- Abdelhamid Mehri
Abdelhamid Mehri (b. 1926 near
Skikda ), is anAlgeria n resistance fighter, soldier and politician.Born in a destitute family in
El Harrach , near Skikda, Abdelhamid Mehri joined theParti du peuple Algérien (PPA) at an early age. He studied inTunisia , and developed contacts with the nationalistNeo Destour party. In Algeria, he became a prominent member of the PPA's successor organizationMTLD , and continued into theFront de libération nationale or FLN, a guerrilla movement fighting for independence from French colonial rule. He was elected member of theGPRA , the FLN'sexile government , as minister forMaghreb affairs in 1958; in 1961, he became minister of social and cultural affairs. After Algeria's independence in 1962, he briefly left politics, but gradually gained influence after the 1965 militarycoup d'état bycol. Houari Boumédiène . In 1979, soon after Boumédiène's death, he was made member of the FLN's central committee and slowly rose in the ranks under presidentChadli Bendjedid . After the 1988October riots in Algeria , he succeeded hardlinerMohamed Cherif Messaâdia as FLN secretary-general.After the subsequent change to a multiparty system, and the 1992 military coup, he brought the FLN into the opposition, and supported the
Sant'Egidio platform urging national reconciliation with the Islamist current and theFIS as a solution for theAlgerian civil war , in a clear challenge to the éradicateur military elite that influenced Algerian politics behind the scenes. Soon after, he was gradually ousted from the party's central committee, which thereafter returned to supporting the security establishment.
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