Diallo Telli

Diallo Telli
Representative at the United Nations
In office September 1958 – June 1964
Secretary General of the Organisation of African Unity
In office 21 July 1964 – 15 June 1972
Preceded by	Kifle Wodajo
Succeeded by	Nzo Ekangaki
Ministers of Justice of Guinea
In office 21 August 1972 – 18 July 1976
Preceded by	Sikhé Camara
Succeeded by	Lansana Diané
Personal details
Born	1925
Died	1977 Camp Boiro
Nationality	Guinean

Boubacar Diallo Telli (1925–1977) was a Guinean diplomat and politician. He helped found the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and was the first secretary-general of the OAU between 1964 and 1972. After serving as Minister of Justice in Guinea for four years he was executed by starvation by the regime of Ahmed Sékou Touré at Camp Boiro in 1977.

Diallo Telli was born in 1925 in Porédaka, Guinea. He was of Fulani origin. He studied at École normale supérieure William Ponty. He studied for his baccalauréat at Dakar, and then went to the École Nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer, in Paris, France. In 1951 he received his Licence en Droit, and in 1954 his Doctorate in Law. That year he was appointed Deputy of the Procureur (District Attorney) of the Republic at the Court of Thiès in Senegal. He was then appointed to the court in Cotonou, Benin (then Dahomey). In 1955, he became head of the Office of High Commissioner of French West Africa (AOF) in Dakar, which was the highest position held by an African in the French colonial period. He became Secretary General of the AOF in April 1957 and remained in that post for eighteen months.

After the referendum of 28 September 1958, in which Guinea chose independence from French West Africa, Telli was sent to the United States as Permanent Representative of Guinea at the United Nations. He held that position until June 1964 with a break between June 1960 and March 1961. He was also Ambassador to the United States from April 1959 to June 1961.

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