February 13, 2002

WHILE RUCKAUF GROVELED IN WASHINGTON

Mentor of Argentine torturers censured in a French court



BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD (Special for Granma International)



WHAT an amazing coincidence. In Washington, Argentine Foreign Minister Carlos Ruckauf was genuflecting, reiterating his condemnation of "the human rights situation in Cuba" as defined by Otto Reich; while in Paris, a court found French General Paul Aussaresses – the protagonist of executions and systematic torture during the Algerian war, and later the mentor of the most fanatical officers of the bloody Argentine military dictatorship — guilty of justifying torture.



A dirty operations man in the French colonial war against the Algerian independence movement, Aussaresses, now 83, was not only one of the most active French officers in systematic repression operations in that North African French colony, but also taught his repressive methods, first to Argentine soldiers and then in U.S. military academies.



In May 2001, a book by Aussaresses was published in Paris by Plon, which was to cause a huge scandal: Services spéciaux, Algérie 1955-1957, in which he coldly recalled some of his macabre Algerian exploits, with no expression of remorse.



In 1954, Aussaresses was an operative in the French special services (SDECE), when his superiors sent him to Philippeville (now Skikda) in Algeria, in the midst of France’s war against the National Liberation Front (FLN). He was immediately designated to the airborne joint command group known as GCMA, a secret services unit headed by Lieutenant Colonel Roger Trinquier, with whom he had collaborated a few years earlier during the Indochina war.



One night in February 1957, French soldiers captured an important FLN leader, Labri Ben M’Hidi, who was acting as a substitute for Ahmed Ben Bella, head of that revolutionary organization. General Massu, chief of the 10th Parachute Division, entrusted the prisoner to Aussaresses, allegedly with orders to eliminate him. Aussaresses decided to disguise his death as suicide and took him to an isolated farm under his men’s control.



In his book, Aussaresses relates how he executed Ben M’Hidi: "With the help of my officers, we tied him up and hanged him in a way which could be taken for suicide. When I was sure that he was dead, I cut him down and transported him to a hospital. It was around midnight. I called Massu straight away by telephone. "My general, Ben M’Hidi has just committed suicide. His body is in the hospital; I will bring you my report tomorrow morning."



The book’s cynicism led to the immediate retirement of the general, in a decision taken by the French minister of defense, and three human rights organizations accused him before a Paris court of supporting war crimes.



A three-day hearing was held in late November of last year, and on January 25, the court fined Aussaresses and his publishers Olivier Orba and Xavier de Bartillat.



But the case was to provoke revelations far more interesting than the torture general’s confessions.



The June 15, 2001, issue of Le Point weekly revealed, under the title "Argentina: Aussaresses’ other dirty war," that the high-ranking officer and French specialists in anti-subversion operations had trained U.S. and Argentine soldiers. "When the latter formed their bloody junta in 1976, the lessons applied were the French ones."



Pierre Abamovici, who wrote the article, reveals how during the Indochina war, Aussaresses’ superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Trinquier, had made contact with the CIA and obtained the collaboration of two of its agents, who supplied his unit with communication equipment.



It was precisely at that point that Aussaresses also established his first contacts with the CIA.



In Algeria, Trinquier and Aussaresses refined methods of urban repression, practicing mass arrests, systematic torture and disappearances designed to terrorize the population.



Military forces from other distant countries showed interest in his methods, which were later put into practice on a large scale. On September 11, 1958, French Defense Minister Pierre Guillaumat authorized 60 Argentine soldiers to undertake a "study trip" to Algeria.



This experience led to the creation in February 1960 of a permanent French military mission in Buenos Aires, with the objective of "increasing the technical efficiency and training of the Argentine army."



Moreover, the United States was working to bring together all the most reactionary elements of the various national armies in the Americas on a continental scale.



According to Le Point, in a meeting in July 1961, General Spirito, chief of staff of the Argentine army, proposed to his colleagues that the "French methods" of Aussaresses and Trinquier should be taught in the framework of an "inter-American course on the anti-Marxist struggle." Thirty-nine officers from 13 armies in the Americas, including that of the United States, participated in this activity, in which they systematically studied the Trinquier-Aussaresses teachings.



Meanwhile, Aussaresses reappeared in the United States as an "observer’ at the Fort Benning military academy in Georgia.



Unknown to his military superiors, he affirmed years later, he moved on to teach in the Fort Bragg training center in North Carolina, at a point when the Pentagon was reorganizing its "special forces." The center was converted into a school of special warfare and both soldiers and CIA agents were trained there. In Fort Bragg, Aussaresses ordered the translation of the writings of his master, Trinquier, the basis of his intensive warfare course.



