The History of Chauvinism-Created Union

[Jacaylbaro]

 

The History of Chauvinism-Created Union (1960-1990)

 

This article is about Somaliland’s fanatical, hasty unification with Somalia in 1960 and how Somalia doomed the union with political deprivation (1960-1982) and atrocities (1982-1990). It also states reasons of why the union is not revivable. In this article, North is referred to Somaliland and South is referred to Somalia as used in the three decades of the union.

 

A union, when it is about countries, is an act of uniting two or more countries with the objective of enhancing strength and advancing common interest. However, any union succeeds only if its initiative is fully deliberated, its constitution is well-thought of and defined and all sides respect and abide by it with real commitment to put it forward. The voluntary unification that took place between Somaliland and Somalia on July 1st, 1960 was driven by chauvinism (Blind patriotism) from the part of Somaliland people who failed to foresee that such hasty act in Africa without deliberations on possibilities could result in devastating consequences as happened in the 1980s. The successive, South-centered governments throughout the history of the union clearly indicated that Somalia was not ready for the unity but just took advantage of the fanatical patriotism of the North which carelessly threw its independence to unwelcoming place.

 

In the thirty years of the union (1960-1990), Somaliland people have learned a lot from Somalia that dismisses any chance of reviving the doomed union in the future. The following past actions of Somalia that failed the union and make it impossible to revive in the future are:-

 

When the first government was formed in 1960 for the New Republic of Somalia, emerging from former British Somaliland and former Italian Somalia, the South took the president, Mr. Aden Abdulle Osman (1960-1964), the prime minister, Mr. Abdirasheed Ali Sharma’arke, the ministers of foreign affairs, interior, finance, Commander of the National Armed Forces, and the National Police Chief. The union parliament was sham too for the South taking unfair number of seats. This political hijack by the South was the first political blow to the power-sharing of the freshly formed union. Mr. Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal, who was prime minister of the North at the eve of unification, was denied of the premiership which he had as a right after the South took the presidency. President Aden Abdulle Osman was re-elected in 1964 (1964-1967) and repeated the same political blunders by giving the prime minister to Mr. Abdirizak Haji Hussein (South-born) and other major cabinet posts to the South again.

 

The North was treated as an ordinary region in Somalia like Mudug or Benadir ignoring the fact that the North became independent state, taking independence on June 26, 1960, before the South, which became independent on July 1st, 1960, and that the North initiated the unification of the two newly independent countries in the Horn of Africa. The political betrayal and humiliation by the South angered the politicians, traditional leaders, intellectuals, business community as well as military officers of the North. This deep resentment influenced North-born young military officers, at the command of Hassan Kayd, to lead the unsuccessful military coup in Hargeisa on December 10, 1961 to reclaim independence and dignity of the North from the South-breached union. Instead of addressing the grievances that led to the Northern mutiny and starting national dialogue for reconciliation, president Aden Abdulle Osman immediately transferred South-born military to North and North-born military to South to suppress and repress Northern people socially and politically to punish them for the rightful military mutiny. The Southern troops turned Northern Regions into semi-colony with no freedom at all. Northern people were forced to travel to Mogadisho for school certificates (Even middle school certificates), passports, healthcare, business licenses etc.

 

In such situation of political deprivation and lack of investment in the North, General Siad Barre (South-born) overthrew the civilian government of the shaky union through bloodless coup on October 21, 1969 dissolving the constitution and the parliament immediately after the assassination of president Abdirasheed Ali Sharma’arke (South-born) on October 15, 1969. Many people believed that president Abdirasheed (1967-1969) was murdered for giving prime minister post to the North and that is why General Siad Barre toppled Egal’s two-year old government too (1967-1969). President Abdirasheed gave the prime minister to the North to control the damage inflicted on power-sharing by president Aden Abdulle Osman. General Siad Barre ruled Somalia for 21 years with iron-fist dictatorship (1969-1990) that curtailed all civil liberties. He continued the political deprivation and suppression of the North and strengthened the political domination of the South.

 

Worse than South-centered civilian governments, General Siad Barre grossly breached the agreement of the union which was shared between the North and the South only by making it a union shared by all Somalis in the five Somali-territories (Somaliwein) in the Horn of Africa. He gave special political and military privilege to the ****** tribe inhabiting in Western Somalia (Occupied by Ethiopia) and in Somalia Northeastern Region (Occupied by Kenya) thus adopting refugees as citizens and making citizens, especially those in the North, as second class citizens. General Bile Rafle, born in Somali Galbeed, became the governor of Hargeisa and Burao in the 1970s, and General Aden Gabyow, born in N.F.D, Kenya, became once the minister of defense of the then Republic of Somalia. These citizen-turned refugees widely participated in the atrocities and displacement of the central tribes in Somaliland (***** Clan) during civil wars. Northern officials in South-owned governments were symbolic and powerless. Their posts were intended to mislead Northern public perception to believe in power-sharing that did not exist. If the Northern officials in the government had real power, they would prevent injustices and crimes committed against the North.

