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Somalia Opposition Movements
The first clan to feel politically deprived by the military
regime was the Majeerteen, which, like Siad Barre's own Mareehaan
clan, belonged to the Daarood clan-family. The Majeerteen clan,
along with certain clans of the Hawiye and Isaaq clan-families,
had played a significant role in national politics before the
1969 military coup, and individual Majeerteen held important
positions in the bureaucracy and the military. Siad Barre
apparently resented the clan's prominence, and as early as 1970
was singling out the Majeerteen lineages for alleged opposition
to his reform efforts. As a clan, the Majeerteen probably did not
oppose Siad Barre at the outset. However, his insensitive
rhetoric and discriminatory appointment and promotion policies
had the effect, by the mid-1970s, of alienating the heads of the
leading Majeerteen lineages, the very persons whose attitudes
were decisive in determining the clan's political orientation.
Majeerteen officers were the primary organizers of an
unsuccessful coup in April 1978, following the army's humiliating
defeat in the Ogaden War
(see Persecution of the Majeerteen
, ch.
1). An estimated 500 rebel soldiers were killed in fighting with
forces loyal to Siad Barre, and subsequently seventeen officers,
all but one of them Majeerteen, were executed. Several colonels
suspected of plotting the coup escaped capture, however, and fled
abroad;one of then, Yusuf Ahmad, played a major role in forming
the Somali Salvation Front (SSF), the first opposition movement
dedicated to the overthrow of the Siad Barre regime by force (The
SSF became the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) in
October 1981--see
Sources of Opposition
, ch. 5). In 1982 SSDF
guerrillas with Ethiopian army units, occupied areas along the
border, including two district towns, but it was not until 1988
that they began to extend their control over the western
districts of Mudug Region and the southern areas of Nugaal and
Bari regions.
The Isaaq clans of northwestern Somalia also resented what
they perceived as their inadequate representation in Siad Barre's
government. This disaffection crystallized in 1981 when Isaaq
dissidents living in London formed the Somali National Movement
(SNM) with the aim of toppling the Siad Barre regime. The
following year, the SNM transferred its headquarters to Dire
Dawa, Ethiopia, from where it launched guerrilla raids into the
Woqooyi Galbeed and Togdheer regions of Somalia. Like the SSDF,
the SNM had both military and political wings, proclaimed itself
as a nationwide opposition movement, and tried to enlist the
support of non-Isaaq clans. Initially, the SNM was more
successful than the SSDF in appealing to other clans, and some
Hawiye clan leaders worked with the SNM in the early and mid1980s . Prior to establishing itself within Somalia in 1988, the
SNM used its Ethiopian sanctuary to carry out a number of
sensational activities against the Siad Barre regime, most
notably the 1983 attack on Mandera Prison near Berbera, which
resulted in the freeing of several northern dissidents.
Siad Barre's response to the guerrilla movements included
increased repression of suspected political dissent nationwide
and brutal collective punishments in the Majeerteen and Isaaq
regions. These measures only intensified opposition to his regime
(see Oppression of the Isaaq
, ch. 1). Nevertheless, the
opposition failed to unite because Siad Barre's strategy of using
one clan to carry out government reprisals against a disfavored
clan had the effect of intensifying both inter- and intra-clan
antagonisms. For example, Hawiye leaders who had previously
cooperated with the SNM decided in 1989 to form their own clanbased opposition movement, the United Somali Congress (USC)
(see Harrying of the Hawiye
, ch. 1). Also, the Gadabursi and Iise
clans of the Dir clan-family in northwestern Somalia and the
Dulbahante and Warsangali clans of the Daarood clan-family in the
Sanaag and Bari regions grew increasingly resentful of Isaaq
domination of districts "liberated" from government control. In
1990 the north's largest non-Isaaq clan, the Gadabursi, created
its own movement, the Somali Democratic Alliance (SDA).
The divisions within the opposition, however, did not work to
Siad Barre's long-term advantage because he was gradually
alienating an increasing number of the country's clans, including
the very lineages of the Dulbahante and Ogaden clans that had
provided his most loyal support. In particular, the Ogaden clan,
living in both Somalia and Ethiopia and strongly interested in
pan-Somali issues, tended to blame Siad Barre for Somalia's
defeat in the 1977-78 Ogaden War. This suppressed resentment
turned to defiant opposition after Siad Barre decided in 1988 to
conclude a peace agreement with Ethiopia. The deteriorating
relations between Siad Barre and former Ogaden supporters
climaxed in 1990 with a mass desertion of Ogaden officers from
the army. These officers allied with the Somali Patriotic
Movement (SPM), a group that had formed in 1985 as a result of a
split within the SSDF. The greatly enhanced military strength of
the SPM enabled it to capture and hold several government
garrisons in the south.
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