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Somalia British Military Administration
Following Italy's defeat, the British established military
administrations in what had been British Somaliland, Italian
Somaliland, and Ethiopian Somaliland. Thus, all Somali-inhabited
territories--with the exception of French Somaliland and Kenya's
Northern Frontier District (NFD)--were for the second time
brought under a single tenure. No integrated administrative
structure for the Somali areas was established, however, and
under intense pressure from Haile Selassie, Britain agreed to
return the Ogaden to Ethiopian jurisdiction. A military governor,
aided by a handful of military officers, took over the work of
the colonial civil service. In what had been Italian Somaliland,
a similar military administration, headed by a military
commander, was established.
The principal concern of the British administration during
World War II and subsequently was to reestablish order.
Accordingly, the Somaliland Camel Corps (local levies raised
during the dervish disturbances) was reorganized and later
disbanded. This effort resulted in the creation of five
battalions known as the Somaliland Scouts, (Ilalos), which
absorbed former irregular units
(see The Warrior Tradition and Development of a Modern Army
, ch. 5). The British disbanded the
Italian security units in the south and raised a new army, the
Somalia Gendarmerie, commanded by British officers, to police the
occupied territory.
Originally, many of the rank and file of the gendarmerie were
askaris from Kenya and Uganda who had served under British
officers. The gendarmerie was gradually transformed into an
indigenous force through the infusion of local recruits who were
trained in a new police academy created by the British military
administration. Somalia was full of Italian military stragglers,
so the security services of the northern and southern
protectorates collaborated in rounding them up. The greater
security challenge for the British during World War II and
immediately after was to disarm the Somalis who had taken
advantage of the windfall in arms brought about by the war. Also,
Ethiopia had organized Somali bandits to infest the British side
so as to discourage continued British occupation of the Ogaden.
Ethiopia also armed clan militias and encouraged them to cross
into the British zone and cause bloodshed.
Despite its distracting security problems, the British
military forces that administered the two Somali protectorates
from 1941 to 1949 effected greater social and political changes
than had their predecessors. Britain's wartime requirement that
the protectorate be self-supporting was modified after 1945, and
the appropriation of new funds for the north created a burst of
development. To signal the start of a new policy of increased
attention to control of the interior, the capital was transferred
from Berbera, a hot coastal town, to Hargeysa, whose location on
the inland plateau offered the incidental benefit of a more
hospitable climate. Although the civil service remained
inadequate to staff the expanding administration, efforts were
made to establish health and veterinary services, to improve
agriculture in the Gabiley-Boorama agricultural corridor
northwest of Hargeysa, to increase the water supply to
pastoralists by digging more bore wells, and to introduce secular
elementary schools where previously only Quranic schools had
existed. The judiciary was reorganized as a dual court system
combining elements from the Somali heer (traditional
jurisprudence), Islamic sharia or religious law, and British
common law.
In Italian Somaliland, the British improved working
conditions for Somali agricultural laborers, doubled the size of
the elementary school system, and allowed Somalis to staff the
lower stratum of the civil service and gendarmerie. Additionally,
military administrators opened the political process for Somalis,
replacing Italian-appointed chiefs with clan-elected bodies, as
well as district and regional councils whose purpose was to
advise the military administration.
Military officials could not govern without the Italian
civilians who constituted the experienced civil service. The
British military also recognized that Italian technocrats would
be needed to keep the economy going. Only Italians deemed to be
security risks were interned or excluded from the new system. In
early 1943, Italians were permitted to organize political
associations. A host of Italian organizations of varying
ideologies sprang up to challenge British rule, to compete
politically with Somalis and Arabs (the latter being politically
significant only in the urban areas, particularly the towns of
Mogadishu, Merca, and Baraawe), and to agitate, sometimes
violently, for the return of the colony to Italian rule. Faced
with growing Italian political pressure, inimical to continued
British tenure and to Somali aspirations for independence, the
Somalis and the British came to see each other as allies. The
situation prompted British colonial officials to encourage the
Somalis to organize politically; the result was the first modern
Somali political party, the Somali Youth Club (SYC), established
in Mogadishu in 1943.
