Update 20 Oct 2010
http://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/france/231010/who-murdered-beheaded-french-monks-tibhirine
----- Forwarded Message ----From: Donald Nunraw ...
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Subject: Full WikiThere is work yet to check the Full Wiki detective account of the deaths of the Seven Monks of the Monastery of Our Lady of Atlas at Tibhirine, Medea, Algeria.
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| Tibhirine Notre Dame de L Atlas in Medea Google2008 |
Who murdered the beheaded French monks of Tibhirine?
24 October 2010 Par
In May 1996, the heads of seven French Catholic Cistercian-Trappist monks1, kidnapped two months earlier from their monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria, were found by a roadside, some hanging from trees in plastic bags. Their murders remain unsolved, despite initial official claims that Islamic extremists were responsible.
The tragedy is the subject of the French film 'Des hommes et des dieux', (English title: 'Of Gods & Men'), a huge box-office hit which has clocked up more than 2.5 million cinema admissions since it was released in September.
An ongoing French judicial investigation is exploring the theory that they were mistakenly murdered in an attack on their hostage-takers, in a presumed Islamic extremist group's camp in the desert, by Algerian army helicopter gunships, and their bodies mutilated as part of an appalling subsequent cover-up. In the first of a two-part report, we return to the moment when Mediapart first revealed the astonishing evidence uncovered by the investigation, and the many further very disturbing questions it now raises about the involvement of both Paris and Algiers in disguising the horrific blunder.
It was in July 2009 when Mediapart published extracts from the deposition before French magistrates Marc Trévidic and Philippe Coirre of a key witness, French Army General François Buchwalter, former defence attaché of the French Embassy in Algiers, who had until then never spoken about the case.
This high-ranking officer stated that the monks were indeed the unintended victims of a desert raid by Algerian army helicopter gunships. More importantly, he stated that he had reported this information to the French authorities and was asked to cover up the affair. They "implemented the black-out requested by the [French] ambassador," the general revealed.
The seven French Trappist monks disappeared from the Tibhirine monastery, about 90 kilometres south of the capital Algiers, in the Medea region, on March 27th 1996. The kidnapping was claimed, on April 18th, by Armed Islamic Group (GIA)1 Emir, Djamel Zitouni.
In a communiqué, he demanded the release of a group of Islamist rebels in exchange for the monks. After nearly a month, on May 23rd, 1996, a report by a radio station in Tangiers, Morocco, announced that the seven monks had been killed two days earlier, stating this was because the French authorities refused to negotiate.
A week later, on May 30th, the Algerian authorities announced the discovery of the monks' remains on a road near Medea. Only their heads were ever recovered, a fact the Algerian army tried to dissimulate.
Over the years, after a number of revelations by former Algerian military personnel, the theory that the Algerian army was in some way implicated in the affair gained in credence. In France, the inquest opened by the Paris public prosecutor and first led by anti-terrorist magistrate. Jean-Louis Bruguière.
The enquiry largely became dormant until Bruguière left his job in 2007, when he was replaced by magistrates Marc Trévidic and Philippe Coirre. In concert with Patrick Baudoin, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs in a civil suit joined to the case, the two magistrates relaunched the investigation.
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1: Dom Christian de Chergé, Prior of the community, 59 (years old). Brother Luc Dochier, 82. Brother Bruno Lemarchand, 66. Father Célestin Ringeard, 62. Brother Paul Favre-Miville, 57. Brother Michel Fleury, 52. Father Christophe Lebreton, 45.
2: The FIS Islamic Salvation Front won the first round of legislative elections in December 1991. The army stepped in to prevent it winning the second ballot and the FIS was dissolved in January 1992. The GIA, Armed Islamic Group, arose at that time to support the FIS. Ten years of civil unrest ensued.
20 Oct 2010
French archbishop murdered soon after
It was in this context that, on June 25th, 2009, General Buchwalter, who had been defence attaché to the French Embassy in Algiers from 1995 to 1998, was summoned for questioning.
