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Ideology and Leadership in Somalia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Abdi Sheik-Abdi
Affiliation:
Department of History and African Studies Center, Boston University

Extract

The 1977–8 war in the Horn of Africa and its traumatic aftermath has brought Somalia to a critical junction. The expulsion of the Soviets in November 1977, following their overtures to Ethiopia, and the subsequent rout of the Somali army, along with Ogadeni guerrillas, by a combined Cuban–Ethiopian–Yemini force led by Russian generals, has left this nation demoralised, isolated, and ideologically sundered. A fluid and somewhat confused socio-economic and political situation, only made less chaotic by President Mohamed Siad Barre's powerful personality and will to survive, characterises this post-war Somalia.

Type
Africana
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

page 163 note 1 The occasion was the Third International Frantz Fanon Conference on ‘Human Development Models in Action’, Mogadishu, June –July 1979.

page 164 note 1 Aden Abdulla Osman, who served as Somalia's first President, was voted out of office in 1967 and remains a private citizen.

page 164 note 2 See Major-General Mohamed Siad Barre's collected speeches, 1969–1974, My Country and My People (Mogadishu, 1974), pp. 81–8.

page 164 note 3 These were Brigadier-Generals Salad Gavere and Mohammed Ainanshe. Also executed in July 1972 was Abdulqadir Dheel, a former Colonel.

page 164 note 4 Seemingly modelled after the 114 sura's of the Quran, this represents one of the numerous contradictions in a supposedly Marxist state. See Xiddigta Oktoobar (Mogadishu), 22 December 1979 and 9 February 1980.Google Scholar

page 164 note 5 New York Times, 31 August 1979.

page 165 note 1 Dastuurka Jamhuuriyadda Dimoqaraadiqa Soomaaliya [The Constitution of the Somali Democratic Republic] (Mogadishu, 1979).Google Scholar

page 165 note 2 Mehmet, Ozay, ‘Effectiveness of Foreign Aid – the Case of Somalia’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 9, 1, 05 1971, p. 31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 166 note 1 See New York Times, 23 March 1975; also Foreign Report (London), 16 11 1977.Google Scholar

page 166 note 2 Sheik-Abdi, Abdi, ‘Somali Nationalism: its origins and future’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 15, 4, 12 1977, pp. 657–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 166 note 3 Newsweek (New York), 24 12 1979,Google Scholar suggests that the Saudis did indeed influence the Somali–Sudanese decision to join the Arab rejectionist camp.

page 166 note 4 New York Times, 23 1979 and 25 February 1980.

page 167 note 1 See Laitin, David D., ‘The War in the Ogaden: implications for Siyaad's rôle in Somali history’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 17, I, 03 1979, pp. 95115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 168 note 1 The last prominent Majerteini in President Barre's régime, Abdirizak Hagi Hussein, a former Prime Minister (1964–7), was removed from his post as Somalia's Permanent Representative at the United Nations in 1979.

page 168 note 2 Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf, a deserter from the Somali army, is said to head the military wing of the S.S.F.

page 170 note 1 My translation from the Somali sung by the girls of the Revolutionary Youth Centre at Afgoi.

page 170 note 2 See Kaplan, Irving et al. (eds.), Area Handbook for Somalia (Washington, D.C., 1977), pp. 301–2.Google Scholar

page 170 note 3 The hydro-electric dam on the Juba River near Baar–Dhere is the most important of these stalled projects. Others include the fish and meat-processing plants at Las Qoreh in the north and Kismayo in the south, mainly because of difficulties in the supply of raw materials and in maintenance.

page 170 note 4 See Contini, Jeanne, ‘The Somalis: a nation of poets in search of an alphabet’, in Kitchen, Helen (ed.), A Handbook of African Affairs (New York, 1964), pp. 301–11.Google Scholar

page 170 note 5 Adam, Hussein M., ‘A Nation in Search of a Script: the problem of establishing a national orthography for Somali’, M.A. thesis, University of East Africa, Kampala, 1968.Google Scholar See also Laitin, David D., Politics, Language and Thought: the Somali experience (Chicago, 1977).Google Scholar

page 171 note 1 Namely the poet-nationalist, Mohamed Abdulle Hassan, 1864– 1920.

page 171 note 2 New York Times, 23 June 1974 and 13 April 1975.

page 171 note 3 See Andrzejewski, B. W., ‘The Development of a National Orthography in Somalia and the Modernization of the Somali Language’, in Horn of Africa (Summit, N.J.), 1, 3, 1978, pp. 3945.Google Scholar

page 171 note 4 This could include the appointment of a Prime Minister with an independent stature, and with proven administrative abilities.

page 172 note 1 Afrique (Casablanca), 12 11 1979 pp. 48–9.Google Scholar

page 172 note 2 New York Times, 11 and 12 February 1980. For more recent reports concerning Somali–U.S. arms and economic accords on American terms, see ibid. 23 August 1980.