A00044 - Gamal el-Ghitani, Egyptian Author

Ghitani, Gamal el-

Gamal el-Ghitani (Arabic: جمال الغيطانى‎, b. May  9, 1945 –  d. October 18, 2015) was an Egyptian author of historical and political novels and cultural and political commentaries and was the editor-in-chief of the literary periodical Akhbar Al-Adab ("Cultural News") until 2011.

 Gamal El-Ghitani was born in Guhayna, Sohag Governorate in Upper Egypt and moved with his family to Cairo as a child. He began writing at a young age and had his first short story published when he was only 14. He was originally trained to be a carpet designer and received his diploma in 1962. He continued to write on the side and was imprisoned from October 1966 through March 1967 for his critical commentary on the regime of  Gamal Abd el-Nasser.  In 1969, he switched careers and became a journalist for the Egyptian newspaper Akhbar El Yom ("The Day's News").

After becoming a journalist, el-Ghitani continued to write historical fiction, and many of his stories are set in Cairo. He also wrote about many cultural and political topics, notably the level of censorship in modern-day Egypt. In an effort to help promote the Arab literary culture, he helped found the literary magazine "Gallery 68".

In 1980, he was awarded with the Egyptian National Prize for Literature, and in 1987, the French Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.  In 1985, he became editor-in-chief of Al Akhbar ("The News") and continued to be a contributing editor to Akhbar El-Yom's literary section. From 1993 to 2011, he was the editor-in-chief of Akhbar Al-Adab, one of Egypt's primary literary magazines. In 2005, he won a French Award for translated literature "Laure Bataillon", one of the highest French awards to be bestowed upon non-French writers. He was earned this award for his giant work "Kitâb al-Tagalliyyât" or "Book of Illuminations". In 2009, he was awarded the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Ren, the award is worth about $200,000 and is one of the world's richest literary awards. 

Gamal El-Ghitani was married to the Egyptian journalist Magda El-Guindy, editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram's children's magazine "Alaaeddin". He died on October 18, 2015 at the El Galaa Hospital For Armed Forces Officers Families in Cairo.

A00043 - Mathieu Kerekou, The "Chameleon" President of Benin

Mathieu Kérékou (September 2, 1933 – October 14, 2015) was a Beninese politician who was President of Benin from 1972 to 1991 and again from 1996 to 2006. After seizing power in a military coup, he ruled the country for 17 years, for most of that time under an officially Marxist-Leninist ideology, before he was stripped of his powers by the National Conference of 1990. He was defeated in the 1991 presidential election, but was returned to the presidency in the 1996 election and controversially re-elected in 2001. 

Kérékou was born in 1933 in Kouarfa. in north-west French Dahomey.  After having studied at military schools in modern-day Mali and Senegal, Kérékou served in the military. Following independence, from 1961 to 1963 he was an aide-de-camp to Dahomeyan President Hubert Maga, following Maurice Kouandete's seizure of power in December 1967, Kérékou, who was his cousin, was made chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council. After Kérékou attended French military schools from 1968 to 1970, Maga made him a major, deputy chief of staff, and commander of the Ouidah paratroop unit.

Kerekou seized power in Dahomey in a military coup on October 26, 1972, ending a system of government in which three members of a presidential council were to rotate power (earlier in the year MagKérékou a had handed over power to Justin Ahomadegbe). 

During his first two years in power, Kérékou expressed only nationalism and said that the country's revolution would not "burden itself by copying foreign ideology ... We do not want communism or capitalism or socialism. We have our own Dahomean social and cultural system." On November 30, 1974, however, he announced the adoption of Marxism-Leninism by the state. The country was renamed from the Republic of Dahomey to the People's Republic of Benin a year later; the banks and petroleum industry were nationalized. The People's Revolutionary Party of Benin (Parti de la révolution populaire du Bénin, PRPB) was established as the sole ruling party. In 1980, Kérékou was elected president by the Revolutionary National Assembly; he retired from the army in 1987.

