can agree on one thing at least: without the skillful performance of Algeria's middlemen, the financial settlement that led to the hostages' release would not have been possible. On his last day in office, President Jimmy Carter conveyed to Algerian President Bendjedid Chadli "the immense debt of gratitude" felt by the U.S. Wrote Carter: "We would certainly not have concluded this accord, if we had not had the assistance of your government." State Department officials spoke admiringly of the "tireless work"--and the "imagination and understanding" displayed throughout the ten weeks of ceaseless negotiations by the three chief Algerian envoys: Ambassador to Washington Redha Malek, Ambassador to Tehran Abdel-krim Ghraieb, and Central Bank Governor Mohammed Seghir Mostefai.

Exhausted but triumphant, the three men were the first to deplane from one of the Air Algerie Boeing 727s that bore the hostages from Tehran to Algiers. There they were greeted with grateful bear hugs by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher and U.S. Ambassador to Algeria Ulric Haynes Jr., the Americans with whom they had worked so closely in the frantic last days of bargaining.

Algeria's diplomatic triumph sent a surge of national pride throughout that country. Taxi drivers honked their horns in tribute to the occasion. Recognizing a foreign journalist on a street in Algiers, one passer-by stopped to say, "It is a great moment for our country." Indeed, Algeria's regime had managed simultaneously to win the gratitude of the U.S. without losing its credibility as a champion of revolutions and a sympathizer with fanatically anti-American Iran.

As early as October 1979, the Algerians were instrumental in setting up an inconclusive meeting between National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Iran's then Premier Mehdi Bazargan. After the hostages were seized by the militant Iranians, the Tehran government asked Algeria to represent its interests in Washington. Thus a certain logic was involved when Iran, at the urging of Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, last November asked Algerian Foreign Minister Mohammed Ben Yahia to help arrange a hostage deal.

The three intermediaries originally thought of themselves as "postmen," serving only as messengers between Washington and Tehran. But the Algerians quickly moved to a larger and more complex diplomatic role. "The Iranians took a perverted pleasure in raising and dashing our hopes," explained a member of the American negotiating team. "We don't know exactly what the Algerians said, but they refused to be drawn into the Iranian game and eventually made them come to terms." The Algerians deftly avoided becoming guarantors of any final accord despite Iranian pressure to accept the responsibility. "The Iranians were suspicious of everyone and everything," said an Algerian official. Worse, the Iranian negotiators seemed to be confused by the most elementary financial transactions. As a result, the Algerians became financial as well as political advisers to Tehran. All the while, the Algerians were trying to explain to Americans the paranoid psychology of Tehran's revolutionaries.

In many respects, Algeria was well equipped to serve as America's intermediary with Iran. Algeria is an Islamic state with a revolutionary tradition; its three envoys all played key roles in their country's war for independence from France, which ended in 1962. Since then, Algeria has aided numerous Third World liberation causes. "The Algerians have an almost knee-jerk reaction in favor of anything that calls itself revolutionary," says a Western diplomat in Algiers. "There are some 75 revolutionary or liberation movements with offices here."

Algeria has close links with the Palestine Liberation Organization and strongly opposes U.S. policy in the Middle East, particularly the Camp David peace accords. It continues to help Polisario guerrillas in their fight against Morocco to carve out an independent state in the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara. The U.S., meanwhile, is quietly backing Morocco to the point of shipping arms for use in the desert war.

The image of Algeria as a militantly pro-Soviet regime has gradually changed since the death of President Houari Boumedienne from a rare blood disease two years ago. His successor, President Chadli, 51, has pragmatically tried to improve relations with the West. Moreover, relations with Moscow have cooled since the invasion of Afghanistan, and there are signs that Algeria wants to escape from its dependence on the U.S.S.R. for military equipment.

At home, Chadli has moved to temper the repressive climate that marked Boumedienne's regime by releasing some political prisoners (including Algeria's first President, Ahmed Ben Bella) and allowing other exiled opponents to return for visits. Chadli has also turned away from the centralized, Soviet-style economic system that Boumedienne favored. Instead, the government is actively encouraging smaller enterprises and, in agriculture and housing, even a return to private ownership. There are steadily improving economic ties with the West, the major customers for the oil and natural gas that bring in 98% of Algeria's foreign exchange. The U.S. imports more than half of Algeria's crude production and is now negotiating how much to pay for a share of its ample but expensive liquefied gas.

The Algerians sought no financial compensation for evacuating the hostages or sending doctors to examine them. "How we will pay them back I just don't know," said Ambassador Haynes, adding: "Yes, they have a right to expect something in return." The U.S. clearly cannot repay Algeria by altering its own foreign policy. But no one would be surprised if the Algerians shrewdly cashed in their IOUs in the form of lucrative long-term gas contracts. --By Frederick Painton.

Reported by William Drozdiak/Algiers and Henry Muller/Paris

With reporting by William Drozdiak, Henry Muller

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