Among colonies voting an overwhelming (75%) out for the constitution of Premier Charles de Gaulle was parched, sun-baked French Somaliland, an 8,000-square-mile East African land of dry gullies, thorny scrub and shifting sand, on the Gulf of Aden. The out vote was in effect a vote of no for the territory's chief native political leader, Mahmoud Harbi.
Though he won the Croix de guerre fighting for the French in World War II, 37-year-old Mahmoud Harbi is now a fervid admirer of Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose radio propaganda urges the Somalis...
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