 

During the disastrous union, ***** and ****** clans dominated the government. ***** clan (The biggest clan in the North) was alienated throughout the union to eliminate political rivalry from North. It was also political hostility focus for challenging the hijacked union. The middle clans and the minorities were not in the radar of the political system of the union. Southern governments also practiced “divide and rule” policy in the North turning native clans against each other politically before the civil wars and finally arming them against each other during civil wars.

 

After all talks and negotiations between Northern leaders and Siad Barre’s regime to reverse the anti-North policies failed, the Northern people had no choice but to challenge the unabated injustices of the South with armed resistance. A group of ***** emigrants living in London founded the Somali National Movement (SNM), with political and military wings, in April 1981 to overthrow Siad Barre’s dictatorship. The military wing of SNM waged relentless attacks against Southern troops of oppression, suppression, and repression based in the North. It launched its first operation, operating from bases in Ethiopia, in February 1982 against the government troops. These military operations of SNM successfully continued and devastated the government troops until the major offensive of SNM in 1988. Claiming that all Isaaqs were supporters of the SNM guerrilla movement, Siad Barre’s government unleashed all sorts of human rights abuses against them such as killings, detentions, rapes, torture, unfair trials, confiscation of private properties, curfews and checkpoints in cities, towns, villages and rural areas in the North. Constraints on freedom of movement and employment and business discrimination against ***** were also common. Even ***** community living in the South suffered the same human rights abuses equally. Siad Barre also sent Northern prominent leaders and politicians such as Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal, Omar Arteh Qalib, Ismael Ali Aboker, top military officers and scholars to prison arbitrarily.

 

The military wing of SNM launched major offensive against government forces based in Hargeisa and Burao in May 1988 destroying most of the troops and arsenal stationed there and crippling Siad Barre’s administration in the North. In Response to SNM offensive, Siad Barre declared all-out war against ***** clan and started bombarding Hargeisa and Burao brutally and indiscriminately with artillery, tanks and war planes, some of them piloted by mercenaries from former Rhodesia, forcing the population of these cities to flee into Ethiopia for sanctuary leaving Hargiesa and Burao in ruins. Tens of thousands of civilians were murdered, massacred or executed summarily. In July 1989, Forty-seven (47) people, mainly from ***** clan, were slaughtered at Jasiira Beach near Mogadisho by Siad Barre’s Red Berets. In February 2000, the bodies of more than 700 people were discovered in mass grave near the Airport of Berbera. Other mass grave sites were also found at Malko Durduro in Hargeisa and near Burao. These mass graves held ***** victims of massacres and mid-night executions carried out by troops loyal to Barre’s regime in the years 1988 and 1989. It was brutal military campaign of ethnic cleansing against the entire ***** clan. In January 1991, the heroic armed struggle of SNM and USC finally ousted Siad Barre and his dictatorship simultaneously in the North and in the South. Siad Barre fled the country on January 26, 1991.

 

Having seen the political deprivation and atrocities against the North and its people, the Northern Congress held in Burao on May 18, 1991 unanimously proclaimed the withdrawal of the North from the union with the South and reclaimed its independence of June 26, 1960 renaming itself: Somaliland Republic. The referendum held in Somaliland on May 31st, 2001 reaffirmed Somaliland sovereignty from Somalia. Somaliland is not a secessionist or breakaway region from Somalia as anti-Somaliland groups claim. It just withdrew from the union it joined as an independent state on July 1st, 1960 after it failed in the hands of Somalia. Djabouti became independent state in 1977 and rejected to join the union after witnessing how the South mistreated the North. Somaliland, Somalia and Djabouti are independent with equal status and legitimacy.

 

The Somaliland people shall not revive the doomed union with Somalia for the following 7 (Seven) reasons:

 

* The above history of political deprivation and atrocities committed against Somaliland people during the union have no justification or excuse at all.

* Somalia does not admit those injustices and heinous crimes against Somaliland people. It purposefully denies or covers them up by claiming that the people of Somalia suffered equally. What they do not want to hear is that they were responsible for the injustices and atrocities in Somaliland but the destructive civil wars in Somalia were self-inflicted. President Aden Abdulle Osman and General Siad Barre can not be blamed for the injustices and crimes against the North alone because they were supported by Southern politicians, military commanders, troops and tribes loyal to Siad Barre’s regime.

