A bombshell that rocked the generals in Algeria

The Algerian generals thought they had it made. The necessary facade of "democracy" had been erected. "Terrorism", they claimed, was in its death throes. Even the country's balance of payments, boosted by new gas and oil export deals, was setting records. Then came the bombshell from Paris.

It was only a magazine story, but the revelation in the French Nouvel Observateur that the late Algerian president Houari Boumedienne secretly allowed the former colonial power to test chemical weapons in Algeria hit the capital with the force of an explosion.

The French had started testing chemical grenades, bombs, mines, shells and missiles in the Algerian Sahara in 1960. A secret annexe to the Evian accords which gave Algeria independence allowed France to pursue nuclear, chemical and biological experiments until 1967.

Now it turns out that President Boumedienne let the secret French B2 Namous programme continue for another nine years, until his death in 1978. The testing site, at Ouled Namous (present-day Bechar) in the north-western Sahara desert, was the biggest in the world.

That Boumedienne, the army colonel who was the forerunner and mentor of the generals now in power, the man whose 13year dictatorship they evoke with nostalgia, endangered the lives of Algerians by striking a devil's pact with the French was a hard piece of history for the government to swallow.

Boumedienne's hatred of the French was legendary. Those Algerians who called him the father of the poor claimed he never set foot in France "because he didn't want to hear the Marseillaise". He enraged Paris by nationalising Algerian oil and gas resources in 1971, and later forbade Algerians from working in France.

"The dignity of Algerians is not negotiable," he said. "From now on, no Algerian will work in France, even if he has to eat dirt at home."

Despite confirmation by the Quai d'Orsay and retired French officials familiar with the B2 Namous chemical weapons programme, the embarrassed Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf told a press conference that after 1967 France conducted only decontamination work at Ouled Namous.

To ordinary Algerians, the news that chemical tests did not end until 1978 was renewed proof of the hypocrisy and perfidy of the military who have misruled them since independence in 1962. At the same time many suspected a French plot intended to discredit the regime. Why else would the news break on the very day that millions of Algerians were electing mayors, town councils and regional assemblies?

The clique of military officers who run Algeria today use the same tactics pioneered by Boumedienne three decades ago. Rigged elections are heralded as proof of Algerian "democracy". The Securite Militaire kidnaps and murders suspected political opponents. Meanwhile, the military control the proceeds of Algeria's oil and gas installations, which are currently earning $14 billion a year.

While its population lives in poverty and terror, Algeria has never been so rich. The Swiss journalist Jean Ziegler, a specialist in financial scandals, reported this month that Gen Abdelmalek Guenaizia, Algeria's ambassador to Switzerland, transfers oil and gas profits into numbered Swiss accounts, and that Algerian diplomats in Berne have been called to order by the Swiss Foreign Ministry for spending so much of their time setting up front companies in Liechtenstein.

Rivalry among military clans plays an important part in the government's prosecution of its 5 1/2-year-old war against Islamic fundamentalists. President Liamine Zeroual, the army general who was brought out of retirement in 1994 to play a figurehead role, along with his closest adviser, Gen Mohamed Betchine, has tried to negotiate a settlement with the Islamic Salvation Front.

But real power lies with Gen Mohamed Lamari, the chief-ofstaff of the armed forces and the acting Minister of Defence. (Zeroual technically holds the defence portfolio, but has delegated responsibility to Lamari.) Gen Lamari is the "eradicator" who believes that the only good fundamentalist is a dead one.

The third main faction is led by Gen Mohamed Mediene, the head of the Securite Militaire known as Tewfik. Gen Mediene is said to waiver between the Zeroual and Lamari camps.

None of these three generals has ever given an interview. With his silver hair and designer suits, Zeroual looks like an old-fashioned silent movie star. Photos of the plump Gen Lamari wearing Ray Bans and smoking a cigar are reminiscent of bygone South American juntas. Few Algerians have ever seen a picture of the short, unassuming Gen Mediene.

The opacity of the regime and its reluctance to delegate responsibility is one explanation for the army's inaction during the five-hour massacre of some 300 civilians in the Algiers suburb of Bentalha on August 29th.

"The lieutenant in charge of the barracks at Bentalha called his captain, who called the commandant, who called the colonel," a government insider told The Irish Times. "The colonel called his general, and by that time it was well after midnight. The general didn't dare disturb the chief-of-staff."

An Algiers newspaper editor gave another explanation, equally damning: "In the barracks they're saying, `why should we get shot when the generals are getting rich?' They've seen a lot of their friends killed, and how their widows and orphans are living. There's no more motivation."

But the brutal massacres of nearly 1,000 civilians on the outskirts of Algiers in August and September may have jolted the security forces into action. Foreign journalists have not been allowed to see celebrated offensives at Ouled Allel and Bainem, but Algerian newspapers publish daily accounts of destroyed installations and dead `terrorists'.

"The whole world was saying, `it's the army that's killing'. They had to prove it wasn't true," the newspaper editor said.