‘This isn’t war. It’s genocide’: Why the world is silent about massacres in Syria
Survivors of the violence against the Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities shares their stories with RT

 

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant militant group in northwestern Syria, once presented itself as a local opposition force. Just over a month ago, the group was formally disbanded and became part of the Syrian Defense Ministry, yet its origins tell a far more sinister story. Born out of the ashes of Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, HTS carries the same ideological DNA as the world’s most notorious terrorist network. While it has sought to rebrand itself for international legitimacy, its methods remain unchanged: Massacres, ethnic cleansing, and the systematic extermination of those who do not conform to its radical ideology.

Nowhere has this been more evident than in Syria’s coastal cities, where HTS and its foreign recruits have unleashed an unspeakable wave of violence against Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities. Entire villages have been erased, their inhabitants slaughtered in the dead of night. Yet, as these horrors unfold, the world remains indifferent, and the silence of international powers only emboldens the perpetrators.

The massacre in Latakia: A night of unimaginable horror

In one of the darkest nights in Syria’s recent history, coordinated attacks on rural Latakia resulted in mass executions. Survivors tell of masked men storming their villages, dragging families from their homes, and carrying out public executions. Those who resisted were burned inside their homes, leaving behind entire neighborhoods reduced to smoldering ruins.

Testimonies from survivors suggest that many of the perpetrators were foreign fighters, brought in from regions far from the Middle East. “They didn’t even speak our language,” an elderly survivor told RT. “They had no idea who we were, no reason to hate us – except that they were told to.”

Entire villages have been abandoned, their populations either massacred or displaced. Satellite imagery confirms what survivors describe – rows of torched homes, mass graves hastily covered, and ghost towns where life once thrived.

The bloodbath in Tartus: A slaughter without mercy

Tartus, once a thriving coastal city, has become another graveyard. HTS fighters stormed residential areas, conducting door-to-door massacres. Families were accused of supporting the government or practicing the ‘wrong’ faith before being lined up and shot. Those who were not executed on the spot were locked inside buildings which were then torched.

A local journalist, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal, described the scale of the killings: 

There were so many bodies that people stopped counting. They weren’t buried properly – just dumped into ditches.”

Foreign fighters played a leading role in these atrocities. A humanitarian worker recalled speaking with a man who had barely escaped: “He told me he heard Chechen, Uzbek, and North African Arabic among the attackers. These weren’t local militants – these were imported killers, trained elsewhere and sent here to finish us off.”

Despite the horror, survivors insist they were never fighting for political power – only for survival. “We weren’t taking up arms to reclaim land or rule over anyone,” a displaced father from Tartus told RT. “We were just trying to stop them from killing our children in their beds.”

Jableh: The systematic erasure of a community

The violence in Jableh was particularly gruesome. Hundreds of men were rounded up, executed, and dumped into mass graves. Women and children were kidnapped, their fates unknown. Witnesses reported hearing gunfire for hours as the slaughter continued unchecked.

“They lined up all the men and took them away,” a survivor said with a voice shaking. “Later, we found their bodies piled on top of one another, shot execution-style.”

One woman who managed to escape described her captors: “They were foreigners. Some were Arab, others were not. They had dead eyes, no emotion. 

To them, we weren’t people – we were just bodies to be destroyed.”

Another survivor, now living in a refugee camp, said, “People say we were fighting for power, but we were just trying to keep our families from being butchered. No one wanted war. We just wanted to survive.”

Executioners without borders

What makes these massacres even more horrifying is the sheer number of foreign fighters involved. Witnesses and survivors consistently report hearing different languages among the attackers, sometimes even Western languages.

“These aren’t local fighters,” a displaced resident now sheltering in Damascus said.

They were trained somewhere else, then sent here to do what they do best – kill.”

The involvement of foreign jihadists suggests a well-coordinated, externally supported operation, designed not just to fight a war, but to systematically erase communities. Intelligence sources indicate that these fighters were funneled into Syria through neighboring countries, trained in camps before being deployed to slaughter civilians.