In an astonishing series of revelations, extracts of which are published here, the general began his testimony on the subject of Roman Catholic Archbishop of Oran, Monsignor Claverie, who was murdered in a bomb blast on August 1st, 1996.
http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/041110/tibhirine-monk-murders-and-bitter-reports-super-spy
Breaking official silence: General François Buchwalter© DR
"Did Mgr Claverie, indicate that he knew something about the death of the monks?" magistrate Marc Trévidic asked the general.
"I think he even wrote that," Buchwalter confirmed.
"What did he tell you?" the magistrate asked.
"He thought the Algerian authorities were implicated," the general replied.
"I think there is a link between the insistence of Hervé de Charette [then French Foreign Minister] on going to Tibhirine and the assassination [of the archbishop]," he added. "I saw how infuriated the Algerian Foreign Minister became when Hervé de Charette modified his schedule to go to Tibhirine. The Algerians battled for hours and hours to oppose the trip," the general said.
"Why would the Algerian authorities hold Mgr Claverie responsible for this trip?" the judge queried.
"You know how he died," the general retorted. "He changed his ticket at the last minute. Very few people were informed. The authorities didn't appreciate his freedom of expression regarding either the Islamists or the Algerian powers that be."
General Buchwalter then came to the subject of the Tibhirine monks. "Is it true that some Algerian authorities wanted [their] departure?" asked Marc Trévidic.
"That's right. The Medea wali1 had asked the Tibhirine monks to leave and their refusal had greatly annoyed the authorities," he answered.
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1: Algerian provincial governor.
'He said their bodies were riddled with bullets'
Then the general continued: "This is difficult for me because it is something I was asked not to talk about," he began. "I had spoken to Father Veilleux [one of the current civil parties and who discovered that the coffins contained only the monks' heads], to Mgr Teissier and to the ambassador. Just so you understand, I have ties of friendship with several Algerian officers who trained at Saint Cyr1 and it was in this capacity that I met someone whose name I would rather keep quiet because it's possible his brother is still in Algeria."
This anonymous source, according to General Buchwalter, "had a career as an officer then became a businessman in Algeria. He ran a bus company and I saw him often. He was a friend."
"Several days after the monks' funeral, he told me something that his brother had told him in confidence," the general continued. "His brother commanded one of two helicopter squadrons posted in the First Military Command which is headquartered at Blida. His brother was flying one of the two helicopters during a mission in the Blida Atlas [mountain range], between Blida and Medea. This was a cleared zone and the helicopter crew saw a bivouac. As this was a cleared zone, this could only be an armed group [of rebels]. So, they fired on the bivouac. Then they landed, which was quite courageous because there could have been survivors. They took some risks. Once on the ground, they discovered that they had shot [among others] the monks. The monks bodies were riddled with bullets. The Blida CTRI [local Algerian secret services outpost] was informed via radio."
A subtitled clip from the film 'Of Gods & Men'.
General Buchwalter said there were probably "about a dozen armed men" in the helicopters, adding that he remembered having met, after the funerals, "a gendarmerie doctor2 attached to the French Embassy" and whose name he had "forgotten."
"He had a lot of trouble talking to me about it because the ambassador had made him promise secrecy. I asked him if he had seen the bodies, since my friend told me they were riddled with bullets, and that's when he told me there were only the heads [...] He told me that the heads had spent a long time in the ground, that it was dreadful," the general said.
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1: The French military academy.
2: "medécin du renfort de gendarmerie" in the original French.
Who murdered the beheaded French monks of Tibhirine?
24 October 2010 Par
'They implemented French ambassador's black-out'
The general put forward a theory that has also been advanced by former Algerian military personnel: once the Algerian army discovered its appalling error, it organised a sordid cover-up by decapitating the monks in order to steer suspicion towards the Islamist rebels. The bodies were then disposed of they have never been found in order to erase all forensic evidence, such as the numerous bullet wounds, that could implicate the army.
Furthermore, if the general is to be believed, all this was known to the French authorities. His last two answers to the judge are as short as they are unambiguous: Trévedic asked him:
"As the defence attaché, did you report back, in writing, on what you had learned about the Tibhirine monks from your friend the businessman?"
"Yes." Buchwalter answered.
