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Harki (adjective from the Arabic harka, standard Arabic haraka حركة, "war party" or "movement", i. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language e. a group of volunteers, especially soldiers) is the generic term for Muslim Algerians serving as auxiliaries with the French Army, during the Algerian War from 1954 to 1962. The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre (Land Army is the land-based component of the French Armed Forces and its largest The Algerian War ( French: Guerre d'Algérie; 1954-1962 also known as Algerian War of Independence, led to Algeria 's independence from Year 1954 ( MCMLIV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar) Year 1962 ( MCMLXII) was a Common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The phrase is sometimes extended to cover all Algerian Muslims who supported the French presence in Algeria during this war. Since Algerian independence "Harki" has been used as a derogatory expression within Algeria, or amongst some of the Franco-Algerian community, equating to "collaborator". Collaborationism, can describe the Treason of cooperating with enemy Forces occupying one's Country. In France, the term is used to designate the Franco-musulmans rapatriés ("repatriated French Muslims") community living in the country since 1962, and its metropolitan born descendants. In this sense the term Harki now refers to a distinct ethnocultural group, i. e. Franco-Algerian Muslims distinct from other French of Algerian origin or Algerians living in France.


Contents

Before the Algerian conflict

Algerian Muslim regular soldiers had served in large numbers with the French "Armée d'Afrique" (Army of Africa) from 1830 as spahis (cavalry) and tirailleurs (lit. The Army of Africa (Armée d’Afrique was an unofficial but commonly used term for those portions of the French Army recruited from or normally stationed in French North Africa For the game see 1830 (board game. Year 1830 ( MDCCCXXX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display Sipahi ( Ottoman Turkish: ota سپاهی also transliterated as Spahi, Sepahi, and Spakh; traditionally rendered as Spahia The Cavalry (from French cavalerie) is the second oldest of the Combat Arms, and as Soldiers or Warriors who fought mounted on Tirailleur literally means a Sharpshooter in French from tir - target skirmisher, i. Skirmishers are Infantry or Cavalry Soldiers stationed ahead or alongside of a larger body of friendly troops e. infantry). The Infantry is the oldest and most numerous of the Combat Arms in the Armed forces, and consists They played an important part during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the First World War (1914–1918). The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War ( 19 July, 1870 — 10 May, 1871 Year 1870 ( MDCCCLXX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Year 1914 ( MCMXIV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Year 1918 ( MCMXVIII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common

During World War II North African troops serving with the French Army numbered more than 200,000. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including They made a major contribution during the liberation of France and the campaigns in Italy and Germany of 1944-45.

Tirailleurs from Algeria, Morocco and West Africa fought in Indochina as part of the French Expeditionary Force until the Fall of Dien Bien Phu (1954). Indochina, or the Indochinese Peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (Bataille de Diên Biên Phu Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ was the climactic battle of the First Indochina War between French Union Year 1954 ( MCMLIV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar)

During the Algerian War

With the outbreak of the Algerian War that same year, the loyalty of the Algerian Muslim soldiers to France inevitably came under heavy strain and some of the regular units were transferred from Algeria to France or Germany, following increased incidences of desertion or small-scale mutiny. As a partial replacement, the French administration recruited the Harkis as irregular militia based in their home villages or towns throughout Algeria. Initially raised as self-defence units, the Harkis, from 1956 on, increasingly served alongside the French Army in the field. They were lightly armed (often only with shotguns), but their knowledge of local terrain and conditions made them valuable auxiliaries to French regular units.

According to General R. Hure (L'Armee d' Afrique 1830-1962), there were by 1960 approximately 150,000 Muslim Algerians serving in the French Army or as auxilaries. In addition to volunteers and conscripts serving in regular units this total took into account 95,000 Harkis (including 20,000 in separate mokhazni district forces and 15,000 in commando de chasse tracking units). It was a recurring claim by the French authorities that more Algerian Muslims were serving with their forces than with those of the nationalist Front de Libération Nationale (FLN).

