Proclamation of the Algerian National Liberation Front

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The proclamation reflected the spirit of nine Algerians considered the leaders of the Algerian War of Independence: Hocine Aït Ahmed, Ahmed Ben Bella, Mohamed Khider, Rabah Bitat, Moustafa Ben Boulaid, Mourad Didouche, Larbi Ben M'hidi, Belkacem Krim, and Mohamed Boudiaf. The first three, who were in self-imposed exile in Cairo (the “externals”), gave the document its final form. The rest were in Algeria (the “internals”) acting as commanders of the army and liaisons to all factions involved in the rebellion. This group of men had several things in common, such as being in the same socioeconomic class and generation and having some form of military experience.

Of the externals, Aït Ahmed, a founding member of the OS, had collected arms and munitions, set up OS cells throughout Algeria, and forged strategies to take back the land. Ben Bella, a founding member of the OS, had successfully robbed a post office for funds to finance the war but was eventually caught and imprisoned, escaped, and exiled himself. Khider, who had been a past member of Messali Hadj's Star of North Africa, was from the working class and had served as a deputy to the French Assembly. He, too, exiled himself because he had been implicated in the same robbery as Ben Bella.

The internals were the commanders of the six regions: Moustafa Ben Boulaid commanded Aures, Rabah Bitat commanded Constantine, Mourad Didouche commanded coastal Algiers, Larbi Ben M'hidi commanded Oran, and Belkacem Krim was responsible for Kabylia. Mohamed Boudiaf was the liaison officer who kept the lines of communication open with the externals by conducting meetings in Switzerland and calling the meeting of the commanders to set in motion the simultaneous revolt across Algeria at midnight on November 1, 1954.

The one person who stands out from among these important leaders is Ahmed Ben Bella, who came from Maghnia, Algeria. He was French educated, a decorated soldier from World War II, and a member of Hadj's 1940s underground movement. In response to the rigged election of 1946, he was a founding member of the OS, created to set the rebellion in motion. He was imprisoned after he was caught in a bank robbery in 1950 but escaped and exiled himself to Cairo. In 1954 he and eight other leaders joined to create the FLN and deliver the proclamation of independence. Acting as a peace negotiator in Algiers in 1956, he was arrested and imprisoned from 1956 to 1962. He was released after the Évian Accords were signed with France in 1962 and moved from the jailhouse to the statehouse as the president of Algeria charged with the task of rebuilding the new Algerian state.