Therefore, I would be indebted to you if you would instruct the appropriate department to amend the list of victims to reflect my parents’ actual names, and forward an official copy to me. Failing which, I will be forced to consider my parents as missing and take all necessary measures to locate them, specifically to lodge a legal action with all relevant Algerian, French and German authorities, and with the International Court of Justice. You will understand that I am within my rights to wonder whether the Algerian government is involved in their murder, and that the official list is proof of that involvement, or at least evidence that it has something to hide concerning my parents. Should you decide that correcting the list is impossible, I would be grateful if you could inform me of your reasons. I can understand that force of circumstance may prevail.

I would like to take this opportunity to ask what progress has been made in the search to find and arrest the perpetrators of this heinous crime and bring them to justice. Fifteen months have now elapsed and to date, no information on the progress of the investigation has been offered to the public or to the relatives of the victims. If needs be, I am prepared to take legal action to compel your answer and to prove that you are involved in an attempt to suppress the truth.

Yours most sincerely.

It’s too late. I’ve already posted the letter, but when I reread it now, I feel ashamed – it is conciliatory. Because I was writing to a minister, I stupidly adopted the attitude of the petitioner – unassuming, patient, a good citizen aware that the Bonzen have so many demands on their time, so many requests, so many official commitments. I find it humiliating that victims are always forced to ask, to plead, to wait. It’s intolerable.

When the time comes to send a reminder, I’ll express myself as a victim should: demand, insist, refuse to tolerate evasion, pre-empt equivocation. These people are there to serve us, not the reverse.

Malrich’s Diary - 15 December 1996

Malrich’s Diary

15 December 1996