PERUVIAN RULERS SEEK TO STAMP OUT GUERRILLA FRONTS
The appearance of three separate guerrilla fronts in Peru touched off a state of near panic in the Belaunde Terry government. On July 4 constitutional guarantees were suspended and a nation-wide witch-hunt was launched by the frightened civil authorities while army forces combed the high Andes seeking the elusive armed representatives of Peru's land=hungry, revolutionary-minded peasants.
The existence of a guerrilla front in Cuzco headed by Luis de
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la Puente, a leader of the MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria], has been publicized in the Lima newspapers for some time, [see World Outlook April 16,] Since then two other fronts have been — reported, one in Junin headed by Guillermo Lobatén, another leader of the MIR, and one in Huancavelica led by Ismael Paredes, whose political affiliation is not certain, The three: fronts have been named "Pachacutec," "Tiipac Amaru’ and "Pumacahua."
When the formation of the front headed by Lobatdén was announced, the MIR said it stood on a program of "a real agrarian reform, the expulsion of imperialism, an urban reform, the nationalization of commerce, the banks and all the credit institutions, the liquidation of all the monopolies."
The distribution of this "declaration of war" was followed by attacks on two mines at Santa Rosa and Samaniego, where forty cases of dynamite were seized. Two big holdings at Runatullo and Punto were attacked and two bridges on the Concepcidn-Satipo road were blown up. The civil guards were then attacked at Santo Domingo de Acobamba and at Andamarca, numerous arms being taken. A property at Cotovilla was burned. The guerrilla fighters reported that they had met with sympathy among the miners and:the peasants and that many young Indians were joining them.
Although the government denied the existence of any guerrillas in Peru, it sent the elite "Rangers," who have réceived counterguer-— rilla training in the United States, into action. On June 27 the government forces ran into an ambush. Twelve of them were killed, The government claimed that on the other side, out of a force of twenty-eight men, sixteen were wounded and the leader was killed,
On July 4, the government decided to suspend the constitution for thirty days, enabling it to arbitrarily arrest and jail people and impose a censorship. In taking this grave action, the government admitted that seven police had been killed and another twelve wounded in another battle. In addition two bombs had been exploded in Lima, one in a big hotel, breaking windows in the .area, the other at the National Club where a reception had been scheduled for the debutantes of high Peruvian society. The police broke up a demonstration organized by Christian Democratic youth protesting against the infamous display of luxury at the reception in face of the poverty of Peru's MASSES»
The leaders of the MIR issued a communiqué stating that two more guerrilla centers were being organized, one in Cajamarca and one in Puno close to the Bolivian border.
The government announced that it was mobilizing the armed forces "with the aim of ending once and for all the extremist subversion." The air force was ordered to bomb Pucata, a base controlled by the guerrilla fighters. And the troops sent out by Belaunde Terry
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were given orders "not to give any quarter and not to take any prisoners,'
According to a Reuters dispatch from Lima July 6, troops and policemen, backed by planes, were building up for a final push in the mountains, while in Lima. and throughout the country the police "were rounding up suspected Communists and extremists," .
7 No figures were issued by the police on the number of arrests, “but one report put the number at 700,'
_ Through the tight censorship it was impossible to ascertain. what the reaction was among the workers, among the one third of Lima's population living in the infamous slum districts, and among the bit~ terly poor peasantry, the majority of the population, who began occupying the land under the leadership of Hugo Blanco several years ago.
JOHNSON'S DIRTY WAR IN VIETNAM
Johnson took his escalation of the war. in Vietnam up another notch July 7 with the announcement that another 8 » 000 troops are to be landed, bringing the. total. to around 80,000... © .
Of the horror stories. pouring out of Vietnam, a particularly chilling admission came from Jack Langguth July 6 in a Saigon dispatch to the New York Times:
"One American helicopter crewman returned to his base in the central highlands last week without a fierce young prisoner entrusted to him.
"He told friends that he had become enfuriated by the youth and had pushed him out of the helicopter at about 1,000 feet.
‘When a superior warned him that he would be courtmartialed, the crewman changed his story. He said that the prisoner a attacked him and had fallen accidentally."
