The Emergent Army

The Algerian F.L.N. army emerged last week from seven years of obscure guerilla war with France. At once tightly guarded Camp Ben M'hidi, near the Moroccan border town of Oudjda. newsmen witnessed a march-past of 1,200 F.L.N.

troops beginning with units wearing the motley clothes--turbans, burnooses.

ragged suits--that had been the garb of the original rebels in 1954. and finishing with a trim military band and disciplined, well-drilled detachments clad in U.S.-style fatigue uniforms and armed with Communist-made recoilless rifles, machine guns, mortars and bazookas.

Absolute Unity. The occasion for the unveiling was the official visit of Mohammed ben Bella, 45, the popular F.L.N.

leader freed last month by the French after five years' imprisonment. For Ben Bella it was truly a homecoming, since he had been born of an Algerian father and Moroccan mother within 15 miles of Oudjda. The camp, formerly a French supply depot, was decorated with rebel flags and banners proclaiming in French and Arabic such long-winded slogans as "The triumph of our revolution demands absolute unity, organized action, solid leadership and well-defined aims." On an inspection of border outposts within gunshot of French positions. Ben Bella, though still pale and out of condition from his long imprisonment, gamely climbed up and down hills. Colonel Boumedienne. F.L.N. chief of staff, invited reporters to inspect the cave headquarters, which were simply furnished with cots and rough tables, lit by candles stuck in tin cans. One F.L.N. officer proudly exhibited his silver belt buckle with its legend in Spanish: "Fidel Castro for the F.L.N." Grinned Colonel Boumedienne: "That won't make the Americans happy." Contagious Guns. While the tribesmen roasted an entire sheep on a spit for lunch, Algerian horsemen charged back and forth on the plain below, rising in their saddles to fire their flintlocks in unison at the sky. The contagion spread to the F.L.N. troops on the ridges and crests. and for 20 minutes gunshots echoed in the hills. Moslem children burst into tears and some of the guests looked nervously toward the border, fearing the French might respond by firing in earnest. But French guns remained silent.

Speaking publicly for the first time since his release, Ben Bella declared that the cease-fire agreement with France "has not put an end to the revolution." He warned: "We cannot rejoice because our brothers and sisters are still dying. Our day of celebration will come when we return to our native land. This day will be very soon." Added Colonel Boumedienne: "We will have reached our goal when the last enemy has left our soil."

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