From Roman Cantonnement to French Regroupment Camps: A Historical Approach to the Concentration of the Musulami Tribes (1st–2nd Centuries AD) and the Forced Relocation of the Inhabitants of Ouled Tebban (16 June 1958)

Abstract

This study deconstructs and comparatively examines the mechanisms of forced displacement and compulsory regroupment—including regroupment camps and concentration policies—in Algeria during the periods of Roman and French occupation. Particular attention is devoted to the cantonnement policy implemented against the Musulami tribes of the Aurès and to the French policy of forbidden zones imposed on the Ouled Tebban tribal community, culminating in their forced relocation to the Bazer Sakhra regroupment camp in mid-June 1958. The study seeks to expose and critically dismantle the façade of false “civilization” invoked by both occupying powers to justify the uprooting of indigenous populations from their land. It takes the Roman policy of confinement and encirclement imposed on the Musulami tribes as a historical foundation for understanding the origins of such practices. At the empirical level, particular emphasis is placed on the tragedy endured by the Ouled Tebban tribal community and their forced confinement in the Bazer Sakhra death camp, as a modern example illustrating the military apparatus’s reproduction of the logic of the ancient limes. The study also examines the use of scorched-earth tactics and punitive starvation as instruments of demographic devastation and social destruction, practices that constitute war crimes not subject to any statute of limitations.