REMEMBERING THE UNSUNG AND FORGOTTEN HEROES OF LABAATAN JIRROW

[Jacaylbaro]

There were heavy rains, and the track between Baidoa and Labaatan Jirow

Maximum Security was all but impassable. We were blindfolded as we left

Baidoa to prevent us from knowing where Labaatan Jirow was. Inside each

one of us was taken to cell . The cell was completely empty, 7x7 feet

with a hole in the right hand corner. This was toilet since no one would

be allowed to go out at all. The walls were unplastered and made of

reinforced concrete. There were two successive doors for each cell.

The inner floor remained looked at all times and consisted of heavy

steel bars. The outer door, which

Was opened from 7:00 A.M to 4:00 P.M. each day, was one heavy sheet of

iron without even a small hole in it. This door was normally closed

during punishment periods that were quite frequent because the slightest

sound constituted ‘misbehaver’ in the eyes of the soldier.

 

There were about 150 soldiers outside, equipped with heavy artillery and

anti-aircraft guns. All the soldiers, both inside and outside the

prison, were members of the military police. The soldiers outside were

to protect the prison from attack. There was no custodial corps in

Labaatan Jirow. Administratively, the special prison was run direct from

the president’s office in Mogadishu. The overall membership of the

military police in the country was predominantly *******. They had wide

powers of search, arrest, and interrogation. They also manned all

control posts throughout the country, using their powers to extort

property from the population. Every single soldier from the prison

warden Colonel Deria Hirsi to male nurse Dheel Deria Yussuf, was a

*******-clan of Siad Barre, the president. The regime denied the very

existence of a prison called Labaatan Jirow. In fact the only people,

who have ever seen it apart from Siad Barre himself, were builders,

prisoners or the prison administrators. Prisoner’s sketch from memory.

We learnt of others who had been there at one time or another between

1981 and 1989.

 

They included:

Mohamed Yussuf Weyrah, ex-minister of finance

Abdillahi Mohammed Nour, army major

Warsama Ali Farah, ex-mayor of Modadishu who died in prison in 1983

Ali Easa Islam, police inspector

Mohamed Ali Jama, army capt., released in 1984

Mohamoud Islam Abdille, army captains

Ahmed Hashi, army captains

Gaboobeh Abdi Samatar (Iridyambo), army captain

Ahmed Dhore Farah, businessman, still in prison when we left in 1989

Mohamoud Malin, civil servant

Sheikh Mukhtar, lawyer

Yussuf Osman Samatar, in prison since 1968

Hussein Ahmed, an Ethiopian airforce colonel 1976-still in prison when we left in 1989

 

 

On the second day after our arrival, I was given a blanket, an aluminum

cup, a plastic plate and a small plastic bucket for water. Everyday

each prisoner was given a bucket of water for all purposes such as

drinking and ablution before prayers, washing up the utensils and

cleaning the toilet. We were not provided with clothes, and ours were

taken away. I was left with a T-shirt, a Ma-awis ( the traditional

Somali cloth wrapped round the lower body) a pair of sandals cut from an

old tire, kabo shaag in Somali.

 

We were given millet gruel for breakfast and boiled rice with a glass of

powdered milk for lunch. This was the usual prison fare for the next

six and a half years. Only occasionally, perhaps once every three to

six months, a goat would be killed, boiled and each prisoner given a

tiny piece with his rice. These were ‘feast’ days for us and they would

be signaled the day before by the bleat of a goat. The ‘feast’ day

unusual movement and numbers of crows in the prison compound would

confirm itself. A bleat one-day and increased crow activity definitely

indicated goat meat. A bleat therefore became a beautiful song to our

ears. Every time one of us heard it, whether in the morning, afternoon

or in the middle of the night we would immediately transmit the good

news to neighbor the delicious part of the goat they would like to get

and, in due course, the part actually received.

 

One comic incident comes into mind. Dr. Osman dreamt one night during a

particularly meatless period, that he heard the bleat of a goat. He

woke up and transmitted the news to his neighbors. Everybody stayed up

the rest of the night discussing the good omen. The next morning, a

group of crows chased one of their numbers holding a piece of red meat

in its beak. We all saw this. It was more than enough to lift our

spirits. We watched the lucky crows with hungry eyes as they flew back

and forth playfully. Suddenly the lucky crow released the meat. We all

waited for it to fall to the ground. But lucky crow released the meat.

We all waited for it to fall to the ground. But no; the ‘meat’ stayed

up in the air, floating! The crows kept it playfully in the air; it was

a piece of cellophane bag.

 

Food in all such facilities is the main conversation topic. Even when

alone, one daydreams about food. We made many a joke about our

yearnings for food. Dr. Osman was asked once by his neighbor through

the wall to name his best wish at that particular moment. Without

hesitation he said ‘meat’. Only after we asked him about freedom did he

laugh and said of course. One became obsessed with food, which was

brought in a big barrel pushed on a wheelbarrow. As soon as we heard

the noise of the wheelbarrow we literally started to salivate, like

Pavlov’s dog, even for millet gruel.

