Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0328/03284.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 27KB | 438 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03284}
$Pretitle{286}
$Title{Somalia
Chapter 1A.   Historical Setting}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Rinehart}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{somalis
century
somali
trade
arab
southern
towns
area
coast
early}
$Date{1981}
$Log{Mosque*0328401.scf
}
Country:     Somalia
Book:        Somalia, A Country Study
Author:      Robert Rinehart
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1981

Chapter 1A.   Historical Setting

[See Mosque: Sheikh Abdulaziz Mosque, one of Mogadishu's oldest historical
structures]

     The Somali people have inhabited portions of present-day Somalia for
1,000 years. The emergence of a sense of nationhood among them, however,
awaited the imposition of colonial rule by three European powers (Britain,
Italy, and France) on Somali-occupied territory and the extension of Ethiopian
claims there in the late nineteenth century. Between the eleventh and
fifteenth centuries, sections of the Somalis settled in the relatively fertile
river valleys of southern Somalia, where they made cultivation the basis of
their economy. Most Somalis living in the surrounding drier regions continued
to engage in nomadic pastoralism, allowing differences in social structure,
culture, and language to develop between them and their settled brethren.
Despite these differences the agricultural Somalis and the more numerous
pastoral groups have come to consider themselves one people. At an early date
in their migrations, the Somalis came into contact with the Arab world and in
time formed a strong attachment to Islam, which has further served to unite
them as a people.

     During the colonial era the Somalis were grouped into two major
divisions-Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland-and three lesser ones-the
Northern Frontier District of Kenya and those areas of Ethiopia and French
Somaliland populated predominantly by Somalis. Although the Italian and
British territories followed different patterns of development and education,
they were successfully amalgamated on July 1, 1960, into the independent
Somali Republic.

     Somalia's transition to independence differed radically from that of most
African states. In 1950 the former Italian colony was placed under a United
Nations trusteeship administered by Italy. Although British Somaliland
retained its colonial status until independence, changes instituted by the
United Nations in the trusteeship territory influenced political developments
there as well. As a result Somalia's independence as a unified, multiparty
parliamentary democracy was attained relatively painlessly.

     The early postindependence period was dominated by two difficult
problems: the political and administrative integration of the former colonial
territories and the conflict with Ethiopia and Kenya arising from Somalia's
irredentist demands. Internal political conflicts revolved around methods of
handling these difficulties. Competition for electoral support both exploited
and widened cleavages within the nation as politicians sought the backing of
rival regional and clan groups, often obscuring the country's pressing need
for development by overemphasizing party politics.

     Party composition and leadership fluctuated as new parties were formed
and others declined. A great many parties, some with only a single candidate,
participated in each national election, but one party-the Somali Youth
League-was clearly dominant and had been even before independence. The
important political parties were not divided by significant ideological
differences, and all their leaders had at one time or another served together
in the Somali Youth League. The most significant tendency was for parties to
be organized on the basis of clan-families or their constituent descent
groups, but political alliances existed across clan-family boundaries.

     The conflicts generated by competing interest groups within the parties,
the time and energy given over to aggrandizing each of them as opposed to
dealing with the country's more general problems, and the extent to which
corruption had come to pervade the operation of government and the parliament
led to disillusionment with the democratic process. On October 21, 1969,
senior officers of the Somali National Army deposed the government in a
bloodless coup and established the Supreme Revolutionary Council, headed by
Major General Mohamed Siad Barre.

     The Supreme Revolutionary Council made clear that it intended to
establish a new economic, social, and political order based on an ideology it
called scientific socialism. Somalia's long tradition of democracy was
extinguished as all important decisions were made by the military-dominated
leadership in Mogadishu and conveyed to the largely military structure in
control at the regional and local levels. Opposition to the new government's
policies was not tolerated. The Supreme Revolutionary Council initiated a
number of development projects aimed at exploiting resources to best
advantage. Priority was also given to the settlement of the nomadic and
seminomadic peoples who constituted about 60 percent of the country's
population.

     In 1976 the Supreme Revolutionary Council was abolished and its authority
transferred to the executive organs of the newly formed Somali Revolutionary
Socialist Party. Executive positions in the party were taken over by members
of the former Supreme Revolutionary Council who also retained the key posts in
the government. Therefore the changes appeared only to broaden, not replace,
the existing hierarchy.

     Somalia's relations with neighboring Ethiopia deteriorated in the early
1970s when Siad Barre's government gave support to guerrilla operations
conducted by Somali separatists in the Ogaden, an action that appealed to
strong pan-Somali sentiment in the country. By mid-1977 well-equipped elements
of the army were openly cooperating with the separatists and had engaged
Ethiopian troops in the predominantly Somali region.

     In 1974 Somalia concluded a treaty of friendship and cooperation with the
Soviet Union, which became a primary military benefactor. In exchange for
continuing assistance, Moscow obtained rights to strategically located naval
and air installations. After the Soviet Union-then in the process of
establishing close ties with Ethiopia-embargoed further supplies to Somalia
in 1977, Siad Barre abrogated the treaty and expelled Soviet personnel. A
massive infusion of Soviet military aid to Ethiopia and the introduction of
Cuban troops ensured Somalia's subsequent defeat in the Ogaden.

Early History

     Because systematically collected archaeological evidence is lacking, the
prehistory of the area encompassed by present-day Somalia is obscure by
comparison with that of neighboring countries. But bushmanoid hunters and
gatherers, who inhabited much of eastern and southern Africa, are believed to
have roamed the southern interior in search of their subsistence as early as
the eighth millennium B.C. Negroid peoples subsequently settled as cultivators
in the valleys of the Juba and Shabeelle rivers.

     The ships of enterprising Egyptian, Phoenician, Persian, Greek, and Roman
traders visited the coast of Guban (the ancient Land of Punt) for cargoes of
the aromatic and medicinal resins frankincense and myrrh, tapped from trees on
its parched hills. Descriptions of the northern region and its inhabitants
first appeared in The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written by an anonymous
Greek mariner ca. A.D. 60, and in Ptolemy's Geography. A Chinese source dating
from the ninth century mentions the area, and a later document indicates the
continued existence of trade between its ports and China in the fourteenth
century. By the tenth century Arab and Persian merchants had established a
number of towns along the Benadir and Guban coasts that were links in an
extensive trading network connecting East Africa with Southwest Asia and the
Indies.

     The origins of the Somalis and the location of the core area from which