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The Algerian Revolution in Search of the African Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

Among the states of Africa, Algeria has been one of the most active participants in international politics. Its leaders have defended their considerable concern with foreign policy by arguing that the distribution of world power is a major variable in the success of the country's development objectives. Aware that many Third-World states have not attributed the same importance to the international situation, Algerians have insisted that it is in the general interest of the Third World to increase its influence in world politics. In the absence of economic and military strength, Algeria has emphasised political consciousness as an instrument to defend the interests of the developing countries. This approach has been particularly important in Algeria's relations with black Africa. This article is intended as a study in inter-African politics, examining the impact of Algeria's African policy upon the inter- African system and, to some extent, upon the Algerian political system.

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Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

Page 363 note 1 While these labels are inadequate to express the complexity of African politics—some would insist that they merely distinguish between pro-western nations and others—this article assumes that the terms reflect significantly differing strategies of development.

Page 364 note 1 Quoted in Rondot, P. and Froelich, J.-C., ‘Le Maghreb entre 1'Orient et 1'Afrique noire’, in Revue française d'études politiques africairies (Paris), XIII, 01 1967, p. 108.Google Scholar

Page 366 note 1 Fanon, Frantz, Pour la revolution africaine (Paris, 1964), p. 211.Google Scholar

Page 366 note 2 Ibid. p. 206.

Page 367 note 1 Slimane Chikh offers a detailed discussion of the C.I.A.S. in ‘L'Algérie et l'Afrique (1954–1962)’, in Revue algérienne des sciences juridiques, économiques et politiques (Algiers), v, 09 1968, pp. 726–8Google Scholar. The authority on the recognition of the G.P.R.A. is Bedjaoui, Mohamed, La Révolution algérienne et 1e droit (Brussels, 1961), ch. 7.Google Scholar

Page 367 note 2 See El Moudjahid (Algiers), 70,27 08 1960Google Scholar; 71, 14 October 1960; and 73,24 November 1960, which posed the issue bluntly: ‘La Communauté à l'heure du choix’.

Page 367 note 3 A brief review of Algeria's U.N. diplomacy, 1955–61, is found in Chikh, op. cit. pp. 720–5.

Page 368 note 1 According to Chikh, op. cit. p. 730, Algeria began training Angolans in mid-1961 after the Cairo A.A.P.C..

Page 368 note 2 El Moudjahid, 68, 5 08 1968.Google Scholar

Page 369 note 1 For a thorough study of one African state's attempt to influence the course of the events in the Congo, see Mohan, Jitendra, ‘Ghana, the Congo, and the United Nations’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), VII, 3, 1969, pp. 369406.Google Scholar

Page 369 note 2 See Charles F. Gallagher, ‘The Death of a Group’, in American Universities Field Staff Reports Service, North Africa Series, ix, 4, mimeo.

Page 370 note 1 Les Discours du Président Ben Bella (Algiers, 1964), p. 98.Google Scholar

Page 370 note 2 He replaced Ben Bella's first Foreign Minister, Mohamed Khemisti, who was assassinated; for several months after Khemisti's death, Ben Bella served as ‘Acting Foreign Minister’

Page 371 note 1 Discours du Président Ben Bella, du 28 septembre 1962 au 12 décembre 1962 (Algiers, 1963), p. 28.Google Scholar

Page 371 note 2 Al Chaab (Algiers), 18 01 1963.Google Scholar

Page 371 note 3 During its early months, this quasi-official weekly was edited by Jacques Vergès, a radical lawyer-journalist long active in international leftist circles.

Page 372 note 1 Révolution afrcaine (Algiers), 83, 29 08 1964Google Scholar. Note that Algeria supported the G.R.A.E. throughout the July 1964 conference of the O.A.U.

Page 372 note 2 Jeune Afrique (Paris), 204, 1 11 1964Google Scholar reported these defections, and Révolution africaine promptly denied them: 93, 7 November 1964. The fact remains that Algeria's material investment in Angola has paid scant military dividends.

Page 372 note 3 Michel, Hubert, ‘La Politique africaine des états du Maghreb’, in Revue française d'ctudes politiques africaines, 27, 03 1968, p. 45.Google Scholar

Page 372 note 4 See for example Rondot and Froelich, op. cit.

Page 373 note 1 The quotation is from an article by Bakari Djibo, an exiled opposition leader from Niger, in Revolution afrisaine, 4, 23 02 1963.Google Scholar

Page 373 note 2 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, ‘The Addis-Ababa Charter’, in International Conciliation (New York), 546, 01 1964, p. II.Google Scholar

Page 374 note 1 Les Discours du Président Ben Bella, p. 84.

Page 374 note 2 Le Peuple (Algiers), 20 07 1964.Google Scholar

Page 377 note 1 Le Peuple, 26 November 1964.

Page 377 note 2 Jeune Afrique announced the first shipments in December. Later, a total of 28 Egyptian and Algerian planes were said to have landed at Juba, Southern Sudan, by mid-February. Le Monde (Paris), 20 02 1965.Google Scholar

Page 377 note 3 A detailed account of the inter-African discussions at the U.N. appeared in Jeune Afrique, 213, 3 01 1965.Google Scholar

Page 378 note 1 The distinction between unity as ‘alliance’ and unity as ‘movement’ is developed in Wallerstein, Immanuel, Africa, The Politics of Unity (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

Page 378 note 2 Several states, led by the Ivory Coast, never ratified the conversion of the U.A.M. from a political into a nominally technical organisation. These states took the lead in the creation of O.C.A.M. See Hippolyte, Mirlande, ‘Dc Nouakchott à Niamey: l'itinéraire de l'OCAM’, in Revue française d'itudes politiques africaines, 34, 10 1968, pp. 3453.Google Scholar

Page 378 note 3 Ibid. p. 37.

Page 379 note 1 Algeria's anti-Israeli policy, which is discussed further below, was already raising problems within the core of radical Africa, notably with Ghana, which complicated the possibilities of defining a clear response.

Page 380 note 1 One can hardly draw definitive conclusions from the ironic epilogue to the Congo policy, which began when the exiled former Premier was hijacked to Algeria. Embarrassed by the ‘poisoned gift’, the Algerians neither extradited Tshombe to Kinshasa, as President Mobutu urgently desired, nor set him free, as a conventional interpretation of international law would have advised. The Boumediène Government seemed to share the opinion that Tshombe was a special case requiring special treatment. The army's willingness to send supplies to the Congolese rebels in 1964 would seem to strengthen this interpretation.

Page 382 note 1 Mauretania, Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroun, the two Congos, and Tanzania. Tunisia by comparison had only two sub-Saharan embassies in 1967. Maghreb (Paris), 19, 0102 1967.Google Scholar

Page 383 note 1 Le Monde, 9 September 1969.

Page 383 note 2 ‘Le Premier Festival culturel panafricain’, in Maghreb, 35, 0910 1969, pp. 913.Google Scholar

Page 384 note 1 Algeria has consistently refused to support the idea of a francophone confederation; at the festival, emphasis was placed on the development of African languages.

Page 384 note 2 The text can be found in Présence africaine (Paris), 71, 3rd quarter 1969, pp. 115–32.Google Scholar

Page 385 note 1 El Moudjahid, 26–27 November 1968, reprinted in Maghreb, 31, January–February 1969.