Freedom fighter's new life in Wales

[Jacaylbaro]

Abbie Wightwick meets the freedom fighter forced to leave Somalia who has made a new Welsh life for himself

 

WHEN he touched down in Somalia for the first time in a quarter of a century Eid Ali Ahmed was moved to tears.

 

As a refugee who fled as a wanted man from the dictatorship of General Siad Barre in 1981, he had often dreamed of this return. In dark times he feared it might never be.

 

When that happened he comforted himself with memories of fresh camel’s milk, the solitude of the bush and the scent of summer.

 

Finally, last year, Eid, now deputy chief executive of the Welsh Refugee Council, flew back for an emotional trip back to the land he knows as Somaliland.

 

Reunited with family and former colleagues in the Somaliland Liberation Movement, Eid, 60, considered staying.

 

“I was tempted and it is emotional, but my life is in Wales now.

 

“When I arrived it was amazing to me. A country that was destroyed; Hargeisa , a city that was 90% destroyed, had everything, universities, a first class hotel and British schools.

 

“All the institutions are there again.

 

“The journey I went on came to make sense when I returned.

 

“This is freedom. Opposition is worth it.”

 

Eid, like most of the estimated 10,000 Somalis living in South Wales, is from the northern part of Somalia which was a British protectorate before being given independence and joining with the south, a former Italian colony, to form Somalia in 1960.

 

In 1969 Barre seized power in a military coup declaring the country a socialist republic. Civil war and violence followed in the 1980s before the Somali Liberation Movement, to which Eid belonged, toppled Barre in 1991 and declared the north an independent country – Somaliland.

 

The rest of the world does not recognise the country separate from Somalia, one of the issues Eid campaigns on.

 

Further clan warfare followed but whilse the south descended into chaos Somaliland has been relatively stable.

 

“The reconciliation there since the war is incredible,” Eid said.

 

“It’s the nation’s psyche. This is the nomadic way – to stay together and give everyone a chance.”

 

Born into a wealthy Muslim nomad family in 1948, Eid was a trainee banker in 1969 when Barre seized power.

 

The following year he was allowed to leave for nine months only to do an accounting course in London. As the brutality worsened Eid decided not to return, making himself a wanted man back home.

 

He spent the next nine years stateless, working and studying in Cardiff, where he had family, the USA and Saudi Arabia. This was possible with help from a former teacher at the British school in Somalia who had retired to North Wales.

 

In 1979 Barre announced an amnesty for those who had left without permission. Eid returned to find the country in ruins and helped set up the secret opposition Hargeisa Group.

 

When the Somalia Liberation Movement was founded in 1981, he joined, but that year the arrests began.

 

While Eid was on business in neighbouring Djibouti friends phoned warning him not to return. His colleagues in the opposition had been sentenced to between 20 years and life in jail.

 

Eid’s second stint on the run started. In 1987 he fled to Cardiff, applied for refugee status and was given British citizenship.

 

Civil war broke out in Somalia and when Barre was finally toppled in 1991 violence continued.

 

It would be another 16 years before Eid returned.

 

“I am Welsh now. Much of my life has been spent here and my life is here,” he explained.

 

In the intervening years he had been appointed as an adviser to the Welsh Assembly Government on refugee affairs and become development co-ordinator of Somaliland Societies in Europe as well as doing his senior job at the Welsh Refugee Council.

 

“It was harrowing going back,” Eid said.

 

“Some of the people from the movement had died and some had fathers in the movement who had died.” Travelling with his wife Sahra, he based himself in Hargeisa and travelled around the country searching for relatives and friends.

 

He looked for truck drivers used by the SLM, eventually organising a reunion. The drivers had risked their lives secretly moving SLM guerrillas and weapons around the country.

 

“You can imagine how surprised they were when I returned after so long. Some had died and some were very sick, but I found about eight of them in Hargeisa. I took them to a hotel and the whole day we were chatting and telling stories.

 

“They told me how they captured Hargeisa. It was an extremely dangerous time for them and they risked their lives. These men are the grass roots. What happens in Africa is that the elite always claim everything. That’s where the mistake is and what paralyses it.”

 

As a son of the elite himself, Eid is keen to help change that and to re-build the country. “Many people asked me, ‘Why don’t you stay?’

 

“I have responsibilities in Wales. I help people here from many different countries. But it comes to a stage where you say, ‘I have to give something back’. It’s very difficult for me to just pack up and go back but there must be a way that I can work here and there.”

 

Eid’s niece, who joined him in Cardiff in 1995 aged eight, is one of the young diaspora he hopes will help re-build the country from her home in Wales. He said: “We have to inspire the young generation to go there and help.”

 

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