 

The greatest problem was during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims

fast from dawn to sunset. We were given food only during the night, to

break our fast at six in the evening and 3 o’clock the next morning.

The early evening was no problem but at 3 in the morning the soldier

violently opened the doors. If you were not ready at the door with your

plate, they just locked up the door and that was that. Your next meal

would then be fifteen hours later, at six in the evening. We usually

solved this problem by assigning one person to stay awake each night.

As soon as he heard the noise of the wheelbarrow he would wake up

everybody. Even if we got the meal, darkness was a problem in the cell.

The soldiers brought hurricane lamps with them, but as soon as they

locked up, it was pitch black. With the smell of food came attacks from

all quarters-cockroaches, mice and ants. We tried to cover the plate

with one hand and eat with the other. The cockroaches were particularly

vicious. They would fly from the walls above the toilet and land on

your face and plate and refuse to take no for an answer. If you were

squeamish you went hungry.

 

Confronted with poor food, shortage of water, lack of sanitation

facilities, immobility, lack of reading material and isolation not only

from the rest of the world, but from any fellow prisoners, the first few

days in Labaatan Jirow were the most difficult. All contributed to a

sense of incomprehension and depression. I tried to get in touch with my

friends on either side of me. But as soon as one uttered a word even

sotto voce, soldier would be at the doorstep closing the main iron door.

There were no warnings given in that prison. Very soon we learned that

shouting to each other behind the doors would only bring more

punishment. We had to content ourselves with knocking on the wall

between the cells when the soldier were not looking even warned not to

write anything on the walls. It is literally impossible to desist from

scratching something on prison walls in solitary confinement because

that is about the only way left to express oneself. But we had to be

careful. Obviously my predecessors took their warnings seriously and

did not dare to write on the walls. Only much later, while I was

sitting on the floor and looking at the walls in front of me, I saw

something on the wall. Where the soldiers could not possibly see was

EGAL written in capital letters. This was the name of Somalia’s last

civilian prime minister much later to be ‘president’ of the Somaliland

Republic. He spent 7 years here. The most powerful man in the country

had been reduced to writing his name on that corner of the cell to

express his protest. I felt for him at that time.

 

I did see one grim example of protest graffiti in the large cell I

shared with 20 friends in Hargeisa’s main prison where we had stayed for

8 months before we were transferred to Labaatan Jirow. On a wall

opposite where I slept, clearly written were the names of 7 male

prisoners, every name apparently written by a different person. Every

one added a comment after his name. Most of them wrote the name of

somebody loved.

 

One had poignantly written "SIYAD BARRE SAYS WE DIE TOMORROW ON THE 28

APRIL 1981 BY FIRING SQUAD-SIYAD BARRE SAYS BUT ALLAH DID NOT SAY. But

for those seven prisoners who signed their names on the wall of that

grim prison, as for so many Somalis before and after them, there was no

divine intervention. They were shot on the 28th. Now they rest in

Allah,s peace. They were all civilians belonging to the MIJERTAIN clan,

accused of belonging to the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF),

the first opposition movement to fight the Siad Barre regime.

One of the cruelest things was the treatment during illnes. Even if

they believed you, seeing that you were really in pain, they gave you

insufficient doses or the wrong drugs. There was only one old male

nurse for health care in the prison. We called him doctor No because

his first response was always negative. Later on, when we learnt to

communicate with each other through the walls between the cells, we were

able to seek advice from the four real doctors amongst us. The doctors

advised us to keep asking from the four real doctors amongst us. The

doctor advised us to keep asking for drugs, particularly aspirins,

sedatives, anti-pain drugs, antibiotics and chloroquinine against

malaria and to hoard them even when we were well. This method helped us

whenever one of us fell ill and doctor No would not come to see him or

refused to issue medicines.

We were able to pass medicines to each other because we had one exercise

period of 10 minutes every three days, excluding Thursdays and Fridays.

Exercise periods were taken one person at a time, but if that person had

drugs to pass on he would inform the person next to him through the

walls who would pass on the information to his neighbor and so on until

the person needing the drugs was reached. Medicines would be dropped

at a prearranged place for the ill person to pick up during his turn of

exercise. The walk took place between two door 30 meters apart with

one soldier at each end. We always dropped drugs near a small shrub

halfway between the two doors. However, sometimes we were not given

exercise periods for 3 or 4 consecutive months or even more. This

usually coincided with periods of tension in the country as we found out

later. For example we did not have exercise periods after May 1988 as a

result of the war in the North. I have calculated that we came out of

the cells during six and half years for only 72 hours.

Major health problems were mainly connected with immobility, tension,

anxiety, fear, depression, insomnia and poor diet. Most of us suffered

psychosomatic ailments and doctor No always succeeded in aggravating

these conditions. During our sojourn, two men died due to negligence.