"Was this report sent to the same authorities as usual?" Trévedic then asked.
"Yes. But there was no follow-up. They implemented the black-out requested by the ambassador," the general replied.
Patrick Baudoin, lawyer for the plaintiffs in the civil suit, said the officer's revelations were "extremely" credible. "They highlight the lies of the Algerian authorities but also the complicit silence of the French state," he said.
The investigation continues and Mediapart has since published secret French intelligence documents that detail the ambivalent role of Algerian intelligence during the kidnap crisis, which we present in the second of this two-part report.
English version: Patricia Brett
Tibhirine monk murders and 'bitter' reports of a super-spy
05 Novembre 2010 Par
Lire Aussi
In March 1996, seven French Cisterian Trappist monks1 were kidnapped from their monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria. Their heads were found two months later, on a roadside in the same region, close to the town of Médéa, some hanging from trees in plastic bags. Their murders remain a mystery, despite initial official claims that Islamic extremists were responsible. An ongoing French judicial investigation is exploring the theory that they were mistakenly murdered by Algerian army helicopter gunships, during an attack on a desert camp of suspected Islamic extremists, and their bodies mutilated as part of an appalling cover-up.
Mediapart's report on the astonishing testimony of a French army general suggesting that both the Algerian and French authorities had disguised the blunder was presented in the first of this two-part report. Here, we reveal how French intelligence reports at the time indicated that the Algerian authorities were "slow" in dealing with the hostage taking and displayed a certain "tolerance" towards the Islamic extremist believed to be behind the kidnapping.
Monks of Tibhirine; victims included Father Christophe, 2nd. from right. [above]
Uncovering the ambivalent role played by the Algerian secret services is central to the investigation led by Paris-based magistrate Marc Trévidic. The monks were kidnapped at the height of the conflict between the Algerian state and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA)2, and it was long held previously that the GIA was responsible for the killings.
Several reports of the French counter-espionage services, declassified at the request of Judge Trévidic, indicate that blame for the massacre may not lie with the GIA alone. Mediapart has consulted the documents, composed of three 'confidential defence' reports written by General Philippe Rondot, who was at the time assigned to the Direction de la surveillance du territoire (DST, now called the DCRI),3 the French secret service responsible for counter-espionage and internal security. As such, the general was on the front line during the kidnapping and the ensuing assassination of the Tibhirine Monks.
Now retired, General Rondot was heard as a witness on Monday September 27th, 2010, by Judge Trévidic. He was summoned to explain reports he made at the time of the events and which he himself qualified as "bitter musings". In these, he noted the "visibly slow progress" of the Algerian secret services in the management of the affair and their "relative tolerance" towards one of the main leaders of the GIA, Djamel Zitouni, to whom the taking and killing of the monks is officially attributed.
Master spy: General Philippe Rondot© Reuters
Master spy: General Philippe Rondot© Reuters
The seven monks were kidnapped from the Trappist monastary at Tibhirine, located 90 kilometres south of Algiers, in the Medea region, during the night of March 26th to 27th 1996. Their heads were found several weeks later, at the end of May, on the side of a road. Their bodies were never found.
Nearly 15 years after the events, no legally-proven truth has emerged from the thick fog surrounding the causes of the massacre. The theory that Islamic rebels are responsible is supported by Algiers and was upheld for years by the first French anti-terrorism magistrate to handle the case, Jean-Louis Bruguière. But this view is seriously flawed, for at least two reasons.
Firstly because, in July 2009, the former military attaché to the French Embassy in Algiers, General François Buchwalter, told investigating magistrates that he had information revealing that, after they were kidnapped, the monks were the unintended victims of an attack on a desert camp by the Algerian army. He was asked by French diplomats to keep his revelations to himself, he further stated.
The second reason is that many clues tend to show that two of the principal terrorists held responsible for the monks disappearance, Djamel Zitouni, a GIA Emir, and his deputy, Abderrazak El-Para, maintained ambiguous relations with the Algerian authorities. At best, the government showed them a degree of laissez-faire, at worse they were agents of the military apparatus, infiltrated into the heart of the GIA in order to manipulate it, no matter what the cost.
