EU troika `treads softly' and avoids embarrassing its hosts

Derek Fatchett, Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Georges Wohlfart did not see the bodies of the 37 Algerians who were murdered just before and during their stay in Algeria. Nor did the British, Austrian and Luxembourg junior foreign ministers meet the relatives of the dead, or massacre survivors.

President Zeroual's government saw to that because the Algerians who haunt the burnt-out and blood-stained ruins of massacre villages have an unhappy habit of questioning the identity of the killers. During their 18hour "fact-finding" mission, the troika never left the lush gardens, villas and government buildings of the rich neighbourhood overlooking the capital.

Inside the ochre stone and mirror glass monolith of his ministry, Mr Ahmed Attaf, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, lectured the European troika for more than two hours on their alleged sheltering of "terrorist networks". Mr Attaf, one of the civilian frontmen for the generals who run Algeria, was allowed to dictate the composition of the European delegation and topics for discussion. The Europeans initially planned to send foreign ministry civil servants; but Algerian cabinet ministers could not be expected to speak to representatives of lower than ministerial rank, Mr Attaf proclaimed, so the Europeans upgraded the delegation. They might have brought up systematic torture by security forces, the muzzling of the press, the need for an international inquiry into the massacre of 1,500 people in the past three weeks alone. Not at all; the Europeans had to "tread softly", said Mr Manuel Marin, the Vice President of the European Commission who accompanied the troika.

To the displeasure of the Algerian authorities, Ms Ferrero-Waldner, the Austrian junior minister, alluded to "parallels with the crisis in Yugoslavia". Like Sarajevo during the siege, Algiers has become a choice destination for crusading French intellectuals and ambitious politicians. Saudi Arabia and the UNHCR issued statements yesterday; Norway announced it was sending its own delegation, following last week's Canadian mission. Ms Ferrero-Waldner probably did not intend to compare the Europeans' pandering to the Bosnian Serbs with their submission to the Algiers regime, but the problem is similar: obtaining access - however limited - to the country, has become more important than influencing the behaviour of its rulers.

An article in L'Authentique, the mouthpiece for Gen Mohamed Betchine (one of the military strongmen whom the troika did not meet), gave an indication of what Mr Attaf told the troika. "Above all, Algeria expects the Europeans to sweep their own doorstep," yesterday's edition declared. "Let them attack the rear bases and support networks of terrorism on their own territory . . . It must be admitted that terrorism and religious fundamentalism would never have developed without the complicity of Western countries."

But did the troika have the courage to tell Mr Attaf that "terrorism and religious fundamentalism" would not have developed if the generals in power had shared the country's wealth with its people and granted them real political participation?

The banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), which won the first round of free elections six years ago, declared a ceasefire last October and has repeatedly called for a negotiated settlement to the conflict, does operate in Europe. The more extreme Armed Islamic Group (GIA) carried out a bombing campaign in France in the mid-1990s and its followers occasionally issue statements in Britain. But the massacres in Algeria are being committed with knives and hatchets, and the rebels live on what they pillage from the local population. Does Mr Attaf want us to believe that "terrorist support networks" are shipping knives from London.

The German Foreign Minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel, proposed the European initiative earlier this month, largely out of fear of an influx of Algerian refugees. "If we don't export stability to Algeria today, we will import instability in the form of great waves of refugees tomorrow,"

Mr Kinkel said last weekend. But talk of EU humanitarian aid and refugees is rejected out of hand by the regime. "Algerians have known the torment of terrorism for more than five years," said yesterday's editorial in L'Authentique. "They have not and will not become boat people, for they are too proud and too dignified to ask others to take pity on them."

Wild rumours circulate in Algiers about the salaries awarded to members of parliament and senators elected last year in fraud-ridden polls.

While dozens of people are killed every day, the lucrative natural gas and oil industry is well protected. "It proves that the army can be efficient when it wants to," a government employee said bitterly.

Algerians are not surprised that the regime fails to protect the population: if given the chance in free elections, they would vote it out of power.