Houari Boumédiène

Biography

Houari Boumédiène was born Mohammed Ben Brahim Boukharouba on August 23, 1932, in Heliopolis, a village near Guelma in northeastern Algeria — the same region where the 1945 massacres had occurred. The son of a poor farming family, he showed unusual academic promise and was sent to study at the prestigious Zitouna mosque-university in Tunis and later at Al-Azhar in Cairo, where he absorbed both Islamic learning and the revolutionary nationalist politics of Nasser's Egypt. He took the nom de guerre Houari Boumédiène (from two Algerian saints' names) when he joined the FLN in 1955. Boumédiène proved an extraordinarily capable military organizer. By 1957, at just 25 years of age, he had been appointed commander of the Western Wilaya (Wilaya V), the most important military region because it bordered Morocco and allowed ALN forces to receive weapons and training. He transformed the chaotic bands of fighters in his zone into a disciplined military force that operated with regular army organization and discipline. In 1960, he was appointed by the GPRA as chief of the General Staff of the ALN (CNIG), making him the supreme military commander of the Algerian revolution at age 28. Boumédiène had a complex and ultimately ruthless relationship with the FLN's political wing. He believed that professional military men, not civilian politicians, had the best claim to lead independent Algeria. When independence came in 1962, he allied with Ben Bella against the provisional government, providing the army that enabled Ben Bella's political victory — but on the understanding that the military's interests would be paramount. His patience wore out in June 1965, when he overthrew Ben Bella in a bloodless coup and established a military-dominated council of revolution. As President from 1965 to 1978, Boumédiène pursued a rigidly socialist development model: nationalizing French oil companies in 1971 (a major act of economic decolonization), building heavy industry with Soviet assistance, and leading the push for a New International Economic Order at the UN. He hosted the 1973 Non-Aligned Movement summit in Algiers and was a dominant voice of the Third World. At home, his authoritarianism was absolute but relatively non-violent compared to what followed — political dissent was suppressed but mass terror was avoided. He died in office of a rare blood disease on December 27, 1978.

Key Battles