Ben Bella Remembers Che

[Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 19:26:01 +0100
From: Peter Lindgren <peterlindgren@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Ben Bella on Che
To: sldrty-l@xxxxxxx

I found this article on the website of Le Monde Diplomatique and I hope
cdes find it interesting.

Peter Lindgren

ON THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF CHE GUEVARA

Che as I knew him

by AHMED BEN BELLA*


On 9 October 1967, in a little schoolroom in La Higuera, Bolivia, Ernesto
"Che" Guevara was assassinated. He had been taken prisoner the day before.
Thus ended the life of a revolutionary whom Jean-Paul Sartre called "the
most complete human being of our era". It had led him from Argentina to
Guatemala, from Cuba to the Congo, and finally to Bolivia, always inspired
by an ardent hope of relieving the sufferings of the poor. President Ahmed
Ben Bella met him many times in Algiers from 1962-65 when the city was a
haven for anti-imperialists from all over the world.

For thirty years the call of Che Guevara has been ringing in our ears,
summoning our consciences to witness. His  dying gaze has been engraved on
our memories ever since the day when photographs in newspapers all over the
world showed us his naked body lying in some forsaken spot in Nancahuazu,
blazing with light.

"What matter where death comes upon us," he said, "as long as our battle
cry is heard, other hands take up our  weapons, and others arise to intone
our funeral dirge".

The object of Che's quest was humanity itself. Human dignity and freedom.
He spoke and wrote of guerrilla  warfare, but rather than an instruction
manual he left us a code for living intended, in his own words, "to
transform  the love of humanity into deeds that serve as an example and
stimulus to action." Fidel Castro said of him that his  total disregard for
danger was his Achilles' heel. It was also his strength and his greatness.

Che was a courageous fighter, who had to struggle unremittingly with a body
wracked by asthma. Sometimes,  when I climbed with him to the Chrea Heights
overlooking the town of Blida, I saw him suffer an attack that  turned him
green in the face. Anyone who has read his Bolivian diary (1) knows in what
poor health he faced the  terrible physical and mental ordeals with which
his path was strewn.

It is impossible to speak of Che without speaking of Cuba and the special
relations between us. His life was so  closely bound up with the country
that became his second home before he turned to wherever the revolution
called him.

I first met Ernesto "Che" Guevara in the autumn of 1962, on the eve of the
Cuban missile crisis and the blockade  decreed by the United States.
Algeria had just achieved independence and formed its first government. As
head  of that government, I was due to attend the September session of the
United Nations in New York at which the  Algerian flag would be raised for
the first time over the UN building, a ceremony marking the victory of our
national liberation struggle and Algeria's entry into the concert of free
nations.

The National Liberation Front's political bureau had decided that the trip
to the United Nations should be  followed by a visit to Cuba. Rather than
just a visit, it was intended as an act of faith and a demonstration of
political commitment. Algeria wished to emphasise publicly its total
solidarity with the Cuban revolution,  especially at this difficult moment
in its history.

I was invited to the White House on the morning of 15 October 1962 and had
a frank and heated discussion about Cuba with the president, John
Fitzgerald Kennedy. I asked him point blank whether he was bent on
confrontation with Cuba. His reply left no doubt about his real intentions.
"No," he said, "if there are no Soviet  missiles. Yes, if there are."
Kennedy tried hard to dissuade me from flying to Cuba direct from New York.
He  even suggested that the Cuban military aircraft that was to fly me to
Havana might be attacked by Cuban opposition forces based in Miami. To
these thinly veiled threats I retorted that I was a fellaga who could not
be  intimidated by collaborators, whether Algerian or Cuban.

We arrived in Cuba on 16 October amid indescribable scenes of popular
enthusiasm. The programme provided  for political discussions at party
headquarters in Havana immediately after our delegation arrived. But things
worked out very differently. As soon as our luggage had been dropped off,
we threw protocol overboard and  began a heart-to-heart talk with Fidel,
Che Guevara, Raul Castro and the other leaders who were accompanying  us.

We talked for hours. I naturally conveyed to the Cuban leaders the
impression I had received from my conversation with President Kennedy. At
the end of an impassioned discussion, around tables which we had pushed
together end to end, we realised that we had practically exhausted the
questions on the agenda. There  was no point in a further meeting at party
headquarters, and by mutual consent we moved straight on to the  programme
of visits prepared for us across the country.

This was typical of the total lack of formality that, from the very
beginning, was the distinguishing mark of relations  between the Cuban and
Algerian revolutions and of my personal relations with Fidel Castro and Che
Guevara.

