Great Decisions 1963; 3; Algeria: What Future?

American week shipments to Algeria have been providing an emergency lifeline to this new nation which achieved independence at the end of a long and devastating war. When these shipments were temporarily halted during the recent East Coast ductile, a special plea to the striking longshoreman from the Red Cross was turned down. A longshoreman spoke to me, said he had no regrets, in view of the pictures he had seen of Ben Bella playing up to Castro. Americans, even those most sympathetic to Algeria's struggle for independence, were puzzled by Ben Bella's visit to Cuba last October. For this particular incident was dramatized above any other recent news of Algeria with front page headlines and pictures. While it's quite true that sending American wheat is a mercy mission to feed the destitute people, the United States has also entered into a more substantial long-term economic aid agreement with Algeria to help raise the productivity of its agriculture and the standard of living of its farmers. Why is the United

States aiding Premier Ben Bella's government? What is happening in Algeria today? Where is Algeria headed? Regional Educational Television presents Great Decisions 1963. One in a series of eight television programs produced in support of the Great Decisions nationwide discussion project involving United States citizens in study and discussion of leading foreign policy issues. Benjamin Rivlin, professor of political science at Brooklyn College, the City University of New York means this discussion on the future of Algeria. Algeria was the 109th state to be admitted to the United Nations. It is a large and sprawling country starting at the Mediterranean and penetrating deep into the heart of Africa. Algeria is more than three times the size of Texas, but 90 percent of its 11 million people live in a 50 to 120 mile wide fertile

coastal strip about the size of Florida. The bulk of the country is desert the Great Sahara. Algeria is Arab, African, and Mediterranean. It is Arab in that it is the largest country of the Maghreb, the Arabic word for West, the name by which Northwestern Africa, including Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, is known. Nearly all of Algeria's non-European population is Muslim. The vast majority is Arabic speaking, although some 20 percent of the people speak Berber. Algeria is not only African geographically, but it is African because it symbolizes the struggle of the people of Africa for freedom against colonialism. Algeria is also a Mediterranean country because its people have from the days of antiquity been involved in the life of the lands bordering on the Mediterranean. During the past century, while under French rule,

the country became even more closely tied to the European Mediterranean lands. Algeria is primarily an agricultural country, but it is poor, agricultural, lacking adequate water resources. The Sahara, which in the past was looked upon as a big white elephant, is now viewed as one of the great economic hopes for the future, with its vast, newly discovered oil reserves, natural gas fields, and other mineral deposits. It will be some time yet before the Algerian people benefit concretely from the wealth of the Sahara. In the meantime, Algeria faces the difficult task of solving the immediate problems of rehabilitation and of feeding more than half of a population on the verge of starvation. During the period of French rule, dating back to 1830, a dual society emerged, one European, the other

Muslim. Although living side-by-side for more than a century, the two populations were separated by language, custom, religion, history, and level of economic development. In a sense, one can say that France never conquered the Algerian people, but, despite Muslim opposition, France proceeded to transform Algeria into a colony, notwithstanding the legal fiction that it was an integral part of France. Ultimately, there were some one-million European settlers about a tenth of the total population. The French presence brought change. The most favorable land came into the hands of European settler farmers, who brought about irrigation mechanization and crop rotation, thereby increasing the land's yield and developing wheat and grapes into important cash crops. Only a small portion of the Muslims were able to turn to modern commercial farming. Most

of them were pushed back into the interior to more marginal lands, continuing to tend their flocks and farm in their archaicly primitive manner. At best, they were able to e-card a meager existence. The French presence also brought the Algerians into contact with modern Western civilization and technology. For the overwhelming majority, this contact was limited, and ironically had an adverse effect. Improved sanitary and hygienic conditions touched off a population explosion that far outstripped economic growth. For a small portion of the Muslim population, mainly the children of the traditional elite, the French presence had a most important effect. It equated them with modern Western thought and its human and democratic values. In introducing liberty, equality, and fraternity to these Muslim students, the French inadvertently trained this elite group to be the leaders of an Algerian nationalist movement that would

eventually mobilize the poor illiterate Muslim population for the nationalist challenge to French rule. On July 3, 1962, independence caved to Algeria at the end of a bitter struggle against France that had endured for more than seven and a half years. Although the war produced thousands upon thousands of casualties, independence ultimately came not through a military victory but through long and tedious negotiations between the leaders of the Algerian rebellion and the French government of President De Gaulle. During the last six months of the rebellion, the secret army organization, the OAS, formed by European extremists and rebellious French military officers, fought a last-ditch battle, not against the Muslim rebels, but against De Gaulle's decision to come to terms with Algerian nationalism. The OAS launched a protected series of brutal acts of terror against the Muslims

