Abdelkrim Ghrieb. Médersien, former president of the Association of Algerians in Europe, former ambassador
“In 1981 the Americans nominated Algeria for the Nobel Prize”
“Injustice is never found in unequal rights, it is found in the pretense of equal rights.” Nietzsche
Sometimes we do not feel enough the weight of history that the news continually weighs on us. Today, I want to tell you the story of a man, a former diplomat, who called on his memory to tell us about the crisis that erupted between
Washington and Tehran on November 4, 1979. And ended on January 20, 1981. Forty years have passed.
Today marks the 41st anniversary of this event that grabbed the headlines and held the world spellbound. Our man, Abdelkrim Ghrieb, was at that time stationed in Tehran as Ambassador.
As of the above date, 400 Islamic students had stormed the US embassy in Tehran and kidnapped its diplomatic staff, made up of 52 Americans.
Iranian Prime Minister Ali Reza Benzargan headed a large delegation in Algiers to attend the celebration of the November 1 commemorations. As soon as the news arrived, the Americans contacted me. I took the plane and returned to Tehran.
The students demanded to see me in the embassy under siege. I refused, without cutting ties. Benyahia told me to be careful, not to get too involved in this matter and to maintain neutrality.
Nevertheless, and as a sign of appeasement, as our religion teaches us, and with the approach of the Christian holiday of Christmas, I suggested to them that Monsignor Duval come to celebrate Christmas mass with the hostages.
I met with a firm refusal, as they said they did not trust anyone, including the religious. I gave them guarantees, so that the ecclesiastic would come at the invitation of Algeria.
They ended up agreeing. Duval left everything in Algiers, his guests from France, even his pressing business, to be present in the Iranian capital with the detainees with whom he celebrated the ceremony. Then he debated at length with Ayatollah Montazeri.
Difficult mission in Tehran
Indirect negotiations with the Americans were obtained from the Iranians, through Algeria, without the two parties meeting.
Moreover, the Americans have sent their representative to Switzerland to represent them. With the happy outcome, thanks to Algeria, our country was nominated for the Nobel Prize, in a petition signed by the American president and dozens of American luminaries. Proudly, I sent a message to our minister which he did not reply to.
When I came to Algiers, I questioned Benyahia about this, he told me that he had not received anything. In fact, he intentionally forgot the message. No doubt he had anticipated the consequences of the ambivalent attitude, just in case … I got his message. On the one hand, we castigate American imperialism and, on the other, we give in to its intentions towards us, however generous they may be.
In this specific case, you have to be consistent with yourself, this was the hidden message of the formidable strategist, Benyahia, who escaped him narrowly on May 30, 1981, when his aircraft crashed near Bamako. , where he planned a technical stopover, before reaching Freetown, where the wise men of the OAU were to discuss the conflicts in Western Sahara and Chad and prepare for the Nairobi summit. He did it miraculously.
He was believed to be dead, the flags had been half-masted and the Algerian radio programs replaced by the reading of verses from the Koran.
Iran changes status
A few months earlier, in February 1979, the Carter administration faced the new Khomeini Republic, which had driven out the Shah, strongly supported, throughout his reign by the Americans. Tehran had demanded his extradition to stand trial, but to no avail.
It is the American refusal, in addition to the drawing of the borders, which is at the origin of the crisis and the Iranian anger. The American representation will be besieged from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, when the hostages regained their freedom, thanks to the efforts of Algeria and the mastery of its diplomacy, led by the late Mohamed Seddik Benyahia and his team, including If Abdelkrim.
An endearing, calm man who takes the time to remember and display, for us, the voluminous personal archives.
But who, beyond his job, does not seem to neglect other areas of life, including football, and do not believe that he is a neophyte, in any case, he is surely not one of those who think that playing outdoors means playing in the open, even if he has spent most of his life outdoors! Abdelkrim was born on July 30, 1935 in Tébessa, into a well-known revolutionary family.
There he went to primary school, secondary school, and then the successful entrance examination to the Madrasah of Constantine, which he had to leave due to the student strike, which he joined with his comrades. Before joining the ALN, not far from his hometown of Tébessa, on the border with Tunisia, through which he brought new arrivals who had come to replenish the ranks of the Algerian army.
One day, I was arrested by the gendarmes, along with members of the Sayada family, whose brother was wanted. The people who denounced me were in Meskiana, where we were moved for the confrontation. We were thrown into dirty, cold cubicles.
The next day, we were interrogated, before being banned and deported to the mixed commune of Oued Souf, a military zone.
Twice a week, we were required to mark our presence at the police station. As I graduated, I was appointed as a history and Arabic teacher on a precarious and revocable basis.
Despite the amnesty decreed by de Gaulle in 1958, I could go anywhere except Tébessa. I chose to settle in Algiers, where I completed my degrees in humanities and political science, in addition to my enrollment at the Institute of Islamic Studies, which is the continuation of the Madrasah.
To survive, I taught at Douéra, then at Guillemin High School until independence. But before, in December 1960, I took part in the demonstrations, from La Casbah, with a student from that neighborhood, who will become my wife. We made a rally for the burial of the chouhada at the cemetery of El Kettar, at the exit of which we were embarked in a truck by the soldiers, and taken to the barracks of Orleans, where we were thrown into a cellar.
