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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1964
U.S. Helps Feed One-Fifth of Pro-Cuba Algiers
By Phil Newsom UPI Foreign News Analyst
In President Ahmed Ben Bella's socialist Algeria nearly two million jobless Algerians depend upon food sent from the United States. The total is about one-fifth of the population.
Ben Bella publicly has recognized the U.S. aid, and yet in the same breath says the "Algerian people are in solidarity with the heroic people of Cuba" and that Algeria will "do everything in her power to help fraternal Cuba in its just struggle for independence against the machinations of imperialism."
As an avowed socialist, Ben Bella leans first toward Egypt and then toward the Soviet Union.
U. S. SHIPMENTS of wheat, milk beans and vegetable oils are valued at roughly $3.5 million per month.
These are not the only contradictions of an Algeria which struggles for identity as a leader of African nationalism, keeps a foot in the door of Arab unity, suffers from the insecurity of strongman rule and reaps the benefits of the struggle between the Communist and non-Communist world.
Egyptian MIG fighter planes arrived from Egypt to help Ben Bella in his border war with Morocco. Russian-built tanks came from Cuba.
A Russian loan of $100 million placed the Soviet Union in a position second only to France in financial aid to Algeria.
And yet without nearly $300 million annually in aid from France, Algeria could not exist as an independent nation.
WITH DISSATSFACTION in the cities and lethargy in the countryside, Ben Bella must depend upon the army.
ALGERIA'S TIES with the Arab world brought offers of aid from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt. Red China also chipped in.
But, internally, Algeria's affairs remain in a state of almost unbelievable chaos.
Ben Bella has declared that in his brand of socialism there is room for private investment. But last September and October he took over the last 4,000 French-run farms and hundreds of small factories, cafes, bakeries and hotels. It would, he said, place the means of production "in the hands of the workers."
But, translated into hard figures, this has meant by official estimate that of 31,000 tractors on Algerian farms in 1960 under French rule, the number by the first of this month had declined to 7,000 with 2,400 out of commission.
IN THE CITIES, it is estimated that half the population is out of work.
Squatters have turned apartment houses once occupied by foreigners into slums at an estimated cost to the government of $50 million annually.
Calls for austerity within the government have meant little.
Everyone Welcome to hear
McDill "Huck" Boyd Republican for Governor
7:30 Wednesday
Kansas Union
Big "8" Room
The Classical Film Series
presents
THE LOVE GAME
French "New Wave" Comedy (English Subtitles)
Short: L'Opera mouffe
Wednesday, February 26
Fraser Theater----7:00 p.m.
Admission: $.60
Season tickets only $5 at Kansas Union
ACME
Laundry and Dry Cleaners
GIVES YOU THESE EXTRAS AT NO ADDITIONAL COST -
- Buttons Replaced
- Rips Repaired
- Hangers For Wash Pants And Shirts on Request