THE ISAAQ MASSACRE
Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 8:18 am
NEWS
Refugees living 'under the trees' in Somali conflict
by Karen Dabrowska SPECIAL TO THE STAR
857 words
9 September 1990
The Toronto Star
SU2
H2
English
Copyright (c) 1990 The Toronto Star
The former Somali diplomat spent three months visiting the southern Ethiopian villages of Mustahil, Hananweyl and Oud, where 70,000 Somali refugees are "living under the trees" after fleeing from southern Somalia in December last year.
Fresh fighting in the east African nation erupted in the last few days and Reuter news agency reported a bomb exploded at Somalia's central post office Thursday, killing at least two people and wounding many others.
Two days earlier, President Siad Barre had sacked his seven-month-old government, apparently in a bid to defuse mounting political criticism of his dictatorial methods.
For Hussein, 32, it is nothing new. He was a counsellor in the Somali mission at the United Nations in Geneva when he applied for political asylum in Britain in June, 1989, because he could no longer tolerate what the Somali government was doing to its own people.
In London, Hussein helped set up a human rights organization for central and southern Somalia. The group co-operates with overseas branches of Somalia's two main opposition guerrilla movements: the Somali National Movement (SNM), which draws most of its support from the country's northern regions, and the United Somali Congress (USC), which draws its support from the south.
A report on the plight of the refugees from southern Somalia is being prepared for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and other international aid agencies.
"The refugees - urban dwellers and nomads - are not receiving any assistance from the international community," says Hussein.
"There are no roads in the area and there was nobody to contact the international agencies but the people have organized their own assistance with the help of doctors and teachers who fled from the urban areas.
"There is no medicine and very little food - just what the USC volunteers managed to bring in."
Hussein added: "These people are waiting to go back to their homes - they left Somalia due to insecurity."
Since 1981, when the Somali National Movement began opposing the increasingly dictatorial rule of Barre, the regime in the capital Mogadishu has been waging a vicious war which has left 50,000 civilians dead in the north and 13,000 in the south.
Barre, who seized power in a coup in 1969, abolished all but his Somali Revolutionary Socialist party in 1976. He was elected president in 1980 and re-elected in 1986.
Hussein interviewed around 300 refugees. Their stories confirmed Western media reports that the army, national security services and military intelligence have resorted to shooting civilians, bombing towns and villages, burning crops and villages, and running people over with armed personnel carriers.
According to Hussein, the national movement now controls 90 per cent of northern Somalia and the congress controls about 85 per cent of the south. Only the large towns are still under government control.
Since the outbreak of the war in the north, Barre has ruled the central regions of Hiran, Mudug and Galgaduud by relying on terror based on tribal affiliations.
The central regions are populated by the Hawiye and Darod clans who have been co-existing peacefully for more than two generations. Members of both tribes struggled jointly for the independence of southern Somalia.
Barre has succeeded in keeping his own clan (Marehan) and some other pro-regime clans on a war footing against the Haiwye clans of the south and central regions.
But on July 29, congress guerrillas killed the commanding officer of an army division controlling the centre of the country.
Army reprisals against the Hawiye peaked towards the end of 1989, with alleged massacres of non-combatants near Galkayo - the regional capital of Mudug.
These killings followed the rebellion of a group of Hawiye soldiers from the Galkayo garrison who subsequently joined the congress.
After failing to break up the rebel resistance, the army began hunting civilians living in outlying villages. It is estimated that within one week approximately 300 civilians were slain.
On November 24, 1989, 85 people were rounded up in Do'ol near Galkayo and summarily executed.
Amnesty International has also documented massacres by government troops and has the testimony of Omar Musse Mirreh, the sole survivor of a massacre on Jezira Beach 30 kilometres (18 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, when 46 political prisoners were shot in July, 1989.
"There were loud cries as the firing started," Mirreh told Amnesty. "I lay down with my chest pressed against the ground during the shooting. One bullet hit me below the left shoulder.
"As I could not stop shaking because of fear, a soldier shouted, 'This one is alive, get some more bullets.' But another soldier told him that it was the convulsions after death. I was not buried completely because they were in a hurry."