The global silence

Despite overwhelming evidence of genocide, Western and regional media continue to present the massacres as “clashes” between HTS and government forces, deliberately sidestepping the mass extermination of Syria’s Alawite community. 

A Syrian human rights activist, speaking under anonymity, condemned this distortion:

This isn’t war. It’s genocide. Yet, the world’s media avoids using that word because it doesn’t fit their political narrative.”

Western governments that once backed opposition forces are now reluctant to acknowledge the nightmare they helped unleash. By turning a blind eye, they enable the continuation of these crimes, and their silence serves as complicity in the atrocities.

The United Nations has remained largely passive, offering vague statements of concern but taking no meaningful action. Meanwhile, the perpetrators roam free, emboldened by the knowledge that no one will hold them accountable.

For the people of Latakia, Tartus, and Jableh, the message is clear: No help is coming. The world will not intervene. But history will remember. And the silence of the international community will forever be its most damning indictment.

By Mohamed Salah, photojournalist and news writer with a particular focus on migrants and refugees issues

 

https://www.rt.com/news/614269-to-them-we-werent-people/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

THIS GENOCIDE WAS FACILITATED BY THE USA, ISRAEL AND TURKYIE...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_DMgYJ8FnM

Fox News Pundit BLASTED For Lying In VIRAL Clip!

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlR-JBNpg-s

The Israeli army has killed at least 356 Palestinians, including many children, across the Gaza Strip in a massive violation of the ceasefire agreement between Tel Aviv and the Hamas resistance movement. This number continues to rise, as many people are still buried under the rubble of bombed buildings.

According to reports, at least 77 people were killed in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, and at least 20 others in Gaza City, in the north.

Hundreds more were also injured in the carnage, the Palestinian news agency Sama reported on Tuesday, March 18.

According to the agency, the raids have spared no part of the already war-ravaged and largely devastated coastal strip, targeting homes, schools, and refugee centers. According to reports from the Qatari television channel Al Jazeera, explosions were heard in the northeast of Gaza City. These explosions were followed by intensive overflights of the area by regime spy planes and warplanes.

Since the ceasefire agreement came into effect, the regime has regularly violated the truce and obstructed the entry of vital aid into Gaza, including food, medicine, and water, in an attempt to force Hamas to release the remaining Israeli captives in one go.

Under the first phase of the agreement, Hamas released 25 captives alive and the remains of eight others, in exchange for more than 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Tel Aviv subsequently attempted to sabotage the agreement, demanding that the release of the remaining detainees be conditional on the implementation of the second phase of the truce.

Previously, the Maariv newspaper reported that Tel Aviv had declined an offer for the "selective release" of Israeli detainees with American citizenship. According to the report, the regime had informed the United States that diplomatic efforts to secure the release of the remaining prisoners had ended. The regime's "security cabinet" had authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Military Minister Israel Katz to determine the date for the resumption of the genocide, the newspaper also reported.

Netanyahu's cabinet similarly indicated that the regime had resumed its military attacks on Gaza City, following what it described as Hamas's rejection of Washington's proposals to extend the ceasefire. Meanwhile, Hamas negotiated with Qatari and Egyptian mediators to maintain the ceasefire, despite Israel's disruptive efforts.

It is worth noting that more than 48,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed in the genocide launched by the Zionist regime, not to mention hundreds more victims of Israeli violations of the agreement.

The White House claims Israel consulted with the Trump administration before launching its new wave of nighttime strikes in Gaza.

"The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis regarding their attacks in Gaza tonight," said spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.

Hamas: Israel Exposes Its Prisoners to an "Unknown Fate"

Reacting to the recent massacres, Hamas condemned the resumption by Netanyahu and his "Nazi" administration of their aggression and genocidal war against defenseless civilians in the Gaza Strip.

"We hold the criminal Netanyahu and the Nazi-Zionist occupation fully responsible for the repercussions of the treacherous aggression against Gaza, as well as for the defenseless civilians and the besieged Palestinian people, subjected to a brutal war and a systematic policy of starvation," it added.

