Mourad Dhina: a brief history of Algeria’s future

The years of endurance

Immediately after his appointment as interior minister in late March 1993, Charles Pasqua started to hunt Algerians opposed to the coup. His campaign targeted a number of Algerians. Some were arrested, detained in the Folembray camp and then deported to Burkina Faso. Mourad Dhina left the French town of Saint-Genis where he had been residing, and found refuge in Geneva. He lost his job at CERN, located on the Franco-Swiss border, and partially controlled by the French state. From that moment onwards, Mourad Dhina and his family, who were not granted political asylum, experienced a precarious life that was to last more than ten years [36].

In addition to these difficulties, Mourad Dhina became the target of smear campaigns by the putsch regime, its media and supporters in Europe. The propaganda orchestrated by the army, now in ‘genocidal gear’ [37], crippled by fear large sections of society. Fear for one’s life or being exposed to media vilification, financial worries about one’s family and self-interested political calculation were sufficient reasons to leave the FIS at the time, but Mourad Dhina remained steadfast on the principles that had motivated his stand.

It is the fate of principled opponents of dictatorships to endure the pillory of their propaganda. Mourad Dhina was first accused, in 1994, of providing logistical support, and even weapons, to armed groups in Algeria, on the basis of a report by a police officer in Geneva. It turned out later that this officer was conspiring with an Algerian intelligence officer operating in Switzerland, and that together they had fabricated a list of dozens of Algerian citizens living in Switzerland, several of whom were extra-judicially killed later in Algeria. The two agents were arrested in December 1994. The Swiss Federal Court found them guilty of ‘espionage and political intelligence and violation of official secrecy’ and sentenced them, on 5 November 1997, to prison and to pay Mourad Dhina ‘compensation for moral tort’ [38]. At the same moment, the Algerian military ordered a judge to sentence Mourad Dhina in absentia to 20 years imprisonment and instructed the diplomatic corps to seek his extradition.

The Algerian media attacks suffered by Mourad Dhina often involved labelling him a ‘terrorist’. In response to this libel, he said:

« I know my father, peace be upon his soul, was called a ‘fellaga’, a ‘terrorist’ and a ‘criminal’ by the French colonialists, because he would not accept humiliation and to submit to the occupation. France has left our country, thank God. Insults and labels to degrade the value of human beings and to criminalise them are common place. This method has been used by despots against their opponents since the dawn of time. Even the prophets, peace and blessing upon them, have not escaped this kind of abuse. My conscience is clear in this respect. I do not consider myself a terrorist. I have never undertaken an action which violates the rights of people, especially the weak, the victims, and the oppressed who suffered the most from the war imposed on the Algerian people by those who consider themselves the guardians of the people. » [39]

To suggest that he is an ‘uncultured’ and ‘obscurantist’ fundamentalist, the propaganda mongers deployed also the accusation against Mourad Dhina that he did not want to condemn the ‘murders of intellectuals’. Indeed, there are serious allegations which attribute these murders to Algeria’s military intelligence (DRS) [40]. In response to these claims Mourad Dhina explained:

« We should mourn all the dead and denounce all the crimes. I am the first to denounce the crimes that have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of our fellow Algerians. […] At one point, I spoke of ‘leftist intellectuals’, it must be noted that in the video there was a break. I mentioned ‘leftist intellectuals’ during a debate, not broadcast in the documentary, between me and the interviewer, on their identity. The journalist had said that they were ‘leftist intellectuals’. I said: ‘Listen, it is your opinion, and if you insist on naming them as such, so be it. […] I do not accept double standards. We should not talk of the death of X while forgetting that of Y, whatever may be their identity. For me all the Algerians killed in the tragedy we have lived through deserve respect and we need to know the truth surrounding their fate. I do not accept the labels used here and there. […] The facts are misrepresented to suit a certain power, and to please some political circles. I do not engage in over politicking at the expense of victims. We must denounce all crimes. And today it is not enough to denounce, and this is where I challenge the so-called intellectuals and democrats. Come with us and let us seek the truth about what has happened in our country. The truth cannot be overlooked. I am personally committed to establishing the whole truth about the war, and I shall accept whatever verdict of this quest for the truth, because we owe it to the memory of all victims.’ » [41]