Beyond ground troops carrying out search-&-destroy missions, the #French Airforce bombed civilians.The Triomphant destroyer & the Duguay-Trouin, a light cruiser that had spent part of the war hunting German battleships, also rained shells down on villages #VEDay #AlgerianGenocide
Ravines & other stretches of wasteland were at first used as #massgraves.The #French wanted incriminating bodies to disappear, however, so they were dug up and transported by the lorry load to a settler’s farm that contained an industrial kiln. #VEDay #AlgerianGenocide #Setif
For days, corpses were incinerated by pieds noirs (European settlers) fanatics assisted by the gendarmerie. The smell of burning flesh and the thick smoke coming out of chimneys caused horror and fear among all those living nearby. #VEDay #AlgerianGenocide #CrematoryOvens #Setif
As so often, French administrators deliberately underestimated the Algerian death toll by tens of thousands, while correctly putting the number killed on their own side at just over 100. #VEDay #AlgerianGenocide #Setif #Guelma #Kherrata #Colonialism
Colonial authorities are notoriously lax about registering the names and status of their victims, especially those who have suffered summary execution by gunfire, or lynching. #VEDay #AlgerianGenocide #Setif #Guelma #Kherrata #Colonialism
Very little information about the savagery – merely reported in imperialist jargon as “events” which occurred while “maintaining order”– got back to Paris. Instead, #DeGaulle instructed Adrien Tixier, his Interior Minister, to “bury the whole affair”. #VEDay #AlgerianGenocide
It was only years later that the extent of the #massacres began to be recorded by objective investigators. By this time,rage about such barbaric crimes had resulted in the Algerian War of Independence – a conflict that lasted eight years from 1954. #VEDay #AlgerianGenocide #Setif
It is estimated that there were 1.5M #Algerian casualties,as all the tools of modern combat –from napalm to electric torture– were used by the #colonisers. Their #dirtywar saw police & military personnel operating covertly & calling themselves the Secret Army Organisation (#OAS).
Beyond repeatedly trying to assassinate #DeGaulle for what they considered to be his increasingly soft leadership over #Algeria, #OAS #terrorism included bombing a Strasbourg-Paris express train on 18 June 1961, causing 28 civilian deaths and 170 injured. #FrenchColonialism
Four months later, on #17October1961, Paris riot police murdered up to 300 #Algerian demonstrators in central Paris & the suburbs on a single night.Many were beaten up & tortured,while others were thrown into the Seine,where they were left to drown. #AlgerianGenocide #Colonialism
It is impossible to exaggerate how hard the #French state has worked to underplay its 132 years of racist #atrocities in #Algeria, for which no #apology or any kind of offer of #justice has ever been made. #Colonialism #AlgerianGenocide
The #BattleofAlgiers – the realistic film by the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo and the Algerian commander Yacef Saadi – was #banned in #France for nearly 40 years after its release in 1966. #Colonialism #AlgerianGenocide
Despite this, we can be certain that – as always – #May8 will be a day when the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany is solely commemorated in #France. It is #Algerians alone who are left to mourn a #genocide. #VEDay #Setif #Guelma #Kherrata #Colonialism
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