Of more concern to American commanders than such "isolated" incidents, continues Langguth, has been the decision to bomb heavily in South Vietnam:
"tT don't like to hit a village,' one American pilot who had flown more than 100 missions said recently... 'You know you're hit- | ting women and children too. But you've got to decide that your ae cause is noble and that the- work has to ‘be done." |
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_ “NOT WITHOUT CYNICISM"
"The Americans, after having pounded everything that seemed to them worth destroying in the southern part of the country, are now turning to the delta of the Red river. The question arises . whether Hanoi will be spared much longer, and particularly whether the levees protecting the population and the crops will not constitute the next target of the bombers of the Seventh Fleet. The Americans dropped leaflets Friday informing the north Vietnamese population, not without cynicism, that the raids carried out by 2,788 planes over their territory between February 7 and April 3 had dropped 1,388 tons of bombs as well as hundreds of tons of rockets, The population was warned that the 'violent attacks! will be continued | «eet == From a dispatch in the July 4 Le Monde reporting the escalation of American attacks to the first "economic" targets. .
CP LEADERS WORRIED OVER KREMLIN'S PASSIVITY IN VIETNAM
[The following paragraphs have been extracted from an article by Philippe Ben in the July 2 issue of the Paris daily Le Monde. Philippe Ben is one of the more conscientious reporters Specializing in Soviet and East European affairs. The first part of his article deals with various political currents that have appeared in ruling circles in Poland. The section translated below carries a subhead~ ing, "Anxiety over Soviet passivity in’ Vietnam,"]
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"The confusion existing in Poland is reinforced by the very grave fears aroused among the Polish leaders as well as among the Czechoslovaks, East Germans and Hungarians by the war in Viétnam and by the evident incapacity of the Soviet Union to react against the American raids against North Vietnam, According to accurate information, ‘the leaders in Warsaw, Prague, and perhaps likewise in certain other Communist countries of Eastern Europe took steps in Moscow ‘quite recently to request that the Soviet leaders find some possibility of countering the American attacks against North Vietnam by taking the initiative somewhere on the globe. They motivated their request by the catastrophic decline, throughout Eastern Europe, in Soviet prestige due to Moscow's passivity in face of the American action in Vietnam, Thus, for example, in Warsaw the party functionaries recently proclaimed that the Russians make a lot of noise about their guaranteeing the Oder-Neisse line, but in Vietnam the Americans are omnis and the Russians are doing nothing. The Communist leaders have likewise told Moscow that the erosion of Soviet prestige has been accompanied in their countries by the development of a certain admiration for China. These feelings have become so evident that
the Polish politbureau issued a secret decree banning all party organizations from discussing the Sino-Soviet conflict. . In some countries of Eastern Europe, neither China nor Albania are criticized any longer. Quite the contrary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary are now negotiating with Tirana for the’ reestablishment of normal diplomatic relations, and the reopening of embassies by these countries in the Albanian capital is expected soon,
"However, this request for a Soviet initiative against the United States was reportedly qualified by one condition -= a new crisis in West Berlin would only halt the disintegration of NATO and reestablish solidarity between Washington and Paris as well as between Paris and Bonn, Moreover it would cut us off from de Gaulle, the man on whom we now base our hopes,
"It nevertheless seems that the Soviet leaders were not convineed by these arguments and that they stressed in their reply that in the present situation the United States is especially vulnerable in Vietnam and nowhere else, This reply was considered to be extremely disappointing because the Communist leaders of Eastern Europe are very well aware that Soviet aid to Hanoi has been relatively modest and that it hinges entirely on the good will of Peking, since the Soviet government does not dare, despite reports to the contrary, to ., send arms and specialists by sea because of fear of an American block- .cade like the one imposed during the-crisis in the Caribbean."
CANADIAN POLITICAL LEADER SCORES JOHNSON
Widespread opposition in Canada to Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam and his sending American troops to occupy the . Dominican Republic has been reflected in a stiffening of attitude among heads of the New Democratic party, Canada's version of a Labor party. The June issue of the Workers Vanguard quotes extensively from a speech made in the House of Commons by NDP leader T.C.Douglas raking the Liberal government for "supine subservience" to the Johnson administration. Douglas warned that "what is now a local war could escalate into a world holocaust which. would devastate the greater part of the earth."
Douglas also disavowed Harold Wilson, head of the British Labour party, who has been crawling on his belly in support of Johnson's war policies.