It has been suggested that Kérékou's move to Marxism-Leninism was motivated mainly by pragmatic considerations, and that Kérékou himself was not actually a leftist radical; the new ideology offered a means of legitimization, a way of distinguishing the new regime from those that had preceded it, and was based on broader unifying principles than the politics of ethnicity. Kérékou's regime initially included officers from both the north and south of the country, but as the years passed the northerners (like Kérékou himself) became clearly dominant, undermining the idea that the regime was not based in ethnicity. By officially adopting Marxism-Leninism, Kérékou may also have wanted to win the support of the country's leftists.

Kérékou's regime was rigid and vigorous in pursuing its newly adopted ideological goals from the mid-1970s to the late 1970s. Beginning in the late 1970s, the regime jettisoned much of its radicalism and settled onto a more moderately socialist course as Kérékou consolidated his personal control.

Kérékou survived numerous attempts to oust him, including an invasion of the port city of Cotonou by mercenaries contracted by a group of exiled Beninese political rivals in January 1977, as well as two coup attempts in 1988.

It was hoped that the nationalizations of the 1970s would help develop the economy, but it remained in a very poor condition, with the state sector being plagued by inefficiency and corruption. Kérékou began reversing course in the early 1980s, closing down numerous state-run companies and attempting to attract foreign investment. He also accepted an International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural readjustment program in 1989, agreeing to austerity measures that severely cut state expenditures. The economic situation continued to worsen during the 1980s, provoking widespread unrest in 1989. A student strike began in January of that year. Subsequently, strikes among various elements of society increased in frequency and the nature of their demands grew broader: whereas initially they had focused on economic issues such as salary arrears, this progressed to include demands for political reform.

In the period of reforms towards multi-party democracy in Africa at the beginning of the 1990s, Benin moved onto this path early, with Kérékou being forced to make concessions to popular discontent. Benin's early and relatively smooth transition may be attributed to the particularly dismal economic situation in the country, which seemed to preclude any alternative. In the midst of increasing unrest, Kérékou was re-elected as president by the National Assembly in August 1989, but in December 1989 Marxism-Leninism was dropped as the state ideology, and a national conference was held in February 1990. The conference turned out to be hostile to Kérékou and declared its own sovereignty; despite the objections of some of his officers to this turn of events, Kérékou did not act against the conference, although he did label the conference's declaration of sovereignty a "civilian coup". During the transition that followed, Kérékou remained president but lost most of his power.

During the 1990 National Conference, which was nationally televised, Kérékou spoke to the Archbishop of Cotonou, Isidor de Souza, confessing guilt and begging forgiveness for the flaws of his regime. An observer described it as a "remarkable piece of political theater", full of cultural symbolism and significance. In effect, Kérékou was seeking forgiveness from his people. Such a gesture, so unusual for the African autocrats of the time, could have fatally weakened Kérékou's political standing, but he performed the gesture in such a way that, far from ending his political career, it instead served to symbolically redeem him and facilitate his political rehabilitation, while also "securing him immunity from prosecution". Kérékou shrewdly utilized the timing and setting.  Culturally as well as theologically it would prove impossible to refuse forgiveness on these terms.

World Bank economist Nicephore Soglo, chosen as prime minister by the conference, took office in March, and a new constitution was approved in a December 1990 referendum. Multi-party elections were held in March 1991, which Kérékou lost, obtaining only about 32% of the vote in the second round against Prime Minister Soglo; while he won very large vote percentages in the north, in the rest of the country he found little support. Kérékou was thus the first mainland African president to lose power through a popular election. He apologized for "deplorable and regrettable incidents" that occurred during his rule.

After losing the election in March 1991, Kérékou left the political scene and "withdrew to total silence", another move that was interpreted as penitential.

