Obituary: Hassan Gouled Aptidon

The death at the age of 90 of Hassan Gouled Aptidon marks the end of an era in the small east African country of Djibouti. In his 22 years in power, from 1977 to 1999, his shrewd navigation in the turbulent politics of the Horn of Africa brought the republic from an uncertain future at the moment of independence to a position of regional linchpin and headquarters of the regional grouping IGADD (Inter-Governmental Authority on Drought and Development).

The French had colonised it in the 19th century as the port for the Franco-Ethiopian railway from Addis Ababa, but had been reluctant to surrender power because of its strategic significance in the Red Sea. In spite of trying to divide and rule the pro-Ethiopian Afars and the pro-Somali Issas, an independence movement, of which Gouled was among the leaders, succeeded in 1977, when he became first president.

He was born to a family of Issa nomads at Garissa, near the port of Zeila, in what was then French Somaliland. He left home at 14 and was taken in by the Catholic mission in Djibouti, working as a street trader, eventually becoming a contractor, entering politics in the Somali and Danakil Youth Club, and rising to become senator for French Somaliland (1952-58) in the national assembly in Paris. When General de Gaulle visited Djibouti in 1966, Gouled, himself a keen Gaullist, distanced himself from pro-independence demonstrations, although he favoured such a move.

The French feared that independence might threaten their defence interests and bring a tilt to Somalia, and, in a 1967 referendum, French residents combined with Afars to defeat independence proposals. It took another 10 years of heavy politicking, and mobilisation of support from the Organisation of African Unity, before President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing recognised the advantage of conceding, with the important proviso, which Gouled was canny enough to accept, that the French maintain nearly 4,000 troops at the Djibouti naval base. This was important for the economy and security of the new mini-state, and became a symbol of French global weight, of great value to the west in the Gulf war and since. A new referendum supported independence, and it duly arrived on June 27 1977.

One of Gouled's main tasks was coping, not always successfully, with internal tensions between the majority Issas and the minority Afars, and in 1981 he was obliged to introduce a one-party state under his own Rassemblement Populaire pour le Progrès (RPP), for which he was returned unopposed in presidential elections in 1987. A period of authoritarian rule brought an Afar rebellion in 1991, which was harshly suppressed, but in a U-turn in 1992 a multi-party constitution was introduced, taking advantage of the undeniable affinities between the ethnic groups, and Djibouti increasingly presented a democratic face, with Gouled as a benign elder statesman, who was often drafted to mediate in regional disputes, such as those between Ethiopia and Somalia, and later Eritrea.

Dour of expression, and not a great conversationalist, Gouled's main relaxation was poker, where he could combine his natural authority with his shrewd sense of diplomacy. He was a heavy smoker, drank coffee interminably and was a regular figure at Francophone and Africa-France summits.

In the mid-1990s, when a serious illness took him to a nursing home in Paris, a power struggle for the succession was won by Gouled's nephew and head of security, Ismail Omar Guelleh, the favoured candidate to succeed him. When ill-health and old age finally compelled Gouled to retire, he had the satisfaction of seeing this happen. The Gouled independence dispensation, still heavily underwritten by the French, is thus likely to continue.

· Hassan Gouled Aptidon, politician, born October 15 1916; died November 21 2006