 

* Any federal government shared with the tribes inhabiting in the central regions of Somalia (Mudug and Galgudud) is unlikely to survive long because they are power-obsessed, self-aggrandizing and uncompromising. Some of these tribes hijacked the union in the first decade of its age, some other supported and defended Siad Barre’s brutal dictatorship and another is blamed for the endless anarchy and violence in Somalia.

 

* Somalia still believes in government shared by Somaliwein (Government for all Somalis from Somalia, Somaliland, Djabouti, Somali Northeastern Region (Kenya) and Western Somalia (Ehtiopia). This is no man’s government that leads to political chaos and socio-economic setbacks. Somaliland belongs to Somalilanders only.

 

* The place is Africa where democracy, fair elections and rule of law are not respected. Chronic tribalism, brutal dictatorships and crippling corruptions are common and normal practice of the day. Any federal government can be easily overthrown at any time by military coups, just like General Siad Barre did, with the immediate dissolution of elected parliament and constitution. No one can guarantee or trust that this will not happen again.

 

* Neither Somaliland people nor the people of Somalia can afford to have another risky unity that leads to brutal dictatorship or despotic turned-elected governments that plunge both peoples into other violent, atrocious civil wars. They need to have separate, safe, sisterly states with mutual relations like the 18 Arab countries that also share religion, language and culture but living in peaceful, prosperous independent states. Both nations must reject blind patriotism that led them to devastating civil wars in the past.

* The place is Africa where the laws of the jungle rein, where tribalism and localism are more important than nationalism and patriotism and where poverty and ignorance drive people to seek living in tribal corrupt or dictatorial governments instead of making sacrifices and hard work for better life and for self-sufficiency.

 

The critics of Somaliland independence, who advocate for reviving the disastrous unity, are either blind or indifferent to these political betrayal and appalling atrocities in this article. Their reckless, chauvinistic approach for unity must be rejected by Somaliland.

 

 

Ibrahim Hassan Gagale

 

Ibrahim_hg@yahoo.com

 

February 19, 2009.

[xiinfaniin]

Only if cyber ku muranku could break a legal union.

[Jacaylbaro]

i bet u mean the illegal union .......

[Che -Guevara]

^What was illegal about it...no theaterics please, just solid arguments?

[Juje]

Originally posted by J.a.c.a.y.l.b.a.r.o:

i bet u mean the illegal union .......

I beg your pardon....!

It was never illegal..never.

That is why you are having difficulty in getting it out of it to date, because of the legality it was established on.

[xiinfaniin]

Oodweyne, wax walba ma ku murmaynaa awoowe? I thoght you admitted that the sixty marriage was valid. I know we disagree who maried whom, but we shall never debate the legality of the union awoowe

[MZanzi]

Withdrawing from a no-win, pointless argument seems like a smart solution to me ...

[xiinfaniin]

Oodweyne,

 

Adeer waxaagu waa tororog, arguing against the legality of the 1960 union is a losing argument.

 

I know that you know it, it's just the desperation that compells you to try this one just like you attempted to justify your existence on colonial borders.

[peasant]

Whining and whining everyday. Technically every piece written by slander is paraphrased whining and they never introduce anything new. Their whole argument can be deduced to, we never got that and this, when in fact none else got what they are asking for. Siyad Bare him self never developed his birth region of Gedo let alone anywhere else except Banadir region and some of the farming regions of the south.

 

Another crap i often read from these articles is, An atrocity was committed against us by other somalis when in fact it was only Siyads regime who perpetrated such acts. Siyad alienated and committed atrocity against a lot of somali groups and to name few. When the SSDF led by A/Yey took the arms against Siyad. Siyad mobilized his army in the central region of somalia and killed or jailed anyone his army could capture before they slipped into ethiopia and started waging gorilla warfare against him. Also when Aideeds family resisted Siyads goverment, he also dealt them with similar brutal tactics and as result they were the group to eventually over throw him.

 

So the question is, are any of these groups whining today about the past or are they whining about why their turf wasnt developed ? The answer is no and everyone else in somalia except the landers pretty much understood Siyad was nothing but a dictator who was concerned for his seat and nothing else.

 

PS: Slander are girly whiners period...

