Bouhired
Bouhired (Djamila Bouhired) (b. 1935). Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) leader whose role in the 1957 Battle of Algiers gained her international notoriety as a symbol of resistance to French rule and of the more active role anticipated for women in independent Algeria. Through members of her family involved in the nationalist movement, Djamila Bouhired (Jamilah Buhrayd) came to the attention of Saadi Yacef, the FLN commander of the Algiers Qasbah. Yacef recruited her and other young Algerian women who could pass as Europeans when dressed in Western garb to plant bombs in cafes and other gathering places frequented by the French. The devastating bombings, which began in September 1956, sparked a concerted effort by the French army to round up FLN activists in Algiers. In April 1957, Bouhired was arrested and savagely tortured by French soldiers, but refused to divulge information about FLN leaders.
At her military trial in July, Bouhired acknowledged belonging to the FLN, but denied participating in the fatal bombing with which she was charged. In a trial marred by irregularities, Jacques Verges, her French communist attorney, was denied access to essential documents and prohibited from making a final plea in her defense. The most incriminating testimony came from a woman accused of planting bombs with Bouhired, despite the fact that her behavior showed clear signs of mental instability. Bouhired was found guilty and sentenced to death. Yacef ordered a new round of bombings and threatened to engulf the city in violence if the sentence were carried out, but the French had been systematically uncovering FLN cells in Algiers, and he was captured in August.
Outraged by both the conduct of the trial and the increasingly commonplace resort to torture by the authorities, Verges and fellow communist Georges Arnaud published a pamphlet entitled Pour Djamila Bouhired. Her case became a cause celebre as French leftists, and many others distressed by the dehumanizing aspects of the Algerian conflict, organized rallies on her behalf, as did FLN sympathizers elsewhere in Europe. Bouhired’s story was also widely publicized throughout the Arab world, where she was portrayed as a heroine of the revolution and a symbol of Algerian women.
The demonstrations reached a crescendo in March 1958, with the termination of the appeals process. Under considerable international pressure, and with the FLN threatening to reopen its bombing campaign if Bouhired were executed, French president Coty commuted her sentence to life imprisonment. She was transferred to France and remained incarcerated until the war’s end.
Thereafter, she married Verges and ran unsuccessfully for a seat in Algeria’s first National Assembly. With her husband and Zohra Drif (another of Yacef’s former agents), she edited Revolution africaine until a purge of communists forced them from their positions in 1963. She subsequently divorced Verges and pursued an entrepreneurial venture in Algiers, but did not return to public life. Bouhired’s opportunity to follow a non-traditional lifestyle and choose a career option not generally open to women before the revolution was, however, more closely related to her own personality than to any genuine change in the status of Algerian women, few of whom experienced any significant improvement in their socioeconomic status with independence.
Bouhired was one of the trio of FLN female bombers depicted in the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers. She was also depicted in the film Jamila the Algerian (1958) by Egyptian director Youssef Chahine.
Djamila Bouhired see Bouhired
Jamilah Buhrayd see Bouhired
Buhrayd, Jamilah see Bouhired
Bouhired (Djamila Bouhired) (b. 1935). Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) leader whose role in the 1957 Battle of Algiers gained her international notoriety as a symbol of resistance to French rule and of the more active role anticipated for women in independent Algeria. Through members of her family involved in the nationalist movement, Djamila Bouhired (Jamilah Buhrayd) came to the attention of Saadi Yacef, the FLN commander of the Algiers Qasbah. Yacef recruited her and other young Algerian women who could pass as Europeans when dressed in Western garb to plant bombs in cafes and other gathering places frequented by the French. The devastating bombings, which began in September 1956, sparked a concerted effort by the French army to round up FLN activists in Algiers. In April 1957, Bouhired was arrested and savagely tortured by French soldiers, but refused to divulge information about FLN leaders.
At her military trial in July, Bouhired acknowledged belonging to the FLN, but denied participating in the fatal bombing with which she was charged. In a trial marred by irregularities, Jacques Verges, her French communist attorney, was denied access to essential documents and prohibited from making a final plea in her defense. The most incriminating testimony came from a woman accused of planting bombs with Bouhired, despite the fact that her behavior showed clear signs of mental instability. Bouhired was found guilty and sentenced to death. Yacef ordered a new round of bombings and threatened to engulf the city in violence if the sentence were carried out, but the French had been systematically uncovering FLN cells in Algiers, and he was captured in August.
Outraged by both the conduct of the trial and the increasingly commonplace resort to torture by the authorities, Verges and fellow communist Georges Arnaud published a pamphlet entitled Pour Djamila Bouhired. Her case became a cause celebre as French leftists, and many others distressed by the dehumanizing aspects of the Algerian conflict, organized rallies on her behalf, as did FLN sympathizers elsewhere in Europe. Bouhired’s story was also widely publicized throughout the Arab world, where she was portrayed as a heroine of the revolution and a symbol of Algerian women.
The demonstrations reached a crescendo in March 1958, with the termination of the appeals process. Under considerable international pressure, and with the FLN threatening to reopen its bombing campaign if Bouhired were executed, French president Coty commuted her sentence to life imprisonment. She was transferred to France and remained incarcerated until the war’s end.
Thereafter, she married Verges and ran unsuccessfully for a seat in Algeria’s first National Assembly. With her husband and Zohra Drif (another of Yacef’s former agents), she edited Revolution africaine until a purge of communists forced them from their positions in 1963. She subsequently divorced Verges and pursued an entrepreneurial venture in Algiers, but did not return to public life. Bouhired’s opportunity to follow a non-traditional lifestyle and choose a career option not generally open to women before the revolution was, however, more closely related to her own personality than to any genuine change in the status of Algerian women, few of whom experienced any significant improvement in their socioeconomic status with independence.
Bouhired was one of the trio of FLN female bombers depicted in the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers. She was also depicted in the film Jamila the Algerian (1958) by Egyptian director Youssef Chahine.
Djamila Bouhired see Bouhired
Jamilah Buhrayd see Bouhired
Buhrayd, Jamilah see Bouhired
Boulmerka
Boulmerka (Hassiba Boulmerka) (b. July 10, 1968). First woman from an Arabic or African nation to win an IAAF World track championship. As a young athlete, Algerian born Hassiba Boulmerka relied heavily on her family for daily emotional support in a national climate that at one time debated imposing a ban on women that would keep them from participating in athletics. In 1991, when Boulmerka won gold in the 1500 meters at the Tokyo world track and field championships -- and became the first woman from an Arab or African nation to win a world track championship -- it was an historic achievement for women in her homeland. It was also the subject of much debate in her country. While some viewed Boulmerka as a heroine, others denounced her as a heretic for having run barelegged, contrary to the Muslim belief that, in public, women should be covered from head to toe. Boulmerka answered her critics by stating that she was a practicing Muslim but also an athlete, and that the traditional Islamic women’s clothing and headscarf would slow her speed. She followed up her performance in Tokyo with Olympic gold in the 1500 at the 1992 Barcelona Games.
Hassiba Boulmerka was born on July 10, 1968 in Constantine in the north east of Algeria. Boulmerka started running as a young girl, specializing in the 800 and 1500 meters. She was successful in national and regional races, although there was not much competition. Her first major international tournament was the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, where she was eliminated in the preliminary heat of both the 800 and 1500 meters.
Boulmerka's performances slowly improved, and her big breakthrough came in 1991. The first major race she won was the 800 meters. at the Golden Gala race in Rome, Italy. A month later, she competed at the World Championships. On the last straight of the 1500 meter final, she sprinted to victory, becoming the first African woman to win an athletics world title.
Despite her remarkable performances, Boulmerka did not always receive positive attention. She was frequently bothered by fundamentalist Muslim groups in Algeria who thought she showed too much of her body when racing, and Boulmerka was forced to move to Europe to train. In spite of this, she was one of the favorites for the 1500 meter gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. In the final, she fought off Lyudmila Rogachova for the gold medal. It was Algeria's first gold medal at the Olympic Games.
Boulmerka's next two seasons were not as successful. Although she won a bronze medal at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart. In 1995, she had not won a single race going into the World Championships in Gothenburg, but this did not prevent her from winning her second world title. It was her only victory of that season, and her last major victory. She competed at the Centennial Olympics in Atlanta, but sprained her ankle in the semi-finals. After the 1997 season, in which she did not bother to defend her world title, she retired from sports.
Boulmerka was later elected to the athlete's commission of the International Olympic Committee.
During her career, Boulmerka held the 1500 meters African record of 3:55.30 that was set on August 8, 1992 in Barcelona. She also held the one mile African record of 4:20.79 set in 1991 in Oslo. The record was beaten 17 years later by Gelete Burika of Ethiopia, who ran a time of 4:18.23 in 2008 .
