Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0008/00080.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 46KB | 716 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00080}
$Pretitle{244}
$Title{Algeria
Chapter 1E.   War of Independence}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Rinehart}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{french
algeria
fln
de
france
algerian
army
war
government
gaulle}
$Date{1985}
$Log{}
Country:     Algeria
Book:        Algeria, A Country Study
Author:      Robert Rinehart
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1985

Chapter 1E.   War of Independence

     In the early morning hours of All Saints' Day (November 1) 1954, FLN
maquisards (guerrillas) launched carefully coordinated attacks in various
parts of Algeria against military installations, police posts, warehouses,
communications facilities, and public utilities. From Cairo the FLN broadcast
a proclamation calling on Muslims in Algeria to join in a national struggle
for the "restoration of the Algerian state, sovereign, democratic, and social,
within the framework of the principles of Islam." The French minister of the
interior, socialist Francois Mitterrand, responded sharply that "the only
possible negotiation is war." It was the reaction of Premier Pierre
Mendes-France, who only a few months before had completed the liquidation of
the French empire in Indochina, that set the tone of French policy for the
next five years. On November 12 he declared in the National Assembly: "One
does not compromise when it comes to defending the internal peace of the
nation, the unity and integrity of the Republic. The Algerian departments are
part of the French Republic. They have been French for a long time, and they
are irrevocably French. . . . Between them and metropolitan France there can
be no conceivable secession."

     But only gradually was it fully recognized in Paris and Algiers that the
All Saints' Day violence signaled the start of a general insurrection against
French rule in Algeria.

National Liberation Front

     The FLN uprising presented the whole spectrum of nationalist groups and
factions with a distinct choice: whether to adopt the course of violent, armed
revolt as the main mode of action. During the first year of the war, Abbas'
UDMA, the ulama, and the PCA maintained a friendly neutrality toward the FLN.
The Communists, who had made no move to cooperate in the uprising at the
start, later tried to infiltrate the FLN, but FLN leaders publicly repudiated
the support of the party. Abbas had limited himself to denouncing French
antinationalist legislation, but as it became clear during 1955 that the FLN
was not going to collapse, the UDMA gave it increasing support. In April 1956
Abbas flew to Cairo, where he formally joined the FLN, taking with him many
evolues who had supported the UDMA in the past. The AUMA also threw the full
weight of its prestige behind the FLN. Bendjelloul and the prointegrationist
moderates had already abandoned their efforts to mediate between the French
and the rebels. Many had earlier been compelled to quit their positions in the
French administration under FLN pressure.

     After the collapse of the MTLD Messali formed the leftist National
Algerian Movement (Mouvement National Algerien-MNA), which advocated a policy
of violent revolution and total independence similar to that of the FLN. The
MNA guerrilla operation was subsequently wiped out by the ALN, and Messali's
movement lost what little remaining influence it had in Algeria; but it gained
the support of a majority of the Algerian workers in France through the Union
of Algerian Workers (Union Syndical des Travailleurs Algeriens). The FLN also
established a strong organization in France to oppose the MNA. Merciless "cafe
wars," resulting in nearly 5,000 deaths, were waged on French sidewalks and in
back streets between the two rebel groups throughout the years of the war for
independence.

     Liberation and independence were the only goals that the essentially
nonideological FLN explicitly expounded during the early years of the war. On
the political front the FLN worked to persuade-and to coerce-the Algerian
masses to support the aims of the independence movement. FLN-oriented
associations, such as labor unions, professional associations, and students'
and women's organizations, were organized to rally diverse segments of the
population to the movement. Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist from Martinique who
became the FLN's leading political theorist, provided a sophisticated
intellectual justification for the use of violence in achieving national
liberation. From Cairo, Ben Bella ordered the liquidation of potential
interlocuteurs valables, those independent representatives of the Muslim
community acceptable to the French through whom a compromise or reforms within
the system might be achieved. Efforts were also intensified to isolate Muslims
from the European moderates and the Jewish community.

     As the FLN campaign spread through the countryside, many European farmers
in the interior sold their holdings and sought refuge in Algiers, where their
cry for sterner countermeasures swelled. Colon vigilante units, whose
unauthorized activities were conducted with the passive cooperation of police
authorities, carried out ratonnade (literally, rat-hunt; synonymous with
Arab-killing) sorties against suspected FLN strongholds, which often meant the
indiscriminate killing of members of the Muslim community. The colons demanded
the proclamation of a state of emergency coupled with the proscription of all
groups advocating separation from France and the imposition of capital
punishment for politically motivated crimes. In part these demands reflected
the popular belief that the rebellion was sustained from abroad by the
Communists and that the FLN represented only a small fraction of the
population.

     By 1955 political action groups had been effectively formed within the
colon community to put pressure on the French administration, and they
succeeded in intimidating the governors general sent by Paris to resolve the
conflict. A major success was the conversion of Jacques Soustelle, who went to
Algeria as governor general in January 1955 determined to restore peace.
Soustelle, a one-time leftist and by 1955 an ardent Gaullist, undertook to
implement an ambitious reform program (the Soustelle Plan) aimed at improving
economic conditions among the Muslim population. Shocked by the brutality of
the FLN terrorist campaign, he had shifted his emphasis by the end of the year
to the need for repressive measures against the rebels. When Soustelle was
replaced and returned to France, he became a leading spokesman for the
hard-line colon position, opposing any accommodation with the Algerian
nationalists.

     His successor, Governor General Robert Lacoste, a socialist, abolished
the Algerian Assembly, which was dominated by colons and which he saw as
hindering the work of his administration, and undertook to rule Algeria by
decree-law. He favored stepping up French military operations and granted the
army exceptional police powers-a concession of dubious legality under French
law-to deal with the mounting terrorism. At the same time, Lacoste proposed a
new basic administrative structure, which would give Algeria a degree of
autonomy and a decentralized government. While remaining an integral part of
France, Algeria was to be divided into five districts, each of which was to
have a territorial assembly elected from a single slate of candidates. Colon
deputies succeeded in forcing the postponement of passage of the measure by
the National Assembly until 1958.

     In August 1956 the internal leadership of the FLN met to organize a
formal policymaking body to synchronize the movement's political and military
activities. The highest authority of the FLN was vested in the 34-member
National Council of the Algerian Revolution (Conseil National de la Revolution
Algerienne-CNRA), within which the five-man Committee of Coordination and
Enforcement (Comite de Coordination et d'Execution-CCE) formed the executive.
The externals-and most notably Ben Bella-were not represented on the CCE, a