BOUMEDIENNE'S SEIZURE OF POWER
JUNE 25 == The coup d'état pulled by Colonel Houari Boumedienne in Algiers June 19 has been judged by experts in this field to be one of the most skillful in history. It caught virtually everyone by complete surprise, the most stunned of all being Ben Bella who was hauled out of his bedroom at 2:25 a.m. by the
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conspirators,
Of all the top figures in the Algerian leadership, Boumedienne has been the most taciturn. He was credited with being personally not inclined to take power, being content to stand behind Ben Bella, Behind the mask other ideas were brewing.
One of the explanations offered for the complete success .achieved by the plotters in gaining the advantage of utter surprise, is that the coup d'état was hatched only a few hours before it was carried out. It was an emergency operation, in this view, to counter an impending move by Ben Bella to remove Boumedienne and to cut down the power of the army. Boumedienne decided that the best defense was an attack, His tactics won.
In today's Le Monde, however, Philippe Herreman writes that ~ this version is now questionable, art seems, instead, that the military were preparing this coup d'état for some time and that it was not, as was first believed, improvised during the evening. It is said in fact that they discreetly sounded out certain French circles eight days earlier in order to. ascertain what the reaction in Paris would be in case power changed hands in Algiers."
This implies that while top circles in imperialist France may not have given Boumedienne the green light, they did not discourage the ambitious colonel and cértainly did not warn Ben Bella.
The first effect among the masses in Algeria was complete shock, The plotters had seized all the mass communications media and therefore were able to block any appeals to the public for resistance and to issue instead their own versions of the news and appeals to remain calm, The radio was confined mostly to music. The newspapers carried a few paragraphs. The main impression was that the rigid censorship demanded in the past by Boumedienne on everything relating to the army had been extended to all other ields.
In the absence of a well-organized vanguard party, of unions with an independent leadership, the army stood as the only cohesive force in the country. Under such conditions the resistance had to begin from scratch and the big question -~- one that has not yet been fully answered as of today -- was what would be the reaction of the masses? Obviously Boumedienne counted on their demoraliza~ tion, on the slackening and sag in the revolution which has been visible for the past year or so. a
But teen-age youth began demonstrating in Algiers on the evening of June 20 and these demonstrations have been repeated after sundown every evening since then, with a significant rise in the age level of the participants.
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The demonstrations have been small enough to be dispersed by limited numbers of troops under Boumedienne's command. But the demonstrations are symptomatic.
In Bone and Oran much larger demonstrations have been building up. The tight censorship has slowed the news and left it incomplete, but enough travelers have reached France with eyewitness accounts to confirm the conclusion that the unrest over the coup d'état is considerable,
At Bone it was said that even a general strike had been staged to protest the seizure of power by Boumedienne.
Casualties are said to have been high in some areas.
In Cairo, Mohammed Hassanein Heykal, editor in chief of Al Ahram, wrote in a front-page article, upon returning from a visit to Algiers, that a foreign ambassador in Algeria who favors the new regime told him nonetheless that in his opinion seventy . per cent of the people favor Ben Bella,
"As I was leaving," wrote the Cairo editor, who is a ' spokesman of Nasser, “there were many rumors that resistance committees were being: organized against the new regime, Events have occurred that seem to confirm these rumors."
The most contradictory rumors are coming out of Algeria concerning the fate of individuals. One report has it that Ben Bella was gravely wounded in the abdomen on being seized. Other reports claim that he is well and his life has been guaranteed. His whereabouts have been listed as somewhere deep in the Sahara, ina suburb in Algiers, and in the center of the city itself.
The same kind of rumors are reported concerning left-wing figures. Mohamed Harbi, who was ousted from the editorship of the weekly Révolution Africaine by Ben Bella in one of his many maneuvers to appease the right wing, and, in this case, Boumedienne in particular, was reported to have been arrested and killed. But a different rumor said he had escaped, was already in the underground, and was busy with like-minded figures in organizing resistance committees,
Henri Alleg, and in fact the whole staff of Alger Républicain were also reported to already be at work in the underground.
