Somalia THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION after 1975
Camels at watering hole near Luuq on the Jubba River;
camels remain a mainstay of tribal herders
Courtesy Hiram A. Ruiz
Water pump directing water into a trough for communal use
Courtesy Hiram A. Ruiz
Popular enthusiasm for the revolution began to dissipate by
the mid-1970s. Many officials had become corrupt, using their
positions for personal gain, and a number of ideologues had been
purged from the administration as potential threats to their
military superiors. Perhaps most important, Siad Barre's regime
was focusing its attention on the political goal of "liberating"
the Ogaden (Ogaadeen) rather than on the economic goal of
socialist transformation. The Somali economy was hurt as much by
these factors and by the economic cost of creating a large modern
army as it was by the concurrent drought. Two economic trends
from this period were noteworthy: increasing debt and the
collapse of the small industrial sector.
During the 1970s, foreign debt increased faster than export
earnings. By the end of the decade, Somalia's debt of 4 billion
shillings (for value of the
shilling--see Glossary) equaled the
earnings from seventy-five years' worth of banana exports (based
on 1978 data). About one-third was owed to centrally planned
economies (mainly the Soviet Union, US$110 million; China,
US$87.2 million; with small sums to Bulgaria and the German
Democratic Republic East Germany). Another one-third of the debt
was owed to countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Finally, one-third was owed to
members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) (principally Saudi Arabia, US$81.9 million; Abu Dhabi,
US$67.0 million; the Arab Fund for Economic and Social
Development, US$34.7 million; Kuwait, US$27.1 million; and
smaller amounts to Iraq, Qatar, the OPEC special account, Libya,
and Algeria, in that order). Many loans, especially from the
Soviet Union, were, in effect, written off. Later, many loan
repayments to OECD states were rescheduled. But thanks to the
accumulated debt burden, by the 1980s the economy could not
attract foreign capital, and virtually all international funds
made available to Somalia in rescheduling agreements came with
the provision that international civil servants would monitor all
expenditures. As a result of its international debt, therefore,
Somalia lost control over its macroeconomic structure.
A second ominous trend in the 1975-81 period was the decline
of the manufacturing sector. Exports of manufactured goods were
negligible when the 1969 coup occurred; by the mid-1970s,
manufactured goods constituted 20 percent of total exports. By
1978, as a consequence of the Ogaden War, such exports were
almost nonexistent. Production likewise suffered. In 1969 Somalia
refined 47,000 tons of sugar; by 1980 the figure was 29,100 tons
(all figures are for fiscal year
(
FY)--see Glossary). In 1975 the
country produced 14.4 million cans of meat and 2,220 tons of
canned fish. In 1979 it produced 1.5 million cans of meat and a
negligible amount of canned fish. Textile output rose over the
period. The only material produced, however, was a coarse fabric
sold to rural people (and worn by the president) at less than
cost. In milk, pasta, packaging materials, cigarettes, and
matches, the trend was downward in the second half of the 1970s.
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