Houari Boumédiène

Biography

Born Mohammed ben Brahim Boukharouba near Guelma in French Algeria, most likely in 1932, Houari Boumédiène was the son of a poor Arabic-speaking farmer. He studied at Quranic and Arabic schools in Guelma and Constantine and, in 1952, went to Cairo to study at Al-Azhar University, where he first met Ahmed Ben Bella.

In 1955 he joined the National Liberation Front, taking the nom de guerre by which he became known. He served in western Algeria, reached the rank of colonel and from 1960 was chief of staff of the National Liberation Army. After independence in 1962 he helped Ben Bella take power, became defence minister and, from 1963, vice president.

On 19 June 1965 he deposed Ben Bella in a bloodless coup, suspended the constitution and ruled through a Revolutionary Council of loyal officers. He nationalised the oil industry in 1971, put the revenue into state-led heavy industry and pushed Arabisation. Abroad he was a leading voice of the Non-Aligned Movement, chaired the Organisation of African Unity in 1968-1969, backed anti-colonial and Palestinian movements, and in 1975 hosted the Algiers Agreement between Iran and Iraq.

A new constitution in 1976 restored the presidency, and Boumédiène was elected unopposed that December. He fell ill in 1978 with a rare blood disease and died in Algiers on 27 December 1978; some two million people attended his funeral.