Word: ferhat
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...actuality, F.L.N. leaders felt neither so confident nor so uncompromising as their public pronouncements suggested. Last week, in the first interview he has granted since he became chief of the government in exile, Ferhat Abbas spelled out for TIME Correspondent Stanley Karnow the F.L.N.'s current position: "As long as De Gaulle does not reveal his hand, we will go on fighting. Our army has never been as strong. We are in a position to take a step forward to a ceasefire. We want to find a humane solution to this war. But while it is true that...
...F.L.N. countered with a warning that if Moslems voted they were "committing suicide." From Cairo, headquarters of the new Algerian "government in exile," Premier Ferhat Abbas denounced the referendum as an "intolerable pressure" on the F.L.N.'s fight for independence. "Algeria is not France. The Algerian people are not French," he cried. A French troop convoy was ambushed 90 miles east of Oran and 19 soldiers killed; a portable polling booth was blown up near the Tunisian border; in Tlemcen, a crowd watching an election movie was sprayed with F.L.N. machine-gun fire...
Outside the house in Cairo hung a strange new flag: two vertical bars, green and white, with a red crescent and star in the center. Inside, a large, solemn-faced man with luminous brown eyes faced 100 reporters. "In the name of the Algerian people," Ferhat Abbas, 58, announced the formation of a "government-in-exile" for the new Algerian republic "which considers itself in a state of war with France." Egypt's Nasser quickly hailed the "blessed step," and within 24 hours, Iraq, Yemen and Libya had recognized the nation. More reluctantly, since they fear repercussions from France...
Personal Status. As Premier of the new "government," Ferhat Abbas represents a more moderate choice than might have been expected. A placid ex-pharmacist who speaks much better French than Arabic ("I cannot read Arabic, and I speak it like a country bumpkin"), Abbas was long the recognized leader of the pro-French Moslems, has worked most of his life to bring France and Moslem Algerians into a decent, humane relationship. Though he was twice jailed by the French and called a salaud (dirty bum) by a right-wing Deputy when he was a member of the French Constituent Assembly...
While President René Coty angrily denounced the "abominable" acts of sabotage, F.L.N. leaders in Cairo and Rabat proudly declared themselves the authors of the terror. Rebel Leader Ferhat Abbas, once regarded as a moderate among the rebels, promised more sabotage. Fearing De Gaulle's skillful wooing of the Moslem population, the F.L.N. apparently hopes to stir up enough hatred and dissension to make a mockery out of all talk of "fraternization...