Hiiraan Online

By Dr. Mahamud M. Yahya
Wednesday, June 23, 2010

          I.      Introduction

Somali President (1969-1990), the Late Gen. Mohamed Said Barre

Last October marked the 40^th Anniversary of the military coup d’etat that brought the former ruler of the Somali Republic, the late Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre, to power in 1969. Because of the enormous importance of that event which still resonates in our unlucky country, and because of its very serious impact which led to the catastrophic quagmire we are in today, I have decided to make a few remarks on it. In less than ten days, another important occasion, i.e., the 50^th Anniversary of the independence and unification of the Somali nation will dawn on us. But that could be the occasion for another article from my part. [1]    

       On the occasion of the 40^th Anniversary of Siad Barre’s overthrow of the country’s democratically elected government, the newly established Voice of America Somali Service radio (VOA-Somali) organized a 4-part program last October. The idea behind airing this program was very good, but I was disappointed by the way it was handled. Why? Because VOA-Somali gave the greater part of the platform to the close associates of Siad Barre: men like Ahmed Suleiman Abdalla “Dafle”, the head of the notorious secret police or National Security Service, NSS (and Barre’s son-in-law), Mohamed Ali Samantar, his Vice President, and Abdi Warsame Isaq, his loyal assistant. These three men and others praised the dictator a great deal and painted an extremely exaggerated picture about the good modus operandi and the achievements of Siad Barre’s dictatorial regime (or kacaan, a revolutionary regime in Somali). This is quite natural because when you ask somebody to talk about his deceased father-in-law or boss, what do you expect him to do? He will naturally praise him to the extreme, wouldn’t he? VOA-Somali should have instead given a bigger share of the interviews to well-informed, neutral observers of Somalia’s political scene.

II.                Misinformation by Siad Barre’s Cronies

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During the airing of the above-mentioned program, Siad Barre’s former right hand men gave several pieces of false information, the most important of which could be summarized as follows. Firstly, contrary to what Ahmed Suleiman asserted, nobody knew who was in charge of the takeover during the first 3 or 4 days after the coup. (It came hot on the heels of the assassination of Somalia’s then President, Dott. Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, a few days earlier. Was his murder a preparation for the coming coup? No definitive answer, yes or no, is available to-date.) The new regime did not in fact announce the specific reasons for the takeover or its policy, both internally and externally, for several days. According to Col. Jama Ali Jama, who led the small army contingent that seized the government-owned and the only radio station in the country at the time, “Radio Mogadishu”, at the outset of the coup (i.e., on Oct. 21, 1969), reported that, as they were not given specific instructions by the leaders of the coup as to what to announce to the public, Mr. Jama had to improvise and talk about the policies of the new regime in general terms.[2] This is an important point because, as Mr. Jama and several other reliable sources had confirmed over the years, Siad Barre wasn’t sure whether the coup would succeed. As such, he wanted initially to remain behind the scene so that if the coup fails, the small group of young military officers who were supporting him will assume responsibility and he will be scot-free. On the other hand, if the takeover succeeds, he will gain all the credit for it and he will be the next ruler of the country. Siad Barre’s doubt about the success or otherwise of the coup, or “bloodless revolution” as he called it later, was confirmed by America’s powerful intelligence service, the CIA, which said in a report it filed on the day of the coup from its office in Mogadishu: “Somalia’s nomadic tribes are heavily armed and could resist army authority. Moreover, the army is tribally divided and could itself be hard put to maintain its unity should serious tribal disorders develop.” [3] Nevertheless, Siad Barre was lucky and succeeded in grapping power easily because, apparently, the country was ready for a drastic change and because, unlike today, military takeovers (or revolutions, mostly socialist/communist in their orientation) were then very common and accepted in the newly liberated African continent. Or as the Somali proverb which was quoted by the above-cited CIA report says: “A force of cavalry will always find unguarded camels.”   

Secondly, both Ahmed Suleiman and Mohamed A. Samantar disingenuously asserted that after the 1977-78 debacle of the war with Ethiopia, and the humiliating defeat suffered by the Somali army, Siad Barre had indicated his willingness to step down and relinquish power. However, the majority of the experts on Somali affairs – both national and foreign – unanimously agree that Siad Barre was a real dictator who loved absolute power and would never leave the throne – unless forced to do so. (And even if he indicated to his cohorts that he was ready to step down, his intention was – most probably – to know who was really loyal to him and who was not; and then punish the culprit severely). People who knew Siad Barre well report that he wanted to remain the President of “Democratic Socialist Republic of Somalia” forever or to pass on the throne to one of his sons or his cousin (half brother?) Abdirahman Jama Barre, who had been the Foreign Minister of his regime for a long time. That is why, after Siad Barre’s 1986 serious car accident which left him mentally incapacitated – according to some reliable sources – one of his sons, Ayaanle, became totally in charge of the Presidency and remained in that powerful position till the day the regime finally collapsed on Jan. 27, 1991. On the other hand, like most African dictators, Siad Barre never wanted to relinquish power even if that led to the total destruction of the Somali state – that is, unless he was its undisputed ruler. Thus, he was reported to have said in the last days of his regime: “When I leave Somalia, I will leave behind buildings but not people”.[4]  But when he did leave, neither people nor buildings were unfortunately spared! In this connection, it is an open secret that during its dying hours, his regime strongly worked for hastening the destruction of the state by instructing some of its agents/soldiers to murder people from the “other tribes” in Mogadishu and its surroundings – thus deliberately fanning the flames of the civil war that was beginning to take hold in the late 1980s.        

