The imposing document, forty pages long, that emerged after the twenty-day conference declared categorically the sole legitimacy of the C.N.R.A. in the nation; it alone had the right to make engagements concerning national sovereignty, such as ordering a cease-fire. Two important principles were established, both of them triumphs for Abane; first, the primacy of the political over the military; secondly, the primacy of the “forces of the interior” (i.e. the newly constituted C.C.E.) over the “exterior”.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 450