Ben Bella, Ahmed

Ben Bella, Ahmed
born Dec. 25, 1918?, Maghnia, Alg.

First elected president of Algeria.

After a French education, he entered the French army and was decorated during World War II (1939–45). After the war he took up arms to fight French rule. In 1954 he helped found the National Liberation Front (FLN) and became its political leader. He was imprisoned (1956–62) while the FLN fought for Algerian independence. He took control of the FLN's Political Bureau after his release and was elected president in 1963. He was deposed in a coup in 1965 and imprisoned until 1980. Thereafter he spent 10 years in exile, returning to Algeria in 1990. See also Mohamed Boudiaf; Houari Boumedienne.

* * *

▪ president of Algeria
born Dec. 25, 1918?, Maghnia [Marnia], Alg.

      principal leader of the Algerian War of Independence against France, the first prime minister (1962–63) and first elected president (1963–65) of the Algerian republic, who steered his country toward a socialist economy.

      Ben Bella was the son of a farmer and small businessman in Maghnia in the département of Oran. There, he successfully completed his early studies at the French school and continued his education in the neighbouring city of Tlemcen, where he first became aware of racial discrimination and also mingled with the fringes of the nationalist movement.

      He was conscripted into the French army in 1937, served in World War II, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre (1940) and the Médaille Militaire (1944). On his return to Maghnia, Ben Bella resumed his nationalist activities, refusing to be intimidated by the French authorities' confiscation of his farm. He left Maghnia, joined Messali Hadj's (Messali Hadj, Ahmed) underground movement, and soon became one of the “Young Turks” who, after the rigged election of Gov. Marcel-Edmond Naegelen (1948), considered illusory any hope of achieving independence democratically. With associates in Messali Hadj's party, Ben Bella founded the Organisation Spéciale (OS), a paramilitary organization whose aim was to take up arms as quickly as possible.

      After robbing the post office at Oran (1950) to obtain funds for the nationalist movement, Ben Bella was sentenced to prison, but he managed to escape after serving only two years of his term. He went underground again and moved to Egypt, where he was promised help by the revolutionary supporters of Gamal Abdel Nasser (Nasser, Gamal Abdel).

      In November 1954 Ben Bella and the Algerian émigré leaders resident in Egypt, who had met secretly in Switzerland with those leaders who were still living in Algeria, came to two major decisions: to create the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale [FLN]) and to order an armed insurrection against the French colonists.

      Ben Bella played an important political role in the leadership of the FLN, simultaneously organizing the shipment of foreign arms to Algeria. In 1956 he escaped two attempts on his life, one at Cairo and the other at Tripoli, Libya. In the same year, he was arrested in Algiers by the French military authorities while in the process of negotiating peace terms with the French premier, Guy Mollet (Mollet, Guy).

      His imprisonment (1956–62) kept him dissociated from those errors of military conduct committed by the FLN, and, when he was freed after the Évian agreements with France were signed in 1962, his reputation was intact.

      The situation in independent Algeria was chaotic. The leaders of the FLN had formed a conservative provisional government (Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic), while the party's congress at Tripoli had elected a socialist-oriented government at the end of the war. It was this latter “Bureau Politique” that Ben Bella ran.

      The intervention on his behalf by Col. Houari Boumedienne (Boumedienne, Houari), chief of the Army of National Liberation (Armée de Libération Nationale [ALN]), assured both the success of the Bureau Politique and of Ben Bella, who was elected unopposed and with an immense majority to the presidency of the Algerian republic in 1963.

      Ben Bella reestablished order in a country disorganized both by the massive departure of French colonists and by the clashes of armed groups. He created a state out of nothing and set aside one-quarter of the budget for national education. Above all else, he inaugurated, under the title autogestion, a series of major agrarian reforms, including the nationalization—but not the direct state control—of the former colonists' huge farms.

      Ben Bella allied himself with the anti-Zionist Arab states and developed cultural and economic relations with France. He also extricated the country from an important border dispute with Morocco.

