Organisation de l'armée secrète

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The Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS, lit. "Secret Army Organization" — sometimes called Organisation armée secrète, "Secret Armed Organization") was a short-lived French nationalist militant and underground organization during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62). It was formed in Franquist Spain, in Madrid in January 1961, as a response by some members of the French military against the January 8, 1961 referendum on self-determination concerning Algeria, which had been organized by General de Gaulle. The OAS used armed struggle in an attempt to prevent Algeria's independence. After the March 1962 Evian agreements, which granted independence to Algeria and marked the beginning of the exodus of the pieds-noirs (European settlers), the OAS attempted to prevent the on-going political process by a campaign of assassinations and bombings, which culminated with Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry's August 22, 1962 assassination attempt against president Charles de Gaulle in the Paris suburb of Le Petit-Clamart. The OAS's motto was "Algeria is French and will remain so" (L’Algérie est française et le restera).

Contents

[edit] History

The OAS was created in response to a referendum on self-determination for Algeria. It was founded in Spain, on 3 December 1960, by former officers, Pierre Lagaillarde (who led the 1960 Siege of Algiers), General Raoul Salan (who took part in the 1961 Algiers putsch or "Generals' Uprising") and Jean-Jacques Susini, along with other members of the French Army, including Yves Guérin-Sérac, and former members of the French Foreign Legion from the First Indochina War (1946-54). OAS-Métro, the branch in metropolitan France, was led by captain Pierre Sergent.

There was resistance against Algerian independence in January 1960 by the settlers and Pieds-Noirs who again took up arms in April 1961, during the Generals' Uprising, with some of the Algerian Jews siding with the OAS after synagogues were attacked by the National Liberation Front (Front de libération nationale, FLN) in Algeria. Daniele Ganser of the ETH Parallel History Project claims that Gladio stay-behind networks, directed by NATO, were involved, but no definitive proof has been found.[1][2] Both of these insurrections were swiftly suppressed and many of the leaders who had created the OAS were imprisoned.

[edit] Operations

By acts of sabotage and assassination in both metropolitan France and French Algerian territories, the OAS attempted to prevent Algerian independence. The first victim was Pierre Popie, attorney and president of the People's Republican Movement (Mouvement Républicain Populaire, MRP), who stated on TV that "French Algeria [was] dead" (L’Algérie française est morte). Roger Gavoury, head of the French police in Algiers, was assassinated by Roger Degueldre, leader of the OAS Delta Commando, and Albert Dovecar on May 31, 1961 (both Degueldre and Dovecar were executed by a firing-squad on June 7, 1962). The Delta commandos engaged in undiscriminate killing sprees, on March 17, against cleaning-ladies on 5 May, on 15 March 1962 against six inspectors of the National Education Ministry, who directed the "Educative Social Centres" (Centres sociaux éducatifs), including Mouloud Feraoun, an Algerian writer, etc.[3]

The OAS attempted several times to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle. The most prominent attempt was a 1962 ambush at Petit-Clamart, a Paris suburb, planned by a military engineer who was not an OAS member, Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry. Bastien-Thiry was executed in March 1963 after de Gaulle refused to grant him amnesty. A fictionalized version of this attack was recreated in the 1973 film The Day of the Jackal.

[edit] The March 1962 Evian agreements and the struggle of the OAS

The main hope of the OAS was to prove that the FLN was secretly restarting military action after a ceasefire was agreed in the Evian agreements of March 19, 1962 and the referendum of June 1962; over 100 bombs a day were detonated by the OAS in March in pursuit of this end. On March 21, the OAS issued a flyer where they proclaimed that the French military had become an "occupation force.[3]" It organized car bombings: 25 killed in Oran on 28 February 1962, 62 killed in Algiers on May 2, etc.[3] The following day, they took the control of Bab el-Oued and attacked French soldiers, killing six. The French military then surrounded them. The battle killed 35 and injured 150.[3] On March 26, the leaders of the OAS proclaimed a general strike in Algiers and called for the European settlers to come to Bab el-Oued in order to break the surrounding by the military forces which had remained loyal to de Gaulle and the Republic. The tirailleurs shot on the demonstrators, killing 54, injuring 140, and traumatising the settlers' population in what is known as the "gunfight of the rue d'Isly".[3]