of Algiers and Iran. Its purpose was to provoke them to retaliate against the Europeans and thus to set the stage for the intervention of the French army. In this way, they hope to destroy the ceasefire agreements reached at Avion. The Muslims refused to be provoked. General De Gaulle would not back down. Then the OAS announced a scorched earth policy designed to return Algeria to the pre-colonial primitive conditions. The period of terror failed in its initial purpose, but it succeeded in maintaining a state of extreme unrest. As the date of Algerian independence approached, panicking Europeans began a mass exodus. In the months before and after independence, some 800,000 of them flooded all available transportation to France. The effect of this departure has been catastrophic. The European-dominated economy has almost come to a dead stock. While this happened, a struggle for power broke out among the leaders of the Algerian

rebellion. For a while, the country hovered at the brink of civil war. It took several months of intensive political maneuvering for Algeria to get a relatively stable government under the leadership of Premier Ben-Bella. Thus, Algeria began its life as an independent state in 1962 under the most difficult of circumstances. The first half year of independence for Algeria was most stormy. However, things seem to be settling down now and the country in its government are able to turn their attention to working towards the goals of the revolution. To help us understand what independence means for Algeria and what is happening in the country, we went to the United Nations headquarters in New York to talk with his excellency, Abdul Qadr Chandali, Algeria's ambassador to the United Nations.

Ambassador Chandali, after a half year of independence that was quite stormy, things seem to be settling down in your country. Is this providing a political climate which will enable your government to proceed with achieving the avowed goals of your revolution? I've already started doing whatever they can to improve the situation in the country and what they can do.

in Algeria today and taking to account the potential possibilities of the country itself and at the same time count on foreign aid because we cannot survive without foreign aid at this stage. Why? Why is foreign aid so essential? Because Algeria having been a colonial country because the economy of Algeria having been dominated by the interest of the economy power have never been considered a country able to survive by itself and therefore the economy have to be switched to a different type of economy which will be a national one involving the exploitation of the natural resources of the country and a different relationship in terms of trade and development with the

rest of the world. Now in this aid I get the implication that you don't envisage that the aid will be forever but this is a short term proposition. Well we all hope like any other government that sooner or later the country will be able not only to live by itself on its own resources but even to be able to help other countries sometime. Well where will you be getting your aid right now? Well to begin with in the agreement with the French government after the ceasefire which have been signed in Avion last year it appears that the French government is willing to continue helping the Algerian government and provide him with all the assistance in terms of material help and financial aid for us to build up the nation. Well isn't it a bit strange that France after a rebellion of seven and a half years should now be aiding Algeria to such a large extent?

I think just last week you are a foreign minister signed an agreement for $216 million. Well yes but you have also to consider that this is also in the best interest of France itself. I see. The location of Algeria, the important investments of France in our land, the relationship between the North African area and the Europe including France are such that it is also in the best interest of France but Algeria would develop as a healthy nation and would have a good relationship with France. You mentioned the Avion agreements a few months ago. If I am not mistaken the Avion agreements provided for certain provisions for our Frenchman living in Algeria and for the continuation of the French presence in Algeria would you elaborate on that? Well you see we have been under French rule for over a century and therefore the relationship between the two countries have been very much involved and integrated somehow.

Therefore since there is in Algeria a large French community and since there is in France a large Algerian community it was a good faith exchange of responsibilities and guarantees to the two communities living in the two countries. You mentioned that there is a Algerian community living in France. There are numbers of 400,000 of them living there almost half a million, almost half a million. What do these people do in France? They are basically workers in factories, either skilled or unskilled workers living all over the country from north to south mostly in industrial areas and for us it is a very important factor because there is a tremendous problem of employment in Algeria therefore we need to transfer part of our men power abroad and it so happened that the best client for the Algerian men power is France and therefore these workers, these are Algerian workers

in France are making a living there and also because they are making a better living than in our own country they are sending home a fairly large amount of money which is helping the local economy as well. Yes I believe it is something like $19 million a year, about the same age. Well we see how important it is for the Algerians to work in France now how about the other way around Frenchmen in Algeria how important are they in Algeria? Well since the economy was completely dominated by the French administration the French community living in Algeria was controlling all the sectors of the national development that is the administration, the trade, the industry, the technical sides of the machinery of the state and therefore we cannot replace them overnight and we do need their assistance we want them to stay and to help us contribute to developing the country in a more than a sense.

