Siad Barre

Mohammed Siad Barre (; ; 6 October 1919 – 2 January 1995) 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 Middle East monthly in their March 1991 issue stated:<blockquote>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.</blockquote>

Author Mohamed Diiriye in his book Culture and Customs of Somalia, writes:

<blockquote> 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..</blockquote>

In The History of Somalia Raphael Njoku says:

<blockquote>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.</blockquote>

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 (Luuq) in the Gedo Region, formally known as the Upper Jubba Region. 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 a 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.

Presidency

thumb|Barre with Romanian president [[Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1976]]

Barre assumed the position of president of Somalia, styled the "Victorious Leader" (Guulwade), and fostered the growth of a personality cult with portraits of him in the company of Marx and Lenin lining the streets on public occasions.

Supreme Revolutionary Council

The Supreme Revolutionary Council established large-scale public works programs and successfully implemented an urban and rural literacy campaign, which helped dramatically increase the literacy rate. Barre began a program of nationalising industry and land, and the new regime's foreign policy placed an emphasis on Somalia's traditional and religious links with the Arab world, eventually joining the Arab League in 1974.

In July 1976, Barre's SRC disbanded itself and established in its place the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (SRSP), a one-party government based on scientific socialism and Islamic tenets. The SRSP was an attempt to reconcile the official state ideology with the official state religion. Emphasis was placed on the Muslim principles of social progress, equality and justice, which the government argued formed the core of scientific socialism and its own accent on self-sufficiency, public participation and popular control, as well as direct ownership of the means of production. While the SRSP encouraged private investment on a limited scale, the administration's overall direction was proclaimed to be Communist.

A new constitution was promulgated in 1979 under which elections for a People's Assembly were held. However, the politburo of Barre's Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party continued to rule. In October 1980, the SRSP was disbanded, and the Supreme Revolutionary Council was re-established in its place.

Foreign relations

thumb|Barre and [[Juliana of the Netherlands|Queen Juliana in 1978]]

Control of Somalia was of great interest to both the Soviet Union and the United States due to the country's strategic location at the mouth of the Red Sea. After the Soviets broke with Somalia in the late 1970s, Barre subsequently expelled all Soviet advisors, tore up his friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, and switched allegiance to the West, announcing this in a televised speech in English. Somalia also broke all ties with the Eastern Bloc and the Second World (except China and Romania). The United States stepped in and until 1989, was a strong supporter of the Barre government for whom it provided approximately US$100 million per year in economic and military aid, meeting in 1982 with Ronald Reagan to announce the new relationship between the US and Somalia.

In September 1972 Tanzanian-sponsored rebels attacked Uganda. Ugandan president Idi Amin requested Barre's assistance, and he subsequently mediated a non-aggression pact between Tanzania and Uganda. For his actions, a road in Kampala was named after Barre.

On 17 and 18 October 1977, a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) group hijacked Lufthansa Flight 181 to Mogadishu, holding 86 hostages. West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Barre negotiated a deal to allow a GSG 9 anti-terrorist unit into Mogadishu to free the hostages.

In January 1986, Barre and the Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam met in Djibouti to normalise relations between their respective countries. By 1988, of a projected had been treated, with 39 range reserve sites and 36 forestry plantation sites established.

Economic policies

As part of Barre's socialist policies, major industries and farms were nationalised, including banks, insurance companies and oil distribution farms. By the mid- to late-1970s, public discontent with the Barre regime was increasing, largely due to corruption among government officials as well as poor economic performance. The Ogaden War had also weakened the Somali army substantially and military spending had crippled the economy. Foreign debt increased faster than export earnings, and by the end of the decade, Somalia's debt of 4 billion shillings equalled the earnings from seventy-five years' worth of banana exports.