The solidarity between us was spectacularly confirmed in October 1963, when
the Tindouf campaign presented  the first serious threat to the Algerian
revolution. Our young army, fresh from a war of liberation, had no air
cover  (we didn't have a single plane) or armoured transport. It was
attacked by the Moroccan armed forces on the  terrain that was most
unfavourable to it, where it was unable to use the only tactics it knew and
had tried and  tested in the liberation struggle, namely guerrilla warfare.


The vast expanses of desert were far from the mountains of Aurès,
Djurdjura, the Collo peninsula or Tlemcen,  which had been its natural
milieu and whose every resource and secret were familiar to it. Our enemies
had  decided that the Algerian revolution had to be broken before it grew
too strong and carried everything in its  wake.

The Egyptian president, Abdel Nasser, quickly provided us with the air
cover we lacked, and Fidel Castro, Che  Guevara, Raul Castro and the other
Cuban leaders sent us a battalion of 22 tanks and several hundred troops
(2). They were deployed at Bedeau, south of Sidi Bel Abbes, where I
inspected them, and were ready to enter into combat if the desert war
continued.

The tanks were fitted with infra-red equipment that allowed them to be used
at night. They had been delivered to  Cuba by the Soviet Union on the
express condition that they were not to be made available to third
countries,  even communist countries such as Bulgaria, in any
circumstances. Despite these restrictions from Moscow, the  Cubans defied
all the taboos and sent their tanks to the assistance of the endangered
Algerian revolution without  a moment's hesitation.

The United States was clearly behind the Tindouf campaign. We knew that the
helicopters transporting the Moroccan troups were piloted by Americans. The
same considerations of international solidarity subsequently led  the
Cubans to intervene on the other side of the Atlantic, in Angola and
elsewhere.

The circumstances surrounding the arrival of the tank battalion are worth
recalling, since they clearly illustrate the  special nature of our
relations with Cuba.

When I visited Cuba in 1962, Fidel Castro made a point of honouring his
country's pledge to give us two million  French francs' worth of aid.
Because of Cuba's economic situation, the aid was to be provided in sugar
rather  than in currency. I argued that Cuba needed her sugar at that time
more than we did, but Castro would not take  no for an answer.

About a year after our discussion, a ship flying the Cuban flag docked in
the port of Oran. Along with the  promised cargo of sugar, we were
surprised to discover a couple of dozen tanks and hundreds of Cuban
soldiers  sent to help us. A brief note from Raul Castro, scribbled on a
page torn out of an exercise book, announced this  gesture of solidarity.

Obviously, we could not let the ship return empty. We filled it with
Algerian produce and, on the advice of  Ambassador Jorge Serguera, added a
few Berber horses. This was the start of a kind of barter in solidarity
between our two countries that was entirely devoid of commercial
considerations. Circumstances and constraints  permitting, it was a
distinctive feature of our relations.

Che Guevara was acutely aware of the countless restrictions that undermine
genuine revolutionary action - and  indeed of the limits on any experiment,
however revolutionary - as soon as it conflicts directly or indirectly with
the implacable law of the market and the merchant mentality. He denounced
them publicly at the Afro-Asian  Conference held in Algiers in February
1965. Moreover, the painful terms on which the Cuban missile crisis had
been concluded, and the agreement between the Soviet Union and the United
States, had left a bitter taste. I  myself exchanged very tough words on
the matter with the Soviet ambassador in Algiers. All of this, together
with  the situation prevailing in Africa, which seemed to have enormous
revolutionary potential, led Che to the conclusion that Africa was
imperialism's weak link. It was to Africa that he now decided to devote his
efforts.

I tried to point out that this was not perhaps the best way to help our
continent reach revolutionary maturity. An  armed revolution needs foreign
support, but it has first to create the internal resources on which to base
its  struggle. But Che Guevara insisted that his own commitment must be
total and required his physical presence. He  began a series of trips to
Cabinda (Angola) and Congo-Brazzaville.

He refused my offer of a private plane to help disguise his movements, so I
instructed Algerian ambassadors  throughout the region to watch out for him
and provide every assistance. Whenever he returned from sub-Saharan Africa
we spent long hours exchanging ideas. Each time he came back impressed by
the fabulous cultural riches of the African continent but dissatisfied with
his relations with the Marxist parties of the countries he  had visited and
irritated by their approach. His experience in Cabinda and subsequent
contacts with the guerrilla  struggle around Stanleyville (3) were
particularly disappointing.