I understand now is all your foreign aid going to come from France? Well I don't think so I believe that a large number of friendly countries are willing to help us out and among them the United States are already giving us a fairly large amount of help in terms of weight in terms of medical supplies and so forth. Are you getting help from any other countries? We are getting help from first of all from the Arab states which have been as you know very friendly towards during our war of independence and of course countries from the eastern side of Europe including the Soviet Union are also sending us some help and some aid in terms of material in terms of food and so forth. But the bulk of your aid is coming from France and to a certain extent from the United States at this point.

To a certain extent yes. Since we mentioned the iron curtain of both sides of the Cold War where does Algeria stand in the Cold War? Well Algeria in the Cold War is freezing like any other non-aligned country we don't like it. But as far as we are concerned we try not to be involved and therefore we already made it clear even before independence that Algeria would stand for a strictly non-aligned political position. Is that perhaps explained why Premier Benbella visited President Kennedy and then visited Premier Castro in Cuba? Well the Prime Minister of Algeria would be happy to visit any friendly nation. It so happened that as much as United States now friendly nation to Algeria the Cuban government have been a very friendly government during the time of our struggle and we thought that we had no particular reason to refuse the invitation of Premier Castro. Now I don't think that you meant to imply when you spoke about Algeria being a non-aligned

power that you're going to be an isolationist power, not being involved in foreign affairs. Certainly not. We want even to be active because non-alignment doesn't mean isolationism and doesn't mean naturalism. Non-alignment means simply that we do not want to be involved in the Cold War but you are involved in African affairs very substantially aren't you? Yes and this stage African affairs have nothing to do yet with the Cold War. African affairs are basically the struggle of African people for their independence from colonialism. But how are you involved at the moment in the African struggle for independence? Well we are openly supporting the fight of the revolutionary movements of Angola against Portugal. We are openly and strongly against the policy of apartheid in the Union of South Africa and in South West Africa. We are making it clear that we do hope that the British government will be able to proceed

quickly with the decolonization of the latest parts of the British Empire in Africa and so forth and so on. How about your relationships with the rest of the state of the Maghreb of North Africa? Well they are first of all our neighbors who belong to the same culture. We almost had the same history at least in the last decades and therefore we feel very close to each other and we still hope that sooner or later there will be a sort of united Maghreb, united North Africa including the countries of the Maghreb. The Algerian labor movement known as the UGTA played a key role in the Algerian rebellion. This independence, the relationship of the UGTA to the single political party, the FLN which has emerged in Algeria, has become one of the fornearest issues. In late January the UGTA held its first National Congress in Algiers and Mr. Irving Brown

representative of the AFL-CIO and the International Confederation of Free Trade Union attended this conference. Mr. Brown, I understand that at this conference the question of the relationship between the UGTA and the single party was one of the questions considered. Well I would not say that this was a question that was considered because this was not openly discussed but the actual net effect in terms of the result of the Congress was that the trade union movement of Algeria has become more or less under the control of the political party. Is this bad? Well all depends upon your point of view. We from the point of view of the United States are opposed to the whole idea of a political party dominating and controlling a trade union movement. However, I think you must see this in the light of the Algerian situation and in light

of the problems of most of the unions in Africa. It is also perfectly clear that Mr. Benbella and his regime has based upon the whole concept that the continuation of the revolution that they made over the last seven years must be done through and only through the political party namely the National Liberation Front. And what would be the role of the trade union movement in independent Algeria? Well the trade unions according to a conversation I had with Mr. Benbella will within that limited framework still have a tremendous job to do in terms of running for example what they call the committee de gestione. They need the committees that are going to run the hundreds of properties that have been deserted by former French owners as you know more than 70 to 80 percent of the European population has left.

