Physical Address
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In the mirror of his experience, professional memories jostle. Starting with the “memories” of the “baptism of fire” years, those of his beginnings under the ENTV banner. Belkacem Djaafria’s memory remembers it as if it were yesterday.
His professional career is marked by good points. Whether it concerns “news” topics, reports for the needs of news and information broadcasts or thematic documentaries, the counter of “works” signed by him has always been running at full speed. “He is a journalist with constant perseverance. Above all, he is passionate about the history of the national movement and the war of liberation,” testifies to his credit his first director of information, Ammar Bakhouche.
Belkacem Djaafria is a history buff. Unlike many of his peers who became passionate about these subjects once their careers were launched, the native of Sedrata was already prepared for them. He loved history before crossing the gate at 21, bd des Martyrs in 1990.
Between the ages of 15 and 18, he was an insatiable reader of books and texts on the War of Independence. Furthermore, his interest in these subjects was nourished by the revolutionary past of his birthplace. Indeed, the name of Sedrata resonates in history as a nationalist bastion which, among other figures, gave birth to two officers of the ALN and the ANP: Colonel Said Abid and Commander Salah Soufi, whose real name is Salah Bendidi.
When ENTV broadcast – with the success that we know – Aux sources de Novembre, the series of documentary films by Djelloul Haya, Belkacem Djaafria was not yet hard at work at 21, bd des Martyrs. He will be in December 1990. “It was I who recruited him and it was I who submitted him to the selection test. From the outset, I detected in him a fertile ambition and a desire to succeed,” recalls Ammar Bakhouche.
Assigned to the international section, Belkacem Djaafria will quickly be caught up in his favorite subject. In 1993, back for the second time at the head of Television, the late Abdou B. wanted to continue the work started during his first stint at “21”.
On the eve of the 39th anniversary of November 1, Ammar Bakhouche commissioned Belkacem Djaafria to paint a portrait of Krim Belkacem, member of the Committee of Six, head of Zone III, vice-president of the GPRA, member of the interministerial war committee and head of the Algerian delegation to the Evian negotiations.
In consultation with Abdou B., the information director sets his sights on the journalist whose interest in historical subjects he knows.
At first, Belkacem Djaafria seems reluctant, and for good reason! If it’s a question of drawing a portrait without saying that Krim was assassinated, we might as well give up. This did not escape Ammar Bakhouche. “You write your subject as you feel and professionally. You portray Krim Belkacem as he was tested by the facts.”
The information director validates the text without touching it. In the evening, viewers discover a four-minute portrait on the news. For the first time, ENTV discusses the assassination of Krim Belkacem. The journalist concludes his portrait in these terms: “Algeria will always remember the name who initialed – in its name – the Evian Accords on March 18, 1962”, crowning the liberating fight with independence and regained freedom. The subject had great resonance.
A few weeks later, on December 27, 1993, ENTV wanted to be there for the commemoration of the 36th anniversary of the death of Abane Ramdane (December 27, 1957). Obviously, it is out of the question in the eyes of Abdou B.’s ENTV to remake the front page of the newspaper El Moudjahid (number 24 dated May 29, 1958): “Abane Ramdane has fallen on the field of honor.” For Ammar Bakhouche, the author of the portrait of Krim is ideally suited to sign the subject Abane called to appear on the 8 p.m. news. Belkacem Djaafria tells the story with a focus on the fateful journey from Tunis to Tetouan via Spain.
The fall of the text is like that of the portrait on Krim. Poignant and painful: “The son of Azouza – the native face of Abane – will remain a wound in the memory of the Revolution. » In the space of eight weeks, Algerian Television signed two stories on nationalist figures from the pen of a young 34-year-old journalist. Two leaders of the Revolution whose assassinations have long been hidden in the news and other programs. Thanks to a treatment that reversed the previous treatment, the two subjects got talking.
From viewers to media critics, including the political class, all welcomed a break in the narration of two episodes that had long been victims of the lead screed.
From “news” subject to report, Belkacem Djaafria continues on his merry way, driven more than ever by his passion for the themes of the war of national liberation. At the dawn of the 2000s, he tackled a subject on ”those who said no to the Algerian war”, deserters and French rebels. Once is not customary, it will not be a subject of a handful of minutes intended for the news but a documentary film programmed as part of the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Evian Accords and the proclamation of the ceasefire.
Inspired, Belkacem Djaafria and ENTV titled the film We were called the deserters, a title that echoes We were called fellaghas, the first book by Commander Azzedine (Stock editions, 1976). Intended as a ”tribute” to the French who helped the war of independence – deserters, rebels, conscientious objectors – the film gave voice to nine deserters including Noël Favrelière, a paratrooper who deserted with weapon and baggage after freeing a mujahid prisoner.
Belkacem Djaafria also collected the confessions of Jean-Claude Giradin, André Gazut, Michel Bauzut, Louis Orhant and other resisters of the Algerian war. Broadcast on the National Channel and Canal Algérie, We were called the deserters was the subject of an AFP dispatch, which helped give it additional resonance abroad. The next day, France 3 in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region invited Djaafria to talk about his film and his interviews with the deserters.
Another highlight of Belkacem Djaafria’s work in the register of history and memory, a well-documented film on the ”Yugoslav network” of support for the war of liberation. A magnificent close-up of Stevan Labudovic (1926-2017), better known as the ‘cameraman of the Revolution’.
It was Belkacem Djaafria who had the idea for this film and suggested it to the management of ENTV. The result of twenty-day filming in the Balkans, directed by Ali Fateh Ayadi, The Witness Eye. The Yugoslav Network – a title signed by Ayadi – lifts the veil on the aid of Labudovic and the Yugoslavs to Algeria in struggle. Belkacem Djaafria also credited Algerian Television and the memory of the war of liberation with other documentaries including “Swiss intellectuals: the feathers of freedom” and “The Aïn S’fa farm”, a torture center in the Tissemsilt region.
Product of the Institute of Political Sciences and Information – promotion 1982-1986 – alongside another history enthusiast, Mustapha Aït-Mouhoub, Belkacem Djaafria cannot resist the urge to express a moving and grateful thought to the late Abderrahim Taleb Bendiab (1937-1992). Historian, teacher at the Institute, “it was he who made me love History. I owe him a lot and I can never thank him enough.”