The position taken by Douglas comes much closer to liberalism than to anything like revolutionary socialism. For example, he places faith in the completely discredited. United Nations, he appeals for ' 'negotiations" in Vietnam, and he makes the completely impermissible concession of granting that an imperialist power like the
United States has the "right" to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries "to defend its nationals and property." And he is, of course, “against Communism." That such a procapitalist politician should find it necessary to attack the foreign policies of both the American and Canadian governments testifies to the anxiety of the Canadian people over the course of events since Johngon won election last November.
Among the points scored by Douglas, the following are of interest: oO
"This revolution of the coloured races of the world demand= ing the right of self-determination is going to go on. It has nothing to do with Communism. Communists, of course, fish in troubled water as they always do, and they ally themselves with any protest movement. But if we took all the Communist countries and all the Communists out of the world this afternoon, the problem of the struggle for the right to self-determination by the coloured peoples of the earth in Asia, Africa and South America would con-= tinue and we would still have to face that problem,"
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"And when in 1953 the United States could see that the French were no longer going to be able to hold on in Viet Nam, they brought in Diem, who was set up in South Viet Nam as the head of a government, a government that was dictatorial and repressive, a government which began by abolishing land reform, land reform in a country where 80 per cent of the land is owned by absentee landlords, abolished local elections, and jailed without trial not only Communists but thousands of non=Communists who had belonged to democratic political parties up until that time. It is hardly to be wondered then that the National Liberation Front was able to gather to itself a great bulk of the support of the people of South Viet Nam in revolt against the dictatorial government of Diem.
"The Secretary of State for External Affairs continues to tell the House the same myth that the China lobby and the American propagandists have been peddling all over the North American continent, that the United States intervention in South Viet Nam is at the request of a sovereign power under attack from the outside,
"In the first place one questions South Viet Nam as being a sovereign power. From the very beginning it has been a puppet government supported militarily and financially by the United States, and to say that the United States was invited in by South Viet Nam is like saying that Edgar Bergen was invited to dinner by Charlie McCarthy. The fact of course is that the reason the United States had to intervene is because the puppet government it had set up did not have the support of its own people, and that today two thirds of Viet Nam is occupied by the National Liberation Front who collect
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the taxes, who run the villages, and who operate the greater part of the country. The government hes never been able to hold on to anything but the cities, and this with a succession Of governments because it does not en joy the support of the people.’
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",..the situation in the Dominican Republic raises some very serious problems for Canada, located as we are in the Western Hemisphere and affected by anything that is done by the United States, No one can deny the right of the United States to go into a country to defend its nationals and property. But within 24 hours of going ‘into the Dominican Republic the President of the United States said -that they were there primarily to prevent another Cuba.
"This raises the whole question whether or not the Johnson doctrine has replaced the Monroe doctrine, namely that the United States reserves the right at any time to intervene unilaterally wherever a country has a government the ideology of which is unacceptable to the United States, I was glad to hear the statement made by the Minister this morning to the effect that we do not accept this doctrine, I think we should also make it clear that any peace keeping force set up by the Organization of American States should have the approval of the United Nations. Otherwise the world is embarking upon a very dangerous precedent which will allow any group of nations, under the guise of setting up a peace force, carrying on military and political intervention in the affairs of other countries.'
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“But I doubt very much whether the intervention in South Viet Nam, or in the Dominican Republic was because the United States was concerned about individual freedom, If they were, I do not know how they put up with Diem for so long in South Viet Nam, or Batista in Cuba, or Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.
"T think that the United States has been much more concerned with the fear that these countries will have Governments that will want to exercise their right to manage their own economic affairs....
"I think that sums up the whole question very clearly. We in this party are prepared to support collective security to resist aggression, but we do not believe that any country has the right to ‘use military power to force dictatorial and discredited regimes upon people who are seeking the right to self-determination., We do not want some new form of colonialism masquerading as an anti-Communist crusade,
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BOUMEDIENNE UNVEILS HIS "COUNCIL"
By Pierre Frank >
JULY 6 -- From June 19, the day Boumedienne pulled his coup d'état, it was necessary to wait until July 5 -- more than two weeks -- to jearn” over’ Radio-Algiers: the composition of the "National Council of the Revolution" that carried out the operation, and ‘the ' program which Boumedienne intends to follow as head of the govern= ment.
Two weeks for their names! The list reveals a combination of military chiefs under Boumedienne's command and some former military ministers belonging to Boumedienne's clan, This leads to the conclusion that the coup d'état was organized solely by the army and that the later attempt to give a certain political coloration to the "National Council of the Revolution" came to ‘nothing after two weeks of- discussions ° in the corridors.
