Kamel, attending a conference organized with the assistance of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in İstanbul on Friday, on the topic of “Change in Muslim Societies and the Role of Women” said, “Algeria’s population was eight million in 1830 before the French occupation started. When France left the country in 1962, the population was six million, as if Algerian people never gave birth in a century.”
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the Algerian president since 1999, demanded an apology from the Sarkozy government in 2006 for France’s bloody activities in Algeria. Kamel stated, however, that France negatively responded to Algerian calls.
“The Algerian people always fought against the French colonial system in their country, which violently exploited their natural, economic and human resources. The French military response was violent against the Algerian struggle, killing people or expelling them out of their own territory. Once, in May 1945, the French army killed more than 45,000 Algerians in two or three days,” he stated, further emphasizing French brutality.
“Apart from turning down Algerian calls to face the bloodshed in Algeria, France issued a bill in 2003 honoring the French occupation of Algeria, which rewarded killers of Algerian people, especially French commanders,” Kamel added.
“They condemn the Turkish activities allegedly organized against Armenians but don’t discuss their own bloody activities,” he stated, claiming that the French initiatives on the Armenian issue are hypocritical. Another attendee at the conference, Zahra Nouojahida, a living witness to the Algerian war of independence that lasted from 1954 to 1962, mentioned humiliating crimes committed against woman during this war, including “rapes of young women in front of their fathers.” Nouojahida, sadly remembering these French activities during the war years, noted that “France should correct its own mistakes before giving advice to other nations,” in a criticism of the Armenian genocide bill voted upon in France on Thursday.