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1: Dom Christian de Chergé, Prior of the community, 59 (years old). Brother Luc Dochier, 82. Brother Bruno Lemarchand, 66. Father Célestin Ringeard, 62. Brother Paul Favre-Miville, 57. Brother Michel Fleury, 52. Father Christophe Lebreton, 45.
2: The FIS Islamic Salvation Front won the first round of Algerias legislative elections in Dec 1991. The army stepped in to prevent it winning the second ballot and the FIS was dissolved in January 1992. The GIA, Armed Islamic Group, arose at the time to support the FIS. Ten years of civil unrest ensued.
3: The DST merged with the 'Direction central des renseignements généreaux' in 2008 to become the 'Direction central du renseignement intérieur'.
Tibhirine monk murders and 'bitter' reports of a super-spy
05 Novembre 2010 Par
'We can't keep playing this waiting game'
A reading of General Rondot's declassified reports received by Judge Trévidic earlier this year raises serious questions over the behaviour of the Algerian security forces during the Tibhirine events.
Titled 'Operation Tibhirine', the first of these reports is dated April 8th, 1996. It consists of the spymaster's mission report of a trip to Algiers on April 5th to 7th, several days after the monks' disappearance was announced. The document, like the others, is addressed to prefect Philippe Parant, then head of the DST.
General Rondot's reports (in French only).
General Rondot quickly realised that for the Algerian secret services, with whom he had constant relations, "the priority given to the survival of the monks hampers the force of the search, hence the visibly slow progress in collecting and exploiting information".
Working with Philippe Rondot was the head of the DCE, the Algerian counter-espionage upon which France's DST was at the time especially dependent for information. Too dependent, perhaps. In his first report, the French intelligence officer observed that "although the DCE's cooperation appears to be real as long as one plays by Algiers rules, it must be noted that they remain our only operational source in the field." The report concluded, somewhat pessimistically: "We must remain cautious in our analysis and wary of the product delivered by the DCE, while preparing for the worse."
A month later, on May 10th, 1996, General Rondot produced a second report. The tone is drier and, at times, sharper. The title speaks for itself: '(Bitter) Musings on the handling of the Tibhirine monks affair and proposals (despite it all) for action'.
General Rondot's 2nd report (available in French only).
The monks had not yet been found and anxiety was rising. "We have been waiting since April 30th " he complained. "Meeting after meeting, we have been content to bounce around hypotheses but without defining, in a well-judged and precise manner, what approach we should adopt," he added.
"We can't keep playing this waiting game," he said, complaining again of the DSTs "dependence" on the "Algerian services" whom, he said, "no doubt have other priorities [political and internal security] that differ from ours regarding the survival and the liberation of the monks." The general takes his argument even further: "They can be, in fact, tempted to brutally solve what they consider to be a side story1 (as it's been called) which is impeding normalisation of Franco-Algerian relations (of which the GIA is well aware)."
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1: "Fait divers" in the original French.
Figure 2The tragedy is the subject of the French film 'Des hommes et des dieux', (English title: 'Of Gods & Men')
The tragedy is the subject of the French film 'Des hommes et des dieux', (English title: 'Of Gods & Men'), directed by Xavier Beauvois, starring Lambert Wilson and Michael Lonsdale. It centres on the intense and anguished soul-seraching imposed on the monks in the period running up to the kidnap, when they must decide whether they give in to threats of violence against the monastery and move away from their mission, or stay.
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Tibhirine monk murders and 'bitter' reports of a super-spy
05 Novembre 2010 Par
French intelligence wants Zitouni 'eliminated'
General Rondot's language is unambiguous: "General Smain Lamari told me from the beginning that it would be long, difficult and dangerous. Such is the case," the general said in this second report. He mentioned his unease due to the equivocal attitude of his principal contact in Algerian counter-espionage. "We will not forget either that, among the number of prisoners to be freed, figures Abdelhak Layada, imprisoned in Algeria and it appears unlikely that the government is ready to give in with this case," he wrote. "But the comments made both by General Smain Lamari and the Islamists on this subject are ambiguous," he added.
Figure 3'Tolerated': Djamel Zitouni.