Kérékou reclaimed the presidency in the March 1996 election. Soglo's economic reforms and his alleged dictatorial tendencies had caused his popularity to suffer. Although Kérékou received fewer votes than Soglo in the first round, he then defeated Soglo in the second round, taking 52.5% of the vote. Kérékou was backed in the second round by third place candidate Adrien Houngbedji and fourth place candidate Bruno Amoussou, as in 1991, Kérékou received very strong support from northern voters, but he also improved his performance in the south. Soglo alleged fraud, but this was rejected by the Constitutional Court, which confirmed Kérékou's victory. When taking the oath of office, Kérékou left out a portion that referred to the "spirits of the ancestors" because he had become a born-again Christian after his defeat by Soglo. He was subsequently forced to retake the oath including the reference to spirits.

Kérékou was re-elected for a second five-year term in the March 2001 presidential election under controversial circumstances. In the first round he took 45.4% of the vote; Soglo, who took second place, and parliament speaker Houngbédji, who took third, both refused to participate in the second round, alleging fraud and saying that they did not want to legitimize the vote by participating in it. This left the fourth place finisher, Amoussou, to face Kérékou in the run-off, and Kérékou easily won with 83.6% of the vote. It was subsequently discovered that the American corporation Titan gave more than two million dollars to Kérékou's re-election campaign as a bribe.

During Kérékou's second period in office his government followed a liberal economic path. The period also saw Benin take part in international peacekeeping missions in other African states.

Kérékou was barred from running again in 2006 on two counts. The constitution not only limited the president to two terms, but also required that presidential candidates be younger than 70 (he turned 70 in 2003, through his second term). Kérékou said in July 2005 that he would not attempt to amend the constitution to allow him to run for a third term. "If you don't leave power," he said, "power will leave you." There was, however, speculation that he had wanted it to be changed, but faced too much opposition.

On March 5, 2006, voters went to the polls to decide who would succeed Kérékou as President of Benin. Yayi Boni defeated Adrien Houngbédji in a run-off vote on March 19, and Kérékou left office at the end of his term, at midnight on April 6, 2006.

Kérékou allegedly converted to Islam in 1980 while on a visit to Libya, and changed his first name to Ahmed, but he later returned to the use of the name Mathieu. This alleged conversion may have been designed to please the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in order to obtain financial and military support. Alternatively, the conversion story may have been a rumor planted by some of his opponents in order to destabilize his regime. In any event, Kerekou subsequently became a born-again Christian. Some Vodun believers in Benin regarded him as having magical powers, explaining his ability to survive repeated coup attempts during his military rule.

Nicknamed "the chameleon" from an early point in his career, Kérékou's motto was "the branch will not break in the arms of the chameleon". The nickname and motto he adopted were full of cultural symbolism, articulating and projecting his power and ability. Unlike some past rulers who had adopted animal symbolism intending to project a violent, warlike sense of power, Kérékou's symbolic animal suggested skill and cleverness; his motto suggested that he would keep the branch from breaking, but implicitly warned of what could happen to "the branch" if it was not "in the arms of the chameleon"—political chaos. To some, his nickname seemed particularly apt as he successfully adapted himself to a new political climate and neo-liberal economic policies in the 1990s.

Kerekou used the campaign slogan, "Experience in the service of youth."

After leaving office in 2006, Kérékou stayed out of politics and spent time at his homes in Cotonou and Natitingou in northwestern Benin, his native region. He suffered a health crisis in 2014 and was taken to Paris for treatment. Although he recovered, he continued to suffer health problems, and he died in Benin on October 14, 2015 at the age of 82. 

A00042 - Ali Salim, Egyptian Writer Who Drove Across Israel

Salim, Ali
Ali Salim, also transliterated Ali Salem, (Arabic: على سالم‎; b. February 24, 1936 – d. September 22, 2015) was an Egyptian playwright, author, and political commentator known for controversially endorsing cooperation with Israel. The Los Angeles Times once described him as "a big, loud man known for his satiric wit".

