From: antbh@strix.udac.uu.se (Bernhard Helander)
Subject: Somalia News Update, October 2
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: Uppsala University
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 22:37:04 GMT

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              S O M A L I A  N E W S  U P D A T E

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                       October 2, 1992. 

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Somalia News Update is published irregularly via electronic mail.
Questions can be driected to antbh@strix.udac.uu.se or to fax number
+46-18-151160. All is material free too quote as long as the source 
is stated.



               THE DECLINE OF CLANSHIP IN SOMALIA
                      By Bernhard Helander
    
    The purpose of this paper is to present a slightly different 
perspective on the civil war in Somalia than that dominating the 
media reports. The aim is not to give a very thorough background to 
the conflict but rather to point to some salient landmarks in the 
recent political history and to identify some of the key-actors that 
are involved in the Somali civil war. I shall also point to some 
fundamental principles of Somali political culture.
    Before I dive into the turmoil of more recent event I like to 
provide an image drawn from the pre-colonial Horn of Africa. In many 
of the travel accounts from the previous century there is a recurring 
picture of the sense of relation that people had to one another. One 
gets the sense that although there was a feeling of a broadly 
encompassing identity called Somali that very identity was very non-
compelling. It didn't evoke the sense of forming a nation or a 
unified field for political action until very late. Virginia Luling, 
who has worked extensively with local history in the Afgooye area, 
emphatically states that the people of Afgoye by the trun of the 
century had no notion whatsoever of forming part of a greater 
national unity. That very same idea has been reported by other oral 
historians working in other parts of Somalia.
    The idea of being a nation seems to have grown out slowly 
partially in response to the colonial penetration of Somalia. By the 
second world war a substantial number of Somalis had fought in the 
armies of the Italians and the British, not only on Somali soil but 
even elsewhere in Africa. Many of these ex-soldiers seem to have 
brought home with them an awareness of Somalia's position within the 
larger African anti-colonial struggle. Many people in Somalia must 
also have felt frustrated when Italy was given back the colony it had 
lost during the war in the form of a UN trusteeship. 
    There is a remarkable report from 1948 called the four power 
commissions report on Somalia. Representatives of the four winners of 
the second world war went from house to house, from village to 
village and asked people how what type of long-term solution they saw 
for a post-colonial Somalia. The answers overwhelmingly demonstrated 
that the local self-sufficiency of the early century had vanished and 
given room for what was later to be known as Pan-Somalism; most 
people apparently felt that they wanted a united Somali state formed 
by both the British and the Italian colony.
    With independence 1960, and the merging of British Somaliland and 
the Italian trusteeship, Somalia came to develop two paradoxical 
relations to the rest of  Africa. On the one hand the urban 
intelligentsia expressed themselves very much in line with the zeit-
geist of African urban politics of the time. They denounced clanship 
claiming that old ties based on descent could not have any part in 
the forming of a modern nation state. Many of these intellectuals, 
when pressed for their own clan allegiance, would only agree to name 
what they called their "ex"-clan. On the other hand, however, in 
contraction to the expressed ambition of the OAU and other 
continental bodies, Somali declared at a very early stage that it saw 
the parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti inhabited by Somalis as 
forming a natural part of Somalia. One has to bear in mind that by 
this time these were popularly supported demands. One has also to 
understand that from the perspective of the subsistence economy of 
the Somali nomads, the state boundaries had no effect at all on their 
movements.
    The fragile party politics of the sixties descended rapidly into 
chaos. In fact, the accusations levied against ministers and 
parliamentarians of the late sixties have much in common with the 
complaints of corruption and power abuse that became so expressed 
during the latter years of Siyad Barre. The major difference was that 
in the sixties' politicians were a novelty. It was an entirely new 
type of people. Not colonialists, not clan elders, but perhaps 
something in between. Many of these politicians introduced an 
entirely new tone in Somali politics. While being seen as nothing 
less than representatives for their own clans by most of their rural 
electorate, they also acted to distance themselves from mere clan-
politics. The effect of this in many cases was not that Somali moved 
into a new era where party-politics replaced clanship as the basis 
for political action. Rather, it served to distance the traditional 
leadership from involvement in crucial societal issues, thus 
depriving the traditional clan-structures of some of its vitality and 
shifting the power-basis within the clans from the councils of elders 
into the Assemblea Nazionale.
    When Siyad Barre and a group of high-ranking officers took power 
in a coup-d'`tat in 1969 it was hardly surprising. What was 
surprising however was the rapid transformation of Somalia into an 
