Africa

by Guy Arnold

  Between 1961 and 1963 Egypt became increasingly involved in African affairs through its association with Morocco, Mali, Ghana and Guinea in the ‘Casablanca’ group of radical African states which in 1963 established on paper a joint military command and a common market. But by the time of the first OAU Conference at Addis Ababa in May 1963 Nasser had concluded that there was nothing to be gained and much to be lost through the polarization of the African continent between radicals and moderates. Henceforth Nasser was a moderating, almost conservative influence in the OAU. He constantly affirmed that the African states should seek the spirit of unity before adopting any constitutional form.3

  It was appropriate that the first OAU meeting after its inauguration in Addis Ababa in 1963 should have been held in Cairo the following year.

  The Aswan High Dam, constructed through the 1960s with Soviet assistance, was not just a major development project; it represented Nasser’s determination to modernize his impoverished country and even more than that it was a political statement made at the height of the Cold War. Since the West had reneged on its agreement to finance the building of the dam, Nasser had turned to the Soviet Union both to obtain the aid he needed and to make plain to the West that he would go his own way and not be forced into the Western camp. The dam, which cost US$1 billion, was completed in 1970 – the year of Nasser’s death – and formally opened in January 1971. Its reservoir, Lake Nasser, stretched 200 miles in Egypt and a further 100 miles in Sudan. It would sustain a substantial fishing industry and irrigate enough land to provide food for an estimated one million people. It involved the relocation of 90,000 people as well as the re-positioning of the ancient tombs of Abu Simbel. It was the largest development project then being implemented in Africa. At the same time, the dam was to create problems for the future. By holding back the flow of silt it reduced the fertility of the downstream riparian lands whose richness had depended since time immemorial upon the annual flooding of the Nile. Moreover, the circumstances in which the Western powers – the United States and Britain, with the World Bank – had withdrawn their offer of aid to precipitate the Suez Crisis of 1956, and their subsequent replacement as donors by the Soviet Union had created a pattern that would play a significant part in the aid process for the ensuing 30 years: playing off one side in the Cold War against the other, a tactic that would be employed with much success by African leaders such as Mobutu.

  The devastating defeat of Egypt by Israel in 1967 was a deep humiliation for Nasser and brought to an end his position of primacy in the Arab world. For the last three years of his rule he had to rebuild his armed forces, whose losses of military hardware had been extensive and collapse of morale even worse, and still more important rebuild the national confidence. Isolated at home and only just surviving politically (Tunis Radio, for example, broadcast stories of Egyptian ‘Free Officers’ wanting to oust him), condemned by other Arab leaders for his spectacular failure to make any showing at all against Israel, and in ill health, Nasser, nevertheless, set about the mammoth task of reconstruction and recovery. Reluctantly he allowed the army to be retrained by the Russians who at the same time pressed him to accept a political settlement over Israel while demanding, in return for their assistance, his total backing for their military intervention in Czechoslovakia, a backing which was to strain his relations with non-aligned Yugoslavia’s Tito. Nonetheless, he demonstrated remarkable resilience. The strength of the air force, now equipped with MiG21s and TU16 bombers, was doubled and the MiGs were secreted in giant underground hangars. On 30 March 1968 Nasser announced a new political programme, which he claimed was designed to transform Egypt into an open society; this was to be tested in a referendum on 2 May when he obtained a 98.2 per cent vote for his reforms. The Egyptian journalist Hasanyn Heikal, who had close contacts with Nasser, wrote on 3 October 1968: ‘Time is on our side. A solution [to the Israel question] is not the first priority now. The rebuilding of the Arab military force and specially the Egyptian force, is the incomparable priority.’ The conflict or confrontation with Israel now dominated Egypt’s foreign policy and though the country was non-aligned in theory, in practice it became totally dependent upon the USSR to rebuild its armed forces. Despite the huge setback of 1967, Nasser did not alter his general African policy but continued his support for the liberation movements in Southern Africa and embarked upon a major initiative when he agreed to allow Egyptian pilots to fly Soviet-supplied fighter aircraft for the Nigerian Air Force against Biafra in the Nigerian civil war. Egypt was determined in its support for a united Nigeria.