Hassiba Boulmerka see Boulmerka
Boulmerka (Hassiba Boulmerka) (b. July 10, 1968). First woman from an Arabic or African nation to win an IAAF World track championship. As a young athlete, Algerian born Hassiba Boulmerka relied heavily on her family for daily emotional support in a national climate that at one time debated imposing a ban on women that would keep them from participating in athletics. In 1991, when Boulmerka won gold in the 1500 meters at the Tokyo world track and field championships -- and became the first woman from an Arab or African nation to win a world track championship -- it was an historic achievement for women in her homeland. It was also the subject of much debate in her country. While some viewed Boulmerka as a heroine, others denounced her as a heretic for having run barelegged, contrary to the Muslim belief that, in public, women should be covered from head to toe. Boulmerka answered her critics by stating that she was a practicing Muslim but also an athlete, and that the traditional Islamic women’s clothing and headscarf would slow her speed. She followed up her performance in Tokyo with Olympic gold in the 1500 at the 1992 Barcelona Games.
Hassiba Boulmerka was born on July 10, 1968 in Constantine in the north east of Algeria. Boulmerka started running as a young girl, specializing in the 800 and 1500 meters. She was successful in national and regional races, although there was not much competition. Her first major international tournament was the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, where she was eliminated in the preliminary heat of both the 800 and 1500 meters.
Boulmerka's performances slowly improved, and her big breakthrough came in 1991. The first major race she won was the 800 meters. at the Golden Gala race in Rome, Italy. A month later, she competed at the World Championships. On the last straight of the 1500 meter final, she sprinted to victory, becoming the first African woman to win an athletics world title.
Despite her remarkable performances, Boulmerka did not always receive positive attention. She was frequently bothered by fundamentalist Muslim groups in Algeria who thought she showed too much of her body when racing, and Boulmerka was forced to move to Europe to train. In spite of this, she was one of the favorites for the 1500 meter gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. In the final, she fought off Lyudmila Rogachova for the gold medal. It was Algeria's first gold medal at the Olympic Games.
Boulmerka's next two seasons were not as successful. Although she won a bronze medal at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart. In 1995, she had not won a single race going into the World Championships in Gothenburg, but this did not prevent her from winning her second world title. It was her only victory of that season, and her last major victory. She competed at the Centennial Olympics in Atlanta, but sprained her ankle in the semi-finals. After the 1997 season, in which she did not bother to defend her world title, she retired from sports.
Boulmerka was later elected to the athlete's commission of the International Olympic Committee.
During her career, Boulmerka held the 1500 meters African record of 3:55.30 that was set on August 8, 1992 in Barcelona. She also held the one mile African record of 4:20.79 set in 1991 in Oslo. The record was beaten 17 years later by Gelete Burika of Ethiopia, who ran a time of 4:18.23 in 2008 .
Hassiba Boulmerka see Boulmerka
Boumedienne
Boumedienne (Houari Boumedienne) (Houari Boumediene) (Mohamed Ben Brahim Boukharouba) (August 23, 1932 - December 27, 1978). President of Algeria (1965-1978). Originally named Muhammad Ibrahim Boukharouba (Bukharruba), he was born near Guelma and educated at the Islamic Institute in Constantine and later at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. An early member of the National Liberation Front (Front de Liberation Nationale, or FLN), he rose rapidly as guerrilla commander and in 1957 became the youngest colonel in the FLN. In 1960, he was appointed chief of staff of the army outside Algeria. After independence, Boumedienne backed Ahmed Ben Bella and became defense minister in his cabinet until June 1965, when he deposed him. Although Boumedienne held no constitutionally legitimate office, he headed the Algerian state until 1976, when a new constitution was approved. He was then elected president for a six year term. Boumedienne presided over the growth of Algeria from near bankruptcy to a leading position among Third World countries, and he was a prominent advocate of a new economic and political world order. It was under Boumedienne that Algeria became an inspiration to many of the new nations freed after the demise of French and British colonialism.
Mohamed Ben Brahim Boukharouba was born near Héliopolis in the province of Guelma and educated at the Islamic Institute in Constantine. He joined National Liberation Front (FLN) in the Algerian War of Independence in 1955, adopting Houari Boumediène as his nom-de-guèrre (from Sidi Boumediène, the name of the patron saint of the city of Tlemcen in western Algeria, where he served as an officer during the war, and Sidi El Houari, the patron saint of nearby Oran). He reached the rank of Colonel, then the highest rank in the FLN forces, and from 1960 he was chief of staff of the ALN, the FLN's military wing.
In 1962, after the vote of self-determination, Algerians declared independence and the French declared Algeria to be independent. After this time, Boumedienne headed a powerful military faction within the government, and was made defense minister with the support of the Algerian leader Ahmed Ben Bella, whose ascent to power he had assisted as chief of staff. Boumedienne grew increasingly distrustful of Ben Bella's erratic style of government and ideological puritanism, and in June 1965, Boumédienne seized power in a bloodless coup. The country's constitution and political institutions were abolished, and he ruled through a Revolutionary Council of his own (mostly military) supporters. These were mainly drawn from his companions during the war years, when he was based around the Moroccan border town of Oujda, which caused analysts to speak of the "Oujda group". (One prominent member of this circle was Boumédienne's long-time foreign minister, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who, in 1999, became Algeria's president.)
Initially lacking a personal power base, Boumedienne was seen as potentially a weak ruler, but after a botched coup attempt against him by military officers in 1967 he tightened his rule. He then remained Algeria's undisputed ruler until his death in 1978, as all potential rivals emerging from within the regime were purged or relegated to symbolic posts; among them several members of the former Oujda group.
Economically, Boumédienne turned away from Ben Bella's focus on rural Algeria and experiments in socialist cooperative businesses (l'autogéstion). Instead, he opted for a more systematic and planned program of state-driven industrialization. Algeria had virtually no advanced production at the time, but in 1971 Boumédienne nationalized the Algerian oil industry, increasing government revenue tremendously (and sparking intense protest from the French government). He then put the soaring oil and gas resources -- enhanced by the oil price shock of 1973 -- into building heavy industry, hoping to make his country the Maghreb's industrial center. His years in power were in fact marked by a reliable and consistent economic growth, but after his death in the 1980s, the drop in oil prices and increasingly evident inefficiency of the country's state-run industries, prompted a change in policy towards gradual economic liberalization.
In the 1970s, along with the expansion of state industry and oil nationalization, Boumédienne declared a series of socialist revolutions, and strengthened the leftist aspect of his regime. This allowed for a rapprochement with the hitherto suppressed remnants of the Algerian Communist Party (the PAGS), whose members were then co-opted into the regime, although without formal legalization of their party. Algeria formally remained a single-party state under the FLN, but Boumédienne's personal rule had marginalized the ex-liberation movement, and little attention was paid to the affairs of the FLN in everyday affairs. From the mid-1970s, constitutional rule was gradually reinstated and political institutions re-established. Political pluralism was not tolerated in Boumédienne's Algeria, even if a brief moment of somewhat more relaxed public debate was allowed preceding the adoption of a constitution that re-established political institutions in 1976. However, the referendum typically ended in virtually unanimous approval of the government-backed document. With the recreation of the office of President following this, Boumédienne was himself elected in a single-candidate election.
Boumédienne 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 new world order 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 aggressively supported anti-colonial movements across Africa and the Arab world, including the PLO, ANC, SWAPO and other groups.
A significant regional event was his 1975 pledge of support for a Western Saharan self-determination, admitting Sahrawi refugees and the Polisario guerrilla 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.
In 1978, Boumedienne's appearances became increasingly rare. After lingering in a coma for 39 days, he died of a rare blood disease, Waldenström macroglobulinemia, following unsuccessful treatment in Moscow. Rumors about his being assassinated or poisoned have surfaced occasionally in Algerian politics, perhaps due to the rarity of the disease. The death of Boumédienne 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 rightwing contenders, and designate the highest-ranking military officer, Colonel Chadli Bendjedid, as a compromise selection.