Car collision

In May 1986, President Barre suffered serious injuries in a life-threatening automobile collision near Mogadishu, when the car that was transporting him smashed into the back of a bus during a heavy rainstorm. He was treated in a hospital in Saudi Arabia for head injuries, broken ribs and shock over a period of a month. Lieutenant General Mohammad Ali Samatar, then vice-president, subsequently served as de facto head of state for the next several months. Although Barre managed to recover enough to present himself as the sole presidential candidate for re-election over a term of seven years on 23 December 1986, his poor health and advanced age led to speculation about who would succeed him in power. Possible contenders included his son-in-law General Ahmed Suleiman Abdille, who was at the time the Minister of the Interior, in addition to Barre's vice-president Lt. Gen. Samatar. In January 1990, the Africa Watch Committee, a branch of Human Rights Watch organizational released an extensive report titled "Somalia A Government At War with Its Own People" composing of 268 pages, the report highlights the widespread violations of basic human rights in the northern regions of Somalia. The report includes testimonies about the killing and conflict in northern Somalia by newly arrived refugees in various countries around the world. Systematic human rights abuses against the dominant Isaaq clan in the north was described in the report as "state sponsored terrorism" "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. The report estimates that 50,000 to 60,000 people were killed from 1988 to 1989." Amnesty International went on to report that torture methods committed by Barre's National Security Service (NSS) included executions and "beatings while tied in a contorted position, electric shocks, rape of woman prisoners, simulated executions and death threats."

In September 1970, the government introduced the National Security Law No. 54, which granted the NSS the power to arrest and detain indefinitely those who expressed critical views of the government, without ever being brought to trial. It further gave the NSS the power to arrest without a warrant anyone suspected of a crime involving "national security". Article 1 of the law prohibited "acts against the independence, unity or security of the State", and capital punishment was mandatory for anyone convicted of such acts.

From the late 1970s, and onwards Barre faced a shrinking popularity and increased domestic resistance. In response, Barre's elite unit, the Red Berets (Duub Cas), and the paramilitary unit called the Victory Pioneers carried out systematic terror against the Majeerteen, Hawiye, and Isaaq clans. The Red Berets systematically smashed water reservoirs to deny water to the Majeerteen and Isaaq clans and their herds. More than 2,000 members of the Majeerteen clan died of thirst, and an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 Isaaq were killed by the government. Members of the Victory Pioneers also raped large numbers of Majeerteen and Isaaq women, and more than 500,000 Isaaq members fled to Ethiopia.

In January 1979 Barre ordered the execution of ten sheiks who were arrested for their religious beliefs. The religious community had begun to exhibit opposition to Barre's furthered attempt to secularize Somalia. This egregious violation of freedom of speech was condemned by Amnesty International. Many Somalis believe this event was the tipping point that led to the state's eventual failure.

Clanism

After the Ogaden War, Barre adopted a "clanism" ideology and abandoned his "socialist facade" to hold onto power. A 120,000 strong army was built for internal repression of the public and to encourage rural clan based conflicts in addition to urban clan directed massacres by specialised armed forces. The bombardment was led by General Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan, Barre's son-in-law, and resulted in the deaths of 50,000 people in the north.

Rebellion and ouster

After fallout from the unsuccessful Ogaden campaign, Barre's administration began arresting government and military officials under suspicion of participation in the 1978 coup d'état attempt. Most of the people who had allegedly helped plot the putsch were summarily executed. However, several officials managed to escape abroad and started to form the first of various dissident groups dedicated to ousting Barre's regime by force.

A new constitution was promulgated in 1979 under which elections for a People's Assembly were held. However, Barre and the politburo of his Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party continued to rule.

Many of the opposition groups subsequently began competing for influence in the power vacuum that followed the ousting of Barre's regime. In the south in particular, armed factions led by USC commanders General Mohamed Farah Aidid and Ali Mahdi Mohamed clashed as each sought to exert authority over the capital.

Exile and death

After fleeing Mogadishu on 26 January 1991 with his son-in-law General Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan, Barre temporarily remained in Burdhubo, in southwestern Somalia, his family's stronghold. Barre fled in a tank filled with reserves from the Somali central bank. This included gold and foreign currency estimated to have been worth $27 million. His body was returned to his hometown of Garbaharey for burial on a Bluebird Aviation flight paid for and escorted by Nigerian diplomats that took advantage of gaps in radar coverage across Africa to obfuscate the true purpose of the journey.

Honours

70x70px Order of the National Flag, First Class, of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea – 1972
70x70px Order of the Yugoslav Great Star – 1976

References

External links

Mohamed Siad Barre Archive at marxists.org
Mohamed Siad Barre biographical website (in Somali)