The regime, Hamas lamented, has decided to "break the ceasefire," exposing the captives to an "unknown fate."

Hamas has already reported the deaths of numerous captives following the relentless and indiscriminate Israeli bombardments of Gaza.

"We demand that the mediators hold Netanyahu and the Zionist occupation fully accountable for the violation and breach of the agreement," the group stated.

Hamas also urged the Arab world, including its leading institutions, as well as leading international organizations, to take a firm stance against this aggression.

The United Nations and the Security Council must pressure Tel Aviv to comply with the Council resolution demanding an end to the Israeli aggression against Gaza and the complete withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the territory, the group stressed.

He finally called for global protests, urging "the free peoples of the world to raise their voices to reject the resumption of the Zionist war of extermination against our people in the Gaza Strip."

Netanyahu's lifeline to escape internal crises

Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, declared that Netanyahu had decided to resume the genocidal war, which was a lifeline to escape his internal crises.

"The enemy will not achieve through war and destruction what it failed to achieve through negotiations," he said, adding that "the mediators are obligated to reveal the truth about Netanyahu's betrayal of the ceasefire agreement and to present him as solely responsible for the escalation of violence in Gaza and the region."

Al-Rishq affirmed that "military pressure and brutal aggression will not break the will of our people and our resistance."

https://french.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/03/18/744634/Isra%C3%ABl-frappe-Gaza---plus-de-300-morts

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

It was first an unexpected suicide bomber, journalist Jean-Michel Apathie, who lit the bomb, comparing certain crimes committed by French soldiers in Algeria to those of the Nazis. Then, public television censored the broadcast of a documentary on France 5 about the gassing of Algerian children, women, and men who had taken refuge in mountain caves. The French Republic continues to remain silent about its past crimes. Therefore, they never took place.

Those who are outraged or surprised to learn that in Algeria, from Bugeaud to Mollet, Mitterrand, and De Gaulle, children, women, and men were gassed in mountain caves in Kabylie, the Aurès, or any other cavern...have understood nothing. Seventy years after the crimes, if French memory remains serene, it is because the act was justified. These beings, asphyxiated and burned, were never accepted into the ranks of humanity. So why remorse or forgiveness? Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, Commissioner General for Jewish Affairs, a horror created by the Vichy regime, shed light on this mechanism of barbarity. Evoking the apocalypse of the Holocaust, he declared: "At Auschwitz, only lice were gassed." In reality, in the Algerian caves and cavities, no real human beings were killed. To reinforce this philosophy of crime, we have today the example of Gaza, where more than 50,000 non-humans were also crushed amidst indifference.

Like any man who rebels against his invader, his colonizer, Jean Moulin was in his time a "terrorist." The FLN revolutionaries did not escape the same stigma: "Those gassed, killed like flies, were nothing more than 'terrorists.' Pests eliminated with 'Fly-Tox.'" Metaphorically inclined assassins even called these human slaughterhouses in Algeria "late contraception." The victims of October 17, 1961, in Paris, were drowned in the purifying waters of the Seine.

History continues to be silent.

History continues to be silent. And now it is those outraged by the "chemical" deaths of Halabja—in Iraq in 1988—who are banning the broadcast of the documentary "Algeria, Special Weapons Sections." A perfect, educational film, with calm and balanced content, yet broadcast on France 5. And censored. Since Alain Resnais's 1959 film about the atomic apocalypse, we all know that "we saw nothing in Hiroshima." In the caves of Algeria, too, the smoke and gas blinded French memory. We saw nothing. Nothing happened. Yet France is adept at denouncing crimes: those of others, committed by executioners elsewhere. Never its own. When a citizen of the French nationalist movement dared to sound the alarm, at the time when Algeria was France, and I'm only mentioning Maurice Audin and Fernand Iveton (but all their friends were equally heroic), they were assassinated. Fifty years later, the criminal Aussaresses could, like a carefree grandfather, enjoy seafood at "La Coupole."