Houari Boumedienne see Boumedienne
Muhammad Ibrahim Boukharouba see Boumedienne
Boukharouba, Muhammad Ibrahim see Boumedienne
Bukharruba see Boumedienne
Boumediene, Houari see Boumedienne
Boukharouba, Mohamed Ben Brahim see Boumedienne
Boumedienne (Houari Boumedienne) (Houari Boumediene) (Mohamed Ben Brahim Boukharouba) (August 23, 1932 - December 27, 1978). President of Algeria (1965-1978). Originally named Muhammad Ibrahim Boukharouba (Bukharruba), he was born near Guelma and educated at the Islamic Institute in Constantine and later at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. An early member of the National Liberation Front (Front de Liberation Nationale, or FLN), he rose rapidly as guerrilla commander and in 1957 became the youngest colonel in the FLN. In 1960, he was appointed chief of staff of the army outside Algeria. After independence, Boumedienne backed Ahmed Ben Bella and became defense minister in his cabinet until June 1965, when he deposed him. Although Boumedienne held no constitutionally legitimate office, he headed the Algerian state until 1976, when a new constitution was approved. He was then elected president for a six year term. Boumedienne presided over the growth of Algeria from near bankruptcy to a leading position among Third World countries, and he was a prominent advocate of a new economic and political world order. It was under Boumedienne that Algeria became an inspiration to many of the new nations freed after the demise of French and British colonialism.
Mohamed Ben Brahim Boukharouba was born near Héliopolis in the province of Guelma and educated at the Islamic Institute in Constantine. He joined National Liberation Front (FLN) in the Algerian War of Independence in 1955, adopting Houari Boumediène as his nom-de-guèrre (from Sidi Boumediène, the name of the patron saint of the city of Tlemcen in western Algeria, where he served as an officer during the war, and Sidi El Houari, the patron saint of nearby Oran). He reached the rank of Colonel, then the highest rank in the FLN forces, and from 1960 he was chief of staff of the ALN, the FLN's military wing.
In 1962, after the vote of self-determination, Algerians declared independence and the French declared Algeria to be independent. After this time, Boumedienne headed a powerful military faction within the government, and was made defense minister with the support of the Algerian leader Ahmed Ben Bella, whose ascent to power he had assisted as chief of staff. Boumedienne grew increasingly distrustful of Ben Bella's erratic style of government and ideological puritanism, and in June 1965, Boumédienne seized power in a bloodless coup. The country's constitution and political institutions were abolished, and he ruled through a Revolutionary Council of his own (mostly military) supporters. These were mainly drawn from his companions during the war years, when he was based around the Moroccan border town of Oujda, which caused analysts to speak of the "Oujda group". (One prominent member of this circle was Boumédienne's long-time foreign minister, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who, in 1999, became Algeria's president.)
Initially lacking a personal power base, Boumedienne was seen as potentially a weak ruler, but after a botched coup attempt against him by military officers in 1967 he tightened his rule. He then remained Algeria's undisputed ruler until his death in 1978, as all potential rivals emerging from within the regime were purged or relegated to symbolic posts; among them several members of the former Oujda group.
Economically, Boumédienne turned away from Ben Bella's focus on rural Algeria and experiments in socialist cooperative businesses (l'autogéstion). Instead, he opted for a more systematic and planned program of state-driven industrialization. Algeria had virtually no advanced production at the time, but in 1971 Boumédienne nationalized the Algerian oil industry, increasing government revenue tremendously (and sparking intense protest from the French government). He then put the soaring oil and gas resources -- enhanced by the oil price shock of 1973 -- into building heavy industry, hoping to make his country the Maghreb's industrial center. His years in power were in fact marked by a reliable and consistent economic growth, but after his death in the 1980s, the drop in oil prices and increasingly evident inefficiency of the country's state-run industries, prompted a change in policy towards gradual economic liberalization.
In the 1970s, along with the expansion of state industry and oil nationalization, Boumédienne declared a series of socialist revolutions, and strengthened the leftist aspect of his regime. This allowed for a rapprochement with the hitherto suppressed remnants of the Algerian Communist Party (the PAGS), whose members were then co-opted into the regime, although without formal legalization of their party. Algeria formally remained a single-party state under the FLN, but Boumédienne's personal rule had marginalized the ex-liberation movement, and little attention was paid to the affairs of the FLN in everyday affairs. From the mid-1970s, constitutional rule was gradually reinstated and political institutions re-established. Political pluralism was not tolerated in Boumédienne's Algeria, even if a brief moment of somewhat more relaxed public debate was allowed preceding the adoption of a constitution that re-established political institutions in 1976. However, the referendum typically ended in virtually unanimous approval of the government-backed document. With the recreation of the office of President following this, Boumédienne was himself elected in a single-candidate election.
Boumédienne 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 new world order 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 aggressively supported anti-colonial movements across Africa and the Arab world, including the PLO, ANC, SWAPO and other groups.
A significant regional event was his 1975 pledge of support for a Western Saharan self-determination, admitting Sahrawi refugees and the Polisario guerrilla 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.
In 1978, Boumedienne's appearances became increasingly rare. After lingering in a coma for 39 days, he died of a rare blood disease, Waldenström macroglobulinemia, following unsuccessful treatment in Moscow. Rumors about his being assassinated or poisoned have surfaced occasionally in Algerian politics, perhaps due to the rarity of the disease. The death of Boumédienne 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 rightwing contenders, and designate the highest-ranking military officer, Colonel Chadli Bendjedid, as a compromise selection.
Houari Boumedienne see Boumedienne
Muhammad Ibrahim Boukharouba see Boumedienne
Boukharouba, Muhammad Ibrahim see Boumedienne
Bukharruba see Boumedienne
Boumediene, Houari see Boumedienne
Boukharouba, Mohamed Ben Brahim see Boumedienne
Bourguiba
Bourguiba (Habib Bourguiba) (Ḥabīb Būrqība) (August 3, 1903 – April 6, 2000). Tunisian statesman and the founder and first President of the Republic of Tunisia from July 25, 1957 to November 7, 1987. He is often compared to Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk because of the pro-Western reforms enacted during his presidency. During the time Bourguiba was president, education was a high priority. Bourguiba also promoted women's rights as a way to gain Western support for his regime during the Cold War. Though these set important legal precedents by prohibiting polygamy, expanding women's access to divorce, and raising the age at which girls could marry to 17 years of age - he simultaneously banned women's rights groups from organizing. The new Personal Status Code passed in August 1956 expanded women's rights, though it remains open to debate how much this transformed Tunisian society in practice. Notably, the Code also institutionalized the role of the father as head of the family, and Bourguiba himself was a patriarchal ruler. After independence, Tunisia's Jewish Community Council was abolished by the government and many Jewish areas and buildings were destroyed for "urban renewal."
Habib Bourguiba was born on August 3, 1903 in Monastir (100 miles south of Tunis). He attended school in Tunis at the famous Collège Sadiki and then at the Lycée Carnot. He obtained his Baccalaureat in 1924 and went to the University of Paris to study law and political science. While in Paris, the adult Bourguiba met Mathilde Lorrain, his lodger at that time, whom he married in 1927, and who bore him on April 9, 1927 his only son, Habib Bourguiba, Jr.
The same year Bourguiba graduated in law and political science, he went back with his newly formed family to Tunisia where he got immediately involved in the political arena by joining two newspapers: l’Etendard Tunisien (The Tunisian Flag) and Sawt At-Tunisi (The Tunisian Voice). In 1931, the French colonial authorities prosecuted him for his alleged “incitement to racial hatred”. Subsequent to this, Bourguiba launched a militant newspaper L’Action Tunisienne, laying the ground for strong action against the colonial power.
As a member of the Executive Committee of the Destour Party, Bourguiba found himself less in tune with the mainstream party vision, which culminated in the Monastir incident of August 8, 1933 relative to the burial of a naturalized Tunisian citizen. Bourguiba was pushed to resign from the committee, which led to the creation of the Neo-Destour Party in Ksar Hellal on March 2, 1934, with Bourguiba as the Secretary General of the Political Bureau. From that moment, Bourguiba set out to crisscross the country to try to enroll the majority of Tunisians from the countryside; and thus create a more popular base for his newly formed party so that he managed in a couple of years to set up more than 400 branches (cells) of the Neo-Destour.
In September 1934, the colonial representative (Resident General) Peyrouton ordered that Bourguiba be confined to Borj-Leboeuf, a remote place on the border of the Sahara desert, until April 1936 when he was released with most of his companions. After the famous popular uprising of April 9, 1938, where colonial troops opened fire on demonstrators killing and injuring hundreds of civilians, Bourguiba was once again imprisoned on June 10, 1939, along with a group of militants on charges of plotting against the state security and incitement to civil war.
At the outbreak of World War II, Bourguiba was transferred to the Teboursouk prison and then in May 1940, to the Haut Fort Saint Nicholas near Marseilles until November 18, 1942 when he was taken to Fort Montluc in Lyon. After that, he ended up in Fort Vancia in Ain until the Germans released him and took him to Chalons-sur-Saône. In a maneuver by the Germans and Italian Fascist regime to gain Bourguiba’s alliance, he was received with full honors in Rome, in January 1943, but to no avail. The Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry tried to obtain a statement in favor of the Fascists. However, on the eve of his return home, Bourguiba agreed to deliver a message to the Tunisian people by “Radio Bari”, cautioning them against “all the appetites”. Upon his return to Tunis, on April 7, 1943 Bourguiba made sure that the message he had sent from his prison in August 1942 reached the general population as well as the militants, that Germany was bound to lose the war and that Tunisia’s independence would only come after the victory of the Allies. He emphasized his position by putting it as a question of life or death for Tunisia.
