DESTINATION SOMALIA
Somalia's joy at attaining independence was short lived, as incoming president Mohammed Siad Barre began jailing, torturing, and summarily executing anyone that didn't agree with his ideas. Armed resistance movements, already battle hardened by the Ogaden War with Ethiopia, started sprouting up over the countryside, and for several decades there were pitched battles between various clans and the military. The conflict built to a crescendo in July 1989, in the city of Mogadishu, when Barre's death squads slaughtered 450 Muslims demonstrating against the arrest of their spiritual leaders. After this, Barre's reign was short lived and he was harried into the mountains of southern Somalia by the very clans that he had persecuted.
This moment of unity between the clans was illusionary and as soon as Barre was sacked the country disintegrated into factional fighting and civil war, despite repeated attempts by the UN to broker a peace deal. One clan in the northern region, the Isaq, seceded from Somalia and declared itself the independent republic of Somaliland, instituting its own flag, currency and military force. Elsewhere there is general lawlessness, chaos, mayhem, and uncertainty. A traveller to Somalia is spoilt for choice in the number of things that can go wrong. There is little food, water, infrastructure, or medical aid, and a cholera epidemic has just swept through the country. There is no national government operating to offer general security or police protection, and no diplomatic presence to provide assistance or advice. In fact, the only thing that Somalia does have is a lot of kidnappings, hijackings, and trigger happy young men with guns.