Why can't France, no doubt with its mouth too full of stifling "Human Rights," talk about its own crimes? It is wrong to believe that this silence is simply the product of an omerta imposed by the military lobby. Who, from Pétain's assassination of the "mutinous" soldiers in 1917, to the gassings, torture, and assassinations in Algeria, would prohibit the examination of atrocities? If the Army pushes for oblivion, it is the political world, almost in its entirety, that must be accused of this complicity in crimes. What party can live without raising its voice on a heroic history, without snagging at the banner? We were never executioners, never collaborators.

To dig into the gaping wounds of the Algerian War is to say that François Mitterrand allowed 45 heads to be cut off without lifting a finger to save these lives from the guillotine. It is also to say that Mollet, the same Mitterrand, and their Robert Lacoste, the ignominious SFIO clique, waged this war for four years, with a helping hand from the "Christian" parties? How can one accuse an accomplice in war crimes, who became an abolitionist President, without driving these left-wing activists, convinced they were the natural children of Jaurès, to despair?

The Communist Party was, during the war, the only one to protest, often weakly, against the Algerian "operation to maintain order." The PCF left its activists to individually bear the brunt of the blame, since the supposedly autonomous Algerian Communist Party was responsible for the fight on its own turf. The right, too, knows it is ashamed of the crimes in Algeria, and prefers to leave history in its grave and the boxes of archives sealed. Let's talk about the role of "Christian Democracy" and its plague, the MRP. Let's talk about Giscard and his good friends in the OAS, about the alternations of the Fourth Republic that drenched them in the same river of blood. And the Gaullists? They are not absent from the indictment. Let's not forget, in May and June 1945, the 45,000 dead in the massacres of Sétif, Guelma, and Kherrata, while the General was in power. Then, finding him again in 1958 while the caves of Algeria were still smoking. How, after all this, can we imagine that the political world will raise the black crepe of mourning over its past? To give a second death to the Algerian victims, a flurry of amnesties, walls against the truth, will punctuate our law. First in 62 during the "Evian Accords" then the recurrences in 64, 66 and 68. To see Mitterrand hammer in the last nail in 82 where he pardoned the putschists of Algiers, the heroes of the OAS. Let us then be surprised that a simple documentary is banned from broadcasting by state television... But also in a movie theater in the Latin Quarter. Once and for all we must stick to "the benefits of colonization", a concept promoted by Raffarin and stamped Chirac, by an article of law of February 23, 2005. Ignoble nonsense that still makes honey for the "experts" who exercise their authority on the "information" channels; during dishonorable "debates" where the place of the one who could tell the truth is that of the dead. So we slander this "ungrateful" Algeria. While colonization made it pass from the "cesspool" stage (Zemmour version) to "the use of roads and railways" (solely built for the benefit of colonial trade). If we except the explosion of shame expressed by a Jean-Michel Apathie too tired of the sinister lie, the cursor is today stuck at the Retailleau point, famous thinker of the philosophy of the cabbage.

Like the Trojan War, the Algerian War did not take place. And there is no restraint, for reasons of memory, among the propagandists of the democratic faith brandished like a whip that castigates the "regime" of Algiers. Men and women, assigned to forget a past of suffering, and who deserve that the colonial lesson continue. Better, between 1991 and 2000, while Allah's madmen, born from the entrails of Bin Laden and pushed by the West, attacked the Republic, French moralists made the French faith swallow the horrible farce of "Who kills whom." That in reality, Algerians were exterminating each other for no reason, as others like to kill time. Today, neo-colonized writers, therefore French pens, continue to fuel the Franco-Algerian fire. Forgetting that of the caves and the forgiveness expected from France. Similar to that expressed by the United Kingdom after the repression of the Mau Mau in Kenya and its 100,000 deaths in the 1950s. But French forgiveness remains frozen, a pillar of salt, since it lasted from 1830 to 1962. We saw nothing in Algeria.