east-bloc ally. Another very apparent development was the swift 
military build-up. During the sixties Somalia had received a total of 
57 million dollars in foreign military aid. The figure for the 
seventies is nearly 20 times higher or well over a thousand million 
dollars. 
    Throughout the early seventies Siyad Barre was able to hold on to 
power by appealing to the pan-somali sentiments. The steady import of 
Rumanian, Russian and Cuban security and military advisors made that 
rhetoric into something scaringly real. The very same advisors helped 
to design a scheme fro governing the country that placed the head of 
state in control of all instruments of power.
    At the same time Siyad sought to manoeuvre within the domain of 
the clanship system. Often when political opponents were executed he 
personally paid diya or blood-money to that person's clan to steer of 
antagonism and calls for vengeance. He also saw to that the clanship 
system, although formally prohibited, came to serve his purposes. 
Most of the cabinets throughout his regime maintained a careful 
balance between representatives of the different clans. Again, this 
meant that people had to turn to politicians rather than to their 
clan leaders to obtain benefits. In the country, clan leaders became 
salaried and often appointed by him personally. He also many times 
sought to fuel local conflicts between different clans and then 
supporting both sides. This, in effect, was a continuation of the 
erosion of power within the traditional clan-structures that had been 
initiated during the sixties.
    With the loss of the war against Ethiopia in 1978, Siyad Barre 
was forced into more openly relying upon his own kinsmen to be able 
to stay in power. The rule of Siyad also became more apparently than 
before, a rule of a group of clans over the others. It was now his 
own clan, the Marehan and the clan of his mother, the Ogadeen and 
that of his favourite son in law, the Dhulbahante that more or less 
ruled Somalia.
    The end of the eighties also saw the establishment of some armed 
resistance movements. The SSDF was formed within the Majerteen clans 
by previously high-ranking officers. A few years later the SNM was 
formed among mainly the Isaaq clans in the Northwest.
    On the international arena Somalia made a few remarkable moves. 
Having got rid of the Russians and Cubans following the defeat in the 
Ogadeen war, Siyad Barre turned to the Americans and the West for 
support. From having been a comparably closed Marxist state in the 
seventies, the eighties saw Somalia transform into a scientific 
socialist state supported by United States, the EEC and Italy. This 
meant that in the eighties Somalia opened up for Western aid: in 1987 
foreign development assistance accounted for 57 per cent of the GNP.
    The deal with the Americans was that they would take over a 
Soviet naval base in Berbera in the North for a total of 100 million 
dollars a year in development aid, military assistance and credits. 
The American interest in all this was to have a base in reserve for 
the more important Mombassa installations and also to build a landing 
strip that could act as an emergency landing faciltity for the space 
shuttle.
    Economically, Somali did some progress in the 80's. Domestic 
grain production increased, or at least the amount of grain that was 
available in the markets increased. However, there were a number of 
other trends that effectively blocked any possibility for the country 
to achieve self-sufficiency. As grain prices were liberalized it 
became increasingly attractive for the urban middle class to obtain 
farming land. Thanks to the farm registration programme that was run 
by the USAID it became possible for urban families to obtain fully 
legal titles to plots of land that already were owned by local 
farmers along the river valleys. This, of course is just one of many 
examples of how the spreading corruption impeded economical growth.
    In the spring of 1988 the SNM in the North were able to establish 
control of large parts of northern Somalia. In response to this Siyad 
called in six south African mercenary pilots to bomb Hargeysa, the 
largest city in the North. Hargeysa that had housed at least half a 
million inhabitants was reduced to pebbles. Armed resistance against 
Siyad in the South gained momentum in 1989. Ogaden units of the army 
mutinied and formed an organisation they called SPM. Among the Hawiye 
clans in and around Mogadishu and in the central regions discontent 
without  the regime grew and the USC movement was formed. A group of 
largely pro-Italian urban intellectuals and business men formed 
something they called the manifesto group, calling upon Siyad to step 
down from the throne and hold multi-party elections. In 1990, as a 
group of elders in Siyad's own clan protested against his rule in an 
open letter, it became apparent that the class of politicians 
surrounding Siyad Barre acted unsupported by the leadership in their 
own clans.
    After a two-month siege of the capital by SPM and USC forces in 
late 1990, Siyad Barre fled to his clans home territory on January 
26, 1991.   
    At a fairly early stage after Siyad Barre's defeat conflicts 
arose within and between the various factions involved in his 
overthrow. Many Hawiye inside Mogadishu took the opportunity to 
punish members of the Daarood clans that they felt had been the 
people benfitting from Siyad Barre's rule. A mass-exodus of Daarood 
towards the safer areas west of the Jubba river, was paralleled by a 
mass-invasion of rural people from the central and inter-river 
regions into Mogadishu.
    A power struggle within the USC arose between supporter of the 
military wing and its leader, general Aydiid, on the one hand, and 
