Word: krim
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Paradoxically, two of the leading moderates are the Cabinet's military men -Minister of War Belkacem Krim, a moody, 35-year-old Berber with five death sentences over his head, and Minister of Supply Mahmoud Cherif, 43, a onetime career lieutenant in the French army. The extremists are the politicians, notably Foreign Minister Mohammed...
...Purifying Life. Though he is slated to become Minister of War in the government in exile that the Algerians may soon be forming, Krim is obviously pained by the idea of playing a political role. Divorced, separated from his two children, and uncertain whether his father is alive or dead, he declares that "the only love I can have is for my country." A good part of that love seems really to be a longing for adventure, which the Moslem moujahid shares with the swaggering paratroopers of France. As we flew over the sandy wastes of Libya, Krim gestured...
...tried to avoid it at first because it isn't efficient," said Krim coldly. "You cannot hold a population by terror, and we need the population on our side. But we have traitors among us. And we had to answer French repression, too-massacres, tortures, bombardments. This is a hard war, but perhaps that is a good thing. We are building a nation, and we want no gifts. For nothing you get nothing...
...Supreme Sacrifice. Krim takes obvious pleasure in recalling his own exploits-how he evaded French police who had him trapped aboard a train, how he eluded the phony appointments set up to trap him. With a certain masculine embarrassment, he reluctantly confirms French reports that he has on occasion disguised himself as a veiled Moslem woman, explains defensively: "I would do anything for the revolution." His proudest boast is of the manner in which he foiled a daring scheme originated by Jacques Soustelle, then Governor General of Algeria...
...November 1955, Krim claims, one of Soustelle's Moslem agents got in touch with an F.L.N. officer and proposed to establish a decoy unit within the F.L.N. itself. The French were prepared to provide guns and money for the unit, which would appear to be loyal to the F.L.N. by day, but would actually fight the F.L.N. by night. For nearly a year Krim and some of his subordinates strung the French along, fought ferocious mock battles amongst themselves at night, and to provide casualties, left the imaginary battlefields strewn with what Krim describes as executed "traitors" dressed...