PS. Speaking of "forgiveness," we must not forget the admirable struggle of French academic and researcher Armelle Mabon who, against the fierce hostility of the state, fought "whatever the cost" for the recognition of the crimes committed by France against the Senegalese Tirailleurs at the end of the Second World War.

Jacques-Marie BOURGET

 

https://www.legrandsoir.info/dans-les-grottes-d-algerie-l-armee-francaise-n-a-gaze-que-des-poux.html

 

THIAROYE MASSACRE, TOWARDS A STATE LIE? INTERVIEW WITH ARMELLE MABON.

In Chasselay, in the Rhône region, amidst fields on the outskirts of the village, stands a "Senegalese Tata." This curious cemetery, erected in 1942, is all that remains of the heroic defense of Lyon by the Colonial Troops, outnumbered one hundred to one, on June 19 and 20, 1940, in the final days of the Nazi invasion. The Black survivors were separated from the White soldiers by the SS Totenkopf division, executed by machine gun fire, or some crushed under tanks.

At the other end of a story marked by the imprisonment of some seventy thousand "native" prisoners in the Frontstalags of the occupied zone, we find the Thiaroye massacre of December 1, 1944, perpetrated this time by Free French troops.

Armelle Mabon, a lecturer at the University of Southern Brittany, has devoted several years of research to this still partially documented event. This meticulous work is reminiscent of that of the late Jean-Luc Einaudi on October 17, 1961. While the President of the Republic has commissioned an exhibition for the 70th anniversary of this "state crime," Armelle Mabon recently wrote to several ministers. For her, this commemoration should be an opportunity to shed full light on a shameful episode of the Liberation. She has explored archives and collected testimonies from the families of the perpetrators and victims of the event. With previously unpublished documents, she provides new insights into the nature and extent of the massacre.

 

Olivier Favier: Entire aspects of the complex relationships maintained by the mother country and its colonies during the war, the Occupation, and the Liberation have been coming to light in recent years, sometimes even outside the circle of specialists. I'm thinking of Lam Lê's magnificent film, Công Binh, the Long Indochinese Night (2012), which traces the journey of the 20,000 Vietnamese forced laborers who came to France during the Phoney War and were condemned to a fate as pariahs after the defeat. For over ten years, your research has focused on "native" prisoners of war in occupied France, a population to which you dedicated a documentary in 2003 and a book in 2010, published by Éditions de la Découverte. How does the fate of these prisoners differ from that of the soldiers in the mother country? Armelle Mabon: While a few POWs from mainland France remained in France for their specific skills, particularly as healthcare workers, the vast majority of those from the colonies and departments of North Africa spent their time in captivity primarily in France (occupied zone) in Frontstalags. As with the POWs from mainland France sent to Stalags in Germany, they worked in Arbeitkommandos.

What makes this captivity unique is the application of this form of forced labor on mainland France, following numerous requests from municipalities, farmers, and businesses, who thus benefited from cheap labor. Some employers even balked at paying them. Added to this was the replacement of German sentries in some Arbeitkommandos with officers from the colonial troops and civil servants starting in 1943, a German request accepted without hesitation by the Vichy government. This "supervision" was considered a betrayal by these men who came to defend France. Finally, it is important to emphasize the privileged contact these prisoners of war had on French soil with the local population—especially their godmothers—but also, for some of them, with the Resistance.

 

 