the manifesto group and its leader the business man Ali Mahdi on the 
other. This conflict is more than a personal power-struggle between  
the two men in person, but involves unsolved disputes from the 
fifties and sixties. Aydiid's basic fear is to have a weak Abgaal 
president supported by the mighty Majerteyn tribes in the Northeast. 
Ali Mahdis supporters' fear is to hand over business interest and 
power to competitors within the Hawaadle and Habar Gedir clans.
    In the beginning of the summer 1991 a so-called national 
reconciliation conference was held in Djibouti. The conference agreed 
to reinstall the constitution of the 1960's and to have a parliament 
with 123 seats to elect an interim president. The delegates at the 
meeting had little or no accountability vis-a-vis their own groupings 
and the outcome was that Ali Mahdi declared himself president of 
Somalia. The North had already decided to form an independent state 
under the name of Somaliland republic.
    Heavy fighting broke out between Ali Mahdi's forces and Aydiid's 
forces inside Mogadishu in November 1991. While Aydiid's side was the 
military stronger side, Ali Mahdi enjoyed the support of the Italians 
and of being presented as the good guy in the media. There is 
evidence to suggest that Ali Mahdi's ambition was to create a 
humanitarian disaster to obtain a foreign intervention by forces that 
would secure his position. 
    A fragile cease-fire was signed in March this year. This 
effectively divided Mogadishu into a northern Abgaal, Ali Mahdi part 
and a southern Aydiid Habar Gedir part. The port was controlled by 
another Hawiye clan, the Murusadde that attempted to straddle between 
the two camps, The airport fell into the hands of yet another Hawiye 
clan, the Hawadle. Even within the various factions there were 
differences. For instance, Abgal, the principle supporters of Ali 
Mahdi, are made up of 9 different subclans and each one of these 
clans manoeuvred on its own to obtain benefits for its members. 
Together there are more than thirty different factions inside 
Mogadishu alone that are involved in the current struggles.
    In the south direct hostilities and artillery duels continued 
longer than inside Mogadishu. A former general to Siyad Barre called 
Morgan, long sought to win control over the city Kismayo. When he was 
finally pushed in to northern Kenya he destabilized large parts of 
Lamu district until he recently withdrew into Ethiopia. In South-
westernmost Somalia the Marehan clan in the organisation called SNF 
entertained clear plans to play a role in the politics of Somalia. 
During may this year motorized infantry reached as far as Afgoye, 30 
kilometres outside Mogadishu.
    With the establishment of Aydiid's headquarters in Baardheere the 
SNF are at least in part blocked from access to the inter-river area. 
The fragile alliance between the Ogaden forces in the SPM and Aydiid 
has established a hegemony over most of the inter-river area. The 
sufferers from this alliance are of course the Rahanweyn and Digil 
clans whose organisation, the SDM, has been more or less forced into 
accepting the supremacy of the mighty Ogaden-Habar Gedir alliance. On 
the other hand the Habar Gedir hasn't had much of a choice since 
large numbers of them were forced to flee from their home territory 
bordering on the Majerteyn clan in the Northeast.
    Throughout this civil war the humanitarian situation has lapsed 
into something that may well be the worst catastrophe in Africa ever. 
Two spring rains have failed and large numbers of people are 
displaced from their home territories. Wells have been poisoned and 
live-stock looted. A normal year in the eighties Somalia imported 
something like 500 000 metric tons of food. During the past twelve 
moths only half of that amount has reached the country. The relief 
food now reaching the country has become a part of the power base of 
the different armed gangs that also constitute the supporter of the 
various factions. The uncoordinated shipments of food by many of the 
smaller NGOs have paved the ground for organized looting. Armed 
guards hired by the organisations to accompany the lorries destined 
for the hinterland, grab hold of the vehicles and sell them back to 
the organisations. Groups controlling the airstrips demand high fees 
to allow the relief planes to land. Behind all this is of course the 
late awakening of the international community and the shortage of 
food. However, another important reason relates to the weakening of 
the power of the traditional clan leaders how have little or nothing 
to put up against the military might of the war lords who recruit 
soldiers along clan lines. 
    Very briefly, the only thing that would seem to effectively stop 
the famine would be to flood the country with food and to hand over 
the control of transports to a massive force of UN troops. An 
initiation of a food-for-weapons or food-for-money scheme could work 
out together with lower level clan leadership and that would also 
help to erode some of the power basis of the war lords. Somalis had 
definitely had enough and there are few Somalis in Somalia at least, 
that still believe in any form of a military victory. 
    
    
    


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*                                  *                                        *
* Bernhard Helander                * Telephone: +46-18-182289 (office)      *
* Dept of Cultural Anthropology    *            +46-18-303448 (home)        *
* University of Uppsala            *                                        *
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* S-753 09 Uppsala                 *                                        *
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