Ahmed Ben Bella (1916 - 2012)

Mon Dec 25, 1916

Image

Image: President Ben Bella in 1965, the year he was deposed. [Agence France-Presse via the NY Times]

Ahmed Ben Bella, born on this day in 1916, was an Algerian politician, soldier, and socialist revolutionary who served as the first Prime Minister of Algeria from 1962 to 1965.

Ahmed Ben Bella was born western Algeria to Moroccan parents on December 25th, 1916, at the height of the French colonial period. Ben Bella enlisted in the French Army in 1936 and 1940, becoming a decorated soldier during World War II.

On May 8th, 1945, while France was celebrating Germany’s surrender, widespread protests erupted in the Algerian town of Setif. The uprising was violently repressed, leading to the deaths of more than 100 Europeans and anywhere from 1,500 - 10,000 Algerians.

The fallout from the Setif uprising shocked Ben Bella, who realized that France would not recognize his claim for equal treatment despite his wartime service. Ben Bella then began participating in revolutionary activity in service of an independent Algeria.

Together with Messali Hadj, he founded the Organisation Spéciale (OS), a paramilitary organization whose strategic aim was to take up arms against the French colonizers.

The OS became the immediate predecessor of the National Liberation Front (FLN), a key belligerent in the Algerian War for Independence, a brutal, eight-year struggle which ended in victory for the FLN in 1962.

Ben Bella, a leader during the anti-colonial struggle, came into power as Prime Minister shortly after Algeria achieved its independence. As PM, Ben Bella nationalized land formerly held by Europeans and forged good relations with leaders such as Gamal Abdel Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, Modibo Keita, Sekou Toure, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara. He was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on April 30th, 1964.

While Ben Bella was planning to host an Afro-Asian international meeting in June 1965, his government was overthrown in a bloodless coup led by his defense minister, Houari Boumédiène. He was held for eight months in an underground prison, then spent the next 14 years living under house arrest.

Ben Bella was freed shortly after Boumédiène’s death in 1978, returning to Algeria in September 1990. In 2003, he was elected president of the International Campaign Against Aggression on Iraq at its Cairo Conference. On April 11th, 2012, he passed away at his family home in Algiers at 93 years of age.

“This has become manifest: the global system was not made to serve the good of all, but to serve multinational companies.”

- Ahmed Ben Bella