Ali Matan Hashi
| Ali Matan Hashi علي ماتان حاشي |
|
|---|---|
| Allegiance |
 Somalia
|
| Years of service | 1952-1978 |
| Rank | Brigadier General |
| Unit | Somali Air Force |
| Commands held | Air Force |
| Other work | Minister of Justice Commander of Somali Air Force |
Ali Matan Hashi (Somali: Cali Mataan Xashi, Arabic: علي ماتان حاشي), also known as Ali Matan, was a Somali senior military official and politician. He was the first Somali pilot, and a prominent member of the Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC).
Ali Matan was born in Somalia .
He created the Somali Air Force in 1960, and oversaw the growth of it between 1960 and 1978. A Brigadier General in the army, he held various political and military positions, including Minister of Justice and Commander of the Air Force. He was also one of the closest advisers of the president.
Ali was born in the Hobyo district of Mudug in 1927. At the age of 17, he joined the Signal Corps of the British Occupation Forces in 1944 where he took upon radio engineering. As it was the norm of many Somali activists at that time, he joined the incipient Somali Youth League in 1944 and was the secretary of the young political party at the Sagag (Segeg) village in Dhagabur District. Following the abolition of the Somaliland Signal Corps in 1947, he joined the Post and Telecommunications department in Mogadishu.
Whilst in Mogadishu; he participated in several protests, notably the Hanoolaato anti-colonial uprising in Jan 1948. In 1950, he was imprisoned by the AFIS (Italian Trusteeship Administration) in Adado (Galgaduud) for drawing a painting depicting a Somali nomad carrying a load of 10 full sacks on his shoulders which indicated the 10 years that the country was to remain under the colonial rule. In the early 1950s, he joined the Aeronautic Department where he served as a deputy director. In 1955, after completing his intermediate education, he joined the then Political and Administrative School. In 1956, he left for Italy where he became the first Somali pilot and air traffic controller. A year later, he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant in the pre-independence Somali Air Force (Somali Aeronautical Corps). In 1958, he was nominated as the director of airports in Somalia. Given that there were no other Somali pilots, he strived to convince the colonial administration to send 35 Somali students abroad for pilot and aircraft mechanics training.
...
Wikipedia