This has meant that hundreds of factories and hundreds of plants are now idle. The government has decided that the unions will in the name run these factories and run these economic enterprises. They will have a tremendous job to do in the training of workers because the major problem in Algeria today is to train skilled workers, superintendents and what the French called cadre elements. Are there jobs for these people? This is another problem, there are no jobs, in other words according to their own figures there are 80 percent of the workers of Algeria today unemployed but the real problem is not just to seek jobs for unemployed but to seek jobs for people who have never worked. How is that? What you're trying to do in Algeria today is to create an economy because under the system of French colonialism you had what was called the two economy systems. You had an economy for the Europeans and an economy for the Algerians. In the main the economy for the Algerian, for the Muslims, meant the regime of hunger of

unemployment or under employment. For example, farm workers didn't get more than 80 or 90 days of work in an entire year and hundreds and thousands have never worked. And this is the major problem in Algeria today, to create an Algerian economy which is really independent. There's the UGTA or the Trade Union movement in Algeria represent the agricultural workers as well. This is again the major problem that faces the trade unions in a country which is predominantly agricultural. In the main the unions in the past and even now are still in the cities, are still in commerce in government offices in the little industry that there is in Algeria. But they are attempting to organize not only organized farm workers but are actually attempting to assist with the government in the training of agricultural farms and enterprises throughout Algeria.

I understand that at this conference or outside the conference, Premier Benbella told the Trade Union movement that the most destitute people in Algeria were the farm people who had an average of $40 per year income. That's right. His major points or his major points were the following, which he made at the Congress and which he made in a private conversation that I had with them only a week ago. One that the UGTA or the general union of Algerian workers are a minority and that their major problem is to organize the agricultural workers and that the agricultural workers today are in the most inferior position as well as so-called agricultural owners. In other words, what he was attempting to say was that the unions have a major job not only in organizing workers and organizing agriculture, but also the unions had a major role to play within that limited framework of the political party to run the economy.

I'll help run the economy. That's a very important role, it seems to me. Well it will depend on the degree of economy and independence that they will have within that framework. Because Benbella made it very clear at the Congress and in private that there's one political party within the framework of that party, the unions can play a capital role, but beyond the party there can be no individual or political economy for any group whether it be communist, anti-communist or any other variety of ism that you want to have. I understand that Benbella says that he's opposed to all kinds of ism's, including Benbella's own. That's right. And I think it's important to note that the Algerian unions remain within the framework of the international confederation of free trade unions. So what's alternative to that? To which the American trade unions are.

Well, there are many alternatives in Africa. There are many people in Africa and in other parts of the world who think that they can play all sides against the middle. Now in the beginning, I believe that Benbella and some of his people thought that they could sort of play one off against the other between so-called East and West. And so they have the definite impression now that they are moving away. This is just an impression, it's something to watch and to see, but I believe that they are moving away from the original slogans that they had about Castro and about New NASA. They still have ideas and opinions that we don't agree with. But there is no question that either due to opportunism or to realism of facing the economic facts of life in Algeria that they for many years will have to remain within the economic orbit of what could be called the free world. And in fact, today in Algeria, 4,600,000 people are being fed every day by 40,000 tons

of food that comes from the United States of America. I noticed that we have been sending quite a bit of aid to Algeria and have you been able to see tangible effects of the aid that we've sent to the country? Not only you see tangible effects, but Mr. Benbella has in recent weeks paid great energy, which in the beginning was being sort of kept quiet, but he has paid great eulogy to the fact that the Americans have delivered tremendous amounts of food, economic aid, and even medical care, which is extremely important in Algeria today, and have not engaged in the kind of propaganda that the Eastern European countries have engaged in when they deliver a few sacks of wheat, or when they send a few doctors from Bulgaria who could do far better in Bulgaria than in Algeria.

Would you say that in conclusion that the Algerian economy seems to be moving again or it's starting to move? No, I wouldn't say that yet. I see. The Algerian economy is still in grave danger. As I said, there are still 80% of the people unemployed, but I believe that's the beginning on the part of the government to deal with the realities of life and come to terms with the free world, I believe, and with the necessity of securing capital investment, whether it comes from private or government sources. I don't think they have changed basically in some of their ideas, but I think in practice they are beginning to move towards, I hope, an economy which will not only be run by the Algerians themselves, but will also be really independent and democratic. Algeria's economic difficulties, which have been described by Mr. Brown, have been accompanied

by a very serious internal political crisis, which was resolved with the ascendancy of Mr. Benbella to the leadership of the Algerian government. To help us understand the intricacies of this situation, Professor Emanuel Wallenstein of Columbia University, author of the book Africa, The Politics of Independence, and of a recent study on the leadership crisis in Algeria has joined us. Mr. Wallenstein, our terms such as left wing, right wing, radical, moderate, meaningful within the context of the present Algerian situation. Now, I suppose it depends in part on what you mean by left wing, right wing, sometimes when we use these terms in the international situation, we mean by left wing pro-Russian and by right wing pro-American, and if that's the kind of meaning one attaches to it and one looks at the two sides and the recent dispute over leadership, then I don't think

