Word: bellas
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When Algeria's shadowy new regime finally found its voice last week, foreigners and Algerians alike could hardly believe their ears. Colonel Houari Boumedienne, the gaunt, fiery-eyed army commander who ousted Ahmed ben Bella last month, left no doubt of his aims or of his determination to achieve them. "Algeria," he proclaimed, "just wants to be Algeria...
...first speech since the coup, Boumedienne explained to graduating students at a gendarmerie school that the nation would no longer dabble in international revolution and intrigue. Nor, he warned, would his government tolerate the "adventurers who intruded themselves into our country" during Ben Bella's three-year rule. "Algeria," said the austere colonel, "has no need to take lessons in socialism from outside...
...cities throughout the nation, the crowds mounted increasingly violent demonstrations. So as not to alarm foreign newsmen and Afro-Asian delegations, Boumedienne handled the rioters gently in the capital, though elsewhere his troops reportedly killed 30 or more. The crowds, led by Moscow-oriented Communist students, included Ben Bella supporters, emancipated women who fear that the deeply religious Boumedienne will bring back the traditional Moslem veil, as well as some industrial workers; on one occasion 100 uniformed police joined a protest march in Algiers...
...Bella's old cronies proved more docile. Only two Cabinet ministers followed him into prison; the others eagerly joined Boumedienne. One former exile, Abdul Hafid Boussouf, returned to take a post in the Defense Ministry, and ex-Premier Ferhat Abbas might act as figurehead Premier of the new government...
Treasured Army. Boumedienne's political leanings, say associates, are probably slightly to the right of Lenin-Peace-Prizewinner Ben Bella. He has already jailed several Communists who held Information Ministry posts, and the Communist newspaper Alger Republicain has not been printed since the coup. However, the Reds got their comeuppance because they supported Ben Bella. Far from being antiCommunist, Boumedienne has equipped his treasured 60,000-man army almost entirely with Soviet weapons...