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Somalia Consolidation of Colonial Rule
The two decades between 1900 and 1920 were a period of
colonial consolidation. However, of the colonial powers that had
divided the Somalis, only Italy developed a comprehensive
administrative plan for its colony. The Italians intended to
plant a colony of settlers and commercial entrepreneurs in the
region between the Shabeelle and Jubba rivers in southern
Somalia. The motivation was threefold: to "relieve population
pressure at home," to offer the "civilizing Roman mission" to the
Somalis, and to increase Italian prestige through overseas
colonization. Initiated by Governor Carletti (1906-10), Italy's
colonial program received further impetus by the introduction of
fascist ideology and economic planning in the 1920s, particularly
during the administration of Governor Cesare Maria de Vecchi de
Val Cismon. Large-scale development projects were launched,
including a system of plantations on which citrus fruits,
primarily bananas, and sugarcane, were grown. Sugarcane fields in
Giohar and numerous banana plantations around the town of
Jannaale on the Shabeelle River, and at the southern mouth of the
Jubba River near Chisimayu, helped transform southern Somalia's
economy.
In contrast to the Italian colony, British Somaliland stayed
a neglected backwater. Daunted by the diversion of substantial
development funds to the suppression of the dervish insurrection
and by the "wild" character of the anarchic Somali pastoralists,
Britain used its colony as little more than a supplier of meat
products to Aden. This policy had a tragic effect on the future
unity and stability of independent Somalia. When the two former
colonies merged to form the Somali Republic in 1960, the north
lagged far behind the south in economic infrastructure and
skilled labor. As a result, southerners gradually came to
dominate the new state's economic and political life--a hegemony
that bred a sense of betrayal and bitterness among northerners.
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