it's an appropriate category at all, that is I don't think that was the issue about which people were arguing that both sides were more or less committed to non-alignment. What was the issue about that? Well, I think it's very complicated and a little difficult to say because both sides were coalitions of forces which had their roots in various kinds of historical controversies. One of the issues that kept running through it was a sort of issue which one might call an issue of radicalism, if one says, if one means by that the pace with which one moves toward certain kinds of fundamental reforms, agrarian form, socialism, and at the early phase of this debate, there seemed to be some people who were saying that the provisional government headed by Ben Header represented people who really had made too many concessions to the French and the negotiations, and there was some suspicion that they might continue to make, in that sense they were too moderate, and that we needed more vigorous leadership,

more committed to the ideals of the revolution, and this sense Ben Beller represented that and people talked of him as a radical, and that made a certain amount of sense, except that very shortly in the middle of this argument, we started noticing some people who were opposed to Ben Beller, opposing him precisely on the grounds that he was the neocolonialist, that he was the one that was the neo-traditionalist, not really ready to move forward to radical social reforms, which perhaps some working class oriented types might be more interested in. I think if you look at the where we are today, one of the things that Ben Beller seems to be saying is, of course we stand for socialism, of course that's the idea of the revolution, but we have certain very practical and media problems if we're to save the revolution at oral and that's to get enough food into people's bellies and to get the economy moving again. It had stagnated because of the other problems. To do this, we need certain kinds of immediate aid, largely from France, but from anywhere.

This is our priority number one, and everything else is sloganeering, and in this sense we've just got to build a structure, a strong state with a strong party behind it, which we'll be able to do in the long run, bring about the principles of the Algerian revolution, if you will. To get back to that struggle for leadership that took place for several months, if there was no great years, but it came to the front during the past six months, and if during this period there was not a very great difference in program between one side or the other, was it merely a personality clash? Well, nothing's ever merely a personality clash, though we're personality difficulties, of course, but I think in this sense, Benbella emerged as the man who was capable of uniting enough forces within Algeria in order to create a stable state, at least temporarily, and you have very much the sense in Benbella and in the people around him that they see as

a fundamental problem, simply the creation of any kind of centralized state organism, it's sort of minimal necessity before you go forward to anything else. You almost feel you're in 17th century France or England in the sense of the importance of getting some kind of structure going in order to do anything. I think this sense Benbella had, and this is what I think rallied most people around him, but they thought that he could do it, and he would do it. Does the army completely support Benbella in this, or let me put it another way, is it the army, is it Benbella who controls a situation, or is he a frontman for a Colonel Boulmendien? Well, I don't think anybody knows really all that much about the army, obviously there was an army during the law of independence, most of it was outside the country, well-organized well-trained under Colonel Boulmendien, and they had a certain revolutionary order, they

were self-consciously revolutionary, and I think they placed a great deal of emphasis in their theories on the revolutionary peasantry as opposed to the more bourgeois workers in the towns perhaps. Now, this army seems to have played a reasonably important role in the coming of Benbella to power. I wouldn't identify the two, but I wouldn't, on the other hand, suggest that there's real divergence between the two. This is part of the coalition of forces, one of the major elements in Benbella's support was the support of what might be called the regular army, because as you may recall, there were certain elements who, army elements, who were less enthusiastic, let us say, without Mr. Benbella's coming to power, but who militarily were much less strong and probably much less self-conscious ideologically than Boulmendien's army. Then if I understand you correctly, I think the point that you've been stressing is that

although Benbella himself is the leader, he personifies this centralized approach to Algeria's government, he really represents a coalition of forces in Algeria. I think that's very true, and I think it's also true that the coalition cannot be summed up simply in any simple ideological terms. That is, it brings together people of many ideological and social backgrounds who have coalesced around him, and he seems to be doing for the moment fairly well, given how much breakdown there was in the leadership during the summer of 1962. I would say I think that there is a certain possible residue of bitterness among some elements, possibly some of the intellectuals, but we have this problem throughout Africa, and indeed perhaps throughout the world of the alienation of some of the intellectuals from some of the activists, and we see some of that going on in Algeria today.

