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Somalia SOMALIA'S DIFFICULT DECADE, 1980-90
Entrenching Siad Barre's Personal Rule
The Ogaden War of 1977-78 between Somalia and Ethiopia and
the consequent refugee influx forced Somalia to depend for its
economic survival on humanitarian handouts
(see The Ogaden War: Performance and Implications of Defeat
, ch. 5). Domestically, the
lost war produced a national mood of depression. Organized
opposition groups began to emerge, and in dealing with them Siad
Barre intensified his political repression, using jailings,
torture, and summary executions of dissidents and collective
punishment of clans thought to have engaged in organized
resistance.
Siad Barre's new Western friends, especially the United
States, which had replaced the Soviet Union as the main user of
the naval facilities at Berbera, turned out to be reluctant
allies. Although prepared to help the Siad Barre regime
economically through direct grants,
World Bank (see Glossary)-sponsored loans, and
relaxed International Monetary Fund
(
IMF--see Glossary) regulations, the United States hesitated to offer
Somalia more military aid than was essential to maintain internal
security. The amount of United States military and economic aid
to the regime was US$34 million in 1984; by 1987 this amount had
dwindled to about US$8.7 million, a fraction of the regime's
requested allocation of US$47 million
(see Foreign Military Assistance
, ch. 5). Western countries were also
pressuring the
regime to liberalize economic and political life and to renounce
historical Somali claims on territory in Kenya and Ethiopia. In
response, Siad Barre held parliamentary elections in December
1979. A "people's parliament" was elected, all of whose members
belonged to the government party, the SRSP. Following the
elections, Siad Barre again reshuffled the cabinet, abolishing
the positions of his three vice presidents. This action was
followed by another reshuffling in October 1980 in which the old
Supreme Revolutionary Council was revived. The move resulted in
three parallel and overlapping bureaucratic structures within one
administration: the party's politburo, which exercised executive
powers through its Central Committee, the Council of Minsters,
and the SRC. The resulting confusion of functions within the
administration left decision making solely in Siad Barre's hands.
In February 1982, Siad Barre visited the United States. He
had responded to growing domestic criticism by releasing from
detention two leading political prisoners of conscience, former
premier Igaal and former police commander Abshir, both of whom
had languished in prison since 1969. On June 7, 1982, apparently
wishing to prove that he alone ruled Somalia, ordered the arrest
of seventeen prominent politicians. This development shook the
"old establishment" because the arrests included Mahammad Aadan
Shaykh, a prominent Mareehaan politician, detained for the second
time; Umar Haaji Masala, chief of staff of the military, also a
Mareehaan; and a former vice president and a former foreign
minister. At the time of detention, one official was a member of
the politburo; the others were members of the Central Committee
of the SRSP. The jailing of these prominent figures created an
atmosphere of fear, and alienated the Isaaq, Majeerteen, and
Hawiye clans, whose disaffection and consequent armed resistance
were to lead to the toppling of the Siad Barre regime.
The regime's insecurity was considerably increased by
repeated forays across the Somali border in the Mudug (central)
and Boorama (northwest) areas by a combination of Somali
dissidents and Ethiopian army units. In mid-July 1982, Somali
dissidents with Ethiopian air support invaded Somalia in the
center, threatening to split the country in two. The invaders
managed to capture the Somali border towns of Balumbale and
Galdogob, northwest of the Mudug regional capital of Galcaio.
Siad Barre's regime declared a state of emergency in the war zone
and appealed for Western aid to help repel the invasion. The
United States government responded by speeding deliveries of
light arms already promised. In addition, the initially pledged
US$45 million in economic and military aid was increased to US$80
million. The new arms were not used to repel the Ethiopians,
however, but to repress Siad Barre's domestic opponents.
Although the Siad Barre regime received some verbal support
at the League of Arab States (Arab League) summit conference in
September 1982, and Somali units participated in war games with
the United States Rapid Deployment Force in Berbera, the
revolutionary government's position continued to erode. In
December 1984, Siad Barre sought to broaden his political base by
amending the constitution. One amendment extended the president's
term from six to seven years. Another amendment stipulated that
the president was to be elected by universal suffrage (Siad Barre
always received 99 percent of the vote in such elections) rather
than by the National Assembly. The assembly rubber-stamped these
amendments, thereby presiding over its own disenfranchisement.
On the diplomatic front, the regime undertook some fence
mending. An accord was signed with Kenya in December 1984 in
which Somalia "permanently" renounced its historical territorial
claims, and relations between the two countries thereafter began
to improve. This diplomatic gain was offset, however, by the
"scandal" of South African foreign minister Roelof "Pik" Botha's
secret visit to Mogadishu the same month, in which South Africa
promised arms to Somalia in return for landing rights for South
African Airways.
Complicating matters for the regime, at the end of 1984 the
Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) (a guerrilla organizaton
based in Ethiopia seeking to free the Ogaden and unite it with
Somalia) announced a temporary halt in military operations
against Ethiopia. This decision was impelled by the drought then
ravaging the Ogaden and by a serious split within the WSLF, a
number of whose leaders claimed that their struggle for selfdetermination had been used by Mogadishu to advance its
expansionist policies. These elements said they now favored
autonomy based on a federal union with Ethiopia. This development
removed Siad Barre's option to foment anti-Ethiopian activity in
the Ogaden in retaliation for Ethiopian aid to domestic opponents
of his regime.
To overcome its diplomatic isolation, Somalia resumed
relations with Libya in April 1985. Recognition had been
withdrawn in 1977 in response to Libyan support of Ethiopia
during the Ogaden War. Also in early 1985 Somalia participated in
a meeting of EEC and UN officials with the foreign ministers of
several northeast African states to discuss regional cooperation
under a planned new authority, the Inter-Governmental Authority
on Drought and Development (IGADD). Formed in January 1986 and
headquartered in Djibouti, IGADD brought together Djibouti,
Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Uganda in addition to Somalia. In
January 1986, under the auspices of IGADD, Siad Barre met
Ethiopian leader Mengistu Haile-Mariam in Djibouti to discuss the
"provisional" administrative line (the undemarcated boundary)
between Ethiopia and Somalia. They agreed to hold further
meetings, which took place on and off throughout 1986-87.
Although Siad Barre and Mengistu agreed to exchange prisoners
taken in the Ogaden War and to cease aiding each other's domestic
opponents, these plans were never implemented. In August 1986,
Somalia held joint military exercises with the United States.
Diplomatic setbacks also occurred in 1986, however. In
September, Somali foreign minister Abdirahmaan Jaama Barre, the
president's brother, accused the Somali Service of the British
Broadcasting Corporation of anti-Somali propaganda. The charge
precipitated a diplomatic rift with Britain. The regime also
entered into a dispute with Amnesty International, which charged
the Somali regime with blatant violations of human rights.
Wholesale human rights violations documented by Amnesty
International, and subsequently by Africa Watch, prompted the
United States Congress by 1987 to make deep cuts in aid to
Somalia
(see Relations with the United States
, ch. 4).
Economically, the regime was repeatedly pressured between
1983 and 1987 by the IMF, the United Nations Development
Programme, and the World Bank to liberalize its economy.
Specifically, Somalia was urged to create a free market system
and to devalue the Somali shilling (for value of the
shilling--see Glossary) so that its official rate would reflect its true
value
(see From Scientific Socialism to "IMF-ism," 1981-90
, ch.
3).
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