[The Germans also refused to apologise for almost wiping out one of the troublesome tribes in Namibia. And frankly, I don’t think Afrikaners, nor Rhodesians have to apologise for their actions either since history has proven that we were completely right and more than justified for our actions. I think our leaders in the past, including Verwoed and Ian Smith were actually reasonable and intelligent men who, if they had been left to rule, would have taken our respective countries forward in leaps and bounds instead of being the cesspools of filth and failure they now are. Jan]

ALGIERS, Algeria — France called for improved ties with Algeria but refused to take responsibility Wednesday for the deaths of thousands of people in an uprising against the French occupiers 60 years ago.

The violence apparently began during a celebration of the end of World War II on May 8, 1945, when demonstrators in the town of Setif unfurled an Algerian flag banned by the French. As police began confiscating the flags, the crowds turned on the French, killing about two dozen of them.

The uprising spread and the response by French colonial troops grew increasingly harsh in the weeks ahead, including bombardments of villages with a war ship. Algerians say some 45,000 people may have died. Figures in France put the number of Algerian dead at about 15,000 to 20,000.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Saturday compared French methods in the “massacres” to those used by Nazi Germany and asked France to make a “gesture … to erase this black stain.”

Bouteflika said his country had waited for years for France to acknowledge acts committed during its occupation. France ruled Algeria from 1830 until 1962 and finally left after a brutal seven-year war.

French Foreign Ministry’s secretary of state, Renaud Muselier, said here that the truth is still not known over what happened.

“The day that the truth is established by historians, we can qualify the facts,” Muselier, told reporters here. “But we must move forward with cooperation between the two countries.”

“Each of the two sides has its view of these events. For Algerians, it was a war of colonization and for the French it was a war.”

Paris and Algiers have been making a special push to improve ties and France reaffirmed Tuesday that it wants to conclude a friendship treaty with Algeria by year’s end.

In Paris, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said both sides must “examine and overcome the past, including the most painful pages of the colonial period and the war of Algeria.”

URL: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world…/p>