But what about the opposition? Is there a role for the opposition in Algeria? I know that in the national assembly, that there is an opposition, it's been cut down quite a bit, but nevertheless some of the people there are men who are imprisonment with Benbella. Well, the so-called, the man to whom one sometimes refers as the leader of the parliamentary opposition, Mr. Ayadach Med wrote an article last September which he entitled, I am not the leader of the opposition. I think there's an ideology that is fairly prevalent, not only on the part of the Benbella supporters, but among his opponents that there should be a one-party state, and that discussion should go on within that single party, and that discussion outside that framework is not legitimate. There are two clandestine parties, if you will, in Algeria today. One is a party which has always been clandestine and probably very weak, but we don't really know who the party of the socialist revolution is on a communist party.

No, no. The supporters, or they said they were the supporters, or seemed to be the supporters of a man named Wudyaf who has never claimed them as his supporters. And then there's the Communist Party, which of course, Mr. Benbella recently outlawed in fulfilling his belief in the one-party state. The paradox of this situation is though everybody believes in the one-party state, one could almost say that the problem of Algeria is that the party doesn't really exist. There's to say they fought a war for seven years, and it was rather difficult to organize a party in the interior during a war, but they did organize, was in the exterior, and they were things like an administration of a provisional government and an army, but they didn't really have a functioning party. And one of Benbella's real goals at the moment is to build this party up, almost from scratch, and he's supposed to hold the Congress of this party sometime this year. It probably won't be held until there's a reasonably-going organism. But we don't really know at this point how strong that party as a party, as to say one

of the problems in African countries is the party really the thing that's running this government in a so-called one-party state, or is it the party just a paper machinery? And to some extent, there's a belief that if the party runs it, it's much more democratic and involves much more wide-scale participation in government by the mass of the people. I think there's Benbella's goal, but as I say, it's too early to say whether he will realize this goal. Algeria is a country of young people and is governed by young people. More than half of the population is under 20 years of age. Premier Benbella is 43 years of age, while most of his ministers are even younger. Foreign Minister Muhammad Khemisti is only 33. To a large extent, the future of Algeria will be determined by the youth of the country. It is therefore important for us to get the viewpoint of young Algerians. We have invited four Algerian students who are currently studying in American universities to be with us.

First, there is Mr. Idris Chazeri, who is studying economic development at Harvard University. Second, there's Mr. Muhammad Abokhan, who is studying economics at the University of Pennsylvania. And next to him is his wife, Suwad Abokhan, studying English and education at the University of Pennsylvania. And lastly, there is Hamud Amrush, who is studying economics at Wesley University in Connecticut. We have asked Mr. George Wolfe of the Agence France Press, correspondent to the United Nations, and Mr. Simon Mali, correspondent of the Tunisian newspaper Jean-Afrique, to join with us in this discussion with the Algerian students on the problems facing independent Algeria. Mr. Chazeri, in introducing the students, I pointed out that three of you are studying economics. In our discussions earlier today with Mr. Chandali and with Mr. Brown, we stress the importance of economics and economic development of Algeria.

What do you see as the most important problem in the economic field for Algeria? Well, I think it would be highly desirable not to go on concentrating on heavy industry as it's been done in the both in the Constantine Plan and the basic principle of economic development now should be such as to ensure a balanced development between agriculture and light industry in the countryside so as to be able to absorb all the excess labor, which might be freed from agriculture through improvements in agriculture. This Constantine Plan was a pre-independence plan that was proposed by the French, if I'm mistaken. This plan was proposed by the French and contained quite a comprehensive survey of the needs of Algeria and of course its end was a political one and therefore it had to be re-examined in the light of the new situation as it rose after independence.

Do you agree with that, Mr. Amush? The point where that plan was lacking in efficiency was it was supposed to absorb 600,000 unemployed people but in the meanwhile the population increased by 1,800,000 people so the improvement was offset by the rate of birth in Algeria. Isn't that always a situation in Algeria that as you take a step to try to solve a problem the population has increased so much that the, for example, field of education which is your field where you make plans for schools for the number of students you have this year by the time you build the schools the population has increased tremendously and you're way behind times. Isn't that so? That's the problem we should face in Algeria. I think the birth control will be adopted in Algeria in order to improve the welfare of