In April 1962 the OAS leader, Raoul Salan was captured. Along with other OAS members, he would be defended by Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, who then presented himself as a far right candidate for the 1965 presidential election. Despite the OAS bombing campaign, the FLN remained resolute in its agreement to the ceasefire and on June 17, 1962 the OAS also began a ceasefire. The Algerian authority guaranteed the security of the remaining Europeans, but in early July 1962 occurred the Oran massacre of 1962: hundreds of armed people came down to European areas of the city, attacking European civilians. The violence lasted several hours, including lynching and acts of torture in public places in all areas of Oran by civilians supported by the ALN—the armed wing of the FLN, at the time evolving into the Algerian Army— resulting in 3,000 missing people :[4].

The OAS was effectively eliminated by 1963. Roger Degueldre, Claude Piegts and Albert Dovecar were executed by firing squad on June 7, 1962. Bastien-Thiry, who had attempted the Petit-Clamart assassination on de Gaulle, but was not formally a member of the OAS, was also executed. All others penal sentences were amnestied by a July 1968 act. Putschist generals still alive in November 1982 were reintegrated into the Army by another amnesty law: Raoul Salan, Edmond Jouhaud, and six other generals benefited from this law.

[edit] Legacy

Many OAS members later took part in various anti-communist struggles around the world. Following the dismantlement of the terrorist organization, and the execution of several of its members, the OAS chaplain, Georges Grasset, organized the flight of OAS members, from a route going from Paris to Franquist Spain and finally to Argentina.[5][6] Grasset arrived in 1962 in Buenos Aires to take charge of the Argentine branch of the Cité Catholique, a Catholic fundamentalist group formed by Jean Ousset, the personal secretary of Charles Maurras, as an off-shoot of the monarchist .Action française. This anti-communist religious organization was formed of many Algerian war veterans and close to the OAS. Charles Lacheroy, Colonel Trinquier, who theorized the systemic use of torture in counter-insurgency doctrine in Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency (1961), were members of it. Along with Colonel Jean Gardes, who had first theorized counter-insurgency tactics during the Indochina War (1947-1954), Jean Ousset developed the concept of "subversion" referring to an essential enemy threatening the existence of Occident itself. Gardes arrived in Argentina in 1963, a year after the end of the Algerian War. There, he delivered counter-insurgency courses at the ESMA, the Navy Mechanics Schools, which became infamous during the "Dirty war" in the 1970s for being used as an internment and torture center. Soon after Gardes met Federico Lucas Roussillon, an Argentine naval lieutenant commander, the Cadets at the ESMA were shown the film The Battle of Algiers (1966) by Italian communist Gillo Pontecorvo, during which then Colonel Marcel Bigeard and General Jacques Massu made a systemic use of torture, block warden system, and death flights (dubbed "Crevettes Bigeard", or "Bigeard's Shrimps").[5][6]

The Argentine admiral Luis Maria Mendia testified in January 2007 that a French intelligence agent, Bertrand de Perseval, had participated in the "disappearance" of the two French nuns, Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon. Perseval, who lives today in Thailand, denied any links with the abduction, but did admit being a former OAS member who escaped to Argentina after the Evian agreements.[7][8]

[edit] Organization

[edit] Chain of command

The secret army was a three-part organization, each segment having its own action commando squads.[9]

Section (Divisions) Role Director Squads
ODM
Organisation-Des-Masses
Mass Organization
OAS recruitment Colonel Jean Gardes
Michel Leroy
none
APP
Action-Psychologique-Propagande
Psychological Warfare & Propaganda
OAS propaganda Jean-Jacques Susini -Commandos Z
(Z for Jean-Marcel Zagamé, founder)
ORO
Organisation-Renseignement-Opération
Organization, Intelligence & Planning
-BCR Intelligence Central Bureau
-BAO Operational Action Bureau
OAS field ops planning Jean-Claude Perez
Jean Lalanne (BCR)
Roger Degueldre (BAO)
Albert Dovecar (D1)
-Commandos Delta
(D for Roger Degueldre, founder)
Delta 1
Delta 2
Delta 3

