“ALGERIA FACES ARMED REBELLION
On September 27 the French government was notified by the Algerian government that the. complete nationalization of all ~ lands held by French colons (settlers) was projected. This followed a wave of nationalizations after Ben Bella was voted president September 15 in a one+party election. [See Septem ber 27 issue of World Outlook. |
Two days later ‘in'‘the plaza of Tizi-Ouzou, leaders of the "Front of Socialist Forces". staged a-rally involving three to five thousand people. They called for the armed overthrow of the Ben Bella governnent .
_Tizi-Ouzou is the capital. of. Kabylie. and most of the lead~ ers of the rebellion were Kabyles. They claimed, however, that they represented overwhelming popular sentiment throughout Algeria and that they expected a "chain reaction". which. would bring down the Ben Bella government.
This was on Sunday. Ben Bella! Ss answer was not long in coming. He went at once to the people, calling for formation of. "vigilance committees."- The following day, September 30, in a radio broadcast, he dismisSed the defecting Col. liohand Ou EL Hadj and ordered the troops under his command.to refuse any orders but those of the government. He charged that the Moroccan government of King Moulay Hassan hac moved troops to "within ten meters of the Algerian frontier" and he accused a prominent opposition leader Belkacem Krim of visiting Morocco within the past ten.days to obtain the king's help. ;
In a second radio address Ben Bella branded the outbreak in Kabylie as a "political adventure." He placed the main blame on Ait Ahmed, but also named Mohand Ou Hl Hadj. "Boudiaf," he said, "is likewise. in connivance with Ait Ahmed and is at the bottom of this crisis."
Te is because Algeria is leaving behind the provisional character it gave the institutions enabling it to build socialism," he said, "that these ambitious people and adventurers dared to rise against the nation and its institutions and ally themselves with the obscure forces of neocolonialisn and the counterrevolution.
A mass rally was called for Wednesday October 2. The outcome was "indescribable," a correspondent writes. More than 200,000 people packed into the Hsplanade before the Government Palace.
In a fighting speech, Ben Bella traced the socialist achievecments of his government, declaring that the poor Algerian peasants now enjoy greater rights than in any other country in the world.
In his attack on the armed rebellion he revealed that official documents proved that one of the principal leaders of the left wing of the FLN [Front de Liberation National] the martyred Abane Ramdane had been "strangled by the commandos of the GPRA" [Gouvernement Provisoire de la République Algerienne] in a bitter faction struggle during the war for freedom. The GPRA-was the regime put in office with French help that sought to block Ben Bella last year but which finally had to give way in face of support for him by the armed forces...
Ben Bella again pledged before the vast crowd that his government would continue resolutely down the road ‘to socialism.
"Today, my brothers," he said, "I am pleased to announce, in this historic minute, awaited for 1345 years -- I announce it before the world -- today, we have taken measures concerning the agrarian reform. From this second, not another hectare of this land of Algeria belongs to a colon. All the land is returned to the peasants."
‘The measures involve 900,000 hectares [2,250,000 acres], affecting four to five thousand French colons.
' Plots under thirty hectares [seventy-five acres} will not be touched, said Ben Bella. Small merchants and artisans were. tikewise reassured that their property will not be taken.
Ata “national conference in Algiers of some 3,500 start members of thé FIN the same day, Hadj Ben Alla, a leading member of the Ben Bella government called for the immediate organization of "vigilance committees" throughout Algeria "by areas in the cities, by communities and by hamlets" everywhere.
"The vigilance committees under the control and authority of the National Liberation Front will have the mission of safesuarding and fighting against the counterrevolution.
"We appeal to the people to constitute them and we will arm them if necessary so that they can play their role fully and efficiently."
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On October 3 Ben Bella appeared before the National Assenbly to ask for “special powers" to deal with the situation. "A criminal counterrevolution is menacing our unity and our territorial integrity," he said. "The very foundations of our revolution are threatened." The special powers were granted at once.
During the week no shooting occurred. Some correspondents called it a "phony" war. However Claude Bucamp, correspondent of the Paris daily Le Figaro cabled October 6 from Algers: "Everything appears calm in Algeria but the powder kegs are in | place and an unexpected spark could set off the explosion.'
By Michel Pablo
The Algerian Revolution has entered in effect its decisive phase.
' While the revolutionary measures in the direction of transforming the country into a state characterized by the fundamental economic and social structures of a workers' state are being multiplied, the internal and external counterrevolutionary bicrehaedeha are becoming evident. . 7
The popular approval of the new constitution and of Ben Bella as the first president of the. Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, has allowed him to reform his government and to go on to a series of measures announcing the nationalization of agricultural, industrial and commercial properties.
Big hotels, restaurants and cafes, financially controlled by rich Algerians, as well as important factories like the oil works, and the Isolation et_ Batiment factory, etc., have been national- . ized and placed under workcrs management.
In a few days, a law will extend the agrarian reform to the remaining land of the [French] settlers and 300,000 hectares of land possessed by rich Algerians.
On the other hand, all the French newspapers which were vehicles for spreading the neocolonialist policy of French imperialism have been suppressed, and their printshops have bcen nationalized.
