Aden Robleh Awaleh

Who is Aden Robleh Awaleh?

Aden Robleh Awaleh was a Djiboutian politician and one of the principal leaders of the armed and political struggle for independence from France. Born in 1941 in Ali-Sabieh to an Issa family, he studied law in Bordeaux and Paris between 1963 and 1968 and served as secretary general of the association of Djiboutian students in France. Returning home in 1969, he went on to lead the Front for the Liberation of the Somali Coast (FLCS), guiding the movement through both political campaigning and armed resistance until independence was achieved in 1977; French authorities convicted him in absentia in 1970 and sentenced him to 27 years in prison for his activities. After independence, he served in the first post-independence government as Minister of the Port and later Minister of Commerce, Transport, and Tourism, and was elected to the National Assembly in 1982. In 1983 he broke publicly with the ruling single-party regime, resigned his government positions, and went into exile in France in 1986. He returned to Djibouti in 1992, founded the National Democratic Party, and ran for president in 1993, placing third with 12 percent of the vote in an election he and other opposition figures denounced as fraudulent. He died on 31 October 2014.

Sources: Aden Robleh Awaleh — Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aden_Robleh_Awaleh) · Front for the Liberation of the Somali Coast — Wikipedia · allAfrica.com, "Djibouti's Leading Opposition Figure Dies" (2014)