Ismail Omar Guelleh
Ismail Omar Guelleh has governed Djibouti since 1999 by renting the most valuable small piece of ground in the region to everyone at once. He was his predecessor's chief of staff and nephew, ran the security service for twenty years, and succeeded him in an election in 1999. Djibouti is a territory of under a million people with almost no agriculture and no minerals, and two assets: the port that handles nearly all of landlocked Ethiopia's trade, and a position at the mouth of the Red Sea where the shipping lane narrows to twenty miles. He has monetised both. France has had a garrison since independence; the United States took Camp Lemonnier in 2002 and runs its Horn of Africa operations from it; Japan opened its first overseas base since 1945 there in 2011; China opened its first foreign base anywhere there in 2017. Italy, Germany, Spain and Saudi Arabia have all had a presence. The rents are a large share of government revenue. That position made him the region's broker. In 2017 he was among those who worked on the settlement that removed Yahya Jammeh from Gambia after he lost an election and refused to go, and Djibouti has hosted talks on Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea repeatedly. At home the term limit was removed in 2010 and he has won every election since with margins above eighty per cent. Djiboutian journalists work from exile, unemployment runs near forty per cent, and the country's debt to Chinese lenders is among the highest relative to output anywhere.
- Lived: 1947 CE – ?
- Nationality: Djiboutian
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
