Tayeb Zitouni: “We’ll Not Give Up Demanding Rights, Compensation For The French Colonialism Victims”

Algeria remains attached to its rights according to the mechanisms that have been created such as forming joint working groups between the French and the Algerian sides to study and settle files related to the national memory within its specified framework, the Minister of the Mujahideen (war veterans), Tayeb Zitouni, told APS on the eve of the commemoration of the Immigration Day corresponding to the 59th anniversary of the demonstrations of October 17, 1961.

Tayeb Zitouni reiterated to the Algerian Press Agency that the memory file is subject to continuous follow-up by the Ministry of the Mujahideen (war veterans), especially concerning the files that were the focus of attention of the joint committees between the Algerian and French parties, including the file of retrieving the skulls of the martyrs that noticed remarkable progress. Especially after Algeria recovered, on the eve of the Independence Day celebration of July 5, 2020, the skulls and remains of 24 martyrs of the popular resistance after the intervention of the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and asserted that the process is continuing until the skulls of the Algerian martyrs who are in France are recovered.

“Processing the memory files takes place through the established diplomatic channels, with the participation of all concerned sectors and bodies”.

In this regard, he indicated that his ministerial sector “will spare no effort to settle all these files within the framework of its tasks of preserving and protecting the dignity of the symbols, heroes and exploits of the popular resistance, the national movement and the national liberation revolution, ensuring the transition to the younger generations, preserving the rights of victims of French colonialism and compensating them for damages that befell them and their families, and exposing the crimes of this colonialism that affected the environment and the human being, to document historical facts, so that we do not forget.”

As for the files of the French nuclear explosions in the Algerian Sahara, the missing and the exiled, they are files that – according to the Minister of the Mujahideen – need to be “researched and studied” from all sides, referring to the effort to set up specialized committees at the level of the National Center for Studies and Research in the National Movement and the revolution of the first of November 1954, which includes an elite team of specialists and researchers.

“These files are subject to follow-up and coordination between all concerned sectors, which operate within the framework of joint committees between the Algerian and French parties.”

“These files are linked to the recovery of the archives related to the popular resistance, the national movement and the national liberation revolution, and to allow researchers and specialists to view it.”

“Algeria always expresses, through its wise diplomacy, the official position in this regard, in the context of interaction with the present within the requirements of cooperation and the mutual respect, and in this, it also takes into account the supreme national interests without prejudice to the strategic relationships with France.”