Advertisement
Babylon & Beyond

DJIBOUTI: Reform demands spread to tiny East African nation

By Carol J. Williamswriter 
Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Testifying to the infectious fever of calling for democratic change, protests spread Friday to the tiny East African nation of Djibouti, where thousands rallied in demand that the president resign.

President Ismail Omar Guelleh has incurred the wrath of his countryman by changing the constitution to scrap a two-term limit that would have prohibited him from running for reelection in April.

Advertisement

The Guelleh dynasty has been in power for three decades in the nation of 516,000. Despite rampant unemployment and life expectancy of only 43 years, analysts predict that Guelleh would win reelection if allowed to run.

Djibouti, strategically located where the Gulf of Aden leads to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, hosts the only U.S. military base in Africa at Camp Lemonier.

-- Carol J. Williams

Babylon & Beyond
Carol J. Williams

Carol J. Williams is former senior international affairs writer for the Los Angeles Times. A foreign correspondent for 25 years, she has won five Overseas Press Club awards, two Sigma Delta Chi citations and was a 1993 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting. She has served as Times bureau chief in Budapest, Vienna, Moscow, Berlin and the Caribbean. A native of Rhode Island and irrepressible Red Sox fan, Williams speaks Russian, German, French and Spanish, and has reported from more than 80 countries. She left The Times in 2015.

Advertisement