Mehsas: Boumediene tried to exclude Bouteflika after coup against Ben Bella

Algerian late war veteran Ahmed Ali Mehsas believes that the assassination of martyr Abane Ramdane was due to « power big ambition » expressed by Soumam Congress mastermind directly after he joined the liberation revolution in January 1955.

In “Talk with Ahmed Ali Mehsas” book edited by Algeria’s first agriculture minister Madjd Nacer, it is said that “Abane Ramdane was used as a toy by a group of politicians. They exploited his vitality and big ambition for power to reach their objectives and political ambitions. When there was a clash between him and their intentions, they brought him to a painful end.”

 The author believes that Abane who was killed in Morocco by three main activists in the liberation revolution “has never been a traitor to the national cause. Politically speaking, he was supposed to be among us and not among those who fought us. His attitude can be considered as political treason as it caused conflicts among war veterans.”

The late man said he was invited by Abane to attend the revolution national council meeting in Cairo but he rejected the invitation. “Because of that, he started giving orders as if he was the man in charge of the revolution. At that time, it was said he perturbed the revolution national council. The five main activists met and decided to warn him. They were: Mahmoud Cherif, Krim belkacem, Amar Ouamrane, Lakhdar Bentoubal and Abdelhafid Boulouacouf. They decided to kill him in Morocco.”

Mehsas tried to justify Abane ramdane’s end. “History will note that the first person who used violence to reach power was the Soumam group. They killed Abbas Laghrour, Abdelhai, his group and others.”

The book talks about Mehsas’ attempts to stop bloodshed among the National Liberation front’s members and the National Movement led by Mesali Hadj. It says Mehsas reached an agreement with Mesali’s group representatives but the Soumam group killed mediator Abdellah Abed who was sentenced to death by the colonization army in 1945. 

The book said Algerian former president Houari Boumediene wanted to exclude Abdelaziz Bouteflika and accused Mehsas of embezzling 5,000 Francs. Because of that, he had to join opposition and found the “Two Revolutions Rally.” Boumediene asked him to come back to Algeria and told him he wanted to concretize democracy progressively in the army and ministries structure.