From the premiere of his first play in 1965, he wrote 25 plays and fifteen books. One of the best known, The School of Troublemakers, debuted in 1971 and featured a rowdy class of children transformed by a kind teacher. His plays The Phantom of Heliopolis, The Comedy of Oedipus, The Man Who Fooled the Angels, and The Buffet became classics of the Egyptian theater. Salem's plays often include allegorical critiques of Egyptian politics with a strong vein of humor and satire.

In 1994, he wrote a book entitled My Drive to Israel about a trip he took to the country to satisfy his curiosity about it following the signing of the Oslo Accords. He later claimed that the trip was not "a love trip, but a serious attempt to get rid of hate. Hatred prevents us from knowing reality as it is". He spent 23 nights in Israel and concluded that "real co-operation" between the two nations should be possible. Though the book sold more than 60,000 copies, a bestseller by Egyptian standards, it provoked controversy, and Salem was subsequently ostracized from the Egyptian intellectual community and expelled from its Writer's Syndicate as a result of his "propaganda." He did not have a play or movie script produced in Egypt after the book's publication, though he continued to contribute columns to foreign media such as the London-based Al Hayat.  Salem's memoir was later adapted by Ari Roth into the play Ali Salem Drives to Israel, which had its world premiere in the United States in 2005.

In 2008, he won the Train Foundation's $50,000 Civil Courage Prize in recognition of his opposition to radical Islam and his support of cooperation with Israel.  He also received an honorary doctorate from Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 2005.  He died on September 22, 2015 after a long illness.

A00041 - Esmail Kiram II, Self-Proclaimed Sultan of Sulu

Esmail Kiram II (also spelled as Ismael Kiram II) (November 9, 1939 - September 19, 2015) was the self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu in the Philippines from March 12, 2001 until his death.

A00040 - Anwar al-Awlaki, Radical American Muslim Cleric

Anwar al-Awlaki, also spelled Anwār al-ʿAwlākī, al-Awlaki also spelled al-Aulaqi   (b. April 21, 1971, Las Cruces, New Mexico — d. September 30, 2011, Al-Jawf province, Yemen), American Islamic preacher and al-Qaeda militant killed by a controversial United States drone attack. One of the United States’ most-wanted terrorists, Awlaki was directly linked to multiple terrorism plots in the United States and the United Kingdom, including an attempt in December 2009 to blow up a jetliner bound for Detroit. He had morphed from a mainstream Muslim into one of al-Qaeda’s most public personalities and influential voices in large part because of his numerous online sermons and propaganda videos that allowed him to spread his message around the world.

A United States citizen born to Yemeni parents, Awlaki spent the early years of his life in the United States before his family moved back to Yemen. Over the next 11 years, the young Awlaki gained the requisite cultural experience and tools that would later help him bridge American and Arab culture. In 1991 he returned to the United States on a Yemeni education grant to attend college at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. While pursuing a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering, he became active within the Muslim student association on campus. Beginning in 1994, he preached for the Denver Islamic Society for two years. In 1996, Awlaki moved to San Diego, California, where he began working on a graduate degree in educational leadership at San Diego State University.

While in San Diego, Awlaki assumed the role of imam at a local mosque, Masjid al-Ribat al-Islami. It was in that role that he reportedly came into contact with two of the future September 11 hijackers, Saudi Arabians Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. Although some reports suggest that Awlaki’s relationship to the hijackers grew very close in 2000, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which had begun investigating Awlaki’s ties to terrorism as early as June 1999, did not find sufficient incriminating evidence to take action against him.

After spending four years in San Diego, Awlaki left in 2000, eventually settling in the Washington, D.C., metro area in January 2001. He became imam at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque, located in Falls Church, Virginia, and served as a Muslim chaplain at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Before the September 11 attacks, Awlaki came into contact with another Saudi Arabian al-Qaeda operative and 9/11 hijacker, Hani Hanjour. Both Hanjour and Hazmi attended Awlaki’s sermons.

