1927 - 2000

Algerian revolutionary, government minister, and president of Assemblée Nationale Populaire (ANP).

Rabah Bitat was a founder of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) and is regarded as one of the nine historic chiefs of the Algerian revolution. The French captured Bitat and he remained in detention until the end of the Algerian war of independence in 1962.

Bitat first supported, then opposed, Ahmed Ben Bella. He held the transportation portfolio under Houari Boumédienne before becoming the first president of the ANP (by the constitution of 1976). Bitat served as acting president (December 1978 - February 1979) after Boumédienne's death in December 1978. Bitat returned to the ANP following Chadli Bendjedid's election. After the October 1988 riots, Bendjedid's accelerated reforms compounded by a declining dinar alienated Bitat, who resigned in protest in 1990. He remained a critic within FLN circles. His wife was Zohra Drif, a heroine of the Battle of Algiers. Bitat died in 2000.

Bibliography

Naylor, Phillip C., and Heggoy, Alf A. The Historical Dictionary of Algeria, 2d edition. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1994.

— PHILLIP C. NAYLOR

Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.