Algeria alarmed by French alert

Press, 1 November 1977, Page 8

Algeria alarmed by French alert

NZPA Algiers Algeria has complained to members of the United Nations Security Council that France is threatening to carry out a military raid to free French nationals kidnapped in the Western Sahara. Six French workers disappeared in northern Mauritania in May and two more went missing last week, all reportedly abducted by the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, fighting for the independence of the Western Sahara.

On Sunday the ambassadors of the United States Britain, the Soviet Union, and China were summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Algiers and told that France’s threats of military intervention were a danger to international peace.

The French Ambassador — France is the fifth permanent member of the Security Council — was not present, but later had a private meeting with President Houari Boumedienne. Algeria’s move was apparently intended to confine the dispute to the field of diplomacy, as a precaution against rumblings of French military action. French “intervention” units were placed on alert at the weekend.

Mr Guy de Commines, the French envoy, who returned

to Algiers late on Saturday from consultations in Paris with President Valery Giscard d’Estaing of France, handed over a message to the Algerian leader at theie hour-long meeting.

Mr de Commines said in an Algerian radio interview later that their talks had been frank and very friendly. Algeria had previously warned France against military action in the Sahara region, and has not hidden its displeasure at the supply of French arms to Morocco and Mauritania, the two countries that partitioned the Western Sahara in 1975 after Spain ceded control. The Government press in Algeria has several times accused the French of supporting Mauritania and Morocco in their fight against Polisario.

The . French-language newspaper, “El “ Moudjahid,” reported at the week-end that the French Government told President Mokhtar Ould Daddah of Mauritania two months ago that ft was prepared to intervene if the Moroccan and Mauritanian authorities asked.

The Algerians, at arty rate, seem to have wanted tn point out their views to the permanent members of the Security Council, whatever assurances President Boumedienne was later to receive from Paris.