  On the economic front recovery went well despite the loss of oilfields to the Israelis in the Sinai Peninsula. New oilfields were discovered at this time while work on the Aswan Dam was well advanced with £E96 million of the £E113 million Soviet loan spent and 85 per cent of the construction completed. In May 1968 an agreement was concluded with the USSR for the construction of an iron and steel complex at Helwan; this was the second largest development project in the country after the Aswan Dam. By 1969 the economy had recovered from the setback of 1967 and the GNP for 1969–70 rose to £E5031.8 million which was £E325.3 million above the 1968–69 target. In June 1969 Andrei Gromyko visited Cairo and reaffirmed the Soviet Union’s ‘complete support of the just struggle of the United Arab Republic and other Arab countries in order to eradicate the consequences of the Israeli aggression’. The population of Egypt at this time was 30 million, by far the largest in the region, and in the years to come its annual increase tended to consume all the economic advances that were achieved so that the country appeared always to be running to stay in the same place.

  The political balance in the region was altered in 1969 as a consequence of coups in two of Egypt’s neighbours. In Sudan a bloodless coup of 25 May 1969 was carried out by a group of officers and civilians led by Col. Gaafar Mohammed Nimeiri who initiated a more radical political programme; and in Libya at the beginning of September another coup brought the young Muammar Gaddafi to power. One year later, in September 1970, Nasser died of a heart attack.

  ALGERIA

  After eight years of bitter civil war (1954–62) against the French-backed colons (settlers) Algeria won its independence in 1962, at which time almost all the colons, about one million in number, left the country for France. Thereafter, Algeria pursued a broadly socialist policy, first under Ahmed Ben Bella and then under Houari Boumedienne. Surprisingly, perhaps, for the rest of the 1960s Algeria enjoyed good relations with France; in fact the two countries needed each other: Algeria had oil and natural gas which France needed, France had the technical expertise and could provide the aid which Algeria required for its development. The withdrawal of one million colons meant the disappearance of most technical and other skills while the country faced unemployment levels as high as 70 per cent of the working population. Some two million Algerians had been interned in camps during the war and a further 500,000 had become refugees in Morocco and Tunisia. The new Algerian President, Ben Bella, was both militant and radical. During the summer of 1962, following independence, most of the European estates were taken over, the balance being nationalized in January 1963. Ben Bella greatly increased his hold on the mainsprings of power in 1963: in April he took over the post of General Secretary of the Front de Libération Nationale – FLN (National Liberation Front); in September a new constitution, approved by referendum, confirmed Ben Bella as President for five years and made him Commander in Chief of the Army so that he was both head of state and head of government. Ferhat Abbas, one of the country’s leading nationalists, feared a Ben Bella dictatorship and resigned his post as President of the Assembly. The Berber minority became increasingly fearful of its position in the new state and there were Berber revolts in 1963 and 1964.

  On 19 June 1965 Ben Bella was arrested and deposed in a bloodless coup led by his Minister of Defence, Boumedienne, and a new Council of the Revolution, with Boumedienne at its head, took supreme power into its hands. Boumedienne announced a return to the pr
inciples of the revolution from which Ben Bella had been deviating but he did not seek a popular mandate for his actions. The Council of the Revolution was austerely socialist and set about the task of increasing state control and participation across a range of economic activities. Boumedienne was cautious in his relations with the big powers and, for example, despite developing strong ties with the USSR, still gave top priority to relations with France. In 1968 – ahead of schedule – France evacuated the naval base of Mers-el-Kebir, which it had leased for 15 years in 1962 under the terms of the Evian agreements on Algerian independence, and, despite fears in Paris, Algeria did not then lease it out to the Russians. In 1967 Algeria had sent troops to aid Egypt in the Six Day War but this was over before they could become engaged. Subsequently, Algeria denounced Nasser for ‘treason’. Boumedienne pursued a radical line in Africa and Algeria took a lead in denouncing colonialism; it was one of only nine countries to break diplomatic relations with Britain in 1965 over UDI in Rhodesia. These were restored in 1968. In 1969 Boumedienne made an official visit to Morocco to end the border confrontation between the two countries that had lasted since 1963.

