ALGERIAN REVOLT

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30487, 8 July 1964, Page 6

ALGERIAN REVOLT

‘People To Be Armed’ (N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright)

ALGIERS, July 7.

President Ahmed Ben Bella said yesterday he would arm civilians if. necessary to crush revolts against his Government.

Mr Ben Bella said, in an address marking the • second anniversary of Algeria’s independence from France, that he was prepared to deliver weapons to civilians prepared to back his 50,000strong army against antiGovernment forces. He said three rebels and two loyalist soldiers were killed in last week’s fighting in the fourth military district against forces commanded by the rebel, Colonel Mohamed Chaabani.

“We shall fight if it is. needed and we shall distribute 350,000 arms to the people to . defend what the revolution has achieved,” President Ben Bella said. "Those who kill will be killed.”

The Algerian leader, dressed ’in a grey Chinesestyle tunic, told a rally that the Government also would purge groups financing anti. Government groups in “the coming weeks.” Algerian authorities knew the persons backing the rebels, he said. “We will start with the bourgeois who give money to the counter-revolution,” he said'. “We know who they are and' we will confiscate their belongings and give them to former independence fighters.” Mr Ben Bella said rebel forces under Colonel Chaabani were on the run in southern Algeria from loyalist troops. Chaabani and an estimated 3000 men last week rebelled in the Sahara. Mr Ben Bella claimed that 3000 men had joined the Algerian National Army from Chaabani’s former command.