by PATRICK LEJTENYI

As tempting as it might be, Saadi Yacef is reluctant to draw many modern-day parallels to his groundbreaking and gripping 1965 classic The Battle of Algiers. "There is no comparison to what is happening in Iraq," he says, speaking over the phone from a hotel in Paris. "The only thing in common is the use of torture."

Newly reissued and re-translated, Algiers is a grittily dramatic re-creation of the first three years of the eight-year guerilla war waged by Algerian nationalists of the National Liberation Front (FLN) against the 130-year-old French colonial regime. Boycotted by French critics at the 1965 Venice film festival and banned by France upon its theatrical debut, it has since become required viewing for any student of terrorism and urban warfare - including the U.S. Pentagon.

As the film's producer, star and inspiration, Yacef treads familiar territory. His role as Jaffar, the military commander of the sprawling, segregated greater Algiers - where French colonials and the European pieds noirs fence themselves off from the teeming alleyways and winding staircases of the Casbah - is his own. Yacef adopted Jaffar as his nom de guerre during the war and the events portrayed in the film are based on his memories and journals he wrote while awaiting execution in French jails.

Violence begets violence

Although commissioned by the then newly-installed Algerian government, Algiers is a remarkably well-balanced and searingly realistic look at both sides of the bloody, complex campaign. Directed by Italy's Gillo Pontecorvo, it's never bogged down in preachy heavy-handedness. Told in an almost journalistic style, the story switches its focus from Jaffar and his hot-headed co-revolutionaries, especially Brahim Haggiag's Ali La Pointe, to the relentless, coldly efficient French Lieutenant-Colonel Mathieu (played by the film's only professional actor, Jean Martin) and his veteran, tough-as-nails paratroopers, the notorious "paras." It is in the movie's second half that the audience is shown the French's systematic dismantling of the FLN in Algiers, thanks largely to their willingness to use torture to extract vital information from suspected sympathizers. The French, and in particular the soldiering elite, still smarting from their humiliation at the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu and subsequent expulsion from Indochina and other North African possessions, were determined not to lose Algeria.

"The French had never won a war," says Yacef, now 76 and an Algerian senator. "In 1947 they lost Madagascar. Then they lost Indochina. Tunisia revolted, and in Morocco, when they deposed King Muhammad V, the population there revolted as well [and won independence in March, 1956]. Then they went into Suez [in July 1956] to eliminate the Egyptians, whom they thought were directing us. But they were stopped, and they never had a chance to win, so they returned to Algeria to win the war."

By the time the paras arrived in Algiers, the escalation of atrocities was already well underway. The more civilians the FLN killed with their bombs, the tighter the French grip became on the Algerian Arabs. Checkpoints, arbitrary arrests, paranoia and torture became the norm.

"It was a vicious cycle, you know," Yacef says. "Lined up against us were very valorous soldiers, some of them extremely intelligent men, but unfortunately they'd been through several colonial wars and so, among them were some who were crazy. With torture, even someone who is unbalanced, who is able to simplify and insult a human, will feel something extraordinary inside of him break - his conscience."

These days, he says, he is utterly incapable of thinking about committing another violent act. "I can't even kill a chicken. But at the time, when I was committing terrorism - and I don't call it terrorism, because it was a war of independence - I wanted my country to be free. And I had to use all means available."

First casualties

Yacef stresses that, initially at least, he had hoped to avoid bloodshed. He blames the French for the escalation of violence. "In our proclamation of November 1, 1954 [at the start of the war], we explained that we hoped to discuss matters with the French, without the loss of human life," he says. "But I have a list of all the bombs that were set off by the French and the pieds noirs. The bomb that acted as the detonator was set off in the heart of the Casbah in the middle of the night. We couldn't hope to control the people if we didn't avenge those who'd died, so we used the same methods. We understood that bombs were effective, so we continued to use them. But I cried when the bomb went off while people were dancing. I cried, while asking God why it was my task to be in command of a city where acts like this were happening. I swear, I did cry. I told myself that I would never plant another bomb, but of course, I did it again."

And again, and again, and again. Exact casualty figures are muddy: at independence, the FLN estimated 300,000 died; the figure was later upped by the Algerian government to 1.5 million, although Oxford historian Alistair Horne, author of the seminal study on the Algerian revolt A Savage War of Peace, numbers the dead at one million. The French tally estimated 18,000 military personnel were killed, as well as 10,000 European civilians. As in all wars, morality and restraint were among the first casualties.

"The terror of the oppressor must equal the terror of the oppressed," Yacef says. "By that I mean that there is a duel between colonizer and the person who is suffering under his slavery. Therefore there is no moral dimension. The weak must acquire the same attitude as the strong." That sentiment is echoed in revolutionary philosopher Frantz Fanon's 1959 defining work The Wretched of the Earth and in armed struggles around the world, from Central America to Southeast Asia.

Lessons learned?

Yacef is reticent to share his views on how to defeat terrorism over the phone. He will say he has zero sympathy for the Muslim fundamentalists who drove planes into the World Trade Center, who ruled Afghanistan and who brought his country to the brink of ruin in a savagely bloody civil war in the 1990s. His enemies, he says, "are false Muslims. They were killing two-year-olds - Islam doesn't kill two-year-olds, it doesn't carve open pregnant women and kill the fetus." During the war of independence, he says, "We never burned a synagogue. There was no religious persecution - in fact, the Church was on our side. Priests and people like that were helping us because they saw torture and injustice."

Nor is he a fan of the current political climate ruling the Arab world. "All of the leaders are dictators," he says, naming Saddam Hussein as the worst among them. But he has doubts, very serious doubts, about the American strategy in Iraq. While he won't go too deeply into his opinions on the Iraq war, he can draw comparisons between U.S. behaviour there and the behaviour of the French in Algeria.

In 1956, he says, "The best French soldiers became policemen. And when they become policemen, they make mistakes, they torture people, do all sorts of incredible things - and that's a parallel to Iraq. There, the best GIs, the best Marines, who aren't made for this kind of thing, are turned into policemen. They burst into people's homes, they beat up women and children. And it's foolish, because when you kill someone, when you brutalize someone, his entire family will stand behind him. It makes for an extraordinary recruiting tool."

He's heard the reports that the Pentagon invited its staff to watch his film as a cautionary tale of winning battles but losing wars. "They wanted to know what mistakes the French made and learn how to occupy a country," he says. "They wanted to make a parallel, but it's impossible. It's not the same context."

But there is an important element of truth to be learned from the film all the same, Yacef recognizes. "Nothing gets resolved by torture or force," he says. "No country, no matter how strong, can defeat a country that wants to be free."

The Battle of Algiers opens Friday, Aug. 13, at the Cinéma du Parc

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