Ahmed Abdallah

Who is Ahmed Abdallah?

Ahmed Abdallah Abderemane was born on 12 June 1919 in Domoni, on the island of Anjouan, and became the dominant Comorian political figure of the independence era. A businessman turned politician, he entered French colonial politics in the late 1940s, served as President of the territory's General Council in the early 1950s, and represented the Comoros in the French Senate from 1959 to 1973. When the Comoros unilaterally declared independence from France on 6 July 1975, Abdallah became the new nation's first president, though his government was overthrown within a month by a coup led by Ali Soilih. Abdallah spent the following years in exile before returning to power on 13 May 1978 through a coup staged by the French mercenary Bob Denard, and he then governed the Comoros as president from October 1978 until his death, steering the country toward a one-party state under the Comorian Union for Progress from 1982 onward. His long rule ended abruptly on the night of 26-27 November 1989, when he was killed by gunfire inside the presidential palace in Moroni amid unrest involving his own presidential guard. He remains a central, complicated figure in Comorian history as the man most associated with the country's independence and its turbulent first years of statehood.

Sources: Ahmed Abdallah — Wikipedia · Ahmed Abdallah (1919-1989) — BlackPast.org · UPI Archives, "President Ahmed Abdallah Abderemane of the Indian Ocean island...", 27 November 1989