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The Algerian Dialogue

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The Algerian Dialogue June 5, 1961 nondynamic or sluggish sectors: external resources and a certain duction programmes will have to be agriculture and exports. That agri­ fatalistic attitude towards exports modified. It is understood that both culture had been holding back plan­ engendered this complacency. There the Planning Commission and the ning and progress was acutely rea­ are signs- that this is now going be Ministries concerned are currently lised right at the beginning of the broken. The export policy had not engaged in this not inconsiderable Second Plan even before the latter so far been an integral part of the task of revision and modification. was finalised. Hence the last moment Plan; it appears that it is now being The importance which is being given upward revision of the target for properly integrated into the Third to the export policy, our Delhi foodgrain production. Though the Plan. What has shocked us into ac- correspondent assures us, may be target was revised upwards and tion, one may ask. A big shock gauged from the fact that decisions quite substantially, the appropriate alone can stimulate a big spurt. on the various measures to be adopt­ policies to realise this target were The idea of a passive export sec­ ed for increasing exports are to be neither clearly formulated nor tor is now being replaced by that of taken at the highest level — by the energetically pursued. With the an active exports policy. One indi­ Cabinet, cation of this is the upward revision result that agriculture has been a It is only through the emergence of the annual average export target drag throughout the major part of of imbalance and the atmosphere of for the Third Plan from Rs 690 the Second Plan period and could be crises created by such imbalance largely held responsible for the crores to Rs 740 crores. By the that a major push can come. The inflationary pressures in the econo­ end of the Fourth Plan, the objec­ process is broadly similar both in my during these years. The Third tive is to raise exports to the annual partially-planned or mixed econo­ Plan seeks to correct this major level of Rs 1,400 crores. Exports, mies. The only difference is that, imbalance and the motivation for for the first time, have been thought this big and important change, one of as amenable to conscious control in a mixed economy, perhaps, the can find only in the unfortunate and as object of effort. They have imbalance has to go much farther experience of the imbalance in the also been accorded their rightful before remedial action can gather Second Plan period. place in the long-term perspective momentum. The great stride for­ ward in export promotion which is On the export front, we have Plan. all along been very complacent. In the light of the revised export to initiate such a major change in Even the Third Plan Draft Outline target in the Third Plan, both mone­ the economy still awaits the question, hardly formulated any export policy. tary and fiscal policies as well as however: what is it that gave the big The ease with which we obtained the pattern of investment and pro- push? The Algerian Dialogue From a Correspondent in ate for a free Algeria and a gene­ gan, although initially and euphe- Evian-les-bains ral peace settlement". Belkacem mistically called, as in the war against the Vietminh, " pacification THE end of the French imperium Krim has come to France as the and police action. " is now in sight : for seven long leader not merely of a nation in ydars, Algeria has been flowing to revolt against France, but equally " Never vanquished, always bet­ its independence as a river to the as the master strategist of the most rayed" (obviously by the Paris sea. Historical myths die hard and, dynamic military force in all Africa. politicos) has been the refurbished perhaps, the hardest to relinquish Out of a population of 9,000,000, rationalisation of the French pro­ for the French colonialists is that more than 250,000 Algerians have fessional soldier who has been at of Algerie francaise. The atmos­ lost their lives and thousands have war since 1940. Following the grim phere in Evian where Franco-Alge­ been uprooted and thrown into in­ April days in Algiers and Paris, rian negotiations have begun has ternment camps. Yet, despite these the French army has succumbed to generated the hope that a durable ravage war losses. Evian is not at a demoralisation comparable to the settlement will be reached. all comparable to the Geneva Con­ Dneyfus affair at the turn of the ference after the capitulation of century and the debacle of 1940. A tough talented and tenacious French arms in 1954. The atmos­ For the French army today and its Algerian delegation has come to phere is less tense, more congenial professional officer caste now find this beautiful health resort town to to a harmonious outcome. Yet, this themselves cut off from the nation talk peace under the leadership of atmosphere itself has been created with several of its leading officers Belkacem Krim, Foreign Minister of by the very horrors created by the imprisoned and now being tried for the C P R A (Algerian Provincial Algerian war. charges of high treason. The ar­ Government), a Kabylian peasant rests of Challe, Jouhaud and Zeller and former veteran of the Italian Colonial wars have been the cor­ dramatises the depth of the malaise campaigns with the French army nerstone of the political instability that struck the French army. Yet, in World War II. and degeneration of the fourth re­ it is precisely the elite of this ofli- Led by young men, the G P R A public leading inexorably to the cer caste—notably Generals Challe has stated that they have not come Gaullist ascendancy of 13th May and Salan — who supported the as beggars to France but as equals 1958. The myths of la grandeur Gaullist coup of 13th May 1958. at the bargaining table. "It is be­ francaise had apparently not been shattered by Dienbienphu. For in Although administering a deci­ cause we have taken up arms sive blow to French imperialism in against France,'' declared Belkacem that same tragic year (1st Novem­ the Far East, the military loss of Krim, "that we are here to negoti­ ber 1954), the war in Algeria be- 836 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY June 3, 1961 Indo-China did not result in the question of the protection of these military bases in the age of moral disintegration of the French French nationals and safeguard for the I C B M to perpetuate the my­ army. After seven years of pro­ their interests in order to justify ths of a discredited military caste? tracted war, which destroyed the the partition of the national terri­ Should the blood bath be prolong­ fourth republic, and dragged the tory is to assume, he went on, that ed in order to preserve the pickings fifth almost to the brink of bank­ the " constituted State does not de­ of a handful of rich colons and ruptcy, the French army now sire to render this safeguard. " landowners? And would not a con­ stands discredited and morally tinuation of the war lead to the quarantined. Dismemberment of Algerian terri same harvest of hate and the risk tory, emphasised Krim, is an anti- With the army splintered and of internationalising the war? peace force containing the perma- demoralised, with metropolitan nent germs of instability and France clamouring for a negotiat­ General De Gaulle has brandish­ crisiis. He went on record that ed .settlement, the gulf between the ed the word ' association ' in the the G P R A would not tolerate professional soldiery and the 'nation current talks. The meaning of this the existence of Katangas and is now very wide. The French for­ word has not been made clear by Palestines which violate the na­ eign legion, that elite colonial Mr Joxe in his recent policy state­ tion's territorial integrity. Self- military force cradled at Sidi-Bel- ment. However, the Algerian determination had to be made ap­ Abbes and Zeralda, with its gory leadership has flatly stated that if plicable to an entire people and folklore, has now been disbanded. the word ' association ' is nothing jpiust be exercised on the entire Minus a French imperium in Af­ more than a fig leaf for neo-colo- national territory. In other words, rica, it has no place in a renaissant nialism, it is unacceptable. Judging those who live in Algeria are Al­ from the observation of the GPRA, France. It is difficult to conceive, gerians. The G P R A thesis is a new Algerian domestic and fore­ as several members of the French that to restrict the application of ign policy, distinct and diametri­ military personnel have stated to national self-determination to a cally opposed to that of De Gaulle, this correspondent, how the French single portion of Algerian territory will be constructed. army ran be called upon to prose­ violates this principle. Any attempt cute the war in the event of a to make a division between Euro­ Apart from continued fighting, breakdown of the Evian talks and pean and Moslem Algerians will be what will be some of the immediate a resumption of hostilities. repudiated by the G P R A. repercussions, if the talks fail? Un­ An officer parachutist said that, doubtedly, the impact of the USSR when the storm broke in Algiers in Among the most jagged stum­ will increase and the hands of the April, not a single officer expected bling-blocks is the solution to the powerful ' Ghinese faction' in the Saharan problem.
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