John Drysdale, who came to Somaliland in 1943 as a regular British army officer, wore a special Islamic hat to pledge allegiance to the holy Qur’an in a ceremony at Hargeisa’s main Mosque. Mr Drysdale heads his own organization called Somaliland Cadastral Surveys which carried out 13, 000 farmland ownership surveys 2008 - showing the boundaries and ownership of land parcels in the Awdal and Marodi Jeh states. It plans to expand to other regions of Somaliland this year including Sahil region. John Drysdale is regarded the man who knows most about Somalis - he was not just a top British officer - he is an accomplished speaker of Somali, understands the Somali way of life, it’s customs and people very well. Ex John Drysdale - Abas Idiris with Ucid party leaders During 1960s he became adviser to three Somali Prime Ministers and published two books this period - The Somali Peninsula and The Somali Dispute, both books have became standard reference works. As a publisher Drysdale founded the Africa Research Bulletin in England and the Asia Research Bulletin in Singapore. In 1994 he published his fifth book on Somalia titled Whatever Happened to Somalia? - by far this was the most educational, informative and well detailed book written at that time about Somalia, Somaliland and the American mission into Mogadishu that horribly went wrong. End Item/ 129
source : Hatuuf
Monday
15 June 2009
7:30:00 PM
133508
Former British army officer and author - Mr John Drysdale has changed his name to Abbas Idiris and became a Muslim, according to a Somaliland newspaper report.