In the weeks after the September 11 attacks, the FBI reportedly conducted eight interviews with Awlaki but acquired no further incriminating information on any possible connection between him and al-Qaeda. Nonetheless, feeling increased pressure from law enforcement, Awlaki moved to the United Kingdom in 2002, where he established a dedicated following of young British Muslims. It was during that time that he rose to prominence within the Western Islamic world. His easygoing style, his colloquial use of English, and the accessible content of his lectures made him popular with diverse audiences in spite of his lack of extensive formal religious training.

Awlaki returned to Yemen in 2004. Little is publicly known about his activities during that time. He was arrested in mid-2006 by Yemeni security forces and remained imprisoned for approximately a year and a half without formal charges being issued against him. After his release Awlaki’s statements and lectures grew more openly hostile against the United States, which he said had pressured the Yemeni government into arresting him. His statements also began gaining influence with Western Muslims seeking religious justification for violence against the United States. His recorded lecture series on the book Thawābit ʿalā darb al-jihād (2005; “Constants of the Path of Jihad”), for example, which could be downloaded from the Internet, helped inspire a group of six men convicted of the 2006–07 terrorist plot against the United States Army base at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

In December 2008 Awlaki penned an open letter of support (written in English) for the Somali Islamic militant group al-Shahaab, In the letter, Awlaki urged Western Muslims to do whatever they could to support the organization. In January 2009 Awlaki used his Web site to publish another religious justification of violence against the West, titled “44 Ways to Support Jihad.” There Awlaki argued that all Muslims are bound by religious duty to support violent jihad. 

Awlaki began regularly appearing in officially sanctioned al-Qaeda media releases in 2010. In May 2010, the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released an Internet audio statement openly supporting Awlaki as one of his own. Later that month AQAP released an official interview with Awlaki which eliminated any doubt that he had officially joined al-Qaeda.

The Internet was a key tool in Awlaki’s ability to spread his message and reach followers, both indirectly and directly. One supporter was United States Army Major Nidal M. Hasan, who attended his sermons in Virginia. On November 5, 2009, Hasan opened fire in the Soldier Readiness Center at the Fort Hood army base in Texas, killing 13. According to reports, at least 18 e-mails had been sent between Hasan and Awlaki in the lead-up to the attacks.

In May 2010, a 21-year-old British university student, Roshonara Choudhry, stabbed Stephen Timms, a member of Parliament, for his support of the Iraq War. According to Choudhry’s own confession, she had been radicalized in large part through listening to Awlaki’s speeches on the Internet. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In June 2010, two Americans, Mohamed Alessa and Carlos Almonte, responded to Awlaki’s call to support al-Shabaab by attempting to travel to Somalia. According to reports, the pair had allegedly downloaded multiple videos and sermons from Awlaki. Another U.S. citizen, Zachary Chesser, who had downloaded videos of Awlaki and exchanged e-mails with him, was arrested in July 2010 on charges of attempting to provide material support to al-Shabaab.

In 2010 Awlaki was placed on the United States government’s official targeted-killing list, as authorized by President Barack Obama and approved by the National Security Council. That designation meant that, despite his United States citizenship. Awlaki was considered a military enemy of the United States and not subject to the country’s own ban on political assassination. On September 30, 2011, the Central Intelligence Agency used two drones to target Awlaki in Yemen, killing him and Samir Khan, another American al-Qaeda member.

A00039 - Muhammad Omar, Afghan Taliban Leader

Muhammad Omar

Muhammad (Mohammad) Omar, also called Mullah Omar   (born c. 1950–62?, near Kandahār, Afghanistan—died April, 2013, Pakistan), Afghan militant and leader of the Taliban (Pashto: Ṭālebān [“Students”]) who was the emir of Afghanistan (1996–2001). Mullah Omar’s refusal to extradite al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden prompted the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 that overthrew the Taliban government there.

