Virtually every day there are reports of new massacres in Algeria. But in the latest development in that country, the government has resoundingly rejected the idea of an international inquiry into the killings, saying calls for such a move serve to weaken Algeria. On the other hand, the opposition Islamic Salvation Front would like to see it happen - and the pressure is mounting for some kind of external involvement to stop the carnage. Charles Haviland reports.

The latest spate of violence in Algeria is centred in the remote mountains in the north-west of the country. A week ago, more than 400 civilians were reported killed there in a single attack. Algerian newspapers this week said there were at least 160 more deaths in the region at the weekend, many of them women and children bludgeoned or burned to death. Thousands of people - in some cases, entire tribes - are now fleeing the area . Catherine Pardroux of the French paper Le Parisien visited the area and saw the horrible aftermath of one slaughter.

You enter the house and there is just blood everywhere. And you see a little baby's bottle which is covered with blood, and there is a small pool of blood because the baby has been killed there. And there is blood everywhere and everything in the houses has been destroyed. And the cattle, the animals, have been killed too.

More than 65,000 people have now been killed since Algeria's undeclared civil war began six years ago. Although the government blames Muslim militants for the attacks, it hasn't caught anyone in connection with them. The international community has now been voicing its concern. On Monday the United States said international investigators should be admitted to Algeria; the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights echoed the view on Tuesday; and Britain, which holds the European Union Presidency, said an EU diplomatic mission was possible. The British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook.

We are exploring with our partners the proposal that there might be a visit by a Troika from the European Union - Britain, Austria, Luxembourg - to visit Algeria and report back to foreign ministers. We are deeply concerned by the situation, and indeed it is very difficult to discuss human rights without recognising that fundamental right to life which is not being exercised in Algeria.

But the Algerian government has been quick to rebuff these moves. Algeria's Ambassador to France said they would weaken his country, while in Algiers itself, the US Ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry and told that any inquiry would "cast doubt" on who was carrying out the killings and might help to absolve the perpetrators. Jim Muir is the BBC's correspondent in the Middle East.

As far as the government is concerned, it is looking to the outside world simply for uncritical, unqualified support in what it regards as a struggle against terrorism. And any suggestion of an outside independent inquiry to get to the bottom of these massacres, which are a very murky affair, is totally rejected, and continues to be rejected by the government.

Although a militant group called the Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, has in the past said bombs and massacres are appropriate tools in its fight against the authorities, and is often blamed for such killings, there's increasing speculation that there may be some degree of complicity by the Algerian security forces. Jim Muir again.

There are strong suspicions that it's being, if not infiltrated, at least manipulated by part of the army or part of the authorities, basically in order to give the whole of the Islamic movement a bad name and to justify the existence of what is essentially a military-backed regime in Algiers which has suppressed a legitimate, democratic Islamic movement which would have won the last elections in '92.

That outlawed Islamic movement - the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) - has, like other Algerian opposition groups in Algeria, now come out in favour of international diplomacy playing a role. Its London representative, Jafaar Hawari, says the matter should be taken to the United Nations Security Council if necessary.

People have the right to be protected by the government. If they fail, they have no right to say no to any intervention to protect civilians - intervention of the international community to protect, as they have done in Bosnia.

What kind of intervention there might be is unclear. The government in Algiers opposes even the idea of a fact-finding mission . Humanitarian intervention might equally well be viewed as interference. Other courses of action would be drastic - military intervention, which raises the ghost of the Bosnian conflict, or even some kind of international boycott of Algerian energy if the government fails to shed more light on what's going on. That can hardly be likely at present. But the international community seems to have decided that, after six years, it can no longer simply sit back and do nothing. Its major problem is that the Algerian government wants to treat this as a purely domestic problem.
 

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