Chadli Benjedid

From Legacyview Dictionary of Biography

(1929- )

President of Algeria (1979-92), born in Sebaa. He joined the National Liberation Front shortly after the Algerian revolution began in 1954 and rose through the ranks of the guerrilla forces; by the early 1960s he was on the staff of Colonel (later president) Houari Boumedienne, and he played a decisive role in the latter’s overthrow of President Ahmed Ben Bella in 1965. Subsequently serving in the Revolutionary Council and as acting minister of defense (1978), he was elected president in February 1979 and reelected in 1984 and 1988. When his democratization program threatened to bring Muslim fundamentalists to power, he was forced to resign in January 1992 by a military-dominated junta.

Bibliography: Marxists Internet Archive, www.marxists.org