III.   The Record of Siad Barre’s Regime

Siad Barre’s despotic regime was initially very popular. The day it came to power, I still remember very vividly, many of us – the young generation of that time – staging big demonstrations on the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, in celebration of the downfall of the preceding corrupt, inefficient and polarized civilian government. We were sick and tired of that inept administration and believed – wrongly now with the benefit of hindsight which is always perfect – that any other regime would be much better than this incompetent civilian regime, though democratically and legitimately elected. Incidentally, it is reported that the then Somalia’s Prime Minister, the late Mr. Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, knew that Gen. Siad Barre was clandestinely hatching a plot to overthrow the government. That is why Egal tried to get rid of him by sending Barre to a military training in the ex-Soviet Union for several years, but President Sharmarke rejected it (perhaps for tribal solidarity with Barre). It was ultimately Mr. Ali Garaad Jama, a former minister in the previous civilian governments, who convinced Egal to leave Barre alone. I was told that before their last meeting on this issue, Ali Garaad asked Egal “Maxaad ninkaan ka rabtaa?” (Why are you always after this man?” Egal is said to have paused for a moment and then replied “Soomaali baaba’eeda ayaa la iga tusay” (I saw through him the demise of the Somali people). And loo and behold, that is exactly what happened around 20 years later. Had Premier Egal stuck to his gun and removed Siad Barre from the command of Somalia’s Army (Xoogga Dalka), the country’s situation would have been much different today – and perhaps to the better! (After coming to power, Barre did get rid of Egal himself by first appointing him as ambassador to India and then imprisoning him for years, without any charge, in a solitary cell at the notorious political prison at Labaatan Jirow, near the city of Baida, southern Somalia).  

During the first four or five years of its existence, Siad Barre’s government made some significant achievements in terms of the socio-economic development of the country. His military and very oppressive regime had made some major contributions in this regard, foremost among them being the introduction of a written Somali language for the first time in our history – something that led to the improvement of Somalia’s education system and the reduction of illiteracy rates among its people. Another big contribution that was made during his reign was the enhancement of the country’s basic infrastructure, which resulted in the construction of an elaborate network of paved roads that connected the southern regions of the country with cities and towns thousands of kilometers away in places like Borama and Bossaso cities in the far northern regions. The regime also initiated some important agricultural projects, such as Libsoma and a huge irrigation project in the Bay/Bakol area. Besides, some efforts were exerted, albeit without much success, for creating several industrial establishments in the country.   

However, the regime soon revealed its true military, dictatorial nature and started oppressing its critics, particularly Muslim clerics and scholars. In 1975 about 10 sheikhs/clerics (mostly young men) were executed simply because they said the new Family Law (Xeerka Qoyska), which decreed the equality of boys and girls in sharing their inheritances from their parents, and which the socialist regime had earlier promulgated, was not in conformity with the real teachings of the noble Islamic religion.[5] Many other prominent Somalis, namely, ex-ministers, politicians, civil servants and high ranking army and police officers, were also imprisoned for years, mostly in solitary confinement, simply because they commented honestly on the new regime’s policies or were accused of being “kacaan-deed” (anti-revolutionary) or were simply disliked by Siad Barre himself. Furthermore, starting from the late 1970s, the regime began meting out collective punishments to the clans to which some of its opponents or critics belonged. That led eventually to the formation of organized, armed factions like the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), the Somali National Movement (SNM), etc., who were initially based in neighboring Ethiopia and contributed significantly to the ultimate collapse of Siad Barre’s regime. The advent of these armed opposition groups, mostly organized and run on clannish basis, was what eventually led to the toppling of his regime and the break of the very pernicious civil war. The CIA was right when it predicted this and stated in the above-mentioned report: “The emergence of tribal tension, ever present in Somalia, coupled with political upheavals of recent days could usher in a period of serious unrest.”       

