Siad Barre
Mohammed Siad Barre was a Somali military officer, politician, and revolutionary who served as the third president of Somalia from 21 October 1969 to 26 January 1991.
Barre, the commander of the Somali National Army, became president of Somalia after the 1969 coup d'état that overthrew the Somali Republic following the assassination of President Abdirashid Shermarke. The Supreme Revolutionary Council military junta under Barre reconstituted Somalia as a one-party Marxist–Leninist communist state, renamed the country the Somali Democratic Republic and adopted scientific socialism. Barre spoke three languages, English, Somali and Italian.
Barre's early rule was characterised by attempts at widespread modernization, nationalization of banks and industry, promotion of cooperative farms, a new writing system for the Somali language, and anti-tribalism. In 1976, the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party became the country's vanguard party. The following year Barre launched the Ogaden War against Ethiopia's Derg regime, supporting the Western Somali Liberation Front on a platform of Somali nationalism and pan-Somalism. Barre's popularity was highest during the seven months between September 1977 and March 1978 when Barre captured virtually the entirety of the Somali region. It declined from the late-1970s following Somalia's defeat in the Ogaden War, triggering the Somali Rebellion and severing ties with the Soviet Union. Somalia then allied itself with the Western powers and especially the United States for the remainder of the Cold War, although it maintained its Marxist–Leninist regime and also drew close to China.
Opposition grew in the 1980s due to his increasingly dictatorial rule, growth of tribal politics, abuses of the National Security Service including the Isaaq genocide, and the sharp decline of Somalia's economy. In 1991, Barre's government collapsed as the Somali Rebellion successfully ejected him from power, leading to the Somali Civil War and a massive power vacuum in its wake. Barre was forced into exile in Nigeria, where he died in 1995 on the way to the hospital after suffering a heart attack.
Early years
Mohamed Siad Barre was born at a time when birth records were unknown in Somalia. Speculations have been cast upon his exact birth year ranging from 1909 to 1921; nevertheless, it is generally agreed that he was born to pastoral parents. His unofficial birthplace is said to be in Las Ga'al, which is a district of the El-Gab region, presently known as Shilabo in the Ogaden Region of Ethiopia. His official birthplace is recorded to be the city of Garbahare, which is a part of the provincial capital of the Gedo region of Somalia. Mohammed was born to a Marehan father and Ogaden mother of the greater Darod clan. The colonial powers prevented ethnic Somalis born outside the two protectorates from conscribing into their respective territorial forces. By concealing his unofficial birthplace like many others, it enabled him to be eligible for the Italian colonial police force and military in Somalia.Barre's father and brother died when he was ten years old as a result of a raid by the Habr Yunis in the early 20th century, and this event is posited by some scholars to have deeply affected him.
The Middle East monthly in their March 1991 issue stated:
Barre came from a humble background, deeply rooted in the Marehan sub-clan of the Darod. He had seen his father killed by Isaqs and the impression never left him. His clan straddled the British and Italian segments of Somalia, forming a minority in each. He was worried that the country could split in two and in either case, his clan, as a minority, would be shut out of power. He became an inspector of police and later went to Italy to attend a military academy. On his return, he rose through the ranks quickly to become Commander.
Author Mohamed Diiriye in his book Culture and Customs of Somalia, writes:
Many who knew Barre from his boyhood and during his stint in the colonial police under the Italians were not that surprised. Barre was not a normal person; he was a psychopath whose mercurial spirit vacillated between raving hatred in one moment and words of praise and reconciliation the next moment. He was said to have witnessed the murder of his own father when he was only ten years old during the turbulent year of 1921, when the clan conflicts instigated by Mohamed Abdulle Hassan were raging across the land.. Barre was reportedly forever after deeply marked by the murder of his father. He became sadistic..
In The History of Somalia Raphael Njoku says:
According to his biographers, at the tender age of 10, young Muhammad first witnessed the murder of his own father...The shock and impact of this life experience and the difficult circumstances of life as an orphan put a very deep scar in his psyche. It is from this difficult childhood that Barre developed a complex sense of cunning, sadism, insecurity, and vengeance. These behavioural traits were exacerbated and solidified under the Italian fascist colonial rule.
He was given the childhood nickname Barre, referring to extrovertedness. Barre later on participated as a Zaptié in the southern theatre of the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1936. In 1946, Barre supported the Somali Conference, a political group of parties and clan associations that were hostile to the Somali Youth League and were supported by the local Italian settlers. The group presented a petition to the "Four Powers" Investigation Commission in order to allow that the administration of the United Nations Trust Territory could be entrusted for thirty years to Italy.
Throughout much of his life, Mohammed Siad Barre dedicated himself to both formal and self-taught education whilst gradually advancing his prospective career. Mohammed, as a child and orphan by the age of 10, attended the elementary school in the town of Lugh in the Gedo Region, formally known as the Upper Jubba Region. He acquired the usual grounding in Islam at a qur'anic school there. In 1941, Mohammed, aged twenty, joined the police force which was then under the authority of the British military, who occupied it since the initiation of World War II hostilities. Mohammed's career in the police force led him to the capital city, Mogadishu, to pursue his education both in the public and private sectors. In the 1940s he completed secondary school education. By 1950, when the British transferred their administration to Italy, Mohammed Siad had achieved the highest rank possible for an indigenous, that of chief police inspector.