Biographical details about Mullah Omar are sparse and conflicting. He was an ethnic Pashtun of the Ghilzay branch who, reportedly, was born near Kandahar, Afghanistan. He is believed to have been illiterate and — aside from his madrasah studies — to have had minimal schooling. He fought with the mujahideen against the Soviets during the Afghan War (1978–92), and during that time he suffered the loss of his right eye in an explosion.

After the Soviet withdrawal, Mullah Omar established and taught at a small village madrasah in the province of Kandahār. The end of the war did not bring calm, however, and political and ethnic violence escalated thereafter. Claiming to have had a vision instructing him to restore peace, Mullah Omar led a group of madrasah students in the takeover of cities throughout the mid-1990s, including Kandahar, Herat, Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif. In 1996 a shura (council) recognized Mullah Omar as amīr al-muʾminīn(“commander of the faithful”), a deeply significant title in the Muslim world that had been in disuse since the abolition of the caliphate in 1924. That designation also made him emir of Afghanistan, which from October 1997 until the fall of the Taliban was known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Mullah Omar marked the occasion by removing what was held to be the cloak of the Prophet Muhammad from the mosque in Kandahār where it was housed and donning the relic, effectively symbolizing himself as Muhammad’s successor. The swift takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban under Mullah Omar is believed to have been funded at least in part by bin Laden, who had moved his base to Afghanistan after his expulsion from Sudan in the mid-1990s.

Under Mullah Omar’s leadership, Pashtun social codes were paramount, and strict Islamic principles were enforced. Education and employment for women all but ceased; capital punishment was enacted for transgressions such as adultery and conversion away from Islam; and music, television, and other forms of popular entertainment were prohibited. Among his most-infamous decisions was an order to demolish the colossal Buddha statues at Bamiyan, culturally significant relics of Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic history. To the outspoken regret of the international community, they were destroyed in 2001.

In the wake of al-Qaeda’s, September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, D. C., Mullah Omar’s refusal to extradite bin Laden prompted the United States to launch a series of military operations in Afghanistan. The Taliban government was overthrown, and Mullah Omar fled; his location was undetermined.

Mullah Omar was long notoriously reclusive. Meetings with non-Muslims or with Westerners were almost never granted, and it was unclear whether any of the photographs that purportedly depict him were authentic—circumstances that made the pursuit of him even more difficult. At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it was believed that Mullah Omar continued to direct Taliban operations from the sanctuary of Pakistan, although the Taliban denied that supposition.

On July 29, 2015, the Afghan government announced that its intelligence service had learned that Mullah Omar had died in April 2013 in Pakistan. The report of Mullah Omar’s death was confirmed by a Taliban representative the next day, and his deputy, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was announced as his successor.

A00038 - Tahsin Sahinkaya, Turkish Air Force General and Coup Leader

Tahsin Şahinkaya (b. 1925 – d. July 9, 2015) was a Turkish Air Force general. He was Commander of the Turkish Air Force from 1978 to 1983, and previously Secretary-General of the National Security Council (1977-1978). He was one of the five leaders of the 1980 military coup,  and after the coup he was a member of the Presidential Council. 

In 2012, a court case was launched against Şahinkaya and Kenan Evren (President of Turkey from 1980 to 1989) relating to the 1980 military coup. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment on June 18, 2014 by a court in Ankara, the capital of Turkey.

Şahinkaya died at age 90 in the military "Haydarpaşa GATA Hospital" in Istanbul on July 9, 2015. He was interred at Karacaahmet Cemetery on July 11 following a memorial ceremony held at the Turkish First Army headquarters in the Selimiye Barracks and subsequent religious funeral service at the nearby Buyuk Selimiye Mosque in Uskudar. He was survived by his wife Sema, son Serdar, daughter Sevgi Kartal and son-in-law Mustafa Kartal.