[Taleexi]

Clearly some of us are confused, namely Mr. Odweyne and his cohorts. The reunification of then two British/Italian Somalilands in 1960 is binding and valid as we know it. However, in order to nullify that marriage, a prerequisite debate between the parties concerned must take place. Dear Odweyne, intaad dudid, dee iskama tegi kartid ee la soco, haddaad sidaa yeeshana ogow qoys walba tuuladiisii buu ku noqonayaa, oo dee Somaliland-tu reerkaaga goofkiisa bay ku koobnaanaysaa.... Wallee belaa ku haysata, war ninyahow furiin la diidye, bal talo kale keen

[xiinfaniin]

^^Adeer I admire your Zulu-like warrior quality, but the world is more intricate than your mere assertions of car i taabo would allow. NGONGE is not going to be proud of you as he once did if he reads your lousy argument here. The fact that current Transitional Somali government is unable to expand its authority to many regions is due to other reasons, and does not necessarily suggest yours is an irreversible reality.

 

Also, that Somali republic existed on unshakable legal grounds as far as its territorial integrity and jurisdictional authority is concern has never been a point of contention. Even your superiors are not making that revisionist argument. They never did. Why bother to make it now if not out of desperation?

 

Never mind answering, it's a rhetorical q.

 

I am done with this.

[wacdaraha_aduunka]

JB sxb explain how an illegal seperation can become a legal union upon freedom( I assume you though the colonisation of northern Somalia was ileegal and un-called fromm the people themeselves). The only way it can seperate again is through a new foreign colonisation in which I believe maybe some harcore successionists wouldnt mind again being subjects of the old Queen

[Thankful]

Furthermore, Adeer, legality requires canon of verifiable body of law to give a patina of acceptance; not a fictious kind that is your own making, indeed. Also to make sense of that body of law, requires, a state to act on it, or at the very least a "functioning government" to make a good on the claim of that legality, indeed.

If it was only that simple, this is why no gains have been made since 1991 towards the Tribal State of Somalilands independence. It's logic like this by die-hard supports like Oodweyne that Somaliland is still seeking independence or recognition from at least one nation. See in 1960, when all colonialists relinquished their hold on Somali land (both Italian and British), the Somali leadership apparatus all of the country. Were fully aware of the inevitable independence, agreed that they would unite back together. When independence arrived, the regions of Somalia, which had been separated by colonists with force, joined together. The resulting nation was and has always been the only internationally recognized government. When Siad Barre took hold of the nation the late beloved tribal President of Somaliland Mr. Egal, didn't dispute the new leaders government or fight against it, instead he joined it and accepted diplomatic post for many years. Although you now claim that Siad Barre take over,

And, finally, Siyad Barre's overthrow of that half-legally-established constitutional order (in which the Somali Republic of that time was based on – i.e., 1960 – 1969) also ended whatever jurisdictional attachment that Somaliland have had with Somalia of that time (at least from legal stand).

Is not the truth, because your beloved leader did not dispute the legality back then and in fact joined his government of Siad Barre as Ambassador to India, so did your current leader mister Riyaale. It's arguments that this that result in your continued failure to prove a valid reason.

 

Since the union the almost 50 years since this included civil war, famine, numerous governments! Has done nothing to change it's international standing as a nation. Regardless of the arguments that are brought forth towards breaking it up among Somalis or the perceived hopeless future Somalis try to portray. No government or international body is prepared to recognize any other government then that of the 1960 union. This is why the former President Abdullahi Yusuf meet with the French President Sarqozy and was at the UN headquarters, and our current President Sheik Sharif meets with presidents all over east Africa, and so all over the world.

In tribal states all that is seen is that the former president Egal was one tribe, the current vice-president is of same tribe. The two opposition leaders are also of this tribe.

[Mintid Farayar]

Many in this Forum point out in a childish pique that Somaliland has failed to gain recognition since 1991, while Somalia is still at the UN General Assembly.

 

Well,

A)if being the only failed state in the world,

B)having the worst infant mortality rates anywhere,

C)being labeled by UNHCR the greatest humanitarian disaster in the world,

D)serving as the hub of human-trafficking for the entire region,

E)having the most pirate-infested waters in the world, surpassing the Straits of Malacca,

F)a place where human-body parts are harvested from living humans

E)where the global evil of illegal drug farming has been introduced, contrary to the traditional religion and culture -

 

Then I think I will take the non-recognition of Somaliland over the recognized failed-state status of our brothers down South.

 

How's that for a REALITY CHECK???

[Thankful]

You questioned the legality of the union back in 1960 and when Siad Barre took over the country in 1969. I am simply saying that all your leaders never questioned the legality and in fact worked for that government. So, I am informing you that questioning the legality of the union as you did is hopeless and ridiculous and way too late.