Algerian legal expert: France has to compensate the nucler tests' victims

On the anniversary of the French nuclear tests in the Algerian desert, “Echorouk” interviewed the person in charge of this file, the expert Azeddine Zeghlani in a move to know the latest update concerning the compensations for the victims and the appropriate legal means to make an end to this crime against humanity.

• Q: Various media and political sources recently hinted to the readiness of the French authorities to give compensations for the Algerian victims of the French nuclear tests, what’s new about issue?
• A: Actually, these are pure allegations and the news is unsound for different reasons. The most important one is that the French defence minister talked about a “draft bill” to be presented to the parliament and talked evasively about the nuclear tests in the Algeria desert and eventually about compensations for the civil and military victims who took part to them. But he never mentioned neither the Algerian victims nor the downfalls of these radiations on the environment for thousand years to come over thousand squares kilometres. It’s nothing but a draft bill that will take a long time for discussions it can be passed, changed or simply rejected. One essential thing is that the project didn’t reach consensus among the French associations of the victims of nuclear tests in the great desert and Polynesia, in the Pacific Ocean. 
• Q: We understand that the victims are not only Algerians but there are also French ones?
• A: According to estimates released by the French defence ministry, some 150.000 French military and civilians took part to these tests among them there are dozens of French veterans are suffering illnesses caused by radiations. These victims started calling on the French defence ministry for compensation. But generally the French authorities denied this right for the lack of a clear correlation between their illnesses and the tests.
• Q: You mean that the number among the Algerian victims is not that important, so where does catastrophe lie in order to ask for compensations?
• A: It seems that the inhabitants of the Algerian desert are all contaminated and even those living in the northern parts of the country due to the desert encroachment phenomenon. The number of the victims is important because the tests were very powerful leading to the a wide-scale radiation similar to “Beryl” test in Tamangahsset (extreme south of Algeria) where smoke and radiated clouds crossed the Libyan borders.
• Q: Is it reasonable to talk about compensations without prior census of the victims?
• A: Responsibility in this catastrophe must be recognized, but the Algerian authorities mustn’t ask the Algerian living victims to sue the French authorities individually, because simply they do not posses the required legal document and evidences about the correlation between their illnesses and the tests.
• Q: To sum up , do you think that the French law due to be passed will cover the Algerian victims in the nuclear tests?
• A: For the time being, and on the basis of the projects presented for studies, the draft bill mentions “civilians” and “soldiers” who were present on the tests areas or performed the tests only, which means that the law excludes the inhabitants who lived in the immediate neighbourhoods and the nomads.
• Q: What can be the nature of the compensations?
• A: There are moral, materials and preventive ones, the Algerian authorities have to take in charge materially the victims as a first step and ask them in return from their French counterparts. The French side has the required tools to diagnose the nature of diseases in the Algerian desert and is responsible for this situation because it performed nuclear tests in the Algerian desert and Polynesia that allowed it to become a nuclear power at the expense of innocent civilians.