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Algeria
Ben Bella and the FLN
Whereas Ben Bella could count on the support of an overwhelming
majority in the National Assembly, an opposition group led by
Ait Ahmed soon emerged. Opponents outside the government included
the supporters of Messali Hadj, the PCA, and the left-wing Socialist
Revolution Party (Parti de la Révolution Socialiste--PRS) led
by Boudiaf. The communists, who were excluded from the FLN and
therefore from any direct political rule, were particularly influential
in the postindependence press. The activities of all these groups
were subsequently banned, and Boudiaf was arrested. When opposition
from the General Union of Algerian Workers (Union Générale des
Travailleurs Algériens--UGTA) was perceived, the trade union organization
was subsumed under FLN control.
Contrary to the intent of the Tripoli Program, Ben Bella saw
the FLN as an elite vanguard party that would mobilize popular
support for government policies and reinforce his increasingly
personal leadership of the country. Because Khider envisioned
the FLN as playing a more encompassing, advisory role, Ben Bella
forced him from office in April 1963 and replaced him as party
secretary general. Khider later absconded with the equivalent
of US$12 million in party funds into exile in Switzerland. In
August 1963, Abbas resigned as assembly president to protest what
he termed the FLN's usurpation of the legislature's authority.
He was subsequently put under house arrest. A new constitution
drawn up under close FLN supervision was approved by nationwide
referendum in September, and Ben Bella was confirmed as the party's
choice to lead the country for a five-year term. Under the new
constitution, Ben Bella as president combined the functions of
chief of state and head of government with that of supreme commander
of the armed forces. He formed his government without needing
legislative approval and was responsible for the definition and
direction of its policies. There was no effective institutional
check on its powers.
Ait Ahmed quit the National Assembly to protest the increasingly
dictatorial tendencies of the regime, which had reduced the functions
of the legislature to rubber-stamping presidential directives.
The Kabyle leaders also condemned the government for its failure
to carry through on reconstruction projects in war-ravaged Kabylie,
but Ait Ahmed's aims went beyond rectifying regional complaints.
He formed a clandestine resistance movement, the Front of Socialist
Forces (Front des Forces Socialistes--FFS), based in the Kabylie
and dedicated to overthrowing the Ben Bella regime by force. Late
summer 1963 saw sporadic incidents attributed to the FFS and required
the movement of regular troops into the Kabylie.
More serious fighting broke out a year later in the Kabylie as
well as in the southern Sahara. The insurgent movement was organized
by the National Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (Comité
National pour la Défense de la Révolution-- CNDR), which joined
the remnants of Ait Ahmed's FFS and Boudiaf's PRS with the surviving
regional military leaders. Khider was believed to have helped
finance the operation. The army moved quickly and in force to
crush the rebellion. Ait Ahmed and Colonel Mohamed Chabaani, a
wilaya commander leading insurgents in the Sahara, were
captured and sentenced to death in 1965, after a trial in which
Khider and Boudiaf were similarly condemned in absentia. Chabaani
was executed, but Ait Ahmed's sentence was subsequently commuted
to life imprisonment. In 1966 he escaped from prison and fled
to Europe where he joined the two other chefs historiques
in exile.
As minister of defense, Boumediene had no qualms about sending
the army to crush regional uprisings because he felt they posed
a threat to the state. However, when Ben Bella attempted to co-opt
allies from among some of the same regionalists whom the army
had been called out to suppress, tensions increased between Boumediene
and Ben Bella. In April 1965, Ben Bella issued orders to local
police prefects to report directly to him rather than through
normal channels in the Ministry of Interior. The minister, Ahmed
Medeghri, one of Boumediene's closest associates in the Oujda
Group, resigned his portfolio in protest and was replaced by a
Political Bureau loyalist. Ben Bella next sought to remove Abdelaziz
Bouteflika, another Boumediene confidant, as minister of foreign
affairs and was believed to be planning a direct confrontation
with Boumediene to force his ouster. On June 19, however, Boumediene
deposed Ben Bella in a military coup d'état that was both swift
and bloodless. The ousted president was taken into custody and
held incommunicado.
Data as of December 1993
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