people without, is birth control in any way contrary to the Islamic religion? I don't think so. As matter of fact it has been applied in Egypt, I've known many birth control clinics have been established. Isn't the fact actually that the Land Reform, you just mentioned a while ago the Land Reform, it's actually the Land Reform at this moment is the basic issue facing the economic development of Algeria. I think you've got a good point there because the thing is that if one is going to develop industry and especially if one is going to develop export industries unless you raise production and you develop agriculture you're not going to be able to reach your aims right because agriculture is going to provide a market for the industrial products which are going to be produced by this light industry is going to provide foreign exchange possibly by exports

in our case exporting grapes for instance or is going to provide a broad market which might induce foreign capital to come in to cooperate in the development of this light industry I was talking about and furthermore unless you can raise the wages of the people in agriculture through a process which is well known to economists all the effects of the improvement in productivity in industry will benefit the people who be importing our products rather than our own workers. Our grapes going to continue to be an important product in Algeria, haven't you had difficulties with grape production depending upon French markets and this single product being so important to this country? It was a certain point but this was a political difficulty with the French not an economic difficulty because the Algerian wine is really needed to blend French wine for further

use. Now the French wine corporations have tried to ostracize Algeria and this was based on their own feelings following independence for Algeria but when our relationships with France will start moving ahead I guess France will be very glad to receive our wine and so will the other countries of Western Europe. Is in your opinion any definite plan to adapt the so-called Constantin plan to Algeria's needs, are those plans set or are they still contemplated and do you foresee any political difficulty in adapting the industrialization plan of Algeria to Algeria's needs as conceived

by the Algerian leaders? No, not if we are realistic. The Constantin plan didn't make everybody happy. One of its main weaknesses was that it was incomplete. It couldn't solve the problem of underdeveloped Algeria. Another defect was that it was politically oriented. It was aimed at creating what the goal was dreaming of at that time a third force to counter balance the FLN, a new class, a new elite in Algeria based on few privileged farmers and few civil servants that would have received responsibility from the French government at that time. But right now Algeria being independent, the Constantin plan is one part of Algeria's history and of its economic history.

Any plan for the future will have to take into account the realizations that were made in the framework of the Constantin plan. Now we can reorient this in the future toward what we feel our needs are. The thing to do will be to thoroughly investigate the possibilities of the country in terms of resource availability of manpower and here also we cannot say just that we have abundant labor in Algeria and infinite manpower. This manpower has a productivity of zero if it is not educated. This is why I would say also revealing that if we have to point to a single key to our further development, I would rather focus on the population, the human resources. If those resources are not adapted to our development, we can have as much other resources

available as you may imagine and we want to develop. I think the humans are both the agents and the recipients of economic development. I would like to come back for a minute on this question of land reform because I don't think we have exhausted the discussion in it. I have read that Professor René Dumot, the very well-known French expert in land reform was recently in Algeria and he made a full report regarding the issue facing Algeria. Warning Algeria about the dangers of following the path, for instance, Cuba followed in its land reform. Warning Algeria against precipitation in land reform and saying that at this moment in Algeria you have 1 million hectares of land which is vacated by the French color and you have 1 million peasants in Algeria and that if you distribute the 1 million acres of land to these 1 million peasants, you will only have one acre and that is definitely not consistent

with the needs of the development of that land because what can a peasant do in one acre of land? Yet one has the impression that in Algeria there isn't yet a definite plan for the land reform. All these are just in the study process and if I well remember, Ben Bellas's government was determined to establish land reform as number one economic target. What do you think is going to happen from there on? I think one of the, we had a lot, many difficulties with due to the rapid flight of so many settlers French settlers in Algeria at the point where there wasn't the people that had all the time to replace these people. Nevertheless, I think in a way that it's good points because to the extent that it vacated quite a lot of land, it made it much more easy to consider the possibility of implementing some sort of land reform.

But I think you'll try to say that up to now we are mostly taking what might be considered as transitional measures whose object is primarily to feed the people who are, I mean, it's hardly conceivable to think of a big firm which has been vacated by its French owners, and which is not where the land is lying fellow and they're just having next door all the people who are starving from hunger and who can't have anything to eat. I think the only rational, the only possible thing to do would be to get the farmers to work in land. But that would only be an immediate expediency. And Mr. Abber Khan, I think you said something that the human resources are very important to be developed. Now this is quite important. I think at the outset, for example, the Algerian peasant might look enviously at this piece of land, move to it, but will he understand when he's asked to become part of a national effort, where politically the government tells him this is what you have to do.