      Ben Bella's method of government pleased the Algerian people, but the effects of his policies were not always as beneficial as his generous intentions. Through lack of either time, political lucidity, or planning, Ben Bella governed from day to day in a series of improvised acts, some of which—like his appeal to Algerian women to donate their jewelry to the state—were more spectacular than useful. Ben Bella was unable to restore the FLN, nor was he able to win for it that popular support that would have helped to keep Boumedienne in check.

      On June 19, 1965, Ben Bella was deposed in a coup led by Boumedienne, who installed himself as president; Ben Bella was detained and had little contact with the outside world for 14 years. Following the death of Boumedienne in 1978, restrictions on Ben Bella were eased in July 1979, though he remained under house arrest. On Oct. 30, 1980, he was freed. He spent 10 years in exile, returning to Algeria in 1990.

      Ben Bella reentered the political arena soon after his return. He led the Movement for Democracy in Algeria (Mouvement pour la Démocratie en Algérie), a moderate Islamist opposition party he had founded in 1984 while in exile, in the first round of the country's abortive 1991 parliamentary elections (see Algeria: Civil war: the Islamists versus the army (Algeria)). The party was among several banned in 1997.

Robert Merle Ed.

Additional Reading
Robert Merle, Ben Bella (1967), is based on interviews with the former president.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать реферат

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Ben Bella,Ahmed — Ben Bel·la (bĕn bĕlʹə), Ahmed. Born 1919. Algerian revolutionary leader. Active in the Algerian nationalist movement after World War II, he became independent Algeria s first prime minister (1962) and its first elected president (1963) but was… …   Universalium

  • Ben Bella, Ahmed — (1916 )    Algerian political figure    Born in Marnia, Algeria, Ahmed Ben Bella was a former officer in the French army who became one of the leaders of the Algerian uprising against French rule. He was interned in France from 1956 to 1962.… …   France. A reference guide from Renaissance to the Present

  • Ben Bella, Ahmed — (1916– )    Ben Bella was the first president of Algeria in 1963 and founder member of the Algerian National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale FLN). Born in Marnia, the son of a peasant, he was conscripted to the French army in 1937 …   Historical dictionary of Marxism

  • Ben Bella, Ahmed — (n. ¿25 dic. 1918?, Maghnia, Argelia). Primer presidente elegido de Argelia. Después de recibir una educación francesa, ingresó al ejército francés, y fue condecorado durante la segunda guerra mundial (1939–45). Luego de ese conflicto, tomó las… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Ahmed Ben Bella — Ben Bella (rechts) nach seiner Festnahme durch die französische Armee Ahmed Ben Bella (* 25. Dezember 1918[1] in Maghnia; arabisch ‏ …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Ben Bella — Ahmed Ben Bella Ahmed Ben Bella Algérien Président de la République Algérienne Mandat 15 septembre 1963 – 19 juin 1965 Précédé par Ferhat Abbas Suivi par …   Wikipédia en Français

  • BEN BELLA (A.) — BEN BELLA AHMED (1916 ) Brillant sous officier pendant la campagne d’Italie au sein des Forces françaises libres en 1945, Ahmed Ben Bella est, un an plus tard, élu conseiller municipal de Marnia (Oranie) sur une liste du parti nationaliste (P.P.A …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Ben Bella — (Ahmed) (Ahmad bin Balla) (né en 1916) homme politique algérien. L un des chefs de la révolution algérienne, il fut emprisonné en France de 1956 à 1962. Libéré, il s opposa à Ben Khedda (sept. 1962) et devint président du Conseil puis président… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Ahmed Ben Bella — For the publishers in Dallas in Texas, see BenBella Books. Mohamed Ahmed Ben Bella 1st President of Algeria under the independence of this country In office September 15, 1963 – 19 June 1965 Preceded by …   Wikipedia

  • Ahmed Ben Bella — en 1964. Ahmed Ben Bella (Maghniyah, Orán, Argelia, 25 de diciembre de 1916) es un político argelino. Fue el primer presidente de la República Argelina Democrática y Popular tras su independencia en 1962. Contenido …   Wikipedia Español

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”