Faced with this acccloration of the irreversible process which leads Algeria towards the structures charactcristic of a vorkers' state, the counterrevolution was unleashed.
~LL—
French imperialism, through the voice of De Broglie, recog- “nizes that it is powerless to stop the country's evolution, "regrets" this evolution, and announces severe restrictions of its economic and technical "aid," as reprisals against what it considers a blow to the "French interests in Algeria." oo
The international capitalist press continuously publishes spiteful commentaries about Ben Bella "the African Castro"(1) and his regime, considering it to have resolutely taken the road of socialism and the abolishment of the rights of private property.
Within the framework of the regime itself, the reaction of the Algerian landowners and capitalists, however small their number, has become sharper.
This reaction is reinforced by that of the neobourgeois who have enriched themselves, profiting from the confusion and the insufficiencies which still reign in the field of legislation and in that of structures capable of effectively applying the regime's revolutionary policy. It is also supported by the reaction of potentially bourgeois elements of the administration, of the state and of the economy, who aspire to a bourgeois Way of life, in a national neocapitalist framework.
It is highly significant that it is on the eve of the projected extension of the agrarian reform and important nationalizations, including the commercial, industrial and financial field, that the tension in the country as well as at the Algerian- Moroccan border suddenly increased.
In the country itself, there was the open dissidence of Colonel Mohand Ou El Hadj, ex-head of Wilaya 4 (from Kabylie), and commancer of the Seventh Military Region, who proclaimed himself a member of the "Front of Socialist Forces" led by Ait Ahmed and called for resistance against the "illegal" government of President Ben Bella. ,
Kabylie is a poor and overpopulated region, characterized by great unemployment and inhabited by an Arabized Berber population. For several months it has been the scene of active agitation by a series of political leaders, some of whom played a first-rate role during the war of liberation, who have gone over to the opposition for various reasons.
There is no doubt that imperialism is trying to provoke a break between Kabylie and the regime on a racial and regionalist basis, reviving the spirit of "Willayism" and of clans with a feudal political mentality.
That Algerian leaders and militants who proclaim to be attached to socialism are falling into this vulgar trap is certainly no sign of great political understanding on their part.
That the regime on the other hand should fail to take into account sufficiently in its over-all practice the existence of a real national problem in Algeria(2) would likewise be an error. But the regime will not make this mistake, because it is constantly preoccupied with preventing all discrimination towards Kabylie, of according priority of assistance to Kabylie and other disinherited regions of the country, and of fully guaranteeing the particular cultural rights especially of the Kabyle and Berber populations in general.
Outside the frontiers of the country, the main threat against the socialist development of the revolution comes from Morocco,: where the feudal-capitalist regime is literally at bay.
It is natural that the progress of the Algerian Revolution should have repercussions in the neighboring countries first of all, especially Morocco where the land is nearly completely - in. the “hands of native ahhaiecan cache and European settlers.
This explains the savage repression which was brought down recently on all progressive forces in the country in opposition to the dictatorial regime of the king, and who were accused of plotting against that regime in connivance with the Algerian government.
This explains also the repressive measures taken at present against Algerian citizens living in Morocco, who are being robbed on massive scale end driven tovard Aleeria. This oxpl-ins also the concentration of important forces of the Moroccan army on the frontiers between Algeria and Morocco.
Behind these activities the hand of French and probably American imperialism shows.
At the moment when revolutionary measures are being extended in Algeria, which is nearing the point where that country will have fundamentally the structure of a workers state, reaction and imperialism throw down the gage of war against the Algerian socialist revolution.
Under these circumstances any refusal by the European left to support this Revolution, or even to adopt a waiting attitude, is tantamount to real treason.
Happily the workers states, with the USSR at their head, are already rushing to the aid of the Algerian Revolution.
Let the European proletariat in turn show its active class solidarity towards the workers and peasants of liberated Algeria which has irrevocably entered the roed towards socialism.
Let the mobilization of the European working masses disarm ‘the criminal hand of imperialism which is preparing to strike a blow against the victorious Algerian Revolution.
Let all the working-class organizations without exclusiveness form as soon as possible apowerful united front for the political, material and moral defense of the Algerian Revolution.
The moment has come to act so that the first African, Arab and Mediterranean socialist revolution, in the immediate neighborhood of the centers of the European proletariat, will be able to live and develop.
October 1, 1963
Postscript: At the historic meeting which took place this afternoon before the Government Palace in Algiers, Ben Bella announced the extension of the agrarian reform to include all the settlers' land (2,700,000 hectares) and its administration under workers' management. It should be noted that no workers state at the moment has an agricultural sector of such important extension under the regime of democratic workers self-management.
- With this the country passes through a decisive phase of its structural transformation. As in the case of Cuba, the offensive of reaction and of imperialism can only accelerate the socialist progress of the Revolution.
(1) See, among others, the September 9 editorial of the Journal
ae, Genéve "Ben Bella Has Won.
(2) We indicated the importance of this question in August 1962.
AIMS OF THE