Ben Bella, (Mohammed) Ahmed

Ben Bella, (Mohammed) Ahmed (Arabic Muhammad Ahmad Bin Balla), also known as Hemmimed, Abdelkader Mebtouche, or Messaoud Mezziani (b. Dec. 25, 19181, Maghnia [Marnia], Algeria), prime minister (1962-63) and president (1963-65) of Algeria. He joined Messali Hadj's underground movement, and after Gov. Marcel Edmond Naegelen rigged elections in 1948 he became one of those Algerians who considered illusory any hope of achieving independence democratically. With his friends in Messali Hadj's party, he founded the Organisation Spéciale (OS), whose aim was to take up arms as quickly as possible. After robbing the post office at Oran (1950) to obtain funds for the nationalist movement, he was sentenced to prison, but he managed to escape after serving only two years of his term, and went underground again. In November 1954 he and other leaders decided to create the National Liberation Front (FLN) and to order an armed insurrection against the French colonists. In 1956 he was arrested by the French military authorities. When he was freed in 1962, the leaders of the FLN had formed a conservative provisional government, while the party's congress at Tripoli had elected a socialist-oriented government. It was this latter "Bureau Politique" that Ben Bella ran. He was elected president unopposed in 1963. He reestablished order and inaugurated a series of major agrarian reforms. On June 19, 1965, he was deposed in a coup led by Houari Boumedienne and was detained. Following Boumedienne's death in 1978, restrictions on Ben Bella were eased in July 1979, though he remained under house arrest. On Oct. 30, 1980, he was freed. He spent 10 years in exile, forming an opposition movement in Paris in 1984. He was allowed to return to Algeria on Sept. 27, 1990.