“It is to be noted likewise that on july’! 5, ‘the third” anfiiversary ‘of Algeria's independence, the new regime, which claims to represent the will of the masses, did not dare call them out for demonstrations in the streets. The new leaders did not even appear at a sports | festival organized for the holiday.” a
What are: the claims made in the June ‘19 proclamation and in the speeches of the spokesmen of the new regime?
According to them, everything was going badly, above all on the economic level, The situation in Algeria is certainly far from brilliant. But instead of proposing a new policy, the organizers of the coup d'état claim that they are holding to the policy followed previously -- to the Algiers Charter, to self-management, ete, All” the bad things were due to Ben Bella’ personally, to his personal ; power, The personal accusations are topped with "financial" charges.
' “During past months we have criticized many aspects of the political situation in Algeria, particularly the Bonapartist character of: Ben Bella's power, the recourse to combinations at the top which. the masses could not understand, the equivocations, particularly in carrying out the agrarian reform, the absence of a real party functioning democratically. But Boumedienne is not entitled to the least confidence if he voices similar criticisms, or a part of them, today. Quite the contrary. a a
In place of Ben Bella's personal power; Boumédienne is’ not offering democracy but a still narrower personal power, without. Links with the masses, resting solely on the army or on a part of it. What kind of democracy is this in which these men, even after their names have been revealed, remain anonymous politicians afraid to stand up
publicly before the masses! As for the lessons in morality which these men claim to offer, one cannot overlook that among the "Council" are a Mohammed Said, a Colonel Mohand Ou El Hadj,. whose outlooks are known to everyone. nee
It is true that Boumedienne's asceticism can be pointed to. But operations like that of June 19 do not occur in a political vacuum and do not follow the logic of the views of a single indivi-+ dual. What happened after June 19, the positions taken, the con+. frontations, had considerable significance. Social forces, group~ ings, individuals do not interpret such an event arbitrarily. On this level, things could not be clearer, .
The first to support the coup d'état were the Ulemas [Muslim theologians], and with them all those oriented toward the past. They _ were followed almost immediately by a series of ambassadors -including some with a leftist past which they promptly forgot -- who sought to, reassure the conservative powers throughout the world, Immediately behind them trooped the opportunists, those who had shined Ben Bellats shoes and who are prepared to do as much for his. Successors, Behind them, with more or less prudence -- for completely tactical reasons -~ came those who believe that "Algeria needs them"; the Rabah Bitats, the Boussoufs, the Khiders, the Fehrat Abbas's, who hope that their turn will come but who don't want to show too much eagerness about it.*
The coup d'état saw the youth, the students, in immediate opposition. In Algiers itself, demonstrations broke out in the following days. Elsewhere -- in Oran, Annaba, Philippeville, Tlemcen, the demonstrations were more powerful and the repression very severe. Outside of Algeria, the Algerian students of the Amicale des Algériens en France strongly condemned the coup d'état.
But perhaps nothing illustrates the situation in Algeria after the coup d'état better than the attitude of the Algerian trade unions. It was not until a week after the coup d'état that the leadership of . the UGTA [Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens] adopted a resolution which has not yet been published in Algeria and of which only extracts have been published abroad. [In Le Monde June 29.]—
This resolution does not mention the name of Ben Bella at all. It notes "the extreme weakness of the party in organizational structure," the "failure to apply democratic centralism and the absence of a collective leadership" which permitted "the reinforcement of personal power, the practice of antidemocratic methods," but it also |
*A Clown was required in the tragedy. Messali Hadj undertook to fill the bill: "The PPA [Parti du Péuple Algérion} refuses to choose...When the French were still in Algeria, there was a certain freedom of expression..." .
observed that "despite the obstacles consisting of the negative aspects of the former regime, the workers gained victories, repre= sented in particular by the decrees on self-management, the Algiers Charter, and the trade-union charter," that “only the workers and the disinherited masses of the towns and countryside have borne the weight of the pretended policy of austerity."
The resolution refers to the coup d'état in ambiguous terms: "The opening provided by the event that occurred on June 19 would be put in question by the return to the political scene of careerist and opportunist elements, who are also responsible for the lack of respect for our institutions...For June 19 to become a genuine open-: ing, it is necessary to also permit the emergence of tested militants, clear about their options, courageous in the expression of their opin-= ions, and who have proved their genuine attachment to soolalism.."