[edit] Commanding officers

aka Soleil ("Sun" surname for Louis XIV of France)
Chief of Staff
  • General Paul Gardy
Chief of Staff
  • Colonel Godard
Chief Aide
  • Doctor Jean-Claude Perez
ORO Director
  • Captain Jean-Marie Curutchet
ORO Director, replacing Dr. Perez on January 1st 1962
  • Colonel Jean Gardes
ODM Director
  • Jean-Jacques Susini
APP Director

[edit] French Algerian branch

[edit] Oranie district

Commander Guillaume
aide
  • Charles Micheletti
civilian
  • Colonel Dufour
replacing Gen. Jouhaud
  • General Gardy
Capitaine Pierre Sergent
Revolutionary Directory member
Christian Léger
Revolutionary Directory member
Jean-Marie Curutchet
Revolutionary Directory member
Denis Baille
Revolutionary Directory member
Jean-René Souètre
Revolutionary Directory member

[edit] Algérois district

  • Colonel Vaudrey
  • Pierre Delhomme
in charge of El-Biar, near Algiers

[edit] Constantinois district

  • Colonel Pierre Château-Jobert
  • Robert Martel
aka the chouan de la Mitidja ("chouan of the Mitidja")

[edit] Metropolitan French branch

[edit] OAS-Métropole

  • General Paul Vanuxem
aka Verdun
  • Captain Pierre Sergent
Chief of Staff
  • Lieutenant Daniel Godot
ODM-Métropole Director
  • Jacques Chadeyron
APP-Métropole
  • Captain Jean-Marie Curutchet
ORO-Métropole

[edit] France-Mission III

  1. André Canal
aka the Monocle

[edit] Spanish branch

[edit] OAS-Madrid

Short living dissident group claiming the organization's direction. All members were arrested by the Guardia Civil military police.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Chronology from the The Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact, ETH Zurich Institute.
  2. ^ Daniele Ganser, Operation Gladio. Terrorism in Western Europe, Franck Cass, London, 2005.
  3. ^ a b c d e 26 mars 1962, la fusillade de la rue d’Isly à Alger, Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH, Human Rights League), article based on sources from Benjamin Stora, Histoire de la guerre d’Algérie, La gangrène et l’oubli and Sylvie Thénault, Histoire de la guerre d’indépendance algérienne
  4. ^ Cinq Colonnes à La Une, rushes: interview Pied-Noir, ORTF, July 1st, 1962, National Audiovisual Institute
  5. ^ a b Marie-Monique Robin, Escadrons de la mort, l'école française, 453 pages. La Découverte (15 Sep 2004). Collection : Cahiers libres. (ISBN 2707141631) Transl. Los Escuadrones De La Muerte/ the Death Squadron 539 pages. Sudamericana (Oct 2005). (ISBN 950072684X) (Presentation)
  6. ^ a b Horacio Verbitsky in The Silence, extract transl. in English made available by Open Democracy: Breaking the silence: the Catholic Church in Argentina and the "dirty war", July 28, 2005
  7. ^ Disparitions : un ancien agent français mis en cause, Le Figaro, February 6, 2007 (French)
  8. ^ “Impartí órdenes que fueron cumplidas”, Página/12, February 2, 2007 (Spanish)
  9. ^ Au Nom De l'O.A.S., Gilles Buscia & Patrice Zehr (preface by Col. Argoud ), Alain Lefeuvre Editions, 1980

[edit] Further reading

  • Harrison, Alexander. Challenging De Gaulle: The O.A.S and the Counter-Revolution in Algeria, 1954-1962. New York : Praeger, 1989 (English).
  • Marie-Monique Robin, Escadrons de la mort, l'école française,La Découverte (15 Sep 2004). Collection : Cahiers libres. (ISBN 2707141631) (French) (transl. in Spanish)(Presentation)

[edit] See also