After the end of World War II, Bourguiba, after many sterile efforts to open a dialogue with the French authorities, came to the conclusion that the Tunisian cause had to be brought to the attention of the world opinion. In March 1945, he left Sfax secretly, on a small fisherman’s boat, heading to Libya, and from there, on foot and on camel’s back, he managed to reach Cairo, which he used as a base for his international activity. He took part in the setting up of the Greater Maghreb Office. He travelled continuously to the different Arab countries, members of the newly born Arab League, Europe, (Switzerland, Belgium), to Asia, (Pakistan, India, Indonesia) and the United States to promote the Tunisian aspiration for independence and met with high and influential personalities to help the Tunisian cause. On September 8, 1949, Bourguiba returned to Tunis to reorganize the Party and resume his direct contact policy with the population by visiting small towns and villages throughout the country.
In April 1950, he laid out a seven-point program aiming at ending the system of direct administration in Tunisia and restoring full Tunisian sovereignty as a final step to independent statehood. In 1951, he embarked on a second round of trips to promote his program at the international level. In light of the French Government refusal to concede to national claims, Bourguiba toughened his stand and called for unlimited resistance and general insurrection. This tactic led to his arrest on January 18, 1952, and his confinement in Tabarka, then in Remada, then in La Galite and, finally, on Groix Island at the Ferte Castle.
Pierre Mendès-France became French prime minister in 1954. His positions on France’s colonial policies opened the door to Tunisian home-rule. June 1, 1955 saw the return of Bourguiba. The “Internal Autonomy Agreement” was a big step to total independence. After several arduous negotiations, independence was proclaimed on March 20, 1956, with Habib Bourguiba as president of the “National Constituent Assembly”, and Head of the Government.
On 25 July 1957, a republic was proclaimed abolishing the monarchy and investing Bourguiba with powers of President of the Republic. Bourguiba's long and powerful presidency was formative for the creation of the Tunisian state and nation.
After a failed experiment with socialist economic policies, Bourguiba embarked from the early 1970s on an economically liberal model of development spearheaded by his Prime Minister, Hédi Nouira for a ten-year period. This witnessed the flourishing of privately owned business and the consolidation of the private sector.
On the international front, Bourguiba took a pro-Western position in the Cold War, but with a fiercely defended independent foreign policy that challenged the leadership of the Arab League by Egyptian President Nasser. In March 1965, he delivered the historical Jericho Speech advocating a fair and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis based on the United Nations 1947 Resolution that created two states. In 1979, Tunis became the headquarters of the Arab League after the Camp David Accords and in 1982, it welcomed the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) leadership in Tunis, after it had been ousted from Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.
In March 1975, the Tunisian National Assembly voted Bourguiba president for life, as an exceptional measure. In the 1980s, Bourguiba made efforts to combat both poverty and a rising Islamist opposition, spearheaded by the Nahda party.
On November 7, 1987, Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali declared President Habib Bourguiba impeached on medical grounds and constitutionally replaced him as President of Tunisia.
Bourguiba remained the President of Tunisia until November 7, 1987, when his newly-appointed Prime Minister and constitutional successor impeached him, claiming old age and health reasons as certified by Bourguiba's own doctors. During the 1990s, Bourguiba’s health was gradually destroyed by arteriosclerosis. Bourguiba lived in Monastir under government protection in the Governor's Mansion for a period of thirteen (13) years until his death on April 6, 2000. He was buried on April 8, 2000, with national honors in Monastir in the mausoleum he built.
In 1925, Habib Bourguiba met his future wife, Mathilde Lorrain, in Paris while he was studying law at the Sorbonne. She converted to Islam and chose the name Moufida Bourguiba. She bore him one son: Habib Bourguiba Jr. in April 1927. In a second wedding, he married the influential Wassila Ben Ammar and adopted a daughter, Hajer Bourguiba.
As president of Tunisia, Bourguiba was almost like a North African Ataturk. He reduced the influence of religion on society and he guaranteed the rights of women, economically, in marriage, and in social life. The foreign policy of Tunisia under Bourguiba was one which followed moderate, European–like solutions. As such, Bourguiba pursued a policy of political non-alignment but maintained close relations with France and the United States, generally taking a moderate position.
Internally, Tunisia enjoyed good economic growth during the 1960s. However, clientilism (the system where the knowledge and allegiance to people in important positions is more important than juridical rights), which was at the core of Tunisian society, became increasingly destructive to the social development and economy of the country. Under clientilism, people with the right friends or relatives came to receive concessions, without having the necessary competence. Ultimately, clientilism began to choke Tunisian society, and the weakening of Tunisian society led to Bourguiba being deposed in 1987.
Habib Bourguiba see Bourguiba
Habib Burqiba see Bourguiba
Bourguiba (Habib Bourguiba) (Ḥabīb Būrqība) (August 3, 1903 – April 6, 2000). Tunisian statesman and the founder and first President of the Republic of Tunisia from July 25, 1957 to November 7, 1987. He is often compared to Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk because of the pro-Western reforms enacted during his presidency. During the time Bourguiba was president, education was a high priority. Bourguiba also promoted women's rights as a way to gain Western support for his regime during the Cold War. Though these set important legal precedents by prohibiting polygamy, expanding women's access to divorce, and raising the age at which girls could marry to 17 years of age - he simultaneously banned women's rights groups from organizing. The new Personal Status Code passed in August 1956 expanded women's rights, though it remains open to debate how much this transformed Tunisian society in practice. Notably, the Code also institutionalized the role of the father as head of the family, and Bourguiba himself was a patriarchal ruler. After independence, Tunisia's Jewish Community Council was abolished by the government and many Jewish areas and buildings were destroyed for "urban renewal."
Habib Bourguiba was born on August 3, 1903 in Monastir (100 miles south of Tunis). He attended school in Tunis at the famous Collège Sadiki and then at the Lycée Carnot. He obtained his Baccalaureat in 1924 and went to the University of Paris to study law and political science. While in Paris, the adult Bourguiba met Mathilde Lorrain, his lodger at that time, whom he married in 1927, and who bore him on April 9, 1927 his only son, Habib Bourguiba, Jr.
The same year Bourguiba graduated in law and political science, he went back with his newly formed family to Tunisia where he got immediately involved in the political arena by joining two newspapers: l’Etendard Tunisien (The Tunisian Flag) and Sawt At-Tunisi (The Tunisian Voice). In 1931, the French colonial authorities prosecuted him for his alleged “incitement to racial hatred”. Subsequent to this, Bourguiba launched a militant newspaper L’Action Tunisienne, laying the ground for strong action against the colonial power.
As a member of the Executive Committee of the Destour Party, Bourguiba found himself less in tune with the mainstream party vision, which culminated in the Monastir incident of August 8, 1933 relative to the burial of a naturalized Tunisian citizen. Bourguiba was pushed to resign from the committee, which led to the creation of the Neo-Destour Party in Ksar Hellal on March 2, 1934, with Bourguiba as the Secretary General of the Political Bureau. From that moment, Bourguiba set out to crisscross the country to try to enroll the majority of Tunisians from the countryside; and thus create a more popular base for his newly formed party so that he managed in a couple of years to set up more than 400 branches (cells) of the Neo-Destour.
In September 1934, the colonial representative (Resident General) Peyrouton ordered that Bourguiba be confined to Borj-Leboeuf, a remote place on the border of the Sahara desert, until April 1936 when he was released with most of his companions. After the famous popular uprising of April 9, 1938, where colonial troops opened fire on demonstrators killing and injuring hundreds of civilians, Bourguiba was once again imprisoned on June 10, 1939, along with a group of militants on charges of plotting against the state security and incitement to civil war.
At the outbreak of World War II, Bourguiba was transferred to the Teboursouk prison and then in May 1940, to the Haut Fort Saint Nicholas near Marseilles until November 18, 1942 when he was taken to Fort Montluc in Lyon. After that, he ended up in Fort Vancia in Ain until the Germans released him and took him to Chalons-sur-Saône. In a maneuver by the Germans and Italian Fascist regime to gain Bourguiba’s alliance, he was received with full honors in Rome, in January 1943, but to no avail. The Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry tried to obtain a statement in favor of the Fascists. However, on the eve of his return home, Bourguiba agreed to deliver a message to the Tunisian people by “Radio Bari”, cautioning them against “all the appetites”. Upon his return to Tunis, on April 7, 1943 Bourguiba made sure that the message he had sent from his prison in August 1942 reached the general population as well as the militants, that Germany was bound to lose the war and that Tunisia’s independence would only come after the victory of the Allies. He emphasized his position by putting it as a question of life or death for Tunisia.
