The Algeria Press Service and Kerry’s Remarks

Who’s telling the truth and who’s lying? A phrase spoken by John Kerry at the opening of the second session of the Algerian-U.S. strategic dialogue last Thursday created a storm that nearly carried away the Algeria Press Service. It’s all part of the “transparency of the electoral process” underway in our country, which supposedly “satisfied” the American secretary of state. The Algeria Press Service is retracting its original assessment. A flurry of other reports did not support such a “beautiful picture.”

Social networks wasted no time in taking their turn to cry “manipulation.” The APS tried to defend itself as having done its work in a professional manner, but to no avail. The deed was done, and nothing would have saved the organization if new information hadn’t come to light to support the Algerian press agency’s position.

The new information came in the form of a clarification from the United States ambassador, addressed to the APS Friday night. Yesterday, the APS published it in its entirety.

“Dear friends of the press … If you have already written articles based on the simultaneous interpretation, we hope that this information will allow you to make corrections,”* the U.S. Embassy writes.

We remind our readers that everything revolves around the English phrase spoken by John Kerry. According to APS, it was “We are satisfied to see that the presidential election process (of April 17th) is taking place transparently.” In fact, instead of calling this a sentence, one is tempted to label it a crime.

In his clarification, the American ambassador changed the phrase to the following: “We look forward to elections that are transparent and in line with international standards.” The verb “look forward to” has replaced “satisfy.” There’s no resemblance there, really, not even remotely. Except that luck sometimes favors the truth. This luck is found in the text of the American clarification.

Here, it’s a question of “erroneous reports on Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech” and not “erroneous transcription changes.” There is also this prediction: “If you have already written articles based on the simultaneous interpretation,” which confirms the origin of the “error.” This is followed by a second confirmation: “We hope that this information will allow you to make corrections.” And since you only correct errors, the circle is complete.*

After reviewing everything, the American ambassador recognized an error in the simultaneous translation of the American interpreters. If we add the time taken to send the clarification to the APS, from 11:55 a.m. on Thursday to Friday at 8 p.m., we can guess the extent of the confabulations, which the American ambassador needed to make in order to put together this “correction.” The icing on the cake is that the correction was not really a correction. What was corrected by writing “we look forward to elections that are transparent?” To say that the elections “are” (at present) transparent should be enough to “satisfy” everyone, except John Kerry. That said, beyond the editorial exercises and the purely official aspect of the event, the spirit of excellence in Algerian-American relations remains because it is based on multifaceted cooperation that is otherwise much more strategic than a simple word game.*

As for the APS, all that remains is for it to display this event like a trophy of the professionalism of its journalists. Our closing thoughts go past opponents who are eager to be “satisfied,” which is a sad shame. We, like all Algerians, will only be satisfied when Algeria wins. As it has!

*Editor’s note: These quotes could not be verified.