One of his students, CIA analyst Robert Komer, became a member of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s cabinet in 1964 and Johnson appointed him U.S. ambassador to Saigon, in the middle of the war in Viet Nam. In that country, Komer was the protagonist of Operation Phoenix, which left a total of 20,000 dead and tens of thousands of persons detained and tortured without trial.



From 1973 to 1975, Aussaresses was the French military attaché in Brazil.



According to Le Point, from there the high-ranking officer directed the SDECE operations in Brazil and Argentina, among other things, while the Argentine army was drawing up the first Operation Condor plans with its Chilean and Uruguayan counterparts.



The journalist writes: "Hundreds of young people disappeared in Buenos Aires every day without leaving a trace. Thanks to the lessons of Algeria!"



On June 21, 2001, Parisian Judge Roger Leloire summoned Aussaresses who, at that stage, had not been forced to retire by the French defense minister.



Surprising the elderly officer, the magistrate interrogated him on the role played by French officers in Argentina in the training of those who, from 1970 to 1980, were the Argentine military dictatorship’s bloodiest troops.



But Aussaresses had lost his memory. He refused to give any precise account of his activities in Brazil, most of which he obviously undertook without the knowledge of the French civil authorities.



A bad memory is a very common phenomenon. Likewise, in Washington, Carlos Ruckauf spoke without recalling how the human rights organizations challenged the numerous crimes committed in prisons and police stations in Buenos Aires when he was governor of that province. Various cases of torture and execution in subhuman conditions have been directly linked by those organizations to Ruckauf’s "strong-arm" policies.



And everyone in Buenos Aires remembers his links with dictator Videla and his open support for the latter’s repressive methods.



What an assistant for Otto Reich!

French paratroopers were nasty in Algerie. FLN wasn t nice either.

How about US troops burning children alive in Vietnam ?

I don t understand what exactly you re trying to prove here.

France had to face terrorism in Algerie, the only way to prevent from terrorism was to make terrorrists talk. The purpose was to save lives. Unlike FLN who was torturing soldiers and civilians in a much more horrible way, in order to scare people.

The Algerian conflict is quie complex and cannot be resumed so quickly. Actually I d say that bed people were French people born in Algerie "les pieds noirs". For more than one reason.

The situation in Algerie was not unbarable as some algerians were pro France. The Arkis for instance. If the example of one nasty man makes a good argument for you to prove that an entire country/inhabitants of the country is/are corrupted and bad...fair enough.

French gov was under attack by military rebels during Algerie war. Nothiung to be proud of but it shows u that french wanted to give independance to algerians unlike a minority of paratroopers who didn t weanna be "sissy cowards" and abandonn combat again (Yes they were the same fighting in Indochine and asked to leave ...)

I have to agree that 20st century was not very in our favor, militarly talking (happy ?) .

putain vous faites chier d'écrire autan. J'en ai ras le cul de devoir essayer de traduire votre merde les gars.
Allez, faites un effort speaker français, pour moi que je suis si gentil(Fuck this fucking AF héhé).

nul, zero deux...aussaresses a dit qu'il avait torturé, voilà nous au moins on dit la vérité. C'est quoi ton problème AF, c'était des arabes en algérie non ? tu devrais être content sale fasciste. Tu crois que les copains de ben laden a cuba il mangent du foie gras truffé avant de se faire sucer dans un jacusi ?...pauvre type.

France's only effective military unit is the Foreign Legion! And there aren't any Frogs in it!! Napoleon wasn't even French, he was Corsican!

The "nageurs de combat" unit and the "GIGN" are elite of the french army.

Their are french in the foreign legion, in fact the officers and sergeants moslty are french

Saying that Napolean was corsican is a bit like saying that there is no americans, there was native americans, and ex-europeans so ... figure out.

corsica is in france...lol, it's like saying florida is in mexico...lol..the joke, u r the best.

strange, I might not be interested enough in American news, but I can t see any guy who did the Vietnam being sued, though it wasn t exactly a beautiful war...

trange, I might not be interested enough in American news, but I can t see any guy who did the Vietnam being sued, though it wasn t exactly a beautiful war...

Who attacked who first, idiot? Who was playing the defense roll and who was playing offense? Not too hard to figure out, except for French dummies of the French educational system.. Sad.

huh, war is war. whoever started the fight, in both camps there are rules to respect (I admit, that s what we didn t do in Algeria). like you like to say about the treatments you give to al qaida members, guys in algeria were not really cool either: sending kids to throw grenades on French soldiers...

like you like to say about the treatments you give to al qaida members, guys in algeria were not really cool either:


What treatment? They are being treated like kings in comparsion to their free lives in Afghanistan even! Anywhere else they would have been killed by now or been treated like shit, as they deserve to be anyway... They are being treated too well, for what they did! If you don't like it, you can come over here and take control, coward Frogs! Even the UK didn't want them back because they would probably be let go because of their stupid ancient laws!!! Get a clue, gimpy!