War of Independence: In the early morning hours of November 1,
1954, the National Liberation Front (Front de Liberation National—FLN)
launched attacks throughout Algeria in the opening salvo of a war of
independence. An important watershed in this war was the massacre of
civilians by the FLN near the town of Philippeville in August 1955. The
government claimed it killed 1,273 guerrillas in retaliation; according to the
FLN, 12,000 Muslims perished in an orgy of bloodletting by the armed forces
and police, as well as colon gangs. After Philippeville, all-out war began in
Algeria.
From its origins in 1954 as ragtag maquisards numbering in the hundreds
and armed with a motley assortment of weapons, the National Liberation
Army (Armée de Liberation National—ALN), the military wing of the FLN, had
evolved by 1957 into a disciplined fighting force of nearly 40,000 that
successfully applied hit-and-run guerrilla warfare tactics. By 1956 France had
committed more than 400,000 troops to Algeria. In 1958–59 the French army
had won military control in Algeria, but political developments had already
overtaken the French army’s successes. During that period in France,
opposition to the conflict was growing, and international pressure was also
building on France to grant Algeria independence.
The war of national liberation and its aftermath had severely disrupted
Algeria’s society and economy. In addition to the physical destruction, the
exodus of the colons deprived the country of most of its managers, civil
servants, engineers, teachers, physicians, and skilled workers. The homeless
and displaced numbered in the hundreds of thousands, many suffering from
illness, and some 70 percent of the work force was unemployed. The months
immediately following independence had witnessed the pell-mell rush of
Algerians, their government, and its officials to claim the property and jobs
left behind by the Europeans. In the 1963 March Decrees, Ben Bella declared
that all agricultural, industrial, and commercial properties previously owned
and operated by Europeans were vacant, thereby legalizing confiscation by
the state.
A new constitution drawn up under close FLN supervision was approved by
nationwide referendum in September 1963, and Ben Bella was confirmed as
the party’s choice to lead the country for a five-year term. Under the new
constitution, Ben Bella as president combined the functions of chief of state
and head of government with those of supreme commander of the armed
forces. He formed his government with no need for legislative approval and
was solely responsible for the definition and direction of its policies.
Essentially, he had no effective institutional check on his powers.
Opposition leader Hosine Ait-Ahmed quit the National Assembly in 1963 to
protest the increasingly dictatorial tendencies of the regime and formed a
clandestine resistance movement, the Front of Socialist Forces (Front des
Forces Socialistes—FFS) dedicated to overthrowing the Ben Bella regime by
force. Late summer 1963 saw sporadic incidents attributed to the FFS. More
serious fighting broke out a year later. The army moved quickly and in force
to crush the rebellion. As minister of defense, Houari Boumediene had no
qualms about sending the army to put down regional uprisings because he
felt they posed a threat to the state. However, when Ben Bella attempted to
co-opt allies from among some of those regionalists, tensions increased
between Boumediene and Ben Bella. On June 19, 1965, Boumediene
deposed Ben Bella in a military coup d’état that was both swift and
bloodless. This year Algeria has celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s independance 
Know Algeria 