According to US Army data, possibly compiled at a different date, the Harkis numbered about 180,000, more than total FLN effectives [1]. They were used as guerrilla style units, though mostly in conventional formations. Guerrilla warfare is the unconventional warfare and combat with which a small group of combatants use mobile tactics (ambushes raids etc Conventional warfare is a form of Warfare conducted by using conventional military weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more states in open confrontation Harkis served either in all-Algerian units commanded by French officers or in mixed units. Other uses included platoon or below sized units attached to French battalions. A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two to four sections or Squads and containing about 30 to 50 soldiers A third use involved Harkis in intelligence gathering roles, with some reported minor pseudo-operations in support of intelligence collection [2]. Intelligence Gathering Disciplines HUMINT Human Intelligence - gathered from a person on the ground

The motives of the Harkis were mixed. The FLN targeted both collaborators and rival nationalist groups and some Algerians enrolled in the Harkis to avenge the deaths of relatives. Others were defectors from the FLN rebel forces who had been persuaded by one means or another to change sides. A major source was from families or other groups who had traditionally given service to France. From the viewpoint of Algerian nationalists all were traitors. However at independence guarantees were given by both signatories of the March 1962 cease fire ("Accords d'Evian" signed by France and the Algerian FLN), that no one, Harkis, Evolvés or Pieds-Noirs (Algerian-born Europeans with French nationality) would suffer reprisals after independence for any action during the civil war. The Évian Accords comprise a Treaty which was signed on March 18, 1962 in Évian-les-Bains, France by France and the Pied-Noir ("Black-Foot" plural Pieds-Noirs, pronounced /pje

After the war

In 1962, orders were initially given by the French government of Charles de Gaulle to officials and army officers to prevent the Harkis from following the example of the Pieds-Noirs and seeking refuge in Metropolitan France. Year 1962 ( MCMLXII) was a Common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle ( ( 22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French General and statesman who led the Free French Pied-Noir ("Black-Foot" plural Pieds-Noirs, pronounced /pje However, some officers of the French army disobeyed and tried to assist the Harkis under their command, as well as their families, to escape from Algeria. On the other hand, the OAS far-right terrorist group initiated a campaign of bombings following the Evian Accords, and tried to block the Pieds-Noirs population from leaving the country. The Organisation de l'armée secrète ( OAS &mdash or Organisation armée secrète, lit Pied-Noir ("Black-Foot" plural Pieds-Noirs, pronounced /pje About 91,000 Harkis (including family members) were able to find refuge in France. As feared, there were widespread reprisals against those who remained in Algeria. It is estimated that somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 Harkis and their dependents were killed by the FLN or by lynch mobs in Algeria, sometimes in circumstances of extreme cruelty. The National Liberation Front ( Arabic: جبهة التحرير الوطني transliterated: Jabhat al-Taḩrīr al-Waţanī French: Front [3] In "A Savage War Of Peace" Alistair Horne writes: "Hundreds died when put to work clearing the minefields along the Morice Line, or were shot out of hand. Sir Alistair Allan Horne (born November 9, 1925) is a British Historian of modern France. The Morice Line is a defensive line constructed in the 1950s It is 200 miles long and was built to prevent Tunisian guerrillas from entering the French Colony of Algeria Others were tortured atrociously; army veterans were made to dig their own tombs, then swallow their decorations before being killed; they were burned alive, or castrated, or dragged behind trucks, or cut to pieces and their flesh fed to dogs. Many were put to death with their entire families, including young children. "

By contrast the regular Muslim troops (who had the option of continuing to serve in the French Army) were only occasionally subject to reprisals. Some leaders of the new Algerian Republic were themselves veterans of the French Army, which had prior to independence provided one of the few avenues for advancement open to the Muslim majority.

