Unauthorized murders were treated as acts of war.

Evidence

Secrecy attracts people who like to get away with things. … Secrecy enables war’s infinite series of atrocities, some small, some huge. — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 233 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

At an early stage in the revolution it became a customary initiation ritual for a new recruit to be made to kill a designated “traitor”, mouchard (police spy or informer), French gendarme officer or colonialist, in the company of a “shadow” who would dispatch the recruit himself should he show any sign of flinching. Admitting this policy in an interview in a Yugoslav journal, Krim stated: “An assassination marks the end of the apprenticeship of each candidate for the A.L.N.” Through this “passingout ceremony” the apprentice became both proven in reliability and bound, Faust-like, to the rebel cause by his act of outlawry. In their actual techniques of liquidation F.L.N. operatives consciously endeavoured to achieve the gruesome, pour épater les bourgeois, or an act of ridicule—to belittle the dead man. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 416 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Secrecy in warfare enables atrocities on various scales. — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 233; War’s immunity from murder prosecutions rests on mutual reciprocity; War-waging sovereignty historically treated subjects as owned livestock that sovereigns may slaughter. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 571 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Secrecy in warfare enables atrocities on various scales. #corroborates (0.78) — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 233
• Forcing recruits to kill bound them to the F.L.N. through outlawry #exemplifies (0.75) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 416
• Right to kill depends on readiness to expose own soldiers #corroborates (0.75)
• War’s immunity from murder prosecutions rests on mutual reciprocity #corroborates (0.72)
• War-waging sovereignty historically treated subjects as owned livestock that sovereigns may slaughter. #expands (0.72) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 571