Somalia POLITICAL DYNAMICS
Mogadishu seafront, with city in background
Courtesy R.W.S. Hudson
Chisimayu, one of Somalia's leading ports
Courtesy R.W.S. Hudson
The most significant political consequence of Siad Barre's
twenty-one-year rule was an intensified identification with
parochial clans. By 1992 the multiplicity of political rivalries
among the country's numerous clans seriously jeopardized
Somalia's continued existence as a unified state. There was
considerable irony in this situation because Siad Barre,
following the 1969 military coup that had brought him to power,
had proclaimed his opposition to clan politics and had justified
the banning of political parties on the grounds that they were
merely partisan organizations that impeded national integration.
Nevertheless, from the beginning of his rule Siad Barre favored
the lineages and clans of his own clan-family, the Daarood
(see The Segmentary Social Order
, ch. 2). In particular, he
distributed political offices and the powers and rewards
concomitant with these positions disproportionately to three
clans of the Daarood: his own clan, the Mareehaan; the clan of
his son-in-law, the Dulbahante; and the clan of his mother, the
Ogaden. The exclusion of other clans from important government
posts was a gradual process, but by the late 1970s there was a
growing perception, at least among the political elite, that Siad
Barre was unduly partial toward the three Daarood clans to which
he had family ties.
The forced dissolution of political parties in 1969 and the
continuing prohibition of political activity tended to enhance
the importance of clans because family gatherings remained
virtually the only regular venue where politics could be
discussed freely. The creation in 1976 of the governmentsponsored Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (SRSP) failed to
fill the political vacuum created by the absence of legitimate
parties. Siad Barre and his closest military advisers had formed
the SRSP as the country's sole political organization,
anticipating that it would transcend clan loyalties and mobilize
popular support for government policies. The SRSP's five-member
politburo, which Siad Barre chaired, decided the party's position
on issues. The members of the SRSP, who never numbered more than
20,000, implemented directives from the politburo (via the
central committee) or the government; they did not debate policy.
Because most of the top SRSP leaders by 1980 were of the
Mareehaan, Dulbahante, or Ogaden clans, the party became another
example to disaffected clans of their exclusion from any
meaningful political role.
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