Mahmoud Harbi
| Mahmoud Harbi محمود الحربي |
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| Vice President of the Government Council of French Somaliland | |
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In office 1957 – December 1958 |
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| Preceded by | n/a |
| Succeeded by | Hassan Gouled Aptidon |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1921 Ali Sabieh, Djibouti |
| Died | October 1960 |
| Political party | Republican Union |
| Religion | Islam |
Mahmoud Harbi Farah (Arabic: محمود الحربي) (1921 – October 1960) was a Somali politician. A pan-Somalist, he was the Vice President of the Government Council of French Somaliland from 1957 to December 1958, during Djibouti's pre-independence period.
Harbi was born in Ali Sabieh, Djibouti in 1921 to a Somali family from the Fourlaba sub-clan of the Issa clan. He learned to read the Koran and linguistics Arab from a young age, and when he was seventeen his father died in 1938. He was forced to work and headed towards the capital Djibouti and worked there as a waiter in one of the restaurants and while he became aware of visitors to the restaurant, most of whom were foreign tourists and benefited from cultural differences. He volunteer, sailor in the French Navy with the brother of the Sultan of Tadjoura, Ibrahim Mohamed in the Second World War. He nearly lost his life when the French warship crashed, which was being served where the Germans in the Mediterranean Sea, but he went to France. He later joined the colonial army, and was awarded the French Croix de guerre in World War II.
When he returned to Djibouti in 1946, and began his career working in the port of Djibouti, and then became president of the Union of Somali workers, and in 1947 founded the Democratic Union Party, which branched off from the union, he was able in his youth that dominates the political scene for a decade. He increased his circle of friends in the Middle East through gifts such as the lions he gave to the Imam of Yemen and the King of Saudi Arabia who in return (as is customary) backed him with funds. Harbi's main political rival was Hassan Gouled Aptidon, who in the mid-1950s allegedly expressed a desire to see all foreigners expelled from Djibouti. Harbi capitalized on the blunder by coming to the defense of the foreign communities. As a consequence, he gained the material support of the resident Arabs in general and of Ali Coubeche in particular, son of one of the territory's wealthier merchants. Harbi would later appoint Coubeche as Finance Minister in his Cabinet.
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