After the end of World War II, Bourguiba, after many sterile efforts to open a dialogue with the French authorities, came to the conclusion that the Tunisian cause had to be brought to the attention of the world opinion. In March 1945, he left Sfax secretly, on a small fisherman’s boat, heading to Libya, and from there, on foot and on camel’s back, he managed to reach Cairo, which he used as a base for his international activity. He took part in the setting up of the Greater Maghreb Office. He travelled continuously to the different Arab countries, members of the newly born Arab League, Europe, (Switzerland, Belgium), to Asia, (Pakistan, India, Indonesia) and the United States to promote the Tunisian aspiration for independence and met with high and influential personalities to help the Tunisian cause. On September 8, 1949, Bourguiba returned to Tunis to reorganize the Party and resume his direct contact policy with the population by visiting small towns and villages throughout the country.
In April 1950, he laid out a seven-point program aiming at ending the system of direct administration in Tunisia and restoring full Tunisian sovereignty as a final step to independent statehood. In 1951, he embarked on a second round of trips to promote his program at the international level. In light of the French Government refusal to concede to national claims, Bourguiba toughened his stand and called for unlimited resistance and general insurrection. This tactic led to his arrest on January 18, 1952, and his confinement in Tabarka, then in Remada, then in La Galite and, finally, on Groix Island at the Ferte Castle.
Pierre Mendès-France became French prime minister in 1954. His positions on France’s colonial policies opened the door to Tunisian home-rule. June 1, 1955 saw the return of Bourguiba. The “Internal Autonomy Agreement” was a big step to total independence. After several arduous negotiations, independence was proclaimed on March 20, 1956, with Habib Bourguiba as president of the “National Constituent Assembly”, and Head of the Government.
On 25 July 1957, a republic was proclaimed abolishing the monarchy and investing Bourguiba with powers of President of the Republic. Bourguiba's long and powerful presidency was formative for the creation of the Tunisian state and nation.
After a failed experiment with socialist economic policies, Bourguiba embarked from the early 1970s on an economically liberal model of development spearheaded by his Prime Minister, Hédi Nouira for a ten-year period. This witnessed the flourishing of privately owned business and the consolidation of the private sector.
On the international front, Bourguiba took a pro-Western position in the Cold War, but with a fiercely defended independent foreign policy that challenged the leadership of the Arab League by Egyptian President Nasser. In March 1965, he delivered the historical Jericho Speech advocating a fair and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis based on the United Nations 1947 Resolution that created two states. In 1979, Tunis became the headquarters of the Arab League after the Camp David Accords and in 1982, it welcomed the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) leadership in Tunis, after it had been ousted from Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.
In March 1975, the Tunisian National Assembly voted Bourguiba president for life, as an exceptional measure. In the 1980s, Bourguiba made efforts to combat both poverty and a rising Islamist opposition, spearheaded by the Nahda party.
On November 7, 1987, Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali declared President Habib Bourguiba impeached on medical grounds and constitutionally replaced him as President of Tunisia.
Bourguiba remained the President of Tunisia until November 7, 1987, when his newly-appointed Prime Minister and constitutional successor impeached him, claiming old age and health reasons as certified by Bourguiba's own doctors. During the 1990s, Bourguiba’s health was gradually destroyed by arteriosclerosis. Bourguiba lived in Monastir under government protection in the Governor's Mansion for a period of thirteen (13) years until his death on April 6, 2000. He was buried on April 8, 2000, with national honors in Monastir in the mausoleum he built.
In 1925, Habib Bourguiba met his future wife, Mathilde Lorrain, in Paris while he was studying law at the Sorbonne. She converted to Islam and chose the name Moufida Bourguiba. She bore him one son: Habib Bourguiba Jr. in April 1927. In a second wedding, he married the influential Wassila Ben Ammar and adopted a daughter, Hajer Bourguiba.
As president of Tunisia, Bourguiba was almost like a North African Ataturk. He reduced the influence of religion on society and he guaranteed the rights of women, economically, in marriage, and in social life. The foreign policy of Tunisia under Bourguiba was one which followed moderate, European–like solutions. As such, Bourguiba pursued a policy of political non-alignment but maintained close relations with France and the United States, generally taking a moderate position.
Internally, Tunisia enjoyed good economic growth during the 1960s. However, clientilism (the system where the knowledge and allegiance to people in important positions is more important than juridical rights), which was at the core of Tunisian society, became increasingly destructive to the social development and economy of the country. Under clientilism, people with the right friends or relatives came to receive concessions, without having the necessary competence. Ultimately, clientilism began to choke Tunisian society, and the weakening of Tunisian society led to Bourguiba being deposed in 1987.
Habib Bourguiba see Bourguiba
Habib Burqiba see Bourguiba
Boutaib
Boutaib (Moulay Brahim Boutaib). Moroccan runner who won the 10,000 meters at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea.
Moulay Brahim Boutaib see Boutaib
Boutaib (Moulay Brahim Boutaib). Moroccan runner who won the 10,000 meters at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea.
Moulay Brahim Boutaib see Boutaib
Bouteflika, Abdelaziz
Abdelaziz Bouteflika (b. March 2, 1937, Oujda, French Morocco - d. September 17, 2021, Zenaida, Algeria) was an Algerian politician who served as President of Algeria for almost 20 years, from 1999 to his resignation in 2019.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika was born on March 2, 1937 in Oujda, French Morocco. He was the first child of his mother and the second child of his father (Fatima, his half-sister, preceded him). Bouteflika has three half-sisters (Fatima, Yamina, and Aïcha), as well as four brothers (Abdelghani, Mustapha, Abderahim and Saïd) and one sister (Latifa). Saïd served as Abdelaziz Bouteflika's personal physician.
Bouteflika lived and studied in Algeria until he joined the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) in 1956, at the age of 19. (Bouteflika joined the ALN (Armee de liberation nationale) which was part of the FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale)). He started as controller, making reports on the conditions at the Moroccan border and in west Algeria, but later became the administrative secretary of Houari Boumédienne. He emerged as one of the closest collaborators of the influential Boumédienne, and a core member of his Oujda group. In 1962, upon the arrival of independence, Bouteflika aligned with Boumédienne and the border armies in support of Ahmed Ben Bella against the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic.
After Algeria's independence in 1962, Bouteflika became deputy of Tlemcen in the Constituent Assembly and Minister for Youth and Sport in the government led by Ahmed Ben Bella. The following year, he was appointed as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and would remain in the post until the death of President Houari Boumédienne in 1978.
On Boumédienne's unexpected death in 1978, Bouteflika was seen as one of the two main candidates to succeed the powerful president. Bouteflika was thought to represent the party's "right wing" that was more open to economic reform and rapprochement with the West. Colonel Mohamed Salah Yahiaoui represented the "boumédiennist" left wing. In the end, the military opted for a compromise candidate, the senior army colonel Chadli Bendjedid. Bouteflika was reassigned the role of Minister of State, but successively lost power as Bendjedid's policies of "de-Boumédiennisation" marginalized the old guard.
After six years abroad, Bouteflika came back and rejoined the Central Committee of the FLN in 1989, after the country had entered a troubled period of unrest and disorganized attempts at reform, with power-struggles between Bendjedid and a group of army generals paralyzing decision-making. In 1992, the reform process ended abruptly when the army took power and scrapped elections that were about to bring the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front to power. This triggered a civil war that would last throughout the 1990s. During this period, Bouteflika stayed on the sidelines, with little presence in the media and no political role. In January 1994, Bouteflika is said to have refused the Army’s proposal to succeed the assassinated president, Mohamed Boudiaf. Bouteflika claimed later that this was because the army would not grant him full control over the armed forces. Instead, General Liamine Zéroual became President.
In 1999, Zéroual unexpectedly stepped down and announced early elections. The reasons behind his decision remain unclear, but it was widely claimed that his pro-reconciliation policies towards the Islamist insurgency had incurred the wrath of a hard-line faction in the armed forces; or that some other disagreement with the military, which still dominated politics, lay behind the schism. Bouteflika ran for President as an independent candidate, supported by the military. He was elected with seventy-four percent (74%) of the votes. All other candidates withdrew from the election immediately prior to the vote, citing fraud concerns. Bouteflika subsequently organized a referendum on his policies to restore peace and security to Algeria (involving amnesties for Islamist guerrillas) and to test his support among his countrymen after the contested election. He won the referendum with eighty-one percent (81%) of the vote.