'Tolerated': Djamel Zitouni.
For Philippe Rondot, the only outlet possible is to make direct contact with the GIA "to find out what's really at stake in this hostage-taking", which implied a lack of clarity and information from Algerian officials. "I'm willing to take the risk," he concluded.
His third and last report, dated May 27th 1996, is a blatant admission of failure; the monks were officially dead but their bodies were yet to be found.
Once again, the general allowed his bitterness towards the Algerian secret services to seep through. Cooperation between the DST and the DCE has been continuous, even if it was too often necessary to badger our Algerian contacts," he noted. "On the other hand, one couldn't claim that the help of the Algerian services was a deciding factor since our seven monks lost their lives. The forces of law and order were defensive rather than offensive in this situation."
Genearl Rondot's 3rd report (in French only).
"In truth," General Rondot continued, "in Algeria's bloody war, the fate of the seven monks was not considered by Algerian military leaders as any more important than the fate of anyone else, even if Franco-Algerian relations were to suffer from the poor handling of the affair or, even worse, from a fatal outcome."
Finally, the general delivers his verdict: "For very (too) long, and for tactical reasons, .and his groups benefited from a relative tolerance on the part of the Algerian services: he helped (probably involuntarily) to engineer the splintering of the GIA and to foment internal strife between the armed groups."
Rondot observed: "In order to remedy this failure, the DCE must eliminate, by all means available, Djamel Zitouni and his cronies. It is our duty to encourage this and perhaps even to impose it." Djamel Zitouni died in July 19961, a month after the funeral of the Tibhirine monks, leaving a mystery that continues over the true conditions under which the Trappists met their ghastly fate.
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1: Akin to a regional war lord (emir), Zitouni organised, among other actions, the hi-jacking of an Air France flight in December 1994. He was killed by followers of the emir of the Medea region with whom he had a long-standing feud.
English version: Patricia Brett
The Monks of Tibhirine is the true story of Christians willing to die serving a Muslim flock during the political nightmare that unfolds in Algeria during the 1990s. The decapitation of seven French Trappists kidnapped from their monastery in the village of Tibhirine provides the thread for this real life drama of sacrificial love-of Christians who put their lives at risk for their Muslim friends, and Muslims who risk death for Christians
Critical Praise
Pulitzer Prize winner William W. Warner calls John Kiser’s newest book, The Monks of Tibhirine, “...a must read shocker for those unaware of recent Algerian history. ...beautifully written.”
William W. Warner, Pulitzer Prize winner, Beautiful Swimmers
This book is not the first written about the monks of Tibhirine... but it could well be the best among all those written in any language so far.
Gilles Nicolas, Priest in Diocese of Algiers
"Couldn't be more timely. A fascinating tale of Trappist monks swept up in a story of militant Islam."
Leslie Cockburn, Producer, 60 Minutes
"An extraordinary and uncannily timed book about real modern martyrs as opposed to the current vulgar variant. A tragic story, thoroughly reported and beautifully rendered with compassion and grit."
Christopher Buckley, Author, The White House Mess
“Kiser builds up the drama leading to the monks death with the skill of a novelist... His painstaking characterization of each monk makes this an incredibly emotional story.”
Kirkus
The Monks of Tibhirine is the true story of Christians willing to die serving a Muslim flock during the political nightmare that unfolds in Algeria during the 1990s. The decapitation of seven French Trappists kidnapped from their monastery in the village of Tibhirine provides the thread for this real life drama of sacrificial love-of Christians who put their lives at risk for their Muslim friends, and Muslims who risk death for Christians.
.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhQzn2gVGjQ&feature=player_embedded
“It was like our Bible,” said Xavier Beauvois, producer of the film Of Gods and Men from Sony Classics, which opened in New York February 25, 2011.
Trailer for Of Gods and Men from Sony Classics
A follow-on book to the Monks of Tibhirine is now available. Commander of the Faithful: Life and Times of Emir Abd el-Kader (Monkfish Books) is the story of a Muslim monk (Sufi) who led the resistance against the French occupation of Algeria that began in 1830. See http://www.truejihad.com
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