NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT

French Front de Libration Nationale (FLN) the only constitutionally legal party in Algeria from 1962 to 1989. The party was a continuation of the revolutionary body that directed the Algerian war of independence against France (195462). The FLN was created by the Revolutionary Committee of Unity and Action (Comit Rvolutionnaire d'Unit et d'Action; CRUA), a group of young Algerian militants, organized in March 1954. The CRUA sought to reconcile the warring factions of the nationalist movement and to wage war against the French colonial presence in Algeria. By the middle of 1956 almost all the Algerian nationalist organizations had joined the FLN, which was then reorganized so that it resembled a provisional government, consisting of a five-man executive body and a legislative body, which comprised all the district (wilayah) heads. The Algerian war for independence, a continuous series of guerrilla attacks, terrorism, and strikes, continued until March 18, 1962, when the French at last signed a cease-fire agreement with the FLN at vian-les-Bains and made provisions for future economic and social cooperation. In a referendum held July 1, 1962, the Algerians voted overwhelmingly for self-determination and approved the vian Agreement. The proclamation of Algerian independence on July 3, 1962, was immediately followed by a power struggle within the FLN. The Political Bureau of the FLN was created in July 1962 by Ahmed Ben Bella, Colonel Houari Boumedienne, and Muhammad Khidr in opposition to Belkacem Krim. It attracted a broad popular following through its socialist-Islamic ideology and effective propagandizing, enabling Ben Bella to become premier in May 1963. In 1965 Ben Bella was overthrown by Boumedienne, who held tight control of the leadership of the party and government until his death in December 1978. The following year the party was reorganized. It maintained its one-party control of Algeria into the 1990s. (NLF) formally National Front for the Liberation of the South, Vietnamese Mat-Tran Dan-Toc Giai-Phong Mien-Nam Vietnamese political organization formed on Dec. 20, 1960, to effect the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government and the reunification of North and South Vietnam. An overtly communist party was established in 1962 as a central component of the NLF, but both the military arm, the Viet Cong, and the political organization of the NLF included many noncommunists. The NLF was represented by its own diplomatic staffs in all communist countries and in several neutral countries. Unlike the Viet Minh (anti-French guerrilla force, many members of which became part of the Viet Cong), the NLF did not establish a provisional government until June 1969, when the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam was announced. With the reunification of Vietnam in 1976, the NLF joined the Vietnamese Communist Party and the other political organizations in forming a National United Front.