Abdirahman Ahmed Ali Tuur

For the executed Somali politician, see Abdirahman Ahmed

Abdirahman Ahmed Ali Tuur (Somali: Cabdiraxmaan Axmed Cali Tuur, Arabic: عبد الرحمن أحمد علي الطور‎) (var. "Tur", "Tour", meaning "Hunchback"^[1]) was a Somali politician. He was the first President of Somaliland, a self-declared republic that is internationally recognized as an autonomous region of Somalia.

Biography

Born in 1931, Tuur had been a diplomat and government official.

He later became the Chairman of the Somali National Movement (SNM), a guerilla force drawn from the Isaaq clan that was attempting to topple the military administration of former President of Somalia Siad Barre. Although the SNM at its inception had a unionist constitution, it eventually began to pursue a separatist agenda, looking to secede from the rest of Somalia. Under Tuur's leadership, the local administration declared the northwestern Somali territories independent on 18 May 1991. He then became the newly-established Somaliland polity’s first President, but subsequently renounced the separatist platform in 1994 and began instead to publicly seek and advocate reconciliation with the rest of Somalia under a power-sharing federal system of governance.^[2] Tuur also lent some support to the UNOSOM peace-building mission in the southern regions, which alienated him from Somaliland's succeeding government as well as many former followers.^[3]

When support for Tuur in southern Somalia failed to materialise, he was exiled to Ethiopia for almost a decade, before returning to Somaliland on 10 February 2003, 9 months before his death on 8 November 2003.

Notes

References

• Somalia - Worldstatesmen.com
• "Somaliland: The Other Somalia with No War", Suliman Baldo in The Nation (Nairobi), 30 June 2006, The Nation (Nairobi)
• History of Somaliland, somalilandnet.com
• THE SECRETARY-GENERAL'S REPORT, ABDIRAHMAN "TUUR", AND SOMALILAND, SOMALIA News Update, Vol 3, No 16, May 28, 1994. ISSN 1103-1999

v t e Presidents of Somaliland Tuur Egal Kahin Silanyo