The French government of the time, concerned mainly with disengagement from Algeria and the repatriation of the Pieds-Noirs, disregarded or downplayed news of these killings. De Gaulle himself appears to have been indifferent to the plight of the Muslim loyalists, according to Alistair Horne remarking to one of their spokesmen "Eh bien! vous souffrirez" ("Well then - you will suffer"). Sir Alistair Allan Horne (born November 9, 1925) is a British Historian of modern France. Nothing had been planned for the Harkis, and the government refused to formally recognize their right to stay in France for some years. They were kept out of sight in "temporary" internment camps surrounded by barbed wire, such as the Joffre Camp in Rivesaltes (outside of Perpignan) and in "chantiers de forestage" -- communities of 30 Harki families built on the outskirts of forests for which the men were responsible for their upkeep. Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people commonly in large groups without trial The French government has enacted various measures to help the Harki community (notably the 1994 Romani law and the 2005 Mekachera law), however, as the Harki community claims, these laws are often too little, too late.

Recently, the French government of Jacques Chirac has acknowledged these former allies and public ceremonies have been held to commemorate their sacrifices, such as the September 25, 2001 Day of National Recognition for the Harkis. There are hundreds of active Harki associations in France working to obtain further recognition for what is still a somewhat neglected and unassimilated refugee minority. For its part, the Algerian government still does not recognize the Harkis as French citizens and has not permitted them to visit their birth places and members of their families left behind in Algeria.

Zidane incident

The term harki continues to be an emotive one in the French-Algerian community; Zinedine Zidane, the captain of the French national football team, was famously described as acceptable by the far right National Front because, allegedly, his father was a Harki. The French national football team represents the nation of France in international football. The National Front ( FN, Front national is a French Far right, Nationalist Political party, founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie This led to death threats from extremists of all stripes, and the disruption of a friendly encounter between the French and Algerian football teams in October 2001. Throughout, Zidane desperately avoided being drawn into racial politics which tried to draw him in for his Algerian roots. The only time he made a public statement was when he said, 'I say this once for all time, my father is not a Harki. ' Zidane's rare public outburst was in response to posters that said 'Zidane Harki' in the run up to the France-Algeria football match in 2001.

Other references

In 2006, French politician Georges Frêche incurred controversy after telling a group of Harkis in Montpellier that they were "subhumans". Georges Frêche (born July 9, 1938) is a French Politician. As of 2006 he serves as President of the Languedoc-Roussillon region Montpellier ( Occitan Montpelhièr) is a City in the south of France. He later claimed he had been referring to a specific individual in the crowd, but was fined 15000 Euros for the statement. Frêche was later excluded from the Socialist Party for his verbal attacks [4]. The Socialist Party ( Parti Socialiste, PS is the largest left-wing political party in France.

Harkis should not be confused with the Evolvés, the subgroup of Catholicized or Francized Algerians. The term Evolvé indicates an Algerian or North African whom converted to Roman Catholicism or Christianity, and those whom assimilated further into French nationality and absorbed into European culture than the Harki despite their allegiance to France, or the majority of Algerians still practiced Islam in their homeland. Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings Nearly all the Evolvés migrated to France during the Algerian Civil war and when independence occurred in the 1960s.


References

  1. ^ Major Gregory D. Peterson, The French Experience in Algeria, 1954-62: Blueprint for U. S. Operations in Iraq, Ft Leavenworth, KS: School of Advanced Military Studies, p. Fort Leavenworth is a United States Army facility located in Leavenworth County Kansas (just north of the city of Leavenworth) in the upper northeast Located at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the United States Army 's School for Advanced Military Studies is both a training ground and a think tank for some of 33
  2. ^ John Pimlott, "The French Army: From Indochina to Chad, 1946-1984," in Ian F. W. Beckett and John Pimlott, Armed Forces & Modern Counter-Insurgency, New York: St Martin's Press, 1985, p. St Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in the iconic Flatiron Building in New York City. 66
  3. ^ Harkis: Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity
  4. ^ L'exclusion de Frêche soulage son homologue de Poitou-Charentes, Le Figaro, January 29, 2007

Bibliography

See also

External links

For the critical reexamination of historical facts see Historical revisionism. The February 23, 2005 French law on colonialism was an act passed by the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP conservative majority which imposed

Dictionary

Harki

-noun

  1. A Muslim Algerian who fought with the French during Algeria’s war of independence
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