       4,814 / 5,000 O.F.: In your book, you devote a chapter to the Thiaroye massacre, which in a way constitutes the tragic epilogue of this forgotten story. To tell this story, we must begin in mainland France, from where the Senegalese soldiers were repatriated. How many of them left Morlaix in November 1944, and how many arrived in Dakar? What was their financial situation, particularly regarding their back pay? It seems that, from this stage on, many questions were not properly asked, even if the answers we can provide often remain imprecise. Armelle Mabon: My book was published in 2010. Today, the chapter on Thiaroye would no longer be worded the same way. I continued my investigations into this problematic exit from the war represented by the return of former prisoners from French West Africa, particularly the first contingent that landed in Dakar on 21 June 1944. As early as 2000 – 14 years ago! – I was surprised not to find in the archives important official documents on the rights of these repatriates, particularly telegrams and circulars relating to captivity pay. I was just writing an article on these expurgated archives when I heard the President of the Republic, François Hollande, promise the restitution of the archives on Thiaroye in Senegal during his visit to Dakar in October 2012. I felt it necessary to completely resume the research with a different question: beyond the archives that were untraceable, what was the content of the documents available? In my documentary, as in my book, I mention the number of repatriates, which varies according to reports and documents between 1,200 and 1,300. It was in Morlaix that this contingent, bringing together former prisoners of war freed by the FFI or the Americans and coming from the transition centers of Rennes, Versailles, and La Flèche, was to embark on a British ship, the Circassia. The figures from the ship's commander and the Ministry of Colonies agree, with 2,000 former prisoners to embark. Knowing that 300 refused to board the ship, there must therefore have been 1,700 men left. A document titled "intelligence" found in the Senegalese archives mentions that 400 former prisoners refused to continue the journey and remained in Casablanca, which logically gives 1,300 repatriates disembarking in Dakar. Each document on Thiaroye deserves special attention and in particular a careful comparison with other documents. First, the officers on board the ship made no mention of the 400 former prisoners who remained in Casablanca; second, the ship's captain, in his logbook found in the United Kingdom's National Archives in London, indicated that upon departure from Casablanca, all passengers were on board. In reality, between the departure from Morlaix and December 1, 1944, the date of the massacre, 400 men were missing. As for the prisoner pay, the trigger for the protest movement among the repatriates, it is important to understand how the local military administration and the Ministry of War managed the application of rights to the repatriates. I should point out that the content of the circulars and telegrams on prisoner pay is recorded in an inspection report from the Ministry of Colonies, which is located in the National Archives of Overseas France. The "Senegalese" riflemen were to receive one-quarter of their captivity pay in the transition centers, with the remaining three-quarters upon disembarkation (circular dated October 25, 1944, from the Ministry of War – Colonial Troops Directorate). Those coming from the Rennes transition center received nothing, which explains the refusal to embark of 300 men at Morlaix. Upon arrival in Dakar, the repatriated men logically demanded back pay and refused to leave the Thiaroye barracks until they were paid. The local military authorities had no intention of doing so, perhaps believing that the former prisoners had enough money from their savings deposited in their Frontstalag savings accounts. After the massacre, the authorities covered up the theft of back pay by making people believe, via a circular dated December 4, 1944, from the Ministry of War (Directorate of Colonial Troops), that the Thiaroye contingent had received their full captivity pay before embarkation. The Ministry of War thus rendered these men's claims illegitimate. General Dagnan, commander of the Senegal-Mauritania division who ordered the law enforcement operation, went so far as to erase this major claim in his report dated December 5. 

O.F.: Having disembarked in Dakar, the demobilized soldiers were taken to Thiaroye. Then, on the morning of December 1, 1944, a large armed force was deployed around the camp. According to official figures, what followed left 35 dead and almost as many wounded. There was talk of a mutiny. In a document attached to the letters you sent on May 27, 2014, to Jean-Yves le Drian, Minister of Defense, Christiane Taubira, Keeper of the Seals, and Kader Arif, Secretary of State for Veterans and Remembrance, you dispute both the death toll—you don't provide precise figures, but we understand that there could have been as many as 300 dead—and the theory of a response to the "mutineers" who allegedly opened fire. To support this challenge, you cite numerous contradictions, mention omissions, and cite unpublished documents, including photographs taken by American soldiers. This lack of clarity leads to what you call in your report a "conviction trial." What happened between December and February 1945?

Armelle Mabon: It is clear that the official figure for victims is not 35. Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, whom I had contacted, had the victim files searched. Only five were found, including that of a soldier from Upper Volta who died of his injuries in the Dakar hospital but who is not included in the list of 11 who died in hospital. The number of deaths may remain a gray area, but it must be remembered that the military and colonial authorities deliberately reduced the number of repatriates. It was in the archives in London that I learned, via a report from the British Consul General, that the American military had taken numerous photographs. If I can find them, it might then be possible to determine that the former prisoners of war killed by armored cars are not buried in the Thiaroye military cemetery but in mass graves.

