Harki

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A Harki , 1961
Ein Harki , World War II veteran, 1961

Harki , from Arabic حركة, DMG ḥaraka (t)  'movement', refers to an assistant in the French army who served during the Algerian War 1954–1962. Furthermore, all Algerian Muslims who professed the French Republic and did not advocate the independence of Algeria are often called this .

background

After the occupation of Algeria by France, the French army created 2,000 auxiliary troops who had previously served under Ottoman rule. In the middle of the 19th century, each of the three provinces had its own rifle regiment ( Régiment des Tirailleurs ). In 1912 the French government introduced compulsory military service for the local population. As a result, around 90,000 Algerians took part in the First World War as soldiers . In World War II, more than 66,000 Algerians serving in the French armed forces. The core of the units consisted of recruits in whose families army service had been common for several generations.

history

As early as 1952 the ethnologist Jean Servier , who worked on behalf of the colonial administration, founded a Haraka (in French literature Harka ) in the sense of a vigilante group with the aim of supporting a loyalist tribe in a tribal conflict. In 1955 the special administrative units of the army, which were supposed to promote civil construction and contact with the population, set up one Maghzen auxiliary troops per unit for their own protection . With around 40 such units, these fighters known as Moghaznis had a total strength of around 1,200 men. In 1959 these auxiliary troops comprised 28,000 men. In 1956, an order from General Henri Lorillot announced the establishment of Harkas at corps level. The Harkis were assigned a reconnaissance role to track down the guerrillas of the FLN (National Liberation Front) . The defeat of the opposing formations was to be taken over by French troops. Harkis received only a small amount of hand money as well as board and lodging. Wounds sustained in battle were treated as civilian accidents under French law. At the end of the war in 1962 there were around 45,000 Harkis, 60,000 conscripts and 20,000 professional soldiers in the French army, 60,000 members of local militias. In addition to the military, there were around 50,000 government employees.

After independence, there were numerous violent attacks by the FLN and by sympathizers of the independence movement. In places, the revenge on the Algerians perceived as collaborators was used to prove their own loyalty and to demonstrate closeness to the new regime. Hardly any figures are available. In the Akbou arrondissement near Sétif , around 2,000 people were killed as collaborators for every 100,000 inhabitants. It is estimated that around 6,000 to 10,000 deaths among the Harkis for the entire period of the war and the violence after independence. The Treaty of Evian made no provision for former soldiers of the colonial power. Charles de Gaulle , however, categorically refused to accept the Harkis. De Gaulle rejected concerns from the military and his defense minister, Pierre Messmer . Active and former military personnel organized a network against the laws passed by him, with which, according to estimates, around 100,000–260,000 people emigrated to France.

The former fighters and their families were mostly housed in military camps and former internment camps from the Vichy period . It was not until the 1970s that the last refugees were relocated from the camps to normal apartments. The majority, mostly from the class of the illiterate rural population, lived a life of social segregation in France.

The head of state Jacques Chirac declared September 25, 2001 as the day of the national recognition of the Harkis. On December 5, 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy received the representatives of the Harkis in the Elysée Palace. He pledged efforts to better integrate the Harki into French society. An official apology for the atrocities at that time, as he himself had promised during his election campaign for the presidential candidate on March 31, 2007, did not materialize.

In 2016, President François Hollande admitted “the responsibility of the French state” for the massacre of the Harkis, as well as “the inhumane reception conditions”.

Web links

Commons : Harkis  - collection of images, videos and audio files

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mohand Hamoumou, Abderahman Moumen: L'Histoire des Harkis et Français Musulmans: la fin d'un tabou? In: Mohammed Harbi, Benjamin Stora (eds.): La guerre d'Algérie, 1954–2004. La fin de l'amnesie. Robert Laffont, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-221-10024-7 , pp. 458 f.
  2. ↑ Mohand Hamoumou, Abderahman Moumen: L'Histoire des Harkis et Français Musulmans: la fin d'un tabou? In: Mohammed Harbi, Benjamin Stora (eds.): La guerre d'Algérie, 1954–2004. La fin de l'amnesie. Robert Laffont, Paris 2004, p. 462 f.
  3. ^ Martin Evans: Algeria: France's undeclared War. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-280350-4 , p. 325.
  4. ^ Martin Evans: Algeria: France's undeclared War. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, p. 327 f, p. 351.
  5. ↑ Martin Shipway: Decolonization and its Impact. A Comparative Approach to the End of the Colonial Empires. Blackwell, Oxford 2008, pp. 217 f.
  6. ↑ Guy Perville: La Guerre d'Algérie: combien des morts? In: Mohammed Harbi, Benjamin Stora (eds.): La guerre d'Algérie, 1954–2004. La fin de l'amnesie. Robert Laffont, Paris 2004, p. 713.
  7. ^ "Chirac hails Algerians who fought for France", in: The Telegraph, September 26, 2001.
  8. ↑ Le Monde newspaper of March 31, 2007 and the discours du 31 mars 2007 de Nicolas Sarkozy, Candidat à la Présidence de la République à during a meeting with representatives of the Harki community in Paris, Saturday 31 March 2007.
  9. ↑ Michaela Wiegel: Harkis recognized as a victim . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 26, 2016, p. 4.