The Algerian Embassy in Manama Celebrates the Victory Day, March 19, 1962: Sacrifice, Victory and Loyalty
On March 19 of every year, Algeria celebrates the Victory Day. This holiday refers to the ceasefire agreement concluded between the Interim Government of the Republic of Algeria (IGRA) and the French occupation government on March 19, 1962. The path of sacrifice was crowned with victory, and victory required loyalty to its makers.
Indeed, this victory crowned epics of struggle and jihad, after Algeria sacrificed millions of martyrs on the altar of freedom during revolutions the likes of which humanity had never known, during which our people set the greatest examples of heroism and sacrifice.
In reality, the Algerian Revolution has adopted an approach characterized by a balance between military action at home and political and diplomatic activity abroad. At a time when the doors of communications were not closed to the colonizers with the aim of enabling them to bow to the Algerian people demands for emancipation and to savetheir own skin, it did not move back one iota from its ultimate goal, that of liberating the country and the entire country from the clutches of colonialism and its tyranny, and left for them only a way out by which they could pull out themselves from the quagmire in which they were stuck. Thanks to the leadership of the Revolution strict adherence to the national demands, several previous secret negotiations that were repeated at intermittent periods between the years 1956 and 1959 but failed due to colonialism’s greed and its attachment to gains obtained unlawfully on land that was not its.
The greatest lesson that must be drawn from this path is the keenness of the leadership of the Algerian Revolution on kkeeping the doorsof communications open to the colonialists, while being aware of their bad intentions and their efforts to lure the leaders of the Revolution into accepting a ceasefire first before achieving the negotiations. But alas! the leaders of the Algerian Revolution were on the lookout for these attempts. First, through their repeated military victories, then by their success in internationalizing the Algerian issue and exposing De Gaulle’s maneuvers and absurdities such as the “Peace of Braves,” the “Third Force,” the “Constantine Project,” the “Charles Plan,” and so on.
Through his speech, delivered on June 14, 1960, De Gaulle entered, unwillingly not heroically, officially into negotiations with the IGRA, which on the 25th of the same month commissioned Messrs. Mohamed Al-Siddiq Ben Yahya and Ahmed Boumendjel to hold talks with France in the French city of Moulins for a period of four days which ended with failure, due to the French insistence on obtaining a ceasefire and postponing decisions on other key issues. The leaders of the Revolution were aware of this dangerous trap, and the stormy events went on, especially the demonstrations of December 11 of the same year, which forced De Gaulle's government to get backto the negotiating table. With Swiss efforts, this time, the meetings between the two parties were renewed on May 20, 1961, in the city of Evian.
The Algerian and French delegations met in sessions that failed because of to France’s intention to separate the Sahara from the rest of Algerian territory and its attempt to impose dual citizenship on the French-Algerians.
The IGRA did not resume contacts with the colonizers until it obtained De Gaulle’s recognition, on September 5, 1961, of Algeria’s sovereignty over its Sahara. After the negotiations that took place in the city of Les Rousses, between February 11 and 19, 1962, and the National Council of the Algerian Revolution ratifying of the draft talks, the negotiations entered their final stage, in real date of August 8, 1961, and culminated thereafter in the announcement of the signing of the Evian Agreements and the adoption of a ceasefire on March 19, 1962.
The two basic factors for the success of this path and for its avoiding to fall prey to the colonizer’s conspiracies,were the Algerians’ determination and conviction that their country is an indivisible whole and their adherence to armed struggle as the only means to push the colonizersto yield to their demands. These are two basic and decisive factors in successful wars of liberation, and whoever violates them falls into the pits and dangers of unfinished independence and domination.
As Algeria lives today in the bliss of independence and breathes the pure air of liberty, it always keeps in mind the sacrifices of those on whose bodies the edifice of independence was built, and remains loyal to them forever and ever.
May our Algeria live free and impregnable forever.
Ambassador Dr. Mahmoud Brahm