Ali Soilih

Who is Ali Soilih?

Ali Soilih M'Tsashiwa was a Comorian agronomist and socialist revolutionary who became the country's third president during one of the most turbulent chapters of its early independence. Born on 7 January 1937 in Majunga on neighboring Madagascar, where many Comorians of his generation were educated, he trained as an agronomist before turning to radical politics in the islands in the early 1970s. He took part in the coup of 3 August 1975 that overthrew Ahmed Abdallah barely a month after independence, and by January 1976 had consolidated personal power as president. Blending elements of Maoism with a reformist reading of Islam, Soilih launched a sweeping cultural and social revolution aimed at dismantling the authority of the islands' traditional elite, banning costly customary institutions such as the grand marriage ceremony known as the "Anda" and elaborate funerary rites, and promoting youth militias and mass literacy campaigns. His government proved unstable and increasingly authoritarian in practice. On 13 May 1978, a force of mercenaries led by French colonel Bob Denard and financed by the exiled Abdallah overthrew Soilih; he was captured and killed shortly afterward. He remains remembered as the Comoros' most radical revolutionary head of state.

Sources: Ali Soilih — Wikipedia · Comoros — The Soilih Regime, Country Studies (U.S. Library of Congress) · History of the Comoros (1978-1989) — Wikipedia