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                                                                                COVER STORIES, Page 34

SOMALIA

How Somalia Crumbled


     Clan warfare and a glut of weapons have plunged the country
into anarchy

SOPHFRONIA SCOTT GREGORY


    Somalia, a sickle-shaped expanse on the Horn of Africa,
stretches across an unforgiving desert, arid and commanding.
For centuries nomads have crossed and recrossed the territory
in search of food and water. Akin in language and religion,
this homogeneous people should have been destined to live in
unity, without the tribal strife that tears apart other African
countries. But limited natural resources and internal disputes
have historically kept stability at a distance, and the clans of
Somalia have regularly battled one another into a state of
anarchy.

    The hatred seems ironic in a people steeped in the unifying
belief that they are all descended from one man: the mythical
founder Samaale. From him sprang a vast genealogical tree of
clans that form the basis of the social system. Somalis still
pride themselves on their ability to recite their clan histories
for generations back. But a divisiveness has infected them since
ancient times, when rival groups laid claim to the same wells
and grazing lands.

    Colonialism came to Somalia in the late 19th century, when
Britain took the northern third and Italy the south. Once the
borders were set, many of the nomads suddenly found themselves
citizens of neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia. What little
political organization the Somalis had collapsed, and the
Europeans replaced it with Western centralized governments that
brought the nomads their first schools, police and courts. But
the colonialists also gave the Somalis a common threat to rally
against. The nationalist Somali Youth League gained strength by
stressing clan unity and encouraging territorial reunification.

    Hopes of independence were sidetracked by Italy's defeat in
World War II. Under British military rule, part of Somalia's
territory was turned over to Ethiopia to atone for pre-war
European aggression. In 1950, the United Nations allowed Italy
to return as a caretaker until Somalia was deemed
self-sufficient.

    When the country was finally liberated and reunified in
1960, the Youth League seized most of the power. Still,
important posts were assigned according to clan. Leaders
quickly found themselves overwhelmed, too inexperienced to run
a Western democracy, too removed from the old ways to go back.
They stood little chance of building a viable economy: natural
resources were scarce and the land poor. Corruption, bribery and
nepotism infested the bureaucracy and turned the people against
a government they felt no longer represented their interests.
Citizens were also embittered by continued separation from
kinfolk under Kenyan and Ethiopian sovereignty.

    The discontent exploded in October 1969. The President was
assassinated and Major General Mohammed Siad Barre imposed
one-man rule. He moved swiftly to install a Marxist doctrine
called scientific socialism, but also gave the country a
written language and women the right to vote.

    Siad Barre's main pursuit, however, was the dream of
Greater Somalia, uniting his country with Somali areas of
Ethiopia and Kenya. He courted the assistance of the Soviet
Union, giving Moscow naval and air stations on the Gulf of
Aden. In return, he received supplies of heavy artillery, which
he used to help the Somali guerrillas in Ethiopia battling the
U.S.-backed government for rights of secession. But once
Ethiopia's leaders were displaced by the socialist regime of
Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1974, Moscow abandoned the Somali
cause. By early 1978, Somalia's forces had been beaten back by
the Ethiopians, suffering enormous losses.

    Burdened by nearly a million refugees, years of drought and
an enfeebled economy, Siad Barre turned to the U.S. for help.
Washington was eager for a strategic outpost near the Arabian
oil fields and struck an agreement to take over the old Soviet
military facilities. For the next 10 years the U.S. poured
hundreds of millions of dollars into arming the country.

    But Siad Barre's regime began to crumble. His massacres of
rival clans and politicians became too blatant to ignore. By
the time Washington turned its back in 1990, the ruler was a
sick octogenarian, wholly dependent on his clan and the
manipulation of rival clans to stay in power. In classic
fashion, three of these clans linked up in temporary alliance
to depose Siad Barre. After three years of civil war that killed
thousands, destroyed much of the country, and sent hundreds of
thousands of refugees over neighboring borders, Siad Barre
finally fled the capital, Mogadishu, in January 1991.

    As in the past, the three factions quickly fell to fighting
one another. Nearly two years later, the divisions -- and the
chaos -- are even greater: the two most prominent warlords,
General Mohammed Farah Aidid and Ali Mahdi Mohammed, are both
of the same clan, but from different subclans. Their hold on
their followers is tenuous, and neither flinches at using
starvation as his most powerful weapon. Somalia has little left
but a huge arsenal of weapons and a man-made famine that is
killing the population even more relentlessly than the bullets.