In March 1962, I returned to Tébessa to head the commission responsible for managing the ceasefire, with Kouch Younès, a communist intellectual, who spent a good part of his life in prison. It was in this capacity that I welcomed Ferhat Abbas, who was returning from Tunisia by road.
On my return to Algiers, I was appointed to the Hassiba Ben Bouali high school, then director of the Mustapha hospital, which I left quite quickly. With the advent of the National Assembly, and as I knew the majority of the leaders of the liberation struggle, my name was proposed to Ferhat Abbas, who appointed me as head of a department of the institution. I was there for two years.
After June 19, 1965, Boumediène asked me to go on a mission to France, within the Amicale des Algerens en Europe, alongside Mahmoud Guennez, for our emigration and to feel the pulse of the French political class, that was hostile to us. Guennez, appointed Minister of the Mojahedin, I took charge of the Amicale until Boumediène’s death in 1978. After that date, I could not continue, but my hand was forced.
After two months, the Revolution is underway in Iran and Khomeini is its supreme leader. Among the heads of delegation who came to congratulate him, on the occasion of the first anniversary of this upheaval, the representative of Chadli, Minister Mouloud Kacem, who certainly did not expect Khomeini to ask him for my news, even going as far as ‘to call on the Algerian state “for Abdelkrim to come and work here and give a hand to the Revolution”. On his return, Mouloud Kacem informed President Chadli who contacted Benyahia.
This one had this reaction: “How does it work at home? Abdelkrim is going to work at the new Algerian embassy that we are going to open and he will represent his country there, “insisted the incomparable head of diplomacy. Many wonder, and rightly so, what brings Abdelkrim closer to Khomeini?
Khomeini, Kotb Zada and the others …
Even at an advanced age, Abdelkrim’s scrutinizing eyes have not lost their sparkling liveliness. His distant gaze will hunt in the early seventies: “The Iranians, I helped them in France long before Khomeini arrived. I was in contact with Kotb Zada and Beni Sadr who best embodied opposition to the Shah. They will become respectively Minister of Foreign Affairs and President. I showed them Algeria’s sympathy and support for their movement.
When Khomeini came, I paid him visits to Neauphfle-le-Château where he was staying. But I must say that at the beginning, Giscard and France were not very enthusiastic to receive it, the Shah having made play its alliances. Beni Sadr and Kotb Zada came to see me to tell me about the French opposition.
Only Algeria could welcome him, it was supposed here and there, because the old imam had to leave Iraq. I contacted Algiers to inform them of this new situation. As President Boumediène was ill, my interlocutors remained in the “neither yes nor no”.
Finally, the cornered Shah and realizing that his fate is indeed sealed, ended up giving up and arranged with Giscard that his services keep a very close watch on the famous newcomer, whom I often went to see. Khomeini speaks perfect Arabic. He told me he did not distinguish Islam from Arabism. He appreciated our position of neutrality. And the negotiations were carried out at the behest of Saddam, who couldn’t take it anymore.
Obviously, this war, with its certainties, its renouncements and its about-faces, Abdelkrim had, too, to suffer as well as the arbitrators, in this case the Algerian mediators, in the war which opposed the Iraqis and Iranians (July 1980 / August 1988) which will kill 800,000 people. Saddam’s attack is motivated for two reasons: the demarcation of the border between Iraq and Iran and the threat the Iranian revolution poses to Saddam who fears Shiite contagion.
Unexpectedly, Saddam was the first to ask us to negotiate. I then contacted Khamenei, the current Supreme Guide, whom I knew when he was Minister of Foreign Affairs, to tell him that there are steps, that we are being asked on both sides to put an end to this conflict, of which the two peoples are the first victims.
Khamenei sent me the 5 conditions of the Majliss echoura, one of which was unworkable, namely the departure from power of Saddam. We replied that it is for his people to decide.
At that time, Benyahia was one of the presidential delegation making an official visit to Asia, after which it returned to Algiers, to celebrate the festivities of May 1, 1982.
Immediately after, Benyahia made his first official visit to Iran, as part of Algeria’s proposed mediation efforts on April 7, in an attempt to end the Gulf War. His Grumman 2 plane stopped in Jeddah and was due to reach Tehran.
On May 3, 1982, at Tehran Airport, Vilayati, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and members of the diplomatic corps were waiting with us for the arrival of the plane. As the wait was long, the minister made contacts.
We have seen attacks on the Turkish-Iranian border. The plane was forced to turn back towards Damascus. We expect him the next day.
That night, Velayati invites me to the ministry to take stock. He asks me to contact Damascus where our ambassador, the late Abdelkader Bensalah, informed, rushes to the airport, where he sees the presence of a Grumman, but Libyan. Very late, Velayati summons the ambassadors from Syria, Turkey and the USSR in the hope of locating the plane.
First info. A body, that of the hostess, was discovered in a remote area known as Qottour, 10 km from the Iranian-Turkish border. By night, I have driven hundreds of kilometers in the interior of the country. The body was found and it was concluded that the plane was shot down. Iranian TV will confirm this, specifying that the Grumman was chased by two Iraqi hunters.
The whole delegation perished. Including many ministry officials and our colleague from APS Aït Kaci, may God have their souls. Benyahia, decidedly pursued by bad luck, with his companions, martyrs of duty, leave us in dramatic conditions. He was 50 years old.
