Abane Ramdane (1920 - 1957) was a Politician Algérie N which played in particular a crucial role in the history of the Algerian revolution, and is regarded today still as directing it “most political” of FLN, called “the architect of the revolution”.
Principal organizer with Larbi Ben Me hidi of the Congress of Soummam, it traces the broad outlines of the revolutionary movement consisting in creating a State in which the political element overrides the military element, and chose the political Pluralisme and linguistics in Algérie. Victim of the internal struggles enter the colonels, in favor of the military capacity, and the defenders of the primacy granted to the policy, he is assassinated on the order of the “colonels” of the CEC in 1957.
Biography
French formation, awakening and political commitment
Born the June 10th 1920 in Azouza in the commune of Larbaâ Nath Irathen, called then Strong National (Tizi-Ouzou), in a modest family. He obtains the baccalaureat mathematical with mention “Well” in 1941 with the Duveyrier college of Blida. In contact with other young Algerians, it is forged then and cements a political and national conscience, in a village company corroded by poverty and misery.
Abane is then mobilized and affected during the Second world war, with the rank of warrant officer, in a regiment of Algerian Tirailleurs stationed in Blida, while waiting for the departure for the Italy. Demobilized, it enters to the Parti of the Algerian people (PPP) and militates actively while working as secretary of the mixed commune of Châteaudun of Rhummel (Chelghoum Laïd).
Strongly marked by the massacres of May 8th, 1945, it gives up its functions, breaks definitively with the colonial administration and enters in clandestinity to devote itself to “the national cause” within the PPP - MTLD. It is indicated, in 1948, as chief of Wilaya, initially in the area of Sétif, then in the Oranie. During this period, he is also member of the special Organization (OS), armed wing of the Party, charged to prepare the Revolution.
In the French prisons, development of a political culture
Sought by the French police force in the business known as of the “plot of OS” (1950), it is stopped a few months later in the west of the country. He is judged in 1951, after having undergone several weeks of interrogation and torture, and having condemned to 5 years of prison, 10 years of prohibition of stay, 10 years of deprivation of civil rights and 500.000 francs of fine for “attack to interior safety of the State”. Then begin a long martyrdom in the prisons of Algeria (Candle, Barberousse, Maison Carrée) and of metropolis. After a short stay with the Baumettes (Rhone delta]) with the beginning of the year 1952, it is transferred to Ensisheim (Haut-Rhin, Alsace) in a prison from high security. Subjected to a mode of detention, common right, extremely severe, it starts one long Hunger strike. With the article of death, it is looked after and saved in-extremis, and obtains win.
Political prisoner, it is transferred in 1953 to the prison from Albi in the Tarn (Southern west of the France) where the prison mode, more flexible, enables him to be devoted to its favorite leisure, reading, which enables him to forge its culture and its formation policies. He discovers there, in particular, the unjust and dramatic condition made with the Irish nation, in many connections similar to that which undergo the Algerian people since more than one century, and fate of Eamon de Valera which knew, like him, British jails.
Transferred to the prison from Maison Carrée during the summer 1954, it is regularly held with the current of the preparations of November 1954. It is even indicated of office like one of the twelve members of a committee charged to take in hands the destinies of Algerian resistance against the French mode, for the independence of Algeria.
Release, return to clandestinity and organization of networks FLN
They is for this reason that the leaders of zone III (Kabylie, future Wilaya III history) contact him a few days after its coming out of prison, the January 18th 1955, whereas it is assigned with residence with Azouza. After a few days spent near his paralyzed mother, it leaves Azouza, enters in clandestinity and deals with the Directorate of Political Affairs of the capital. Its call of April 1st, 1955 with the union and the engagement of the Algerian people, signs the birth certificate of a true Face of release and its emergence as a national movement. It affirms its unit creed there, “the release of Algeria will be the work of all”, which it will have of cease to only implement.
It quickly obtains a great influence in interior direction installed in Algiers. Responsible for the questions of animation of the “Revolution” at the national level by ensuring coordination inter-wilaya, it also animates the connection with the Delegation External of the established FLN with the Cairo, the federations of France, Tunisia and the Morocco. It has thus, the upper hand on all the great questions of national order and international. It also devotes its energy to organize and rationalize the fight, and to gather all the Algerian political clouts within the FLN to give to the “rebellion” of November 1st the dimension of a great resistance movement main road. Assisted by Ben Youcef Ben Khedda, he impels the creation of El Moudjahid , the clandestine newspaper of the Revolution, the national anthem Kassaman (by contacting itself large the Poète Moufdi Zakaria), supports the birth of the trade-union organizations working (UGTA), commercial (UGCA) and student's (UGEMA), who will become, they also, a compost for the Revolution.
Political structuring of the national movement and internal struggles
It also puts in building site and supervises the drafting of a doctrinal base intended to supplement and refine the objectives contained in the Proclamation of November 1st, 1954. Supported by Larbi Ben Me hidi, it makes adopt with the Congrès of Soummam August 20th 1956 a statute for the Armée with national release (ALN) in front of being subjected to the “Lois of the war”, and especially, becoming a political platform in which the “primacy of the policy on the soldier and the interior is marked on outside”. It is indicated like one of the 5 members of a national political directory, the Coordination committee and of Execution (the CEC), charged coordinating the “Revolution” and with carrying out the directives of its national council (CNRA) created for this purpose.
It is Abane Radmane which decides with Larbi Ben Me Hidi and Yacef Saadi to start the Bataille of Algiers, during which, charged with Ben Me hidi to supervise the military action, it coordinates the action and propaganda policies in direction of the Algerian population. In March 1957, after the arrest and the assassination of Ben Me hidi, and tracks it of Yacef Saadi, networks FLN with Algiers, pushed by the 10th division parachutist of the Général Massu, crumble. Abane with the three other members of the CEC must then leave the city.
It gains Tunis via the Morocco, after a long walk of more than one month, and the crossing of all the Algerian west. In the Tunisian capital, it runs up against the colonels of the ALN. The latter which invest in force the leader bodies of Revolution (the CEC and CNRA), it reproaches a drift autoritarist and the abandonment of the primacy of the policy and interior, adopted with the Soummam, which is worth enmities to him.
Attracted in an ambush organized by the colonels of the CEC (Krim Belkacem, Abdelhafid Boussouf, Lakhdar Ben Tobbal…) encouraged by Ben Bella then held with the Prison of Health, he is assassinated the December 27th 1957 in a farm close to the Moroccan city of Tétouan. Its body, missing, are symbolically repatriated in Algeria, 1984, to be " inhumé" with the square of the martyrs of the cemetery of El Alia, in Algiers.
Judgments
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“Abane Ramdane had the great merit to rationally organize our insurrection by giving him the popular homogeneity, coordination and bases which were necessary for him and which ensured the victory”
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“I knew not badly intellectuals, but Abane Ramdane was remarkably intelligent. It was moreover a simple man, of an absolute sincerity. He liked neither to get dressed nor to have money. The only thing which imported to him was the national unit. It was decided to obtain it by all the means. And it is that which shocked many militants. It was violent, brutal, radical and expeditious in its decisions”
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