Ahmed Ben Bella

Biography

Ahmed Ben Bella was born on December 25, 1916, in Maghnia, a small town near the Moroccan border in western Algeria. The son of a peasant farmer, he grew up under French colonial rule in a village where Europeans owned the best land and Algerians were second-class subjects in their own country. He was an exceptional football player and could have pursued a professional career, but World War II intervened. Conscripted into the French Army, Ben Bella fought with distinction in Italy and France, receiving the Médaille Militaire personally from Charles de Gaulle — a bitter irony given that it would be de Gaulle who would eventually negotiate his country's independence. After witnessing the Sétif massacres of May 1945, in which French troops and settlers killed tens of thousands of Algerian civilians who had dared to march for independence on VE Day, Ben Bella abandoned any remaining faith in French promises of reform. He joined the militant wing of Algerian nationalism and became an early member of the OS (Organisation Spéciale), the paramilitary predecessor to the FLN. In 1949, he helped rob a post office in Oran to fund nationalist activities, was arrested, but escaped from prison with spectacular daring in 1952 by squeezing through a gap in the bars of his cell window, leaving behind only a note for the guards. Ben Bella moved to Egypt, where he cultivated connections with Nasser's revolutionary government and became one of the 'Nine Historic Chieftains' (les Neuf Historiques) who voted on October 10, 1954, to launch armed revolution on November 1st. As the FLN's external coordinator in Cairo, he secured weapons and diplomatic support while the war raged inside Algeria. In October 1956, the French military illegally intercepted his civilian aircraft flying from Morocco to Tunisia and arrested him — he would spend the rest of the war in French prison, becoming a symbol of Algerian resistance. Released after the Évian Accords, Ben Bella maneuvered brilliantly to become Algeria's first Prime Minister in 1962 and first President in 1963. His presidency combined socialist economics, pan-Arab solidarity, and Third World activism — he hosted Che Guevara, supported African liberation movements, and nationalized French-owned land. But his increasingly personalist and authoritarian style, combined with his neglect of the military, led to a coup by his former ally Houari Boumédiène in June 1965. He spent 14 years in detention. Released in 1980, he lived in exile before returning to Algeria, where he died in 2012 at the age of 95.

Key Battles