- And the resolution declares that "the flawless attachment of the workers to the gains of their ten years of struggle; namely, national independence, self-management and the construction of demo-~ cratic socialism within the framework of self-management," demands | that "the FLN {Front de Liberation Nationale], party of the vanguard, be composed mainly of workers, of poor peasants and revolutionary...» intellectuals. Today the demystification has been carried out. The | period of individuals has been ended; that of principles must begin.'
It is true that a week later, the national ‘secretariat of the UGTA released a communiqué that retreated from the above resolution that had been adopted by the national executive commission, This communiqué approved."the analysis .contained-in the June 19 proclamation" of the Council of the Revolution, and, while referring to the preceding resolution, only mentioned the Algiers Charter and the defense of the gains of the revolution without explicitly referring to self-management.
. Doesn't this demonstrate that the officials of the tradeinion movement are looking with one eye at the regime and the force at its disposal and with the other at the reactions of the masses? . (It should be remembered that this leadership was restored to office at a recent congress of the UGTA under pressure from the rank and file against the old leadership that had been put at the head of the ‘unions by main force, )
They stated that there were figures they do. not want to see again, and conquests of the revolution which they think it best not to touch. The leadership of the unions displayed a big streak of opportunism, but it is not necessary to read between the lines to see the limits beyond which Boumedienne cannot go at present in wheeling and dealing. The Khiders, Boussoufs, Ferhat Abbas's and ~ Co. should not be moved into the foreground. Boumedienne should also come out for self-management (of which he stands in holy horror).
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After the demonstrations of the first days, the situation became "calm." This is certainly due primarily to the absence of an organization of the vanguard. In the case of Algeria, the single party means in the final analysis that there is no party. And the left wing was an aspiration among many militants but not an organization struggling within the FLN, still less an organization capable of directly addressing the masses, But the calm in the streets does not mean that minds are apathetic. Boumedienne has crossed a bridge over which there is no return. On the one hand, the bourgeois neocolonialist tendencies and the bureaucratic tendencies will await the erosion of Boumedienne, as he awaited that of Ben Bella, in order to seek to force back the revolution still more and even to smother it completely. On the other hand, the militants will seek to draw the lessons in order to start up the revolution again, the forces. for which are far from exhausted, a
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Coming a few days before the scheduled opening of the Afro- Asian conference in Algiers, various demonstrations of a diplomatic order were inevitable, revealing the motives of many governments.
Most of the neocolonialist countries of Africa (former French or British colonies) displayed reservations with regard to Boume- . Gienne's regime, not out of sympathy for Ben Bella or for the Algerian revolution, but because, as they have shown on other occasions, these weak and unstable powers are hostile to anything that could even indirectly encourage a coup d'état at home,
Bourguiba declared that he did not: appreciate coups dt état in general, but in this particular case he saw more advantages than disadvantages. For his own neocolonialist regime naturally.
Nasser was caught in an embarrassing situation. In many respects, Boumedienne has more affinity with his regime than Ben Bella. But Nasser is not without political judgment and it has not failed to occur to him that Boumedienne is playing the role of sorcerer's: apprentice. Thus, with the future in mind, he has-sought to. make the best of Boumedi enne while showing concern over Ben Bella's 7 fates: .
As for Moscow and Peking, they were both operating not on the level of parties facing developments temporarily unfavorable to a revolution but on the level of states preoccupied particularly with the scheduled conference. The Soviet government, fearing that the new. regime might take a hostile position on including the USSR in =~ the conference, maintained its reserve while giving encouragement in the corridors to those favoring Ben Bella,:..On the other hand, the Chinese government, which did not have any other international tribune than the Afro-Asian conference at. which it could express its views at present, thought that in rushing recognition it would gain
Boumedienne's support. during the conference. It only succeeded in taking a stupid step that revealed the ignorance of Chinese: diplow macy in affairs outside the countries. bordering China.
The only intervention on a government level that had a revo~ | lutionary character came once again from Fidel Castro. Brushing —: aside diplomatic fictions, he characterized the business as a "mili-> tary pronunciamento" and, "recalling that Cuba had sent arms to ds Algeria, he said, "We regret that these arms might be used today ina fratricidal combat against the Algerian people." He likewise ~.. expressed his confidence in the Algerian masses.
