ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 25, 1996 TAG: 9605290026
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PARIS
SOURCE: Associated Press
Seven candles burned for weeks in Notre Dame Cathedral in silent vigil for seven French monks kidnapped in Algeria. Then their captors beheaded them - and the candles were snuffed out.
Stung by the brutality of the slayings of missionaries, some of them elderly, the French government on Friday denounced the Muslim militants who have been bloodying its former colony for the past four years.
The militants who said they severed the monks' heads earlier this week belong to the Armed Islamic Group - the same group that claimed responsibility for some of the terror bombings that killed eight people and wounded 160 others in France last year.
``These crimes will never be erased from our memories. And France's memory is long,'' Foreign Minister Herve de Charette said.
The slayings, which dominated French newspapers and TV on Friday, could damage the credibility of Algerian President Liamine Zeroual, who has sought to show he was controlling the militants.
It was not immediately clear how the slayings would affect French-Algerian relations, ties the militants have sought to damage. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yves Doutriaux said relations with Algeria remain ``close and constant.''
Algeria's insurgency began in January 1992, when the government canceled legislative elections that Islamic candidates were poised to win. More than 40,000 people have been killed.
France has urged French citizens to leave Algeria. About 2,000, mostly businessmen and diplomats, remain despite the slayings of at least 33 of their countrymen over the past four years.
The Foreign Ministry said it was still working to confirm the beheadings. De Charette, however, said the seven had ``without doubt been assassinated.''
``These are programmed, premeditated murders of men who lived their faith in poverty and a spirit of solidarity and sacrifice,'' Prime Minister Alain Juppe said Friday.
At the Vatican, Pope John Paul II condemned the killings and called religious violence ``a grave offense to God and man.'' In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said that if confirmed, ``those murders would be an especially heinous act of political violence.''
The Armed Islamic Group, the most violent of the factions trying to topple the Algerian government and install strict Islamic rule, claimed the killings in a communique delivered Thursday to a Moroccan radio station.
The extremist group said the seven Trappist clerics, kidnapped March 27 from their monastery in mountains about 40 miles south of Algiers, were beheaded Tuesday.
They said they killed the monks - aged 59 to 80 - because French officials refused to negotiate their release. Juppe responded angrily Friday, saying: ``You know that we never negotiate with terrorists.''
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