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Word: soilih (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
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...Soilih, in fact, was apparently still under the influence of hash one night last May when 30 white mercenaries tiptoed onto a beach near the capital city of Moroni. They were led by French-born Colonel Robert Denard, 50, a notorious soldier of fortune who has left his bloody footprints in countless African battles in the past 23 years. As foretold, Denard was accompanied by a German shepherd dog. Within a few hours, Denard and his gang had shot up Soilih's bodyguard, put the dictator under arrest and accepted the surrender of the Comoran army, a ragtag force...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: COMORO ISLANDS: A Man and His Dog | 8/21/1978 | See Source »

...Comoros have proved an ideal laboratory for bizarre experiments in government. Since 1975 they had been ruled by quixotic Ali Soilih, 41, a bald-headed leftist who seized power shortly after the islands became independent from France. Soilih began his extraordinary career by promising socialist equality to his 300,000 poverty-stricken, racially mixed countrymen. But after deteriorating relations with France resulted in a cutoff of aid and his treasury began to run dry, Soilih tried something different. His new start amounted to government by hallucination...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: COMORO ISLANDS: A Man and His Dog | 8/21/1978 | See Source »

Instead of paying bureaucrats, Soilih sacked them and loaded the civil service with illiterate teenagers. Then he outraged the large Muslim population by ordering women to stop wearing veils and by banning traditional wedding feasts. Last January he directed his loyal youth brigade to kill every dog in the islands. They scoured villages, tied the captive canines to the back of a Land-Rover and dragged them to death through the streets. Many Comorans speculated that Soilih had flipped out and gone psychodogmatic after a fortuneteller warned that he would be overthrown by a man with a mutt...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: COMORO ISLANDS: A Man and His Dog | 8/21/1978 | See Source »

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