Meanwhile, we were pursuing a parallel course of action to save the armed
revolution in western Zaire. In agreement with Nyerere, Nasser, Modibo
Keita, N'Krumah, Kenyata and Sekou Touré, Algeria was to contribute by
air-lifting arms via Egypt, while Uganda and Mali were to supply military
cadres. The rescue plan  had been conceived at a meeting in Cairo convened
on my initiative. We were just beginning to implement it when  we received
a desperate cry for help from the leaders of the armed struggle. Despite
our efforts, we were too late  and the revolution was drowned in blood by
the assassins of Patrice Lumumba.

During one of his visits to Algiers Che Guevara informed me of a request
from Fidel. Since Cuba was under close  surveillance, there was no real
chance of organising the supply of arms and military cadres trained in Cuba
to  other Latin American countries. Could Algeria take over? Distance was
no great handicap. On the contrary, it  could work in favour of the secrecy
vital for the success of such a large-scale operation.

I agreed without hesitation. We immediately began to establish
organisational structures, placed under the direct  control of Che Guevara,
to host Latin American revolutionary movements. Soon representatives of all
these  movements moved to Algiers, where I met them many times together
with Che.

Their combined headquarters were set up in the hills overlooking Algiers in
a large villa with a big garden which  we had assigned to them because of
its symbolic importance. The name of the Villa Susini has gone down in
history. During the liberation struggle it was used as an interrogation
centre where many men and women of the  resistance were tortured to death.

One day Che Guevara said to me, "Ahmed, there's serious trouble. A group of
men trained at the Villa Susini  have been arrested at the frontier (I
can't remember which countries were involved) and I'm afraid they may talk
under torture." He was very worried that the secret site of the
preparations for armed action would become  known and our enemies would
discover the true nature of the import-export companies we had set up in
South  America.

Che Guevara had left Algiers by the time of the military coup on 19 June
1965. He had warned me to be on my guard. His departure from Algeria, his
death in Bolivia and my own disappearance for 15 years need to be studied
in the historical context of the regression that followed the period of
victorious liberation struggles.  Beginning with the assassination of
Lumumba, it spelt the end of the progressive regimes of the third world,
including those of N'Krumah, Modibo, Keita, Sukarno and Nasser.

We shall never forget 9 October 1967. For me, a solitary prisoner, it was a
day of immeasurable sadness. The  radio announced the death of my brother
in struggle, and the enemies we had fought together rejoiced at their
victory. But as time passes, and the circumstances of the guerrilla
struggle that ended that day in the Nancahuazu  fade from memory, so Che is
ever more present in the thoughts of all who struggle and hope. He is part
of the  fabric of their daily lives. Something of him remains buried like a
treasure in the deepest reaches of their hearts  and minds, rekindling
their courage and renewing their strength.

One day in May 1972 the opaque silence of my prison, jealously guarded by
hundreds of soldiers, was broken  by a tremendous din. I learnt that Fidel
was visiting a model farm only a few hundred yards away, no doubt unaware
of my presence in the secluded Moorish house on the hill whose roof he
could glimpse above the treetops.

The memories flooded back. A kaleidoscope of faces passed before my eyes
like an old newsreel. Never since we parted had Che Guevara been so vivid
in my memory.

My wife and I have never forgotten him. A large photograph of Che was
always pinned to the wall of our prison  and our day-to-day existence was
spent under his gaze. A smaller photo cut out of a magazine, which I had
stuck  onto a piece of card and covered with plastic, accompanied us on all
our wanderings and is the one that is closest  to our hearts. It is now in
my late parents' house in Maghnia, the village where I was born, where we
deposited  our most precious souvenirs before going into exile. It is the
photograph of Ernesto "Che" Guevara stretched out  on the ground, naked to
the waist, blazing with light. So much light and so much hope.


(1) Ernesto Guevara, "The Bolivian diary of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara"
(introduction by Fidel Castro), Lorrimer Publishing, London,  1968.
(2) Editor's note: These troops were placed under the command of Efigenio
Ameijeiras, a Granma veteran who had been together  with Fidel and Che from
the outset and was formerly head of the Cuban revolutionary police.
(3) Editor's note: Now Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(formerly Zaire)

* Historic leader of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN); first
president of independent Algeria (1962); ousted by  Colonel Houari
Boumediene in June 1965. President of the Movement for Democracy in Algeria
(MDA).

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 1997
Le Monde diplomatique.

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