Less than 30 years ago, Aden Abdullah Osman was a houseboy for a minor Italian official in Italian Somaliland, a barren land on Africa's bulging eastern coast. Last week Aden Abdullah, now prematurely grey, rode through the streets of Mogadishu, the capital, past cheering crowds and saluting soldiers, to become the chairman of Somaliland's first elected Parliament and the leader of a new nation.
Aden Abdullah's rise from houseboy is typical of the changes that are taking place in Somaliland, a territory larger than Italy but with fewer people than Rome. When the British in World War II drove out...
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