ALGERIANS who served with the French army during the Algerian civil war are planning to charge France with crimes against humanity for allegedly abandoning them after Algerian independence, their lawyer said on Monday. The ex-soldiers will file a suit before French courts at the end of next month, said Philippe Reulet, representing the National Liaison Committee of the Harkis. A harka was an auxiliary contingent in the French army during the 1954-62 Algerian independence war. It was made up of people of Algerian origin, either indigenous Algerians or those of mixed blood. The harkis and their descendants want the French government to acknowledge that France abandoned them after the Treaty of Evian in 1962 ending the war. Reulet has assembled the evidence of witnesses and historic documents to demonstrate that a plan existed to get rid of the harkis after independence. – AFP
Monday July 30, 2001