Houari Boumédienne

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Houari Boumédienne
2nd President of Algeria
In office 19 June 1965 – 27 December 1978
Preceded by	Ahmed Ben Bella
Succeeded by	Rabah Bitat

Born	August 23, 1932 Clauzel, Guelma Province, Algeria
Died	December 27, 1978 Algeria
Political party	Military dictatorship

Houari Boumédienne (original name Mohamed Ben Brahim Boukharouba) (August 23, 1932 – December 27, 1978) (Arabic: هواري بومدين) served as President of Algeria from 19 June 1965 to 27 December 1978 and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council until 12 December 1976.

He was born in Clauzel near Guelma and educated at the Islamic Institute in Constantine.

He joined a guerrilla unit in the Algerian War of Independence in 1955, adopting Houari Boumédienne as his nom-de-guèrre (from the name of the patron saint of the city of Tlemcen -Sidi Boumedienne- in the West of Algeria where he served as an officer during the Independence War). From 1960 he was chief of staff of the exiled army of the National Liberation Front (FLN).

After independence in 1962 he headed an influential military faction within the government, and was made defence minister with the support of the Algerian leader Ahmed Ben Bella. A political pragmatist, he grew increasingly distrustful of Ben Bella's autocratic style of government and ideological puritanism, and in June 1965, Boumédienne seized power in a bloodless coup. Initially lacking a personal power base, he was seen as a weak ruler. But after a botched coup attempt against him by military officers in 1967 he tightened his rule, and then remained Algeria's undisputed ruler until his death in 1978.

He pursued a policy of non-alignment, maintaining good relations with both the communist bloc and the capitalist nations, and promoting third-world cooperation. A significant regional event was his 1975 pledge of support for an independent Western Sahara, admitting Sahrawi refugees and the Polisario guerrilla movement to Algerian territory. This ended the possibility of mending relations with Morocco, already sour after the 1963 Sand war.

Economically, he turned away from Ben Bella's focus on rural Algeria, initiating instead a socialist programme of state-driven industrialization. Algeria had virtually no industrial production. Boumèdiénne's years in power were marked by economic growth, but the heavy emphasis on government planning in the economy created lasting problems for later governments. In 1971 he nationalized the Algerian oil industry, increasing government revenue tremendously, but sparking intense protest from the French government.

In 1974, Boumedienne said in a U.N. speech: "One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory."

In 1978, his appearances became increasingly rare. After lingering in a coma for 39 days, he died of Waldenström macroglobulinemia.