Front of Socialist Forces" in Kabylie called on September 29 for the armed overthrow of the Ben Bella government, some socialists in other countries of ultra-left persuasion were taken in -- at least for a time -= by the demagogy. [See World Outlook October 25.] The real character of this formation now appears to be generally better understood, An informative contribution to this understanding has been made by David Rousset in the October 19 issue of Le Figaro Littéraire in an article titled "In Kabylie It Was Nothing but a Rebellion of Talkers,"
"Today," Rousset wrote, "Ait Ahmed and Mohand El Hadj are hiding in the mountains, What is extraordinary, and in all respects stupefying, is that, for fourteen days, these men, openly committed to a test of force, did nothing but talk. They did nothing else. They talked tirelessly. Before the microphones, Before the cameras, Before anyone that would listen. On top of this they said nothing precise. They condemned the regime without reserve and without growing tired, They never developed any
national program. Like spinning dervishes, they convinced those that came around, it seems, that history was beginning over again, that Kabylie, bled white, dotted with ruins, exhausted and hungry in its sterile beauty, was again going to make its grand entrance into the tragic legend of war. They announced this war without moving, arms at the ready, and so persuasively that many people saw it already and, in fantastic fashion, pro-. jected on -to the peaceable torpor of Michelet, Fort-National and Azazga, the violent and sudden forays of the past seven years, so powerful is memory, so strong the imagination, "
Ait Ahmed remained immobile. "He was not able to bring about. any rapprochement with Khider nor with Ferhat Abbas, No ally showed up. To the specific accusations levelled over the old crimes of Boussouf and Krim Belkacem, ‘he made no reply. While protesting being placed in an amalgam with Morocco, he believed it opportune to defend the diplomacy of Hassan II. While presenting himself as a genuine socialist, he denounced the Management Committees and vilified the nationalizations. There he might have made some profitable gains, if his alliance with the PRS [Revolution= ary Socialist Party] of Boudiaf had not turned the bourgeoisie and the middle classes away from him in. advance. So much so that on October 12 he: ; had to flee. into the mountains.
As for Ahmedt co-leader, Rousset has this to say: "I am convinced that the only reason that prevented Mohand Ou El Hadj from engaging in combat was that the Kabyle population did not want war. He is not a man to go against the will of his people, even if he has contrary views. Nowhere in Kabylie has the population armed itself against the government, The opposition has no support in the people for war. This is a cardinal. observation. The Algerian people, no matter how discontented, how great one may imagine its grievances to be, in no case desires recourse to arms. Any opposition that doesn't understand this is beaten in advance. This fact reduces to shreds the suppositions about a long guerrilla war, if the Kabyle guerrillas once held tough for a long time it was partly due to the mountains but much more to the solidarity of the village and finally ‘ because they had Cairo, Tunisia and Morocco active and unattackable, None of these conditions exist today. The population will not agree to enduring a state of insecurity contrary to its most immediate interests, Perhaps they will help insubordinate soldiers to escape. But they will not give them any help in fighting."
Rousset explains the centering of the rebellion in Kabylie as due to an "excess of nationalizations in the commercial sector" that antagonized small merchants, to the lack of immediate benefits to Kabylie from the nationalization of land, and to a certain dissatisfaction in the armed forces over an imagined discrimination against Kabyles in forming the professional staff,
These things mist be corrected, he holds. The “sole fact that the peasants of the Kabyle villages would permit the opposition to act, even if restricted to a political level, is a warning that must not be disregarded. u
And Rousset notes a point of considerable interest in assessing just how disaffected the Kabyle people may really be. In Algiers the most impressive crowds, mounting to as high as 200,000 have roared their sup~ port to the government. The population in Algiers is, however "Kabyle in the majority."
£
——— COUP DtETAT IN VIETNAM
"yr, Lodge went to