The Soccer War (12 page)

And the cycle begins anew.

Three years of Ben Bella’s government.

The opposition accuses him of doing little.

Who says?

The balance sheet of his government has its indisputable credits: Ben Bella brought order to a country emerging from war; he got Algeria
moving
: the state apparatus, the economy, education, normal life. He turned over to the workers plantations and factories that the colonists had
abandoned. Each time he nationalized an enterprise, it was an act of bravery. He prevented the civil war that was threatening the country and would have plunged it into a long decline. He prepared a programme of agricultural reform which changed the lives of several hundred thousand Algerian workers. He conferred on Algeria the prestige of becoming a leading country in the Third World, wanting Algeria to be the bridge between Europe and Africa. He opened Africa and the Arab world to the European left and to Communist parties. He was an active spokesman in the fight against colonialism.

Orthodoxy, fanaticism, did not burden Ben Bella’s view of the world, which was open, receptive, tolerant, even if sometimes insufficiently discriminating. In his youth, Ben Bella had been a student of no ideological school and had joined the movement only because he wanted a free Algeria. He fought and was imprisoned. When he took power, his views seemed right wing, but then moved left, an unmistakable evolution, but an evolution that proceeded not from intellectual operations but rather somehow from his instincts, through practical politics. They say that Ben Bella’s socialism was
sentimental
: they say that Ben Bella ‘had his heart on the left,’ that he simply
liked
socialism. Ben Bella tried to create the conditions in which youth could develop, to free the
fellah
from the tyranny of the magnates, to free slaves, to fight for the rights of women: Algerian women despaired when they heard that Ben Bella had been removed; they dressed in mourning. (One told me: ‘He wanted to create a life for women. Now the men will lock us back up in the home.’)

Ben Bella’s socialism was brave and original. In simple terms, it was a socialist economy with the Islamic superstructure left undisturbed. The opposition accused him of talking too much and doing too little. They said that
Ben Bella’s socialism was
verbal
.

How much time does the president of Algeria devote to fighting the opposition?

Ben Bella had a running battle with the opposition. Instead of developing his programme, he had to deal with his enemies. The situation is typically Algerian. Somebody is always plotting, and the constant threat of a
coup
paralyses the government. Take the year 1963. In April Ben Bella removes Khider, the general secretary of the FLN, because Khider has been organizing an opposition to him. In June he arrests Budiafy for conspiring against the government. In July the Kabyle leader Ait Ahmed announces that he has declared an open war against the government. In August Ben Bella removes Ferhat Abbas, the leader of the National Assembly, because Abbas opposes the party. In September he removes Rabeh Bitat for opposition activity; the same month he also removes Colonel el-Haji for organizing an uprising in Kabylia. In October and November there is a major rebellion among the Kabyle, who constitute nearly a fifth of the Algerian population. These are only the affairs that made headlines; how many conspiracies were nipped in the bud? How many small-time seditionists were there? In Algeria, nothing ever ends in a discussion. Political discipline is lacking, and the ability to think in terms of the good of the state is unknown. For that, you need years, whole generations.

Everything that occurs here is ideological, but the ideology is fluid, undefined, because this is not capitalism, which nobody espouses, and it is not socialism, which is known in only a cursory way, and it is not yet an Islamic orthodoxy. Some new quality is being born, and it is not yet expressed in any doctrine; everyone understands it in his own way. The Algerian mentality is full of
clutter, contradictions and collages of the most fantastic incongruities. Political contentions are tortuous, as political opponents, operating without clear conceptions, can neither understand each other nor define their own positions. Their battles are fought on the ground of personal antagonism and old quarrels.

Nevertheless Ben Bella, with the members of the opposition gradually finding themselves behind bars or choosing to emigrate, seems to be picking his way skilfully through the labyrinth. Ben Bella thinks he is standing on solid ground.

Ben Bella is not standing on solid ground.

What was happening in Algeria just before the
coup
?

Things were not going well.