This is ‘a conclusion in which we can’concur, all :the more so since the Algerian revolution has undergone very difficult times-in : the past, extremely grave situations and bad jolts. Each time it: ° has vigorously recovered. The Algerian revolution, we are sure, will not be long in resuming its forward march.
WASHINGTON "RATHER SATISFIED" WITH BOUMED IENNE
The State Department announced July 6 that it was. recognizing the new regime of Colonel Houari Boumedienne. _ The move was not exactly. unexpected, as the following items, culled ‘from the daily press in Paris, indicate rather eloquently:
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"Since the military 'clan' came to power, the key words of . self-management and even socialism have hardly appeared in the official jargon. They wish to appear 'realistic! and they do not hesitate to condemn the ‘tadventurism! of Ben Bella, who discouraged foreign investors. It is still difficult to offer an opinion on the new tone of the 'irreversible options! of the Algeria of Year Three. One could cite Thermidor or the Eighteenth Brumaire. But in the final analysis the same ones are still there. . With very rare ~exceptions, the high 'technical' functionaries have remained at their posts; it would, moreover, be difficult to replace them," -- Yves Cuau, writing from Algiers three days after the coup d'état, in Le Figaro June 23.
"AIGIERS, June 22 -- Last night on the terrace of the nationalized Hotel S, George, an East European ambassador named the master= mind of last Saturday's coup: That old imperialist’ meddior, ‘the Central Intelligence Agency. :
"Similar assertions were spread by Ahmed Ben Bella's sympa-=
thizers and feverishly discussed, among other rumors, by newly arrived Paris journalists,.:-- Helping. ‘the. rumor along. were reports of poorly concealed satisfaction by members of the United States Embassy over the downfall of Mr. Ben Bella's Marxist polemicists." -- Special to the New York Times [International edition] June 23.
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"Meanwhile, Col, Houari Boumedienne's five-day-old Revolutionary Council has quietly sought assurance of new aid for Algeria's depressed economy from both France and the United States.
"Although the State Department has yet to take an official stand on the new regime, its attitude toward the Algerian feelers was 'not negative,' a well-placed source said.
"President Ahmed Ben Bella, who was deposed and arrested by ‘the army-backed Council last Saturday, long encouraged the official Marxist-run press and radio in violent anti-American polemics, (In... . recent months he had harshly condemned the United States! ‘imperial- ist' policy in the Congo and South Vietnam.
"The United States had limited its aid to 200,000 tons of relief food and a 50-technician, $1 million rural renovation program." -- Hedrick Smith in a dispatch from Algiers to the New York Times [International edition] June 25.
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"the new regime. put out feelers to the: U. s. for continued. 7 economic aid, and American diplomats were pleased by a sudden toning down of anti-American Marxist polemics on’ ‘the government radio.
"Algiers also promised to work. for closer-economic cooperay | tion with France, on which the Algerian economy basically depends... The sincerity of that promise, in the French view, will be tested when the new regime takes up current negotiations on sharing the profits of the French-built Saharan oil industry." -- "The News of the Week in Review," New York Times [International edition] ; June 28,
"The coup d'état appears nationalist, anti-Communist and even more, perhaps, tantiprogressive'; if by progressivism is meant the groups of leftist strangers who rallied to Ben Bella....
"The Americans who perhaps had nothing much to complain about with regard to Ben Bella, but likewise had nothing to praise him for, are showing that they are rather satisfied, Their ambassador, Mr. Porter, is meeting Boumedienne or one of the members of the Council ‘of the Revolution every day.” -- Eugéne Mannoni in a dispatch from Algiers in France-Soir June 29,
AIDIT THANKS BOUMEDIENNE -- KY APPROVES, TOO
Whether he got his tip from Sukarno or from Mao, is not clear, but D.N,Aidit, the head of the Indonesian Communist party, declared that the coup d'état in Algeria came as no surprise to any who had kept up to date on the situation in Algeria.
Aidit made this statement to the press on June 22, two days after Peking recognized Boumedienne and assured the colonel that he could count on China's support, and one day after Sukarno's govern= ment similarly recognized the new military regime,
Aidit denounced Ben Bella for having allegedly conducted a policy "contrary to the aspirations of the Algerian people."
Aidit said that he approved the recognition of Boumedienne accorded by the Indonesian government, adding that Ben Bella had followed a rightist policy.
"The situation in Algiers is now better than it was under the regime of Ben Bella,"