FIRMER POLICY IN ALGERIA

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29819, 11 May 1962, Page 13

FIRMER POLICY IN ALGERIA

Government Moves Against O.A.S. (N.Z P .A.-Renter—Copyright) ALGIERS, May 10. Massive reinforcements of mobile gendarmerie in Algiers and new security measures in the troubled West Algerian city of Oran are expected today as part of new moves against the Secret Army Organisation (0.A.5.). The new anti-O.A.S. moves, announced yesterday in Paris and the Algerian administrative centre at Rocher Noir, near Algiers, have already begun, with lightning curfews . and searches, deportations of Europeans, and seizure and destruction of cars in banned areas.

U'ually well - informed sources said the new plans included recruitment of 2000 Moslem police—expected to include former Moslem insurgents.

The first of the recruits would arrive in Algiers at the beginning of next week. Dr. Chawki Mostefai, an Algerian National Liberation Front member of the Algerian Provisional Executive, told a press conference at Rocher Noir last night there must be massive action against the OAS

Dr. Chawki said: "Only a thorough checkerboard operation of the European sections of Algiers and Oran can give true results We think that if the French Government and the High Commission do what is necessary. there will be progress between now and two or three weeks' time." The Algiers Prefecture announced last night that the purchase, detention and carrying of arms were now forbidden in the Algiers area with the exception of hunting rifles and arms of nine millimetres calibre or less. Citizens were given until

May 19 to turn in any such weapons they now have or face the most rigorous penalties

Last night. Moslems in Algeria were told to observe the cease-fire agreements in spite of Secret Army Organisation attacks which killed at least 37 Moslems throughout the country yesterday.

The order was given by the Prime Minister of the Algerian Provisional Government iMr Ben Yusseff Ben Kheddai in a broadcast from Tunis relaved by all North African radio stations. Mr Ben Khedda said "mass murders” were continuing in Algeria “with the more or

less open complicity of certain French military authorities." It was up to France to give the Evian cease-fire agreements their full meaning

Mr Ben Khedda said: "The anger of our masses is rising. This situation cannot continue. The future of the Evian agreements and of future co-operation between Algeria and France is at stake." As he spoke, the death toll from violence in Algeria continued. On one road out of Algiers, O.A.S. gunmen shot dead four Moslem lorry drivers in five minutes. Scattered shooting incidents were also reported in Oran