Starting from the very tragic, unjust episode of killing the innocent clerics as indicated earlier, Siad Barre’s totalitarian rule – with its inhumane, draconian measures – lost the support and confidence of the majority of the Somali people. Consequently, the hated regime attempted to restore some of the lost popularity by rushing to the disastrous 1977-78 war with neighboring Ethiopia, which ended in a humiliating defeat for the Siad Barre’s administration and the decimation of approximately one-third of Somalia’s army, according to some credible reports. This was caused by the arrival of a huge number of soldiers and armaments that came pouring from the ex-USSR all the way to Cuba in order to rescue the equally brutal but more strategically important communist regime in Ethiopia, the Dergue.[6] Even some brotherly Arab countries, like Libya and ex-Southern Yemen sided with Ethiopia and supported it both morally and materially. It was also reported that Sudan’s President of the time, Gen. Ja’far Numeiri, had sent an urgent message to Siad Barre, asking him not to go to this war because he would definitely lose it; but true to his autocratic nature, Siad Barre did not heed that sincere advice. From that moment onwards, Barre’s reviled regime began spiraling into a bottomless abyss.   

In the view of many experts on Somali affairs, it was the tyrannical communist regime of Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre that was the real culprit for the subsequent onslaught of a very devastating civil and the total destruction of the Somali state together with all its governmental institutions. And despite the above-cited important contributions, the fact remains that when Siad Barre came into power through an illegitimate military coup d’etat in Oct. 1969, the Somali Republic had a democratic, stable and functioning government – although it was not a perfect one. By the time his regime disgracefully collapsed in January 1991, the nation-state was completely shattered and the country was engulfed in a very destructive civil strife. Nonetheless, the unscrupulous, unpatriotic and very greedy warlords and the very radical Muslim extremists who followed him were even much worse than him in many aspects.

            IV.       The Regime’s Faulty ideology            

The biggest mistake, or rather crime, which that despotic military regime had committed was to have tried to run a tribal society that is still passing at the pre-industrial stage through the newest politico-economic system of the world, or what they used to call “Haniwadaagga Cilmiga ku Dhisan” (or Scientific Socialism), i.e., Communism. Perhaps a more moderate, non-atheist, Arab-style socialism would have been more suitable for the country. During the first phase of its existence, the regime allied itself with the communist block, i.e., the ex-USSR, but later shifted to the Western camp after the aforementioned terrible military defeat. Another shortcoming of the Barre regime was that, although initially it proclaimed to be waging a relentless war against tribalism and corruption – and at one point President Siad Barre himself had organized a symbolic ceremony for publicly burying tribalism – his regime later became very clannish and corrupt in its dealings whereby people from his own clan, or those absolutely loyal to him, were often given the highest and most important positions in the army, police, civil service and overseas diplomatic corps – sometimes to people who were poorly educated  or semi-illiterate Again, in the last 10 years of its existence, the regime became very much obsessed with security/survival and totally neglected the economy and finances of the country until, at the end, the government became bankrupt and the state then collapsed.

Now almost 20 years after the demise of Siad Barre’s very totalitarian regime, and the start of the very catastrophic civil war, Somalia has made a complete U-turn. This is so because an equally autocratic regime, an extremist religious and self-appointed outfit wants to impose a Wahhabi-inspired or Taliban-style government on Somalia – something that is totally alien to Somalis, their culture, history and their moderate version of Islamic religion. Hence, we would be repeating the dire consequences of the previous authoritarian, communist regime, if we are not very careful.

V.        Concluding Remarks

When Siad Barre’s regime came to power through an illegitimate military coup more than 40 years ago, most Somalis were content with the change because they were fed up with the preceding inefficient and corrupt civilian administration. During its reign the new autocratic regime made some significant contributions, foremost among them being the introduction of a written script for the Somali language for the first time in the history of our nation. However, it also introduced a politico-economic system totally alien to the Somali people, their noble religion and culture, namely, “Hantiwadaagga Cilmiga ku Dhisan” or “Scientific Socialism” (i.e., Communism). And the true dictatorial nature of the regime soon came out of the closet in the mid-1970s. As is expected in a Somali nomadic political setting, the regime then shifted to the clannish approach in order to remain in power indefinitely. This forced other clan groupings to set up their own armed factions – with the help of Ethiopia - to fight the authoritarian regime which had been meting out collective punishments to their aggrieved clans. This ushered in the onslaught of a very devastating civil strife that has been raging in the past 20 years or so. Put differently, Siad Barre’s tyrannical regime could be regarded as the main culprit in fanning the flames of this tragic fratricidal war. But the very cruel, greedy and unscrupulous warlords, together with the equally despicable religious extremists, like Al-Shabaab (a.k.a. Al-Shayadin or the Devils) and Hizbul Islam - some of them being branded as international terrorists by the West - are even worse than the tyrannical Siad Barre regime in many aspects. Nevertheless, if Somalia puts its act together; if it gets a patriotic, honest and competent leadership; and if we draw good lessons from the blunders of Barre’s repressive regime, our beloved Somalia could finally come out of the woods -- and we could, thus, enjoy peace, stability, democracy, economic development and the rule of law once again. 

Mahamud M. Yahya, PhD
e-mail: [email protected]

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