During his first mandate Bouteflika launched a five year economic plan (2000-2004), called the Support Plan for Economic Recovery (PSRE: Plan de Soutien à la Relance Economique). The plan was a package of various sub-plans such as the National Plan for Agricultural Development (PNDA: Plan National pour le Développement Agricole), aimed at boosting agricultural production. Other sub-plans included the construction of social housing units, roads, and other infrastructure projects. The PSRE totaled $7 billion worth of spending, and produced satisfactory results with the economy averaging higher than 5% annual growth rates, with a peak of 6.3% in the year 2003. Bouteflika also pushed through a fiscal reform which contributed to the economic revival.
Bouteflika was also active on the international scene, presiding over what many have characterized as Algeria's return to international affairs, after almost a decade of international isolation. He presided over the African Union in 2000, secured the Algiers Peace Treaty between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and supported peace efforts in the African Great Lakes Region. He also secured a friendship treaty with neighboring Spain in 2002, and welcomed president Chirac of France on a state visit to Algiers in 2003. This was intended as a prelude to the signature of a friendship treaty.
Algeria was particularly active in African relations, and in mending ties with the West, as well as trying to some extent to resurrect its role in the declining non-Aligned movement. However, Algeria played a more limited role in Arab politics, its other traditional sphere of interest. Relations with the Kingdom of Morocco remained quite tense, with diplomatic clashes on the issue of the Western Sahara, despite some expectations of a thaw in 1999, which was also the year of Mohamed VI's accession to the throne in Morocco.
On April 8, 2004, Bouteflika was re-elected by an unexpectedly high eighty-five percent (85%) of the vote in an election that was accepted by OSCE observers as a free and fair election, despite minor irregularities. This was contested by his rival and former Chief of Staff Ali Benflis. Several opponents alleged that the election had not been fair, and pointed to extensive state control over the broadcast media. The electoral victory was widely seen as a confirmation of Bouteflika's strengthened control over the state apparatus, and many saw the following retirement of longtime armed forces commander General Mohammed Lamari in the light of this. He and military commanders allied to him were thought to have opposed Bouteflika's bid for a second term and backed Benflis. Other major military power-brokers would be re-assigned to minor posts or withdraw from politics in the years that followed, underlining Bouteflika's gradual monopolizing of decision-making.
During the first year of his second term, President Bouteflika held a referendum on his "Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation", inspired by the 1995 "Sant'Egidio Platform" document. Bouteflika's plan aimed at concluding his efforts of ending the civil war, from a political and judicial point of view. He obtained large popular support with this referendum and instructed the government and Parliament to work on the technical details of its implementation. Critics claimed that the plan would only grant immunity to members of the armed forces responsible for crimes, as well as to terrorists and argued for a plan similar to South Africa's "truth and reconciliation commission" to be adopted instead. Bouteflika dismissed the calls, claiming that each country needs to find its own solutions to ending painful chapters of its history. He received large political support on this issue from both the Islamist and the Nationalist camps, and from parts of the Democratic opposition.
The amnesty plan was rejected by the main remaining insurgent group, the GSPC, although perhaps as many as several hundred fighters still left their hideouts to claim amnesty. The group's warfare against the Algerian state continued despite the reconciliation plan, although Bouteflika's government claimed the amnesty plan had an impact in removing support for the group. In 2006, the GSPC was officially accepted as a branch of al-Qaida (al-Qaeda) in a video message by Ayman al-Zawahiri. Soon thereafter, it changed its name to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Bouteflika kept the amnesty option open – apparently open-ended despite the end of the deadline stipulated by the reconciliation law – while simultaneously pursuing the rebel group militarily. Algerian forces scored several major captures of GSPC/AQIM commanders, but the groups top leadership remained at large, and armed activity was frequent in Kabylie, with AQIM-connected smuggling networks active in parts of the desert south. Unlike in previous years, AQIM began using suicide attack tactics and in 2007-2008 launched several major attacks in Algiers and other big cities.
The first year of Bouteflika's second term also featured a new five year plan. The Complementary Plan for Economic Growth Support (PCSC: Plan Complementaire de la Croissance Economique) aimed for the construction of 1 million housing units, the creation of 2 million jobs, the completion of the East-West 1200 kilometer long highway, the completion of the Algiers subway project, the delivery of the new Algiers airport, and other similar large scale infrastructure projects. The PCSC totaled $60 billion of spending over the five year period. Bouteflika also aimed to bring down the external debt from $21 billion to $12 billion in the same time. He also obtained from Parliament the reform of the law governing the oil and gas industries, despite initial opposition from the workers unions. However, Bouteflika stepped back from this position, supporting amendments to the hydrocarbon law in 2006, which proposed watering down some of the clauses of the 2005 legislation relating to the role of SONATRACH, the state owned oil and gas company, in new developments. It also proposes new provisions enabling the country to benefit from windfall taxes on foreign investors in times of high prices. Bouteflika also put up for sale 1300 public sector companies, and achieved privatization of about 150 of them, mainly in the tourism, food processing, cement, construction material and chemical industries.
On the international scene, Bouteflika's second term saw diplomatic tensions rise with France due to the controversial voting by the French Parliament of a law ordering French history school books to teach that French colonization had positive effects abroad, especially in North Africa. The diplomatic crisis which ensued put on hold the signing of a friendship treaty with France (February 23, 2004, re-endorsed in December 2005). Ties to Russia have been strengthened by large imports of Russian military hardware – about 7 billion United States dollars were spent in one single purchase – although relations entered a rocky phase, at least temporarily, when Algeria refused to accept some MiG fighter jets due to their allegedly poor quality. Bouteflika has also carefully cultivated a relationship with China, with exchanges of state visits between the two countries.
Algeria remained involved in Arab affairs, and saw a somewhat growing role there. In 2004 Bouteflika organized the Arab League Summit and became President of the Arab League for one year. However, his calls for reform of the League did not gain sufficient support to pass during the Algiers summit. Like in previous years since the late 1980s, Algeria kept a relatively low profile in the Palestine and Iraq issues. Algeria remained preoccupied with the Western Sahara issue, counter-lobbying Moroccan attempts to gain international acceptance for Moroccan-ruled autonomy in the disputed territory, at the expense of Polisario's (and Algeria's) calls for the long-since decided self-determination referendum to finally be held. Relations with Morocco therefore remained poor, and Algeria in 2008 repeatedly refused to answer Moroccan demands to open the common land border, which has been closed since 1994. Both Morocco and Algeria have since approximately 2005 spent several billion dollars in what could be described as an arms race between them, mainly on modernizing and expanding their air forces.
In sub-Saharan Africa, a major concern of Bouteflika's Algeria was on-and-off Tuareg rebellions in northern Mali. Algeria asserted itself forcefully as mediator in the conflict, perhaps underlining its growing regional influence. Algerian interest was driven by its extensive interests in the region: smuggling routes as well as legal economic activity crossed the virtually unguarded borderlands, and refugees from the conflict entered southern Algeria to mix with the Touareg populations there. Also, the area was known as a hideout of a southern branch of AQIM, further heightening Algeria's interest in the area. Compromise peace agreements were reached in 2007 and 2008, both mediated by Algiers. The related Touareg revolt in neighboring Niger did not see the same Algerian involvement, even if the anti-government MNJ movement had on at least one occasion called for Algerian mediation similar to in Mali. Algeria's involvement in Africa had otherwise been concerned with supporting the African Union, and been marked by a rapidly strengthening coordination with South Africa, which, among other things, emerged as Algeria's main ally on the Western Sahara issue.
All in all, Algeria's foreign policy under Bouteflika remained hinged on the same axis as under earlier governments, emphasizing South-South ties, especially with growing Third World powers (China, South Africa, Brazil, etc) and guarding the country's independence in decision-making vis-a-vis the West, although simultaneously striving for good trade relations and non-confrontational political relations with the EU and USA.
President of Vietnam Nguyen Minh Triet on July 16, 2009 met with Bouteflika on the sidelines of the 15th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Egypt. President Triet and Bouteflika agreed that the two countries still had great potential for development of political and trade relations. Triet thanked the Algerian government for creating favorable conditions for the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group to invest in oil and gas exploration in Algeria.
Bouteflika was admitted to a hospital in France on November 26, 2005, reportedly suffering from a gastric ulcer hemorrhage, and was discharged three weeks later. However, the length of time for which this normally publicity-loving leader remained virtually incommunicado led to rumors that he was critically ill with stomach cancer. He checked into the hospital again in April 2006.