The Army had to ensure that it would not be held responsible and prove by all means that the armed response was essential. To do this, it had to show that the mutineers themselves were heavily armed and that they had fired first. This is what one might believe at first reading the reports. But upon comparing the documents, I realized that the officers contradicted each other on the chronology of events, which reveals a terrifying scenario that does the Army no credit. The reports were written to convict innocent people, while by gathering men on an esplanade to shoot them with three armored cars and other automatic weapons, it was the general and senior officers who committed a crime that was undoubtedly premeditated. In his report, General de Boisboissel strives to make people believe that it was the security service riflemen—who arrived without ammunition—who caused the most deaths. The commander of the armored cars does not mention any shooting in his report, while another officer does mention armored car fire, but on the roofs of the barracks. To emphasize the mutineers' dangerousness, some officers mentioned the mutineers' shots after the response, but during the trial, they could not agree on the origin of the shots, while others accurately described the security service's shots after the heavy response. I cannot dwell here on all the incongruities noted. The former prisoners of war were unarmed and they were killed while they were at the assembly point facing the armored cars.

 

Those considered the ringleaders were arrested. The charges ranged from provocation of soldiers to disobedience to rebellion committed by armed soldiers—at least eight in number. The investigation was conducted between December 1944 and February 1945 by a young second lieutenant who must have been instructed to ensure they were found guilty. The lies escalated, even though no verification was conducted during the investigation. There is also evidence that tends to prove that the accused had become enemies of France: they were allegedly exploited by the Germans during their captivity, which is another myth. Their membership in the Resistance, however, was systematically denied; they were portrayed as looters in mainland France. Most were defended by Lamine Guèye, a Senegalese lawyer and politician.

34 men were sentenced to between 1 and 10 years in prison, with the heaviest sentences including military demotion and a ban from the country.

O.F.: These sentences were largely erased two years later by a rather strange "amnesty," since those convicted had not committed any crime. Furthermore, please explain: this amnesty was not the work of President Vincent Auriol, as is too often believed. What were the motivations for this step backward? What are the arguments that lead one to believe that this massacre was a premeditated act?

Armelle Mabon: Two of those sentenced to light sentences benefited from the 1946 amnesty law while a new law was being drafted. It was Sudanese MP Jean Sylvandre—although one would have thought Senghor, himself a former prisoner of war—who requested that those convicted at Thiaroye be eligible for the new law being drafted. The Ministry of War opposed allowing 15 of those convicted to benefit from the amnesty laws because they were guilty of crimes. In June 1947, the Ministry of War agreed to suspend the execution of the sentence for those who were still imprisoned. It was therefore wrong for the newspaper Le Réveil to make its front page on June 23, 1947, about the pardon granted by President Auriol. A member of the Overseas Territories Commission, the former lawyer for the Thiaroye "mutineers," Lamine Guèye, had an amendment inserted into the amnesty law of August 16, 1947, allowing all those convicted to benefit from it. Louis Mérat, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Overseas France, who, as an inspector, conducted the investigation into the events at Thiaroye, worked hard to restore the dignity of the men of Thiaroye. Yet the conclusions of his investigation were unequivocal: disobedience, armed rebellion, and payments received that exceeded their rights. In December 1947, despite several reminders, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was unable to have this impressive investigation, which had been retained by the Governor General of French West Africa, repatriated to Paris. Louis Mérat certainly understood that he had been manipulated by general and senior officers during his investigation, which explains his insistence that all those convicted be granted lenient measures barely two years later.

While the amnesty erased the conviction from certain official documents, the Thiaroye "mutineers" remained guilty of a crime they did not commit, and those most heavily sentenced remained excluded from the army.

