Saturday, June 09, 2007
Somalia's first president, Mr. Aden Abdulle Osman |
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Somalia's first president was remembered Saturday as a «true patriot» who become the first post-independence African leader to peacefully relinquish power.
Aden Abdulle Osman, elected president when the former British and Italian Somali colonies joined to form the Republic of Somalia in 1960, died Friday in Kenya after months of illness, his son said. He was 99
«President Aden was a true patriot, I remember he surprised other leaders because he believed the rule should be in the hands of the people,» said Ahmed Ali Shoma, 80, a friend of Osman's.
Born in 1908 in the town of Belet Weyne near the Ethiopian border, Osman was a leader of the Somali Youth League, a nationalist party that struggled for Somalia's independence. He lost a re-election bid in 1967 and peacefully handed over power to his successor, Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, who was assassinated two years later.
The assassination was followed by a coup led by military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. In 1990, when the country was edging toward anarchy, Osman was among about 100 politicians who signed a manifesto expressing concern over the destruction, killings and flight of refugees as a result of the civil war.
He was arrested along with more than 50 others by Barre's faltering regime. After his release, he lived mostly on his farm in Janale in southern Somalia.
«He was a benevolent man who would give to his poor neighbors every morning,» said Mohamed Gedow Magaale, who worked as Osman's farmkeeper.
Somalia's cabinet voted on Saturday to rename the Mogadishu international airport the Adan Abdulle Osman International Airport of Mogadishu, the government announced. The country also will also observe a 21-day mourning period and hold a state funeral.
Somalia is still emerging from more than a decade of civil war following Barre's fall. The current government, formed in 2004 with the help of the United Nations, has struggled to assert any real control and is trying to fend off an Islamic insurgency.
Source: AP, June 09, 2007