Bouteflika appointed a new Prime Minister, Abdelaziz Belkhadem, in 2006. Belkhadem then announced plans to amend the Algerian Constitution to allow the President to run for office indefinitely and increase his powers. This was widely regarded as aimed to let Bouteflika run for president a third term, and he did not deny that he planned to do so. A referendum was originally scheduled for 2007, but was cancelled for reasons that were never explained. In 2008, Belkhadem was again shifted out of the premiership and his predecessor Ahmed Ouyahia brought in, having also come out in favor of the constitutional amendment.
The Council of Ministers announced on November 3, 2008 that the planned constitutional revision would remove the presidential term limit previously included in Article 74. Bouteflika announced his independent candidacy for a third term on February 12, 2009. On April 10, 2009, it was announced that Bouteflika had won the presidential election, obtaining a new five-year term. Opposition parties criticized Bouteflika's victory, due to the fact that several parties had boycotted the election.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika see Bouteflika
Abdelaziz Bouteflika (b. March 2, 1937, Oujda, French Morocco - d. September 17, 2021, Zenaida, Algeria) was an Algerian politician who served as President of Algeria for almost 20 years, from 1999 to his resignation in 2019.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika was born on March 2, 1937 in Oujda, French Morocco. He was the first child of his mother and the second child of his father (Fatima, his half-sister, preceded him). Bouteflika has three half-sisters (Fatima, Yamina, and Aïcha), as well as four brothers (Abdelghani, Mustapha, Abderahim and Saïd) and one sister (Latifa). Saïd served as Abdelaziz Bouteflika's personal physician.
Bouteflika lived and studied in Algeria until he joined the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) in 1956, at the age of 19. (Bouteflika joined the ALN (Armee de liberation nationale) which was part of the FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale)). He started as controller, making reports on the conditions at the Moroccan border and in west Algeria, but later became the administrative secretary of Houari Boumédienne. He emerged as one of the closest collaborators of the influential Boumédienne, and a core member of his Oujda group. In 1962, upon the arrival of independence, Bouteflika aligned with Boumédienne and the border armies in support of Ahmed Ben Bella against the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic.
After Algeria's independence in 1962, Bouteflika became deputy of Tlemcen in the Constituent Assembly and Minister for Youth and Sport in the government led by Ahmed Ben Bella. The following year, he was appointed as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and would remain in the post until the death of President Houari Boumédienne in 1978.
On Boumédienne's unexpected death in 1978, Bouteflika was seen as one of the two main candidates to succeed the powerful president. Bouteflika was thought to represent the party's "right wing" that was more open to economic reform and rapprochement with the West. Colonel Mohamed Salah Yahiaoui represented the "boumédiennist" left wing. In the end, the military opted for a compromise candidate, the senior army colonel Chadli Bendjedid. Bouteflika was reassigned the role of Minister of State, but successively lost power as Bendjedid's policies of "de-Boumédiennisation" marginalized the old guard.
After six years abroad, Bouteflika came back and rejoined the Central Committee of the FLN in 1989, after the country had entered a troubled period of unrest and disorganized attempts at reform, with power-struggles between Bendjedid and a group of army generals paralyzing decision-making. In 1992, the reform process ended abruptly when the army took power and scrapped elections that were about to bring the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front to power. This triggered a civil war that would last throughout the 1990s. During this period, Bouteflika stayed on the sidelines, with little presence in the media and no political role. In January 1994, Bouteflika is said to have refused the Army’s proposal to succeed the assassinated president, Mohamed Boudiaf. Bouteflika claimed later that this was because the army would not grant him full control over the armed forces. Instead, General Liamine Zéroual became President.
In 1999, Zéroual unexpectedly stepped down and announced early elections. The reasons behind his decision remain unclear, but it was widely claimed that his pro-reconciliation policies towards the Islamist insurgency had incurred the wrath of a hard-line faction in the armed forces; or that some other disagreement with the military, which still dominated politics, lay behind the schism. Bouteflika ran for President as an independent candidate, supported by the military. He was elected with seventy-four percent (74%) of the votes. All other candidates withdrew from the election immediately prior to the vote, citing fraud concerns. Bouteflika subsequently organized a referendum on his policies to restore peace and security to Algeria (involving amnesties for Islamist guerrillas) and to test his support among his countrymen after the contested election. He won the referendum with eighty-one percent (81%) of the vote.
During his first mandate Bouteflika launched a five year economic plan (2000-2004), called the Support Plan for Economic Recovery (PSRE: Plan de Soutien à la Relance Economique). The plan was a package of various sub-plans such as the National Plan for Agricultural Development (PNDA: Plan National pour le Développement Agricole), aimed at boosting agricultural production. Other sub-plans included the construction of social housing units, roads, and other infrastructure projects. The PSRE totaled $7 billion worth of spending, and produced satisfactory results with the economy averaging higher than 5% annual growth rates, with a peak of 6.3% in the year 2003. Bouteflika also pushed through a fiscal reform which contributed to the economic revival.
Bouteflika was also active on the international scene, presiding over what many have characterized as Algeria's return to international affairs, after almost a decade of international isolation. He presided over the African Union in 2000, secured the Algiers Peace Treaty between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and supported peace efforts in the African Great Lakes Region. He also secured a friendship treaty with neighboring Spain in 2002, and welcomed president Chirac of France on a state visit to Algiers in 2003. This was intended as a prelude to the signature of a friendship treaty.
Algeria was particularly active in African relations, and in mending ties with the West, as well as trying to some extent to resurrect its role in the declining non-Aligned movement. However, Algeria played a more limited role in Arab politics, its other traditional sphere of interest. Relations with the Kingdom of Morocco remained quite tense, with diplomatic clashes on the issue of the Western Sahara, despite some expectations of a thaw in 1999, which was also the year of Mohamed VI's accession to the throne in Morocco.
On April 8, 2004, Bouteflika was re-elected by an unexpectedly high eighty-five percent (85%) of the vote in an election that was accepted by OSCE observers as a free and fair election, despite minor irregularities. This was contested by his rival and former Chief of Staff Ali Benflis. Several opponents alleged that the election had not been fair, and pointed to extensive state control over the broadcast media. The electoral victory was widely seen as a confirmation of Bouteflika's strengthened control over the state apparatus, and many saw the following retirement of longtime armed forces commander General Mohammed Lamari in the light of this. He and military commanders allied to him were thought to have opposed Bouteflika's bid for a second term and backed Benflis. Other major military power-brokers would be re-assigned to minor posts or withdraw from politics in the years that followed, underlining Bouteflika's gradual monopolizing of decision-making.
During the first year of his second term, President Bouteflika held a referendum on his "Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation", inspired by the 1995 "Sant'Egidio Platform" document. Bouteflika's plan aimed at concluding his efforts of ending the civil war, from a political and judicial point of view. He obtained large popular support with this referendum and instructed the government and Parliament to work on the technical details of its implementation. Critics claimed that the plan would only grant immunity to members of the armed forces responsible for crimes, as well as to terrorists and argued for a plan similar to South Africa's "truth and reconciliation commission" to be adopted instead. Bouteflika dismissed the calls, claiming that each country needs to find its own solutions to ending painful chapters of its history. He received large political support on this issue from both the Islamist and the Nationalist camps, and from parts of the Democratic opposition.
The amnesty plan was rejected by the main remaining insurgent group, the GSPC, although perhaps as many as several hundred fighters still left their hideouts to claim amnesty. The group's warfare against the Algerian state continued despite the reconciliation plan, although Bouteflika's government claimed the amnesty plan had an impact in removing support for the group. In 2006, the GSPC was officially accepted as a branch of al-Qaida (al-Qaeda) in a video message by Ayman al-Zawahiri. Soon thereafter, it changed its name to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Bouteflika kept the amnesty option open – apparently open-ended despite the end of the deadline stipulated by the reconciliation law – while simultaneously pursuing the rebel group militarily. Algerian forces scored several major captures of GSPC/AQIM commanders, but the groups top leadership remained at large, and armed activity was frequent in Kabylie, with AQIM-connected smuggling networks active in parts of the desert south. Unlike in previous years, AQIM began using suicide attack tactics and in 2007-2008 launched several major attacks in Algiers and other big cities.
The first year of Bouteflika's second term also featured a new five year plan. The Complementary Plan for Economic Growth Support (PCSC: Plan Complementaire de la Croissance Economique) aimed for the construction of 1 million housing units, the creation of 2 million jobs, the completion of the East-West 1200 kilometer long highway, the completion of the Algiers subway project, the delivery of the new Algiers airport, and other similar large scale infrastructure projects. The PCSC totaled $60 billion of spending over the five year period. Bouteflika also aimed to bring down the external debt from $21 billion to $12 billion in the same time. He also obtained from Parliament the reform of the law governing the oil and gas industries, despite initial opposition from the workers unions. However, Bouteflika stepped back from this position, supporting amendments to the hydrocarbon law in 2006, which proposed watering down some of the clauses of the 2005 legislation relating to the role of SONATRACH, the state owned oil and gas company, in new developments. It also proposes new provisions enabling the country to benefit from windfall taxes on foreign investors in times of high prices. Bouteflika also put up for sale 1300 public sector companies, and achieved privatization of about 150 of them, mainly in the tourism, food processing, cement, construction material and chemical industries.