One of them, WARSAME ALI FARAH, who was in his seventies, was taken to

Mogadishu but died there two days later. According to the official

pathological report he died of kidney failure, but there is no doubt

that he died of criminal negligence. He had been mayor of the capital

city.

One of the detainees who fell very ill had been held since the 1978 coup

attempt. ABDILLAHI MOHAMED NOUR had been asking for drugs for six

months. On 1 May 1986 he started shouting at the top of his voice. The

place was normally dead quiet and we all put our ears against the doors

to hear what was happening. He started reciting his autobiography. The

authorities closed the outer iron door on him. They came in the night

took him shouting Allah! Allah! This continued on and off for about

two hours. He never stopped his sporadic shouting until he was released

in February 1989. The soldiers never attempted to treat him for his

disturbance, as far as we know. When we were released, we found out

that he had been badly maimed that night. Sadly, Abdillahi is still

mentally disturbed.

 

Release, when, after many a long year, it eventually came, was as

dramatic as the manner of our arrest. One morning in Mid-March, two

soldiers followed by the male nurse stopped in front of my cell; and for

the first time in six and a half years called me by name. They wanted

to know whether I was called Mohamed Barood Ali. I took me a while to

comprehend the meaning of the query, before I stammered yes. A

cardboard box containing some few clothes was half pushed, half thrown

through the bars of the inner door. They left me open-mouthed without

saying another word. I could hear them stopping in front of my

neighbors door and talking to him, although I could not hear what they

were saying. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by a thousand thoughts all

incoherent and fantastic. About 2 o'clock in the afternoon, soldiers

all of them dressed for parade, stopped in front of my door and one of

them told me to collect my things. There was nothing I wanted to take

from that cell and I started towards the door almost running and

breathless. They opened the door and told me to walk. He told me to

sit down on a wooden form. I beheld coming through the door my friends,

one by one. They all seemed strangers: I had not seen them for six and

a half years. At first we said hello to each other as if we had only

met a few hours ago. But then someone started laughing hysterically and

we all started hugging each other and laughing. We were separated into

three groups and put in the back of Land Rovers. We were never sure

where we were going but reached Mogadishu after five hours drive.

We were immediately taken to the Villa Somalia, Siad Barre's state

palace on a hill in the center of Mogadishu. We saw the fabled cheetah

royally kept and looked after by a platoon of guards. While waiting to

be received at the court of the dictator, we had the first opportunity

to speak to each other, because on the way we had been warned that if

anyone uttered a word, he was to be shot.

I was generally shocked by the sight of my emaciated friends who were

comparable to survivors of a concentration camp. All had aged a lot.

The effects of anxiety and solitary confinement were all too visible on

all their faces. Some were unusually withdrawn; others laughed

hysterically, and yet others exhibited signs of morbid fear and

nervously watched the soldiers as if expecting to be attacked at any

moment.

General Siad, who usually worked at night, kept us waiting for a long

time but we were never bored for a moment. We had so much to say to

each other and a rising excitement replaced our usual mood of

listlessness and apathy.

Finally, when we were summoned into the presence of Siad Barre, we found

him seated behind a huge mahogany desk. He was smoking, as always, with

an attendant standing one step behind him, holding a packet of

cigarettes and a lighter. He appeared much older than I expected, with

vacant, tired-looking eyes. There were eight in our group, but Siad

ordered Dr. Mohammoud Hassan Tani to remain outside because he was of a

different clan than the rest of us. This was typical of the man, who

was always exploiting the clan divisions in Somali society to remain in

power.

Siad inquired of each of us whether or not we had been guilty of the

offenses for which we had been sentenced in 1982, more than seven years

previously. But he did not listen or await any response. He started

railing away at us, saying that we were traitors.(Dr. Mohamoud Tani

later revealed to us that Siad had predictably, asked him why he had

involved himself with such a group of anti-government subversives as

ourselves.) After delivering this monologue, Siad announced that we

were pardoned but that we must refrain from getting involved in

anti-government activities in the future. He dismissed us by standing

up and we were ushered out of his quarters by a group of bodyguards who

left us in the middle of the street. We had no money and we did not

know where to go. It was about 3 o'clock in the morning.

 

 

The writer of this excerpt, Dr. Mohamed Baarod Ali,later became the "Somali-land" minster resposnsible for Rehabilitation.

 

 

LABAATAN JIROW

[Gabbal]

REMEMBERING THE UNSUNG AND FORGOTTEN HEROES OF LABAATAN JIRROW

And what is the aim exactly?

[Fabregas]

Hero farabadana Somalidu?

[Jaylaani]

Suntii ayaxa.

 

He is a hero because he was arrested by simply trying to clean up the general hospital of Hargeisa. He didn't shoot, kill or cross the border to Ethiopia.

 

If that isn't a hero....

[Jacaylbaro]

loooool@suntii ayaxa