Justice for the French Monks is Justice for All Victims of Algeria’s Dirty War

Washington DC- The 1996 barbaric killing of seven French Trappist monks in Tibhirine (60 miles south of Algiers) is only one of the many tragic events that shaped the bloody civil war in Algeria.

If the death of these seven European individuals, sometimes, overshadows the suffering and the agony of thousands of Algerian civilians who died at the hands of armed groups and the security forces, solving the mystery of this killing will shed the lights on the role of Algeria’s intelligence agencies in extra-judicial killings. A justice for the Tibhirine monks will be a justice for all victims of Algeria’s dirty war.

The bodies of the seven religious figures were never recovered, and the only evidence ever collected by the Algerian police was their severed heads. With lack of material proof and a brutal war raging, Algiers was quick to accuse the Islamic Armed Group (GIA).

However, two former Algerian security officers attested that their bosses at the Milady Intelligence Agency (DRS) ordered the hit because the monastery was a safe haven for armed militants. For retired French General Buchwalter, France military attaché in Algiers during 1990’s, an Algerian army unit had killed the monks during a botched military operation against “Islamists” in the region.

With so many different and contradictory accounts, the truth about what happened in Tibhirine remains elusive.

Arguments around the events surrounding this tragedy and the unresolved cases of the thousands of Algerians “disappeared” resurfaced again with the arrival of French investigative judge Marc Trevidic to Algeria on October 19. Judge Trévidic went to Algeria to exhume the heads hoping to determine if the decapitation happened postmortem.

The French have hoped to send DNA samples to be analyzed in France to make a final determination on the manner of death and thus determine the party behind the killings. If DNA analysis finds that the victims heads were severed after their death, then that would substantiate the hypothesis that the Algerian Army killed the Monks and tried to manipulate the crime scene to incriminate The GIA.

Unfortunately, the Algerian authorities blocked the French investigators from leaving to France with the DNA extracts. For the victims’ family, this action shows that” Algerian authorities are implicated in the abduction” and that “the official version given by the Algerian government is inaccurate”.

Algerian officials could not reject French requests for an autopsy without raising doubts about their possible involvement in the crime. They had to let Trevidic conduct his examination. Yet by confiscating DNA samples, crucial evidence that would show the true culpable parties, the Algerian military stands guilty for this heinous act.

The monks of the Notre Dame de l’Atlas monastery in Tibhirine were a fixture in the mountains where they reside for years. Their sanctuary was open to all visitors to come eat and drink. Some locals have reported that members of armed groups would stop by when they needed food and shelter. The monks did not judge any one and refused to take sides during the civil war. They were highly regarded and resected by the locals.

The news of their death at the hands of “terrorists” came as a surprise to people familiar with the area where the killings happened. The armed groups active in the mountains never disturbed the monastery or its occupants for years. All these elements, the manner in which the murders took place and the way the Algerian government handled the investigation subsequently smell of an official cover up.

In impeding Judge Trevidic work, the DRS has shown its involvement in this one act of human rights abuse. It is now time for the military to stop this impunity and open the cases of the countless Algerians who were killed at the hand of the “Special Army Unit” during the civil war. The Algerians deserve the same attention and care as the brave Monks of Tibhirine.