The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

us stops in the city center. These bombs left two dead and over 90 injured, but the large number of
Muslim victims led Yacef to plant the next bomb, on the ninth, in a purely pied noir environment – the
Casino – killing nine and wounding 85. (Horne, p. 209-10) The resulting ratonnade saw five Muslims
killed and over 50 injured, as well as considerable destruction of property against Arab shopkeepers,
only ending after a mob of 10,000 marched to the monument aux morts – the symbolic center of pied
noir consciousness – to be dispersed by Gen. Salan and Col. Trinquier. With the brittle peace that
Algiers had enjoyed since March collapsing, the 10 th DP was recalled to the city. This pattern of
atrocity followed by atrocity was in fact part of the FLN's plan of forcing the Muslim population to
choose sides by deepening the division between them and the settlers: by encouraging collective
reprisals by the pieds noir and the military, the unaligned Muslims would find that their only safety,
and only agent of vengeance, would be the FLN. 86 But this strategy entailed the cost of a massive
military presence that threatened to extinguish the organization altogether. By the end of June, Yacef
was willing to try to tamp down the cycle of terror and repression through indirect negotiations with the
French.
In July Yacef made contact through an intermediary with Germaine Tillion, the ethnographer
and resistance member who had been in charge of the Centres Sociaux under Mollet's government, and
who had particular connections to de Gaulle. Over the course of two meetings on July 3 rd and August
9 th , Tillion and Yacef outlined a proposal for a 'civil truce' wherein the FLN would cease attacks against
civilians in exchange for the end of end of the guillotine for FLN prisoners (thus according them some
of the rights of prisoners of war). This attempt to set ground rules on the terror campaign was to make
some headway – Tillion would be told by the Bourgès-Maunoury government to continue the talks, but
at her own risk, while eighteen bombs exploded on July 23 rd and 25 th were placed so as not to kill any
civilians – but the execution of five FLN in July and another two in August made it clear that Tillion
was simply not in a position to make good on her end of the bargain. (Horne, pp. 215-6) By
September, events had superceded these efforts, as the French army was progressively in the position to
put an effective (if potentially temporary) end to Yacef's organization. But the eventual discovery of
these talks by the military – ironically through torture – would deepen a rift between soldier and state
that would in 1958 tear the fourth republic down.
In the meantime, Léger's GRE had been able to recruit several FLN members who were willing
86 Law (2009) identifies this mechanism as a primary goal of the FLN strategy. (p. 209)
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