The Horn of Africa: Critical Analysis of Conflict Management and Strategies for Success in the Horn's Future
Somalia: Siad Barre, Clan Opposition, and the Emergence of Warlords
In complete contrast to Djibouti’s conflict
The Horn of Africa: Critical Analysis of Conflict Management and Strategies for Success in the Horn's Future
Somalia: Siad Barre, Clan Opposition, and the Emergence of Warlords
In complete contrast to Djibouti’s conflict management, Somalia shows little hope for resolution in the near future. In Somalia: A Country Study by Helen Chapin Metz, instability and conflict arose almost immediately following Somalia’s independence in 1960. Somalia’s second president was assassinated in 1969, and during the power vacuum that followed, the military staged a coup. Siad Barre was installed as the president of Somalia’s new government, the Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC), which arrested members of the former government and banned all political parties. The National Assembly was also abolished, and the constitution suspended (1992 p. 2).
Barre attempted to promote a stronger sense of nationalism by minimizing the importance of clan affiliation within government and civil society. If successful, he might have negated the ability of clans and sub-clans to undermine the rule of central government, but he succeeded only in instigating fierce opposition with various clan-based rebel groups. In an effort to quell opposition, Barre engaged in oppressive dictatorial rule, characterized by persecution, jailing and torture of political opponents and dissidents.
The United Nations Development Program described "the 21-year regime of Siad Barre [as] one of the worst human rights records in Africa," (2001 p. 42). The Africa Watch Committee agreed, submitting, "both the urban population and nomads living in the countryside [were] subjected to summary killings, arbitrary arrest, detention in squalid conditions, torture, rape, crippling constraints on freedom of movement and expression and a pattern of psychological intimidation" (1990 p. 9).
In an effort to incorporate various territories inhabited by Somalis into a Greater Somalia, Barre sent the Somali national army into the Ogaden in 1977. War subsequently broke out in the region, and the Somalis were initially successful, capturing much of the territory. When the Soviet Union shifted its support to Ethiopia and halted its supplies to Barre’s regime, the invasion abruptly ended and the Somali troops were forced out of the Ogaden by 1978. Following this event, Barre tore up his treaty with the Soviets and welcomed United States military and economic aid. This action ensured that his offensives would be adequately armed, and additionally facilitated the alliance swapping that occurred between Ethiopia, Somalia and the Cold War superpowers.
Barre never gained control of the Ogaden, and in the early 1990s, his brutal dictatorship was overthrown. Warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and his rebel group, the United Somali Congress, invaded the country’s capital and fought government forces. Aidid ousted Barre in January 1991, and later declared himself President of Somalia in June 1995. Aidid’s government was not internationally recognized and his leadership was fiercely contested, particularly by Ali Mahdi Muhammad. H
owever, Aidid and Mahdi were not the only figures vying for power. With an absence of established government, a power vacuum emerged and all political and military leaders from Barre’s fallen regime took up arms, made available through the millions of dollars worth of weaponry provided by the Soviet Union and United States.
Militias sprouted under the leadership of members of Barre’s fallen regime as well as that of the various clans. Clans had been a target of Barre’s regime; when the clans had a common enemy, they worked commonly. With that enemy fallen, their ideals began to clash, and each clan hungered to establish itself superior over the others.
Warlords emerged from the ranks of the former military and also through the endorsement of clan elders and sub-clan leaders. The number of warlords is as numerous as the various freedom movements they lead: Botan Ise Alin and the Somali Transitional Government, Osman Hassan Ali Atto and the Somali National Alliance, Mohamed Omar Habeb and the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council, Hussein Mohamed Farrah, former U.S. Marine and replacement for father Aidid as president, Omar Muhamoud Finnish and Muse Sudi Yalahow of the joined United Somali Congress/Somali Salvation Alliance, Abdi Hasan Awale and the Somali National Alliance, Aaden Saransoor Rahanweyn and the Resistance Army, just to name a few.
Internal conflict in Somalia follows a similar pattern to its conflict with Ethiopia; there is no clear stalemate in the region, no representative that conflicting parties consider valid. Power-sharing has been unsuccessful and anarchy threatens to tear the nation apart. The social fabric of Somalia has been so fractured by the various clan alliances, public support, and secret international interests in different liberation groups and ideological organizations that no single entity has emerged as the predominant power in Somalia