Houari Boumédiène

Born in Guelma, he was educated at the Islamic Institute in Constantine. He joined the National Liberation Front in 1955 and adopted the nom de guerre Houari Boumediene. He received the rank of colonel and in 1960 became the commander of the military wing of the FLN.


President Ahmed Ben Bella appointed him Minister of Defense in 1961. He did not agree with Ben Bella's reforms, and later overthrew him in a bloodless coup in June 1965 and put him under house arrest. He abolished the constitution and the parliament, and he himself was the chairman of the 27-member Revolutionary Council, the new institution that governed the state. The members of the council were mostly from the army. Initially he did not have much influence, but after a group of military officers attempted a coup and tried to overthrow him in 1967, he consolidated his power. The oil industry was nationalized in 1971. From the 1970s, a gradual restoration of parliamentarism and civil institutions in Algeria was initiated. This process ended with the adoption of the new constitution in 1976. The position of president was reinstated, and Boumediene took over after winning an election with 99.46 per cent of the votes. He pursued Arab socialist and Pan-Arabist policies. He was strongly opposed to Israel and offered logistic assistance to anti-colonial movements and freedom fighters across the Arab world and Africa.


From the beginning of 1978, Boumediene appeared less and less in public. He died on December 27, 1978, after unsuccessful treatment for a rare form of blood cancer, Waldenström's macroglobulinemia. His funeral was attended by two million mourners.^[1] He was succeeded as president by Chadli Bendjedid.

Boumédiène pursued a policy of non-alignment, maintaining good relations with both the communist bloc and the capitalist nations, and promoting third-world cooperation. In the United Nations, he called for a unity built on equal status for western and ex-colonial nations, and brought about by a socialist-style change in political and trade relations. He sought to build a powerful third world bloc through the Non-Aligned Movement, in which he became a prominent figure. He unconditionally supported freedom fighters, justice and equality seekers. He offered logistic assistance to anti-colonial movements and other militant groups across Africa and the Arab world, including the PLO, ANC, SWAPO and other nations.


Algeria remained strongly opposed to Israel and a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause. In the early 1970s, Boumédiène famously said: "We are with Palestinians, whether they are the oppressed or the oppressor”.^[12] Algeria reinforced the Arab coalition with air forces against Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967, and sent an armored brigade of 150 tanks in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, where Algerian fighter jets participated in attacks together with Egyptians and Iraqis. It also deposited $200 million with the Soviet Union to finance arms purchases for Egypt and Syria.^[13] In response to the US support for Israel in the Six-Day War, Algeria severed diplomatic ties with USA. It participated in the 1973 oil embargo after the US supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War.^[14] In response to Egypt's normalization of ties with Israel, Algeria along with other Arab countries condemned Anwar Sadat and severed ties with Egypt in 1977.^[15]


Algeria bought the majority of arms from the Soviet Union.


A significant regional event was his 1975 pledge of support for Western Saharan self-determination, admitting Sahrawi refugees and the Polisario Front national liberation movement to Algerian territory, after Morocco and Mauritania claimed control over the territory. This ended the possibility of mending relations with Morocco, already sour after the 1963 Sand War, although there had been a modest thaw in relations during his first time in power. The heightened Moroccan-Algerian rivalry and the still unsolved Western Sahara question became a defining feature of Algerian foreign policy ever since and remains so today.

Death and funeral[edit]

In 1978, his appearances became increasingly rare. After lingering in a coma for 39 days, he died in Algiers of a rare blood disease, Waldenström's macroglobulinemia, following unsuccessful treatment in Moscow. Rumors about his being assassinated or poisoned have surfaced occasionally in Algerian politics, especially after two other participants of the 1975 Algiers Agreement events — the Shah (d. 1980) and his Minister of Court Asadollah Alam (d. 1978) — also died of cancers around the same time. The death of Boumédiène left a power vacuum in Algeria which could not easily be filled; a series of military conclaves eventually agreed to sidestep the competing left- and right-wing contenders, and designate the highest-ranking military officer, Colonel Chadli Bendjedid, as a compromise selection.^[16]


Boumédiène's state funeral took place in Algiers on 29 December 1978. A crowd of two million mourners attended, breaking through police cordons and blocking the routes.^[17] The Algerian government promised to continue his socialist revolution and declared 90 days of official mourning. Despite their differences over the Camp David Accords, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat paid tribute to Boumédiène and said he received the news of his death "with sorrow and sadness" and sent a delegation to attend the funeral.^[1] PLO leader Yasser Arafat attended the funeral with the second in command of his Fatah guerrilla organization, Abu Iyad, who had built close relations with Boumédiène.^[18] US President Jimmy Carter expressed deep regret and said that Boumédiène "played an outstanding role in Algeria's long struggle for independence. His devotion to duty and his contributions as an international statesman are well known. But it is for his efforts to help create and strengthen an independent, self-sufficient Algerian nation that he will be most remembered".^[1] A large United States delegation attended, which included Muhammad Ali.^[18] The Soviet press praised Boumédiène as "a great friend of the Soviet Union" and that he had "made a great contribution to Algeria's social and economic progress."^[1]