Algerian anti-colonial doctor Pierre Chaulet dies

Pierre Chaulet, a militant anti-colonial doctor who worked for the National Liberation Front in Algeria’s war of independence and played a key role in eradicating tuberculosis in the country, has died aged 82.He died after a long battle with stomach cancer.Born on March 27, 1930, of French origin, Chaulet joined the battle against French colonial rule, carrying out secret operations with FLN fighters during the war, under the command of revolutionary leader Abane Ramdane.He was exiled to France during the war.But along with his wife Claudine, who was equally committed to the independence cause, he managed to rejoin the FLN in Tunisia, where he continued his resistance activities as a doctor and journalist, writing for the party paper El-Moudjahid. They eventually became sociology professors at the University of Algiers.He worked as a teacher and medical professor between 1967 and 1994, and from 1981 for the World Health Organisation as an expert on tuberculosis, after gaining prominence for his success in helping eradicate the disease in Algeria.In the 1990s, during the “black decade,” when an Islamist insurgency and its repression brought the country to its knees, Chaulet was elected vice president of the National Observatory for Human Rights and headed the government’s health programme for two years.