There are plans to unite the military wings of the two opposition movements and form a single body known as the Somali Liberation Army within the next two months. Hussein is predicting Barre's fall before the end of December.
It may come even sooner.
GEMINI NEWS SERVICE
Refugees living 'under the trees' in Somali conflict
by Karen Dabrowska SPECIAL TO THE STAR
857 words
9 September 1990
The Toronto Star
SU2
H2
English
Copyright (c) 1990 The Toronto Star
The former Somali diplomat spent three months visiting the southern Ethiopian villages of Mustahil, Hananweyl and Oud, where 70,000 Somali refugees are "living under the trees" after fleeing from southern Somalia in December last year.
Fresh fighting in the east African nation erupted in the last few days and Reuter news agency reported a bomb exploded at Somalia's central post office Thursday, killing at least two people and wounding many others.
Two days earlier, President Siad Barre had sacked his seven-month-old government, apparently in a bid to defuse mounting political criticism of his dictatorial methods.
For Hussein, 32, it is nothing new. He was a counsellor in the Somali mission at the United Nations in Geneva when he applied for political asylum in Britain in June, 1989, because he could no longer tolerate what the Somali government was doing to its own people.
In London, Hussein helped set up a human rights organization for central and southern Somalia. The group co-operates with overseas branches of Somalia's two main opposition guerrilla movements: the Somali National Movement (SNM), which draws most of its support from the country's northern regions, and the United Somali Congress (USC), which draws its support from the south.
A report on the plight of the refugees from southern Somalia is being prepared for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and other international aid agencies.
"The refugees - urban dwellers and nomads - are not receiving any assistance from the international community," says Hussein.
"There are no roads in the area and there was nobody to contact the international agencies but the people have organized their own assistance with the help of doctors and teachers who fled from the urban areas.
"There is no medicine and very little food - just what the USC volunteers managed to bring in."
Hussein added: "These people are waiting to go back to their homes - they left Somalia due to insecurity."
Since 1981, when the Somali National Movement began opposing the increasingly dictatorial rule of Barre, the regime in the capital Mogadishu has been waging a vicious war which has left 50,000 civilians dead in the north and 13,000 in the south.
Barre, who seized power in a coup in 1969, abolished all but his Somali Revolutionary Socialist party in 1976. He was elected president in 1980 and re-elected in 1986.
Hussein interviewed around 300 refugees. Their stories confirmed Western media reports that the army, national security services and military intelligence have resorted to shooting civilians, bombing towns and villages, burning crops and villages, and running people over with armed personnel carriers.
According to Hussein, the national movement now controls 90 per cent of northern Somalia and the congress controls about 85 per cent of the south. Only the large towns are still under government control.
Since the outbreak of the war in the north, Barre has ruled the central regions of Hiran, Mudug and Galgaduud by relying on terror based on tribal affiliations.
The central regions are populated by the Hawiye and Darod clans who have been co-existing peacefully for more than two generations. Members of both tribes struggled jointly for the independence of southern Somalia.
Barre has succeeded in keeping his own clan (Marehan) and some other pro-regime clans on a war footing against the Haiwye clans of the south and central regions.
But on July 29, congress guerrillas killed the commanding officer of an army division controlling the centre of the country.
Army reprisals against the Hawiye peaked towards the end of 1989, with alleged massacres of non-combatants near Galkayo - the regional capital of Mudug.
These killings followed the rebellion of a group of Hawiye soldiers from the Galkayo garrison who subsequently joined the congress.
After failing to break up the rebel resistance, the army began hunting civilians living in outlying villages. It is estimated that within one week approximately 300 civilians were slain.
On November 24, 1989, 85 people were rounded up in Do'ol near Galkayo and summarily executed.
Amnesty International has also documented massacres by government troops and has the testimony of Omar Musse Mirreh, the sole survivor of a massacre on Jezira Beach 30 kilometres (18 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, when 46 political prisoners were shot in July, 1989.
"There were loud cries as the firing started," Mirreh told Amnesty. "I lay down with my chest pressed against the ground during the shooting. One bullet hit me below the left shoulder.
"As I could not stop shaking because of fear, a soldier shouted, 'This one is alive, get some more bullets.' But another soldier told him that it was the convulsions after death. I was