In 1952, he and several of his colleagues, including Hussein Kulmiye Afrah, Liiq-Liiqato, Shegow and Daud Abdulle, attended military academy in Italy where he chiefly studied politics and administration. Between 1950 and 1960, Mohammed Siad heavily pursued studies in languages, ultimately mastering Italian, English and Swahili. After finishing his course he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant. In 1955, a year after completing his course in Rome he was awarded he position of police chief and subsequently assigned to the capital city, Mogadishu. By 1958 he reached the rank of major whilst being the head of the security forces, including the executive director of the Italian police. He also eventually became vice-commander of the Somali Army when the country gained its independence in 1960 as the Somali Republic.
Seizure of power
In the late 1960s, the only governmental institution that seemed free from the unabated corruption and nepotism was the armed forces. Ninety percent of the pre-independence army were members of the Somali Youth League and Somali National League. During the colonial administration, the Somali police force was the first institution be Somalised and full command was handed over to the indigenous officers several years prior to independence. During the first decade of the Republic of Somalia, armed forces already had a reputation for excellence under the exceptional leadership of Brigadier Generals Barre and Daud Abdulle. A remarkable impact was the successful integration of the former British and Italian-trained units, thereby outpacing the civilian attempts to integrate. Both the police and the military, especially the military, engaged in self-help schemes, something the civilian authorities did not attain. Considerably important was the fact that the armed forces were never detached from the public. Highly imaginative public relations staging of traditional dances and drama, poetry and music competitions, sports activities and so forth, did much to give them positive public image, plus a reputation for dedication. Therefore, the public had an anticipated confidence that they would step in if constitutional processes and public were to break down. This distinguished the Somali army from the majority of the African armies that had become a personal machine available to the power struggles. Another factor that contributed to the detachment of what was raging in the political arena was the national awareness they developed after independence, which was basically the unity of the Somali country as its hinterland. This awareness gained strength by the evident corruption perpetrated by the political class which increased their conviction that they were the only healthy and functioning force in the young Republic.The brief border war against Ethiopia in 1964 was fought under conditions of grave unpreparedness in where the army was cut off from its own lines whilst the government became more and more corrupt, which in turn provided food for resentment and hostility towards the regime that was already incapable as well as impotent and dishonest. The conditions created for a political will to mature and expand were aimed at national renewal that was particularly aware of the sufferings and exploitation of the Somali population.
In 1966, General Siad Barre, then head of the armed forces, gave an interview to the Italian newspaper L'Unità. During his interview, he outlined his dissatisfaction with the current regime shared by the local populace and provided reasons for a new political vision, which had the clear plan of a profound change of course in Somalia that would be automatically linked with the people and their needs. Questioned whether the Armed Forces were ready for a coup d'état, General Siad remarked that the Somali Army considered itself exclusively "In the service of the people, not only for the defense of the frontiers, but to help its political, economic and social progress." He then added, "whoever wants to keep the people in poverty and in ignorance is our enemy," thereby referring to the nepotistic and severely corrupted SYL administration. It can thus be said that the Somali Armed Forces formed its own character until it reached a stage of having a force that had deep-rooted democratic and progressive convictions, which they could step in at any time to provide the necessary change.
Several patriotic intellectuals, who denounced both the civilian regime and the ruling class, made several pleas for an intervention of the Armed Forces. Amongst them was a journalist and a politician, Ismail Jimale, who directed the socialist newspaper La Tribunal. However, Jimale, a vehement critic, gave in when Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal invited him to form part of his cabinet as the minister of information.
On 15 October 1969, President Abdirashid Shermake was assassinated in Las Anod by a policeman whilst touring a drought stricken area of northern Somalia. At the time, Prime Minister Egal was on a state visit to the United States, and was in Las Vegas when the assassination was conveyed to him. Fearing that he would lose his position, he returned to Somalia to nominate a new successor. Several members of the parliament recommended that a candidate belonging to the same sub-clan as the assassinated president should inherit the post. It was suggested that Haji Muse Bogor, a Mogadishu businessman and close relative of the assassinated president, be elected, methodology that opposed the very constitution of the newly founded state. Others members simply sold their votes to the highest bidder. As a result, a bidding war was initiated where corrupt candidates were bidding on the price of the presidency. Not surprisingly, Haji Muse Bogor was leading the group with a payment of 55,000 Somali shillings. In the eyes of the public, the subsequent days after the assassination of the president displayed total chaos. There were rumours that the military would intervene to put a halt to this apparent degeneration. The majority were hopeful to see these rumours bear fruit, as the support they had for the venal government was diminishing by the hour. In the early hours of 21 October 1969, when the members of the parliament finally decided to present the presidency to the highest bidder, Haji Muse Bogor, military troops aided by armored cars in the major cities of Somalia to occupy key positions. Before the crack of dawn, all the members of parliament, several politicians linked to tribal chiefs or foreign interests were arrested by the police, headed by General Jama Ali Korshel, backed the takeover and somehow played a subordinate role in the coup.
The coup baffled many western observers who ignorantly saw Somalia as a remarkably stable and "democratic country". After all, the Somali armed forces, both in military and police had hardly ever tried to influence the politics of the post-independence governments. Nevertheless, when the military decided to step in, it was a response to the increasingly inept and corrupt regime, which not only aggravated the armed sector but the majority of the Somali population.
Barre re-affirmed the sentiment of the masses when he described the very model of the post-independence regimes were based upon "the long period during which there have been over a hundred parties in Somalia and a parliament of not even two hundred members, served solely to demonstrate in the most convincing of manner that the models of colonial countries transferred to Africa serve only the new-colonial purposes of said countries, and not certainly to develop forms of democracy in keeping with African realities."
On 24 October, in a broadcast speech, General Siad Barre explained the reason behind the take-over.