On the international scene, Bouteflika's second term saw diplomatic tensions rise with France due to the controversial voting by the French Parliament of a law ordering French history school books to teach that French colonization had positive effects abroad, especially in North Africa. The diplomatic crisis which ensued put on hold the signing of a friendship treaty with France (February 23, 2004, re-endorsed in December 2005). Ties to Russia have been strengthened by large imports of Russian military hardware – about 7 billion United States dollars were spent in one single purchase – although relations entered a rocky phase, at least temporarily, when Algeria refused to accept some MiG fighter jets due to their allegedly poor quality. Bouteflika has also carefully cultivated a relationship with China, with exchanges of state visits between the two countries.
Algeria remained involved in Arab affairs, and saw a somewhat growing role there. In 2004 Bouteflika organized the Arab League Summit and became President of the Arab League for one year. However, his calls for reform of the League did not gain sufficient support to pass during the Algiers summit. Like in previous years since the late 1980s, Algeria kept a relatively low profile in the Palestine and Iraq issues. Algeria remained preoccupied with the Western Sahara issue, counter-lobbying Moroccan attempts to gain international acceptance for Moroccan-ruled autonomy in the disputed territory, at the expense of Polisario's (and Algeria's) calls for the long-since decided self-determination referendum to finally be held. Relations with Morocco therefore remained poor, and Algeria in 2008 repeatedly refused to answer Moroccan demands to open the common land border, which has been closed since 1994. Both Morocco and Algeria have since approximately 2005 spent several billion dollars in what could be described as an arms race between them, mainly on modernizing and expanding their air forces.
In sub-Saharan Africa, a major concern of Bouteflika's Algeria was on-and-off Tuareg rebellions in northern Mali. Algeria asserted itself forcefully as mediator in the conflict, perhaps underlining its growing regional influence. Algerian interest was driven by its extensive interests in the region: smuggling routes as well as legal economic activity crossed the virtually unguarded borderlands, and refugees from the conflict entered southern Algeria to mix with the Touareg populations there. Also, the area was known as a hideout of a southern branch of AQIM, further heightening Algeria's interest in the area. Compromise peace agreements were reached in 2007 and 2008, both mediated by Algiers. The related Touareg revolt in neighboring Niger did not see the same Algerian involvement, even if the anti-government MNJ movement had on at least one occasion called for Algerian mediation similar to in Mali. Algeria's involvement in Africa had otherwise been concerned with supporting the African Union, and been marked by a rapidly strengthening coordination with South Africa, which, among other things, emerged as Algeria's main ally on the Western Sahara issue.
All in all, Algeria's foreign policy under Bouteflika remained hinged on the same axis as under earlier governments, emphasizing South-South ties, especially with growing Third World powers (China, South Africa, Brazil, etc) and guarding the country's independence in decision-making vis-a-vis the West, although simultaneously striving for good trade relations and non-confrontational political relations with the EU and USA.
President of Vietnam Nguyen Minh Triet on July 16, 2009 met with Bouteflika on the sidelines of the 15th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Egypt. President Triet and Bouteflika agreed that the two countries still had great potential for development of political and trade relations. Triet thanked the Algerian government for creating favorable conditions for the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group to invest in oil and gas exploration in Algeria.
Bouteflika was admitted to a hospital in France on November 26, 2005, reportedly suffering from a gastric ulcer hemorrhage, and was discharged three weeks later. However, the length of time for which this normally publicity-loving leader remained virtually incommunicado led to rumors that he was critically ill with stomach cancer. He checked into the hospital again in April 2006.
Bouteflika appointed a new Prime Minister, Abdelaziz Belkhadem, in 2006. Belkhadem then announced plans to amend the Algerian Constitution to allow the President to run for office indefinitely and increase his powers. This was widely regarded as aimed to let Bouteflika run for president a third term, and he did not deny that he planned to do so. A referendum was originally scheduled for 2007, but was cancelled for reasons that were never explained. In 2008, Belkhadem was again shifted out of the premiership and his predecessor Ahmed Ouyahia brought in, having also come out in favor of the constitutional amendment.
The Council of Ministers announced on November 3, 2008 that the planned constitutional revision would remove the presidential term limit previously included in Article 74. Bouteflika announced his independent candidacy for a third term on February 12, 2009. On April 10, 2009, it was announced that Bouteflika had won the presidential election, obtaining a new five-year term. Opposition parties criticized Bouteflika's victory, due to the fact that several parties had boycotted the election.
Following the constitutional amendment allowing him to run for a third term, on February 12, 2009, Bouteflika announced his independent candidacy in the 2009 presidential election. On April 10, 2009, it was announced that Bouteflika had won the election with 90.24% of the vote, on a turnout of 74%, thereby obtaining a new five-year term. Several opposition parties had boycotted the election, with the opposition Socialist Forces Front citing a "tsunami of massive fraud."
In 2010, journalists gathered to demonstrate for press freedom and against Bouteflika's self-appointed role as editor-in-chief of Algeria's state television station. In February 2011, the government rescinded the state of emergency that had been in place since 1992 but still banned all protest gatherings and demonstrations. However, in April 2011, over 2,000 protesters defied an official ban and took to the streets of Algiers, clashing with police forces. Protesters noted that they were inspired by the recent Egyptian revolution, and that Algeria was a police state and "corrupt to the bone".
In 2013, Bouteflika suffered a debilitating stroke. A journalist, Hichem Aboud, was pursued for "threatening national security, territorial integrity, and normal management of the Republic's institutions" and his newspapers were censored, because he wrote that the President had returned from Val-de-Grâce in a "comatose state" and had characterized Saïd Bouteflika as the puppet-master running the administration.
Following yet another constitutional amendment, allowing him to run for a fourth term, Bouteflika announced that he would. He met the electoral law requiring a candidate to collect over 60,000 signatures from supporters in 25 provinces. On April 18, 2014, Bouteflika was re-elected with 81% of the vote, while Benflis was second with 12.18%. The turnout was 51.7%, down from the 75% turnout in 2009. Several opposition parties boycotted the election again, resulting in allegations of fraud.
Bouteflika was admitted to a clinic at Grenoble in France in November 2014. In November 2016, he was hospitalized in France for medical checks.
On February 20, 2017, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel canceled her trip to Algeria an hour before takeoff, reportedly because Bouteflika was suffering from severe bronchitis.
In June 2017, Bouteflika made a rare, and brief, appearance on Algerian state television presiding over a cabinet meeting with his new government. In a written statement, he ordered the government to reduce imports, curb spending, and be wary of foreign debt. He called for banking sector reform and more investment in renewable energy and "unconventional fossil hydrocarbons." Bouteflika was wheelchair-bound and had not given a speech in public since 2014 due to aphasia following his stroke. That same year, he made his final public appearance while unveiling a new metro station and newly renovated Ketchaoua Mosque in Algiers.
During his later term as president, Bouteflika was not seen in public for more than two years, and several of his close associates had not seen him for more than one year. It was alleged that he could hardly speak and communicated by letter with his ministers.
On February 10, 2019, a press release signed by long-ailing Bouteflika announcing he would seek a fifth consecutive term provoked widespread discontent. Youth protesters demanded his picture be removed from city halls in Kenchela and Annaba in the days before the national demonstrations on February 22, organized via social media. Those in Algiers, where street protests are illegal, were the biggest in nearly 18 years. Protestors ripped down a giant poster of Bouteflika from the landmark Algiers central post office.
On March 11, 2019, after sustained protests, Bouteflika announced that he would not seek a new term. However, his withdrawal from the elections was not enough to end the protests. On March 31, 2019, Bouteflika along with the Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui who had taken office 20 days earlier, formed a 27-member cabinet with only 6 of the appointees being retained from the outgoing president administration. The next day, Bouteflika announced that he would resign by April 28, 2019. Acceding to demands by the army chief of staff, Bouteflika ultimately resigned a day later, on April 2, 2019.
Following his resignation, Bouteflika became a recluse and made no public appearances due to failing health. Bouteflika spent his final years in a medicalized state residence in Zeralda, a suburb of Algiers. He also had a private residence in El Biar.
Bouteflika died on September 17, 2021, at his home in Zéralda from cardiac arrest at the age of 84. His death was announced on state television by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. He had been in failing health since he had a stroke in 2013.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika see Bouteflika
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