Does he have the understanding that what independence means is, or for Algeria, requires sacrifice and no sacrifice in order to bring about modernization, or is he content to grab a little piece of land and work it and then continue in stagnation? This is the problem that has faced all the land reformers in the past. We haven't yet heard of any successful land reform, and we might, if we are not cautious enough, we might face the problem that was faced early by the Soviet Union itself when the peasant, being under nourishment at the time he was given the land, started consuming more and more of his product, and the city workers, the urban workers had to go and fight to get their bread from the peasants after the French Revolution of course, 18th century. Now I wonder whether the new young men and women are going to be in a very short time

the elite of your country, at a very critical stage of the life of that country, and I wonder whether you would foresee the ways to resolve what I believe is a very difficult problem, which is the communication between an elite, intellectual or technical, and the people. This is a problem faced not only by Algeria, but by our countries, and I would like to hear your opinions about that. I think that to a certain extent this is a rare problem, and this is why the government has encouraged people, students abroad, especially people who are doing undergraduate work, to go back to Algeria and attend our new university, which has been started in December's university for about 2,600 people now, which includes a very much greater number of Muslim Algerians

and they used to be of course in the previous period, when there were about 5,000 people out of which 500 also Algerians. I think the fact of staying away for too long is a drawback, but I think that beyond the undergraduate level it may be a good thing for people at the graduate level to train in foreign universities, and the main thing is to keep permanent contact with the main sciences to be taught in that university, which is, I believe, in Algeria, in Algeria. There is a very interesting element which enters in the discussion on the economic development of Algeria, and that is the interrelation between the three North African countries, in other words, that why people ask why should we have an industry, let's say, of glass in Tunisia and have the same one in Algeria and the same one in Morocco, for instance, wouldn't be actually so much more useful if the three countries could get together and synchronize, harmonize

their economic needs, therefore if you have an industry light or semi-heavy industry in one of the countries or two others shouldn't spend money and efforts in order to develop the same industry, particularly since the relation and communication among the three countries. Yes, it is a very good point. The point of avoiding wasteful duplication of things while resources are scarce, but this is why most of us people, I think, are very bitter when we see this macro-bunification post-pond to later and later days where we can't. Yes. You talk about the wasteful resources, and one of the most important resources in the country is population, as you mentioned, and women seem to be very important. We know that traditionally in North Africa, the role of women has been really circumscribed.

I was wondering whether Swad you'd like to say something about what is the future for women in Algeria. Well, the future has started already during the revolution. I think one of the men achievement of the revolution was to bring about the role of the women, the new role of the women, and it was to participate in this struggle. Well, earlier, I think when we were talking, you said something about the problem of the women, it's really a problem of the men in Algeria. What did you mean by that? Both men and women, because you can divide women in two groups. Those who already have their education, and they are very few. Those don't have too many problems. But you have the women who are still following the traditions, and these have to be held by men. Are the men willing to help them? In other words, the man has to change also his conception of the woman. The woman has gained its emancipation by participating along with the man to the struggle. She has won her right to be the equal of men.

We've taken a closer look at Algeria and her problems since independence. After having overcome the ordeal of the rebellion, the Algerian people are once again involved in a battle, of a battle against poverty and ignorance. As we've seen, independence in itself is no panacea, no cure at all. Independence means that Algeria's destiny has been taken out of the hands of foreigners and placed now in the hands of the Algerians themselves. It is quite clear that it will be most difficult for Algeria to establish a politically stable, economically viable, and socially progressive democratic community. This is most challenging to the Algerians who have to carry the major burden. But it is also challenging to the American people who are called upon to join in this tremendous effort through foreign aid programs. Americans often express amazement and disillusionment at many of the policies adopted by Algeria and other newly independent states of Africa and Asia. They forget that these policies reflect the burden of internal problems. They forget that the United States, too, had its hard times immediately after independence

and adopted many of the policies followed by Algeria today. At that time, the United States was neutralist and anti-big power and it, too, had a single political party. We must not forget that what the Western world accomplished over the course of hundreds of years, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, and the democratic revolution, Algeria is trying to compress into one revolution. And those problems which we solved with the efforts of many generations, the Algerians are attempting to solve with the efforts of one. The material was written by Professor Rivlin. State Decisions 1963 is based on topics selected for nationwide discussion by the Foreign

Policy Association. This is NET, National Educational Television.