The combatants in Algeria's six-year civil war long ago passed the threshold of absolute horror. In the early stages of the war, "Islamist" guerrillas shot their victims.
Then they started slashing throats. Bullets were too expensive and it was like sacrificing a lamb to God, a guerrilla from the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS) told me in 1996.
After the throat slashings came decapitation.
For their part, torturers from the security forces inflict their own reign of terror, with electric drills and blow torches applied to the bodies of suspected "terrorists".
The massacres of 1997 were so ghoulish, and so frequent, that we grew used to them. By multiplying the scale of the slaughter, the killers again caught the world's attention.
And because the security forces stayed in their barracks a few hundred metres away while massacres occurred, there were allegations that the government was involved.
Yet calls for an international inquiry into the killings met with the immediate and ice-cold refusal of Algiers.
Then, just as Europe was completing its New Year festivities, Algeria came back to shock us. More than 400 people were massacred in the villages of Kherarba, Ouled Sahnine, El Abadel and Ouled Tayeb on the night of December 30th. It was the worst massacre of the war.
Survivors told how men carrying walkie-talkies and pick-axes broke down doors and jumped over walls before herding whole families into "killing rooms" where they slashed their throats or hacked them to death.
The slaughter - in which babies' heads were smashed against concrete walls - lasted for seven hours.
The massacre, near the western Algerian town of Relizane, differed from other recent atrocities only in scale; more than 850 Algerians have been murdered in similar circumstances in the past two weeks. That wholesale killing of Algerian civilians continues less than two hours' flying time from Paris is both a humiliation and a danger for the EU.
But when the German Foreign Minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel, made a careful offer of "co-operation in the struggle against terrorism . . . and aid to victims of terror", it must have been music to the ears of the generals in Algiers, who want the world to believe the civil war is a simple "war against terrorism".
Incredibly, the most sympathetic words for the military regime have come from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, in midDecember. The time had come for outsiders to stop condemning Algeria from afar, Mr Andrews said, failing to mention that Algerian security services have earned one of the world's worst reputations for human rights abuses.
He praised President Liamine Zeroual, a retired army general, as "a fine man, dedicated, a strong decent man interested in the future of Algeria".
Mr Andrews related the Algerian foreign minister's view that "most, if not all" of the problems in Algeria were caused by religious fundamentalism, and the government's "hands were clean".
Cynics might ask whether Irish exports totalling £33 million last year had something to do with Mr Andrew's admiration for Mr Zeroual.
Ironically, the only criticism levelled at the regime in the wake of the Relizane massacre came from the Algerian press.
Liberte, the newspaper which broke the story, was so afraid of the wrath of the censors that it buried the record death toll of 412 at the bottom of page 2.
But by yesterday Algerian journalists had turned their frustration on the authorities, who have made no statements about the massacre other than to claim that "only" 78 people died, a figure no Algerian believed.
Throughout the war, the Algerian government has failed to speak to its own people, other than to repeat endlessly that "terrorism" was almost vanquished.
But the regime must be thankful that this time no one accused it of committing the massacre.
In a statement issued in Bonn, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) called the killings a "crime against humanity", but did not name a guilty party.
The region of western Algeria where the massacre took place is the stronghold of the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), the armed wing of the FIS, and in recent years inhabitants saw more AIS guerrillas than government soldiers.
The AIS declared a ceasefire in its war on the government in October, about the same time the more extreme Armed Islamic Group (GIA) massacred 40 civilians at Sig, western Algeria.
They were moving into the west, GIA leaflets warned residents of the region. So the GIA is believed to have carried out the Relizane massacre to "punish" villagers for their loyalty to the AIS.
In the meantime, the government has again proved its inability - or unwillingness - to protect its own citizens. Just a few weeks ago, Gen Kamel Abderahmane, the commander of the western Algeria military region, warned residents of the Relizane area to form pro-government militias.
"People must either arm or take refuge in towns," he said. "The state does not have the means to put a soldier in front of every house".
The Relizane massacre took place on the first day of Ramadan, the holiest month of the Muslim calendar, when the Prophet Muhammad is supposed to have received the Koran from God.
Both the AIS and GIA have said in the past that Ramadan was the period of the greatest battles of the Prophet, and that they proved their "exaltation of sacrifice", faith and determination by stepping up attacks. If a Muslim died fighting during Ramadan, he would go more quickly to paradise, they added. But it is hard to see how butchering civilians can be construed as "holy war".
No major attacks have been staged in the capital since early autumn, and intelligence services fear a spectacular operation, either a bombing or a massacre, in Algiers this month.
The large number of faux barrages or fake checkpoints set up by the rebels is a sure sign that the armed groups have increased their activity. Meanwhile, the government is silent, and the Europeans wring their hands.