Regarding premeditation, it should be noted that the evening before the massacre, according to the report of Lieutenant-Colonel Le Berre, commanding the 6th Colonial Artillery Regiment (RAC), three officers met together, even though orders had been given that very morning by General Dagnan. The pretext given for this late meeting was the receipt of information that the mutineers possessed automatic weapons and wanted to kill an officer. We now know that this pretext was false. In addition to Lieutenant Colonel Le Berre, the commander of the armored cars and the commander of the intervention battery were present. In the archives, I found only one written order from General Dagnan, although three are mentioned.

The report of the commander of the armored cars tells us that he received an oral order at this meeting, but in describing the chronology of events, he stops at 8:30 a.m. and resumes his account at 9:45 a.m., even though the deadly salvos were fired at 9:30 a.m. This officer was a key witness for the trial, but he was not heard while he was in Dakar. This officer either did not want to or should not have spoken. It was the commander of the intervention battery who arrested 27 "mutineers" while passing through the ranks.

Only Lieutenant Colonel Le Berre was punished, presumably by General Dagnan. He too was pardoned in 1947. The charges and the punishment were expunged from his file. The 6th RAC was particularly implicated in this massacre, and the director of the Army's historical service, following a complaint from the son of a victim, expressed surprise in 1973 to see no report from this regiment.

All these elements (the absence of written orders in the archives, the absence of a statement from the armored car commander, with a report missing the timing of the firing, the punishment of the commander of the 6th RAC, who may have served as a "fuse," the disappearance of his report, which was subsequently resubmitted, etc.) lead me to believe that this was a possible premeditation that had to be concealed by all means, including the manipulation of documents.

I know this is "huge," especially with the upcoming formal restitution of the archives, which places Thiaroye in a painful political spotlight. It is time for France to take ownership of this story by recognizing the attack on the dignity of the men, without forgetting the officers, some of whom had to endure actions contrary to the army's ethics.

O.F.: On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of this event, President François Hollande commissioned an exhibition from the Directorate of Memory. Despite everything, what are your fears and what are your hopes for such an initiative to take full advantage of its potential and not prove counterproductive?

Armelle Mabon: It was General Leroi, Director of the Defense Historical Service, who informed me of the formal restitution of the digitized archives on Thiaroye, as well as of François Hollande's commission for an exhibition on Thiaroye from the DMPA (Directorate of Memory, Heritage, and Archives) of the Ministry of Defense. Furthermore, I learned that the French Embassy was organizing a conference to discuss Thiaroye on the sidelines of the Francophonie Summit being held in Dakar in November 2014. We should welcome this new recognition. But how can we talk about commemorating this 70th anniversary if France does not first acknowledge the massacre, the dispossession, the incriminating trial... I fear that the public authorities will once again close the lid and expose the official and false history of Thiaroye. As for the restitution of the archives, to my knowledge, only those of the Defense Historical Service have been digitized, and we cannot understand Thiaroye by sticking to these documents alone. Other archives are of great importance, and Africans cannot be satisfied with a partial restitution. Having completed this historical research, which has allowed me to get closer to the facts by questioning sources but also by looking more closely at the careers of the officers, by finding their children and those of the convicted, I think that France's first action must be to refer the matter to the revision commission of the Court of Cassation. Through my rigorous work, I have cast doubt on the guilt of the condemned and, as with Captain Dreyfus, a retrial must be held without adjournment, in this case of course posthumously.

France must also admit that the official figure is not 35 dead. The victims' files bear the stamp "Not dead for France." France must recognize that they died precisely for her.

Without this political courage, the people of Africa, who have known for 70 years that the truth about Thiaroye has never been told, risk perceiving these events surrounding Thiaroye as an affront.

As for the Army, I don't think it wants the lid to be tightly closed. Its honor depends on it.

It should be noted that the Minister of Colonies, in view of reports that we now know to be false, had indicated that armed repression was essential. If the French state refuses to acknowledge the massacre, the dispossession, and the incriminating trial, then there will be a state lie.

 

https://dormirajamais.org/thiaroye/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.