To empower the new party, the British allowed the better
educated police and civil servants to join it, thus relaxing
Britain's traditional policy of separating the civil service from
leadership, if not membership, in political parties. The SYC
expanded rapidly and boasted 25,000 card-carrying members by
1946. In 1947 it renamed itself the Somali Youth League (SYL) and
began to open offices not only in the two British-run Somalilands
but also in Ethiopia's Ogaden and in the NFD of Kenya. The SYL's
stated objectives were to unify all Somali territories, including
the NFD and the Ogaden; to create opportunities for universal
modern education; to develop the Somali language by a standard
national orthography; to safeguard Somali interests; and to
oppose the restoration of Italian rule. SYL policy banned
clannishness so that the thirteen founding members, although
representing four of Somalia's six major clans, refused to
disclose their ethnic identities. A second political body sprang
up, originally calling itself the Patriotic Benefit Union but
later renaming itself the Hisbia Digil Mirifle (HDM),
representing the two interriverine clans of Digil and Mirifle.
The HDM allegedly cooperated with the Italians and accepted
significant Italian financial backing in its struggle against the
SYL. Although the SYL enjoyed considerable popular support from
northerners, the principal parties in British Somaliland were the
Somali National League (SNL), mainly associated with the Isaaq
clan-family, and the United Somali Party (USP), which had the
support of the Dir (Gadabursi and Issa) and Daarood (Dulbahante
and Warsangali) clan-families.
Although southern Somalia legally was an Italian colony, in
1945 the Potsdam Conference decided not to return to Italy the
African territory it had seized during the war. The disposition
of Somalia therefore fell to the Allied Council of Foreign
Ministers, which assigned a four-power commission consisting of
Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States to
decide Somalia's future. The British suggested that all the
Somalis should be placed under a single administration,
preferably British, but the other powers accused Britain of
imperial machinations.
In January 1948, commission representatives arrived in
Mogadishu to learn the aspirations of the Somalis. The SYL
requested and obtained permission from the military
administration to organize a massive demonstration to show the
commission delegates the strength of popular demand for
independence. When the SYL held its rally, a counter
demonstration led by Italian elements came out to voice pro-
Italian sentiment and to attempt to discredit the SYL before the
commission. A riot erupted in which fifty-one Italians and
twenty-four Somalis were killed. Despite the confusion, the
commission proceeded with its hearings and seemed favorably
impressed by the proposal the SYL presented: to reunite all
Somalis and to place Somalia under a ten-year trusteeship
overseen by an international body that would lead the country to
independence. The commission heard two other plans. One was
offered by the HDM, which departed from its pro-Italian stance to
present an agenda similar to that of the SYL, but which included
a request that the trusteeship period last thirty years. The
other was put forward by a combination of Italian and Somali
groups petitioning for the return of Italian rule.
The commission recommended a plan similar to that of the SYL,
but the Allied Council of Foreign Ministers, under the influence
of conflicting diplomatic interests, failed to reach consensus on
the way to guide the country to independence. France favored the
colony's return to Italy; Britain favored a formula much like
that of the SYL, but the British plan was thwarted by the United
States and the Soviet Union, which accused Britain of seeking
imperial gains at the expense of Ethiopian and Italian interests.
Britain was unwilling to quarrel with its erstwhile allies over
Somali well-being and the SYL plan was withdrawn. Meanwhile,
Ethiopia strongly pressured Britain through the United States,
which was anxious to accommodate Emperor Haile Selassie in return
for his promise to offer the United States a military base in
Ethiopia. For its part, the Soviet Union preferred to reinstate
Italian tenure, mainly because of the growing communist influence
on Italian domestic politics.
Under United States and Soviet prodding, Britain returned the
Ogaden to Ethiopia in 1948 over massive Somali protests. The
action shattered Somali nationalist aspirations for Greater
Somalia, but the shock was softened by the payment of
considerable war reparations--or "bribes," as the Somalis
characterized them--to Ogaden clan chiefs. In 1949 many grazing
areas in the hinterlands also were returned to Ethiopia, but
Britain gained Ethiopian permission to station British liaison
officers in the Reserved Areas, areas frequented by British-
protected Somali clans. The liaison officers moved about with the
British-protected clans that frequented the Haud pasturelands for
six months of the year. The liaison officers protected the
pastoralists from Ethiopian "tax collectors"--armed bands that
Ethiopia frequently sent to the Ogaden, both to demonstrate its
sovereignty and to defray administrative costs by seizing Somali
livestock.
Meanwhile, because of disagreements among commission members over the disposition
of Somalia, the Allied Council of Foreign Ministers referred the matter to the
United Nations (UN) General Assembly. In November 1949, the General Assembly
voted to make southern Somalia a trust territory to be placed under Italian
control for ten years, following which it would become independent. The General
Assembly stipulated that under no circumstance should Italian rule over the
colony extend beyond 1960. The General Assembly seems to have been persuaded
by the argument that Italy, because of its experience and economic interests,
was best suited to administer southern Somalia. Thus, the SYL's vehement opposition
to the reimposition of Italian rule fell on deaf ears at the UN.
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