  Boumedienne’s centralizing tendencies did not go unopposed and there was an uprising against him in 1967, which was put down, largely due to the loyalty of the younger army officers. There was further unrest in 1968 and in April an attempt was made upon his life. At the end of 1967 the journal Révolution et Travail commented that Algeria had had no parliamentary institutions since 1965 and that the political situation would not return to normal until the ‘political machine is made really democratic’. At the beginning of January 1968 Boumedienne announced a purge of all ‘incapable persons’ in the FLN and a series of national reforms: the country was to be given ‘definitive political institutions’. The reforms included agrarian reform, including the liquidation of large properties, ‘rigorous control’ of state machinery, especially in the economic sector, educational reform, Arabization and compulsory military service. The militant trade union organization, Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens (UGTA), argued for revolutionary ideas as opposed to pragmatism while Marxist students sought a trial of strength with the small group of politicians who really ran the country and were known as the Oujda group. This consisted of the President, the Minister of Finance Kaid Ahmed, the Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the Minister of the Interior Ahmed Medegrhi and Sherif Belkacem, a former co-ordinating official of the FLN. These and other instances of opposition represented the dissatisfaction of a highly politicized people at the authoritarianism of the government, which was emphasized during the year by a purge of army officers and a reorganization of the ruling FLN.

  On the economic front the Boumedienne government pushed ahead with socialist reforms that were about equally dependent upon inputs from the Soviet Union on the one hand and France on the other. One aim was to make agriculture self-financing but the collapse of the colonial structure and withdrawal of the colons had produced massive and chronic unemployment of 50 per cent of the workforce. On the other hand, oil and natural gas production was rising and had become the principal foreign exchange earner. A number of foreign, mainly French companies in banking, chemicals, mining and building materials were nationalized in 1968 to exacerbate what were never easy relations with France. Even so, 70 per cent of Algeria’s trade was with France and in July the Foreign Minister, Bouteflika, went to Paris to discuss a range of problems including immigration, the nationalization of French companies, compensation and France’s refusal to continue purchasing Algeria’s wine. Meanwhile, major development projects were being accelerated. A phosphate fertilizer complex at Annaba was designed to produce 500,000 tons of phosphates a year. A Soviet-aided irrigation scheme was proceeding in Greater Kabylie while other Soviet-backed projects included a steelworks at Annaba and a number of food-processing activities.

  Boumedienne went a long way towards creating a managerial revolution and the new elite that appeared at this time consisted mainly of young and often highly competent technocrats who began to achieve considerable influence and authority. Real power, however, remained in the hands of the older FLN leaders and the army. Boumedienne appeared far more confident in 1969 than at any time since he had ousted Ben Bella in 1965, following the proceedings in 1968 against those who had plotted against him. He had embarked upon a constitutional policy of constructing a pyramidal structure of elected bodies from the base upwards that would be able to survive changes in government and leadership at the top. This included People’s Communal Assemblies (APCs) (set up in 1967) and then in 1969 elections at departmental level when the 15 departments were renamed Wilayate (units that had been used by the FLN during the war). Like almost all African governments at this time, that of Boumedienne saw the trade unions as a separate and therefore threatening source of power. The UGTA had criticized the government for compromising the principles of the Algerian revolution; in 1969 its powers were curbed and UGTA branches with reputations for militancy were dissolved. Single-party solidarity had become the keystone of policy and a government statement said the party was ‘unable any longer to tolerate… the confused situation in the unions (in the Algiers district) or the acts of indiscipline shown by some elements towards the concept of a single party’.

