
Krim Belkacem
'Krim Belkacem' (
Arabic: كريم بلقاصم) (
September 14,
1922 -
October 18,
1970) was an
Algerian
revolutionary fighter and politician.
He was born close to
Draa el-Mizan in
Kabylie,
Algeria.
Accused of the murder of a
forest warden, he was hunted and he joined the
maquis under the
nom de guerre of Si Rabah with
Moh Nachid,
Mohand Talah,
Messaoud Ben Arab.
Twice sentenced to death by
French tribunals in 1947 and 1950, he became the Kabylie responsible of the
PPA-
MTLD paramilitary organization founded in February 1947 by
Messali Hadj, the
Organisation Spéciale, at the head of 22 members of the resistance (''
maquisards'').
Belkacem, who left Algeria after the
Battle of Algiers, formed an alliance with
Lakhdar Ben Tobbal and
Abdelhafid Boussouf against
Abane Ramdane. He was the first to be Minister of Defense, then Foreign Minister, in the provisional Government of the Algerian republic (
GPRA) in 1958, and later the principal Algerian negotiator of the
agreements of Évian in March
1962.
Belkacem was in opposition to the creation of the
Political Bureau of the
FLN in July 1962 by
Ahmed Ben Bella,
Col. Houari Boumedienne, and
Muhammad Khidr.
After the June 19th 1965 takeover by the Political Bureau, he went back to the
opposition, favouring more federalist views than Boumedienne's centralist policies. Accused of having organized an
assassination attempt against Boumedienne, he was sentenced to death ''
in absentia''. He was found assassinated in 1970 in a hotel room in
Frankfurt,
Germany.
Belkacem was rehabilitated by the Algerian state by being buried in the ''
Carré des Martyrs'' on
October 24th,
1984.
References
In French:
★
http://awg.faithweb.com/fr/history/personalite/belkacem.html
★
http://www.ambalgott.com/html/insurrection_armee_wilay_I.htm