At the same time there were reports of nation-wide raids in which hundreds of left-wing figures had been arrésted, caught by Boumedienne's troops before they knew what had happened. It was clear that Boumedienne was working from lists that must have been prepared some time ago.
As for Boumedienne's program, this remained highly ambiguous.
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Jean Lacouture, writing yesterday from Algiers, describes a press conference attended by 300 journalists at which Commandant Slimane, speaking for the "Council of the Revolution" in whose name Boumedienne seized power, floundered for answers for more than an hour, The new doctrine, reports Lacouture, can be summarized as follows:
"(a) The foreign press alone is responsible for the atiniosphere of uneasiness with regard to Algeria. Let the journalists 7 be more honest and everything will be all right. If after five days, the journalists find themselves the object of threats and rough treatment, this is because they have compelled the new Algerian regime to act against them.
"(b) Mr. Ben Bella becoming insupportable, the true Algerian democrats had the choice between appealing to the party bodies or acting in a more expeditious waye
_™(c) Why talk about militarism and fascism? Such’ an atti-~ tude presupposes a social tradition that does not exist in Algeria.
"(ad) It is impossible to reveal the names of the members of the Council of the Revolution at present. -Did anyone ask the chiefs of the Wilayas [areas] to give their names during the war?"
"Thus," declares Lacouture, “the Commandant's audience. learned neither the composition of the leading bodies, nor the present fate of Mr. Ben Bella, nor how he is to be tried, nor the state of nego~ tiations with this or that personality (tthe revolution is not negotiating'), nor above all the political plans of the new power. They did learn however that a stop was going to be made in the country to people 'clawing at each other like lions in a cage,!' and that'a White Book will reveal how the ousted leader was guilty of 'high treason,!
It has been surmised that the coup d'état was timed to occur on the eve of the Afro-Asian conference, which was.scheduled to open June 29, The conference, under preparation for several years, was viewed as of enormous prestige value to Ben Bella since it gave Algeria the appearance of standing at the very crossroads of the entire Third World. The plotters wanted to block Ben Bella from reaping all the publicity and political advantages.
Now it turns out that the advanced state of the preparations is hampering the swift military mop-up work required to consolidate the dictatorship, Eric Rouleau, another special correspondent of Le Monde, describes this in a dispatch from Algiers dated yesterday:
Boumedienne and Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Bouteflika areboth said to be wishing for “adjournment of the meeting and the ~ early departure of the hundreds of journalists and foreign observers whose presence in the capital appears to be inopportune if not
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frankly troublesome... It is in truth difficult for a regime operating under its own rules to liquidate its adversaries, to consoli-~ date its positions, and to reorganize the public life in front of alert and often critical witnesses,"
The Afro-Asian delegations arriving in Algeria have thus been able to see the student demonstrations and the difficulties faced by the gendarmes despite clubs and water-trucks in "reestablishing order,"
"Colonel Boumedienne thus faces a dilemma that will last as long as there is any possibility of holding the conference. In fact, he cannot resort to force of arms in Algiers as he has done in the towns of the interior without running the risk of provoking serious confliots under the eyes of his guests, many of whom have come in order to calculate the chances of the new regime lasting, Nor can he show prolonged tolerance toward his adversaries, who would take advantage of the respite in order to get organized and incite greater difficulties for the government. Wednesday, the demonstrators had the audacity to tear down the flags of the governments favoring Boumedienne and burning them in the garbage cans tining the Rue Michelet.
"These incidents, like the alarmist news coming from the interior, can only add to the reasons numerous governments already have for advocating adjournment of the conference.'
The speed with which Peking rushed to recognize the Boumedienne regime and to assure it of full cooperation and aid led to considerable speculation that the: Chinese had a hand in the plot to overthrow Ben Bella,
‘It is more likely that the Maoists were seeking to take factional advantage of the situation. One of Peking's major aims in the scheduled Afro-Asian conference was to gain the exclusion of the Soviet Union on the grounds that it is a "European" power. In return for quick recognition, Peking probably hoped for the quid pro quo of an assist from the host government in barring the Soviet delegation,
Within a few days, signs of hesitation and a bit more caution could be observed in the Chinese attitude. Chou En-lai held up going to Algiers, ostentatiously continuing conversations with Nasser,
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