  During 1969 Algeria made determined efforts to create closer ties with its Maghreb neighbours. Over 11–16 January Boumedienne went on his first official visit to Morocco and the two countries concluded the Treaty of Ifrane which provided for better co-operation between the two countries and ended their border dispute. Later in the year economic negotiations with Tunisia led to complete agreement on all ‘pending questions’ and also dealt with their – lesser – border dispute. Algeria may also have played a part in helping resolve the dispute between Morocco and Mauritania which led to a détente between the two countries in September (until that time Morocco had laid claim to Mauritania as part of Greater Morocco). Algeria had also concluded a treaty of ‘brotherhood, good neighbourhood and co-operation’ with Libya in February although the coup of September that brought Gaddafi to power installed a regime in Libya that was much closer to that of Algeria than the monarchy of King Idris. An Algerian delegation to Libya after the coup expressed ‘deep admiration for the sincere efforts of the revolutionary leadership in Libya in achieving the hopes of the Libyan people and solidarity with the Arab people in their battle of destiny against Zionism, imperialism and colonialism’. The Algerian position at this time was one of resolute support for the Palestine liberation struggle. Boumedienne attended both the Islamic Summit Conference of September 1969 and the Arab Summit Conference of December, both held in Rabat, Morocco. Algeria also convened the first Pan-African Cultural Festival at this time.

  By the end of the decade Algerian policy seemed set on a socialist but not communist path. Numerous exchange visits and co-operation agreements marked the close Algerian-Soviet relationship and in March 1970 the President of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Nicholas Podgorny, visited Algeria. At that time there were an estimated 2,000 Soviet technicians and teachers working in the country and an equal number of military advisers. Problems with France related to the treatment of Algerians in France and of Frenchmen in Algeria. The government aim was to construct a socialist society that would include state control over most sectors of the economy and to this end the nationalization of most foreign trade activities had been completed in 1969 when import and distribution firms were nationalized. Oil and natural gas, meanwhile, accounted for 69 per cent of export earnings to provide the base for a programme of industrialization whose main targets were for Algeria to produce its own cast iron, crude steel, wheeled tractors, machine tools, manufactured fertilizers and cement, and expand its electricity supply. The biggest part of this programme was the US$300 million iron and steel complex at Annaba. However, 70 per cent of the country’s petroleum output was still produced by French companies. Soviet trade with Algeria had increased to an annual level of US$125 million.

>   The Boumedienne government adopted a consistently anti-colonial line and provided training and other facilities for the liberation movements of Southern Africa as well as the Eritrean Liberation Front and the National Liberation Front of Chad. Emerging at the beginning of the decade from a long and devastating civil war and moving steadily through the 1960s to create a socialist society, Algeria in 1970 appeared to be on the threshold of an economic breakthrough of its own choice.

  MOROCCO

  King Mohammed V earned great prestige for his role in achieving independence from France in 1956 and though he pursued conservative policies at home he blunted criticism by a militant foreign policy that was exactly suited to the general mood of nationalism sweeping through Africa at the time. During 1959 and 1960 he aligned himself with the revolutionary camp and presided at the January 1961 Casablanca summit of the ‘radical’ states. However, he died unexpectedly on 28 February 1961 while undergoing an operation and was succeeded by his son Hassan II. Under his father Hassan had been proclaimed Crown Prince in 1957 and appointed Commander-in-Chief of the army, which he completely reorganized. In 1960 he was made Vice-President and effective head of the government. Assumed to be rigidly conservative, he nevertheless won over his critics on his accession to the throne by continuing his father’s radical foreign policy and by announcing on 5 March 1961, less than a week after coming to power, that all French forces must leave the country by the following October, two years ahead of schedule. Apart from uneasy relations with France, Hassan II sought good relations with the West and especially with the United States, which he was to visit in 1967. Hassan demonstrated his dictatorial tendencies early in his reign when he made plain his belief that the country needed a ‘responsible leader’ working with a small team of devoted advisers. He soon came under criticism from radical students and trade unionists and his exercise of ‘personal power’ was strongly condemned. His principal support came from the army, which he had personally reorganized before his accession, and from the rural traditionalists. Already by 1962 he was distancing himself from the left-wing Algerian government and beginning to consolidate good relations with the United States and Spain.