I spent 24 and a half years in prison
AHMED BEN BELLAI’m optimistic because I’m pragmatic: Neither of the two sides, the military government nor the Islamic front, is capable of winning. If they continue to fight, they will both bleed to death.
More Ahmed Ben Bella Quotes
-
-
We trained them, we arranged for the weapons to reach them, we created networks.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
I can say now: all the combatants who participated in the fight for freedom in South America came to Algeria; it’s from there that all those who fought left.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
These are the multinationals, like General Motors and Nestle; these are the big industrial groups that weigh, on the monetary scale, much more than big countries like Egypt.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
In two years, there were 22 military coups d’etat, essentially in Africa and the third world. The coup d’etat of Algiers, in 1965, is what opened the path.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
I am the son of poor peasants who came at a very young age to live in Algeria. I only recently saw the place where they were born, near the city of Marrakech.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
I am a Muslim Arab, in my actions oriented very to the left, in my convictions.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
I am not a Marxist, but I place myself resolutely at the left.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
I’m 90 years old now, and my motivation hasn’t changed; it’s the same fervour that drives me.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
Yes, my life is a life of combat; I can say that this has never stopped for a single instant. It is a combat that started for me at the age of 16.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
Algeria is not breaking up.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
At that precise moment, several countries were still colonised or had barely overcome colonisation. This was the case in practically all of Africa. We supported them.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
In the past, we spoke of poverty, misery only in the south. Now there is a lot of misery, a lot of bad that creates victims in the north as well.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
This phase has known cruel colonial occupations which have lasted 300 years in Indonesia.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
Colonialism is known in its primitive form, that is to say, by the permanent settling of repressive foreign powers, with an army, services, policies.
AHMED BEN BELLA -
I’m optimistic because I’m pragmatic: Neither of the two sides, the military government nor the Islamic front, is capable of winning. If they continue to fight, they will both bleed to death.
AHMED BEN BELLA