There were the problems that still needed to be solved: the millions of unemployed, the rural poverty, the confusion in the private sector, the lack of expertise, the gap between what the government said it would do for the country and its actual state, the deficit. Ben Bella could not solve these problems, and it was hard to see who would; it was hard to see when they could be solved.

Economic stagnation, internal disappointments, bureaucratic inertia, and the immobility of the masses always push Third World politicians in one of two directions: they become dictators or else they escalate their activities abroad, enlarge their foreign policy.

Ben Bella tried to make up for his domestic failures with a foreign policy that enhanced his prestige in the world. His policies attracted more and more of his time, more and more of his passion. He enjoyed visits and round table discussions. He could be captivating; people fell under the spell of his personal charm. His ambitions were great. He thought about supporting the rebels in Angola and
Mozambique; he trained South African guerrillas. He invited members of the World Youth Festival to Algiers. He made the capital the site for the second Afro-Asian conference. They say that he supervised the preparations personally, refusing to share them with
anyone
. Before the conference he was conducting wide-ranging correspondence with heads of state: he invited Chou En-Lai for a visit in June. He would set out on a visit to de Gaulle in July. Algeria became the pivotal Third World state, but the cost of its status—above all, the financial cost—was staggering. It ate up millions of dollars for which the country had a crying need.

Gradually, the gap between Ben Bella’s domestic and foreign policies grew wider. The contrast deepened: Algeria had earned an international reputation as a revolutionary state; its policies were brave, decisive and dynamic; it had become a haven for the struggling and the oppressed of the world; it was an example for the non-European continents, a model, bright and entrancing: while at home, the country was stagnating; the unemployed filled the squares of every city; there was no investment; illiteracy ruled, bureaucracy, reaction, fanaticism ran riot; intrigues absorbed the attention of the government.

This gap between foreign and domestic politics, typical of many Third World countries, never lasts for long. The country, even if of the politician’s making, always drags him back down to earth. The country cannot carry the burden of these policies. It cannot afford to; and it has no interest in them.

Two reasons confirmed the decision to go ahead with the coup: Ben Bella’s style of governing and his preparations for a showdown with Boumedienne.

Like every autocrat, Ben Bella gradually dispensed with
people who thought independently and were prepared to defend their views, but, equally, could not respect and would not listen to those who remained. He dominated them; they were inferior. He paid less and less attention to those around him. He grew intolerant. He shouted at them. He no longer summoned them to help him make decisions. He summoned them to inform them of the decisions he had made. ‘Today I’ve decided that so-and-so,’ was how he would open politburo meetings. The principles of the court were at work, pushing the leader into a state of isolation. He held centre stage but held it alone. The Villa Joly gradually became empty. Ben Bella even lost touch with his old friends. He had no time for them, or they got on his nerves. If someone called on him to offer advice, Ben Bella would explode, ring for his bodyguards, and order them to arrest the caller. People began to stay out of his way, for fear of crossing him. He was a man of moods: he would easily fly into a rage and then he would sulk. He would get all wound up and stop thinking about what he was saying. Shortly before the
coup
he screamed at a cabinet meeting, ‘I’m finished with all of you!’

He was indeed finished with them.

He no longer trusted anyone. People were either plotting or carrying out sabotage. One day he introduced Boumedienne to an Egyptian journalist with the words, ‘This is the man who is preparing the conspiracy against me.’ And he asked: ‘How are the intrigues coming along?’ ‘Quite well, thank you,’ Boumedienne replied.

He concentrated more and more power in his own hands. He was president of the republic and general secretary of the party. He also began taking over ministries. He decided who would be a member of the politburo, who would be a member of the central committee, who would join the government and sit in parliament. ‘He decided everything,’
Buteflika later assured the journalists.

His was a complicated, many-layered personality, for, at the same time, he was trying to assure everyone that he liked them. He talked with each faction and made promises to each. In the morning he met with the leftists and made promises he could not keep; in the afternoon he met with the right wing and made more promises that he could not keep. People stopped believing him. The mutual suspicion grew, increasing the tension.

He played, he improvised. He was a great improviser, a tactician. But no clear strategic thinking guided his tactics. In these tactics there were no plans, there was only juggling.

Nobody could tell him anything. He was uncritical towards himself. He believed in his own strength, in his own star, in his own popularity. He had a good press—until the last minute he had a very good press. Writing anything bad about Ben Bella counted as a lapse of taste. Journalists liked him. He received them enthusiastically. He was so sure of himself that he felt the moment had come to deal with his main opponent, the very force that had carried him into power, that for three years had stood not so much behind him as beside him—the army. He did not know, he did not sense, the hopelessness of the struggle on which he was about to embark. The army was more than those in uniform: it was also those who had been in uniform, launching their careers. Half of the government, the central committee, the parliament, was army—present or past,
émigré
or guerrilla. The majority of Ben Bella’s people belonged not to Ben Bella; they belonged to Boumedienne.

Ben Bella began by creating units of a people’s militia, a counter-balance, he believed, to the influence of the army. It would not work. Next, while Boumedienne was in
Moscow, Ben Bella named Tahar Zbiri chief of the general staff, a move to which Boumedienne would never have agreed: Zbiri was not army; Zbiri had been a guerrilla.

They say that by the beginning of June the atmosphere had become unbearable, that Ben Bella was obviously preparing a purge. And then he himself declared his intentions.

A week before the
coup
, on Saturday 12 June, Ben Bella called for a politburo meeting the following Saturday, 19 June. Its agenda would be the following:

Boumedienne was not present—he had already split irrevocably with Ben Bella—but half of the members of the politburo were Boumedienne’s people anyway.

After this meeting, Ben Bella boarded an airplane and left for a week in Oran, leaving behind in Algiers everyone he had threatened.

Nobody knew who was to be dismissed. Everyone discreetly examined his conscience. Everyone felt uncertain, and the uncertainty united them. In Ben Bella’s absence, discussions continued about whether to carry out the
coup
. Might it not be enough to just threaten a
coup
?

On Friday 18 June, a few hours before the
coup
, Ben Bella addressed a rally in Oran. He told the rally that ‘Algeria is united as never before,’ that all rumours of divisions in the government are nonsense, hostile propaganda. Afterwards he went to a soccer match—he never missed a match—and then he returned to Algeria in the late evening. Someone apparently telephoned him, requesting an emergency cabinet meeting. He answered that he was tired and was going to bed. At two in the morning
he was awakened by his friend, Colonel Tahar Zbiri, who was wearing a helmet and holding an automatic.

Ben Bella disappeared without a trace.

The organizer of the
coup
was the first vice-premier, the minister of national defence, a member of the politburo of the FLN, a member of the Algerian National Assembly, the commander of the national people’s army, and a former teacher of Arabic literature, Houari Boumedienne (born Bukharuba Mohammed). He was a colonel because the Algerian army, like all people’s or revolutionary armies, has no rank of general or marshal. Officers’ insignia are very modest, and the uniforms of privates and officers do not differ in the cut or the quality of the material.

Boumedienne is not photogenic (and, what’s worse, the newspapers that dislike him retouch his face to give him a predatory cast), but in the flesh, he makes a likeable impression. He is of medium height, very slim, with a long, almost ascetic face, sunken cheeks and prominent jaws. His eyes, in deep sockets, are brown, mobile and uncommonly penetrating. Boumedienne does not look like an Arab. He has long, dark wavy hair and a close-cropped moustache rusty with the nicotine from his chain-smoking.

His manner astonished me. I met him a few days after the
coup
and was prepared for someone characterized by the mannerisms of a despot. In fact, Boumedienne was shy, embarrassed. I was attending a reception at the People’s Palace. He bowed as low as a schoolboy to everyone. He did not know what to do with his hands, and his lack of social experience was obvious. After receiving the guests he sat in a chair against the wall and stared silently at an empty corner of the room. I do not know if he exchanged a single sentence with anyone in the course of the reception.