Somalia Government and Politics
Statue of Sayyid Mahammad Abdille Hasan, the national hero
of Somalia, in Mogadishu
IN JANUARY 1991, a bloody rebellion that had begun in 1988
finally succeeded in ending the twenty-one-year authoritarian
regime of President Mahammad Siad Barre. The civil war had taken
more than 50,000 civilian lives and had left the capital,
Mogadishu, in shambles. Many other cities and towns also were in
ruins, and hundreds of thousands of Somalis had fled to
neighboring countries as refugees.
Although the major clans had been united in their opposition
to Siad Barre, their leaders had no common political vision of
Somalia's future. Consequently, civil strife continued at a
reduced level after Siad Barre was deposed. The dominant faction
in the north, the Somali National Movement (SNM), refused to
accept the legitimacy of the provisional government established
by the United Somali Congress (USC). Responding to widespread
popular resentment of the central government, in June 1991 the
SNM declared an independent Republic of Somaliland in the region
that had constituted the British Somaliland before independence
and unification with the former colony of Italian Somaliland in
1960.
The legacy Siad Barre left of a country devastated by civil
war and riven by intense clan rivalries contrasted starkly with
the future he had envisaged for Somalia when he took power in a
military coup d'état in October 1969. Siad Barre, at the time a
major general and commander of the army, and his fellow officers
overthrew an elected civilian government that had become widely
perceived as corrupt and incompetent. Siad Barre was determined
to implement policies to benefit the country economically and
socially and to diminish the political influence of the clans.
During his regime's early years, Somalia experienced considerable
economic development and efforts were made to replace clan
loyalty with national pride.
However, Siad Barre proved susceptible to a cult of
personality and over the years grew increasingly intolerant of
criticism. Following his army's disastrous 1978 defeat in
Ethiopia, Siad Barre's rule became more authoritarian and
arbitrary, which only caused opposition to his regime to
increase. Forsaking appeals to nationalism, Siad Barre tried to
maintain control by exploiting historical clan animosities and by
relying more and more on the loyalty of his own family and clan.
By the mid-1980s, the opposition to Siad Barre had developed into
several organized movements determined to overthrow his regime by
force. Angered by what he perceived as local support of the
opposition, particularly in the north, Siad Barre ordered the
machine-gunning of livestock herds and the poisoning of wells in
disaffected rural areas, as well as the indiscriminate bombing of
cities. In the most notorious of these air attacks, the north's
administrative center and largest city, Hargeysa, was virtually
leveled in 1988.
Siad Barre's tactics inflamed popular anger and greatly
strengthened the appeal of the various guerrilla groups.
Nevertheless, the opposition's ultimate triumph caught the rebels
themselves by surprise. Their only common goal, to be rid of Siad
Barre, was achieved by USC forces essentially without assistance
from the other rebel groups. USC fighters had entered Mogadishu
clandestinely at the end of December 1990 to assist clan members
who had formed popular committees of self-defense to protect
themselves from attacks by a rival clan that supported Siad
Barre. The presence of the USC guerrillas prompted the
intervention of the Red Berets (Duub Cas), an elite military unit
whose members acted as bodyguards for Siad Barre, and which was
commanded by Siad Barre's eldest son. The fighting quickly
escalated, forcing the USC to send more of its forces into the
city. The USC guerrillas and the Red Berets battled in the
streets of the capital for four weeks. After the USC defeated
Siad Barre's forces, the other rebel movements declined to
cooperate with it. Each of the several opposition groups drew its
primary support from a particular
clan-family (see Glossary), and
Siad Barre's sudden removal from the political scene opened the
way for traditional clan suspicions to reassert themselves. The
reemergence of clan politics cast doubt on the prospects for
Somalia's stability and unity.
By September 1991, intense rivalry among leaders of the USCdominated interim government had degenerated into street fighting
within the Mogadishu area. Because the different clans resorted
to the use of armed force to buttress their claims for political
power, government and civil society disintegrated, and essential
services such as food distribution collapsed. Nature compounded
the political disaster with a prolonged drought. In 1992 severe
famine affected much of southern Somalia. International relief
agencies mounted a food and medical aid campaign, but an
estimated 80 percent of food shipments were looted by armed
groups affiliated with various clans. The worsening situation
prompted the United Nations (UN) to intervene. On April 22, 1992,
the UN proposed to send a 550-man mission to Somalia; and on
April 24, in UN Resolution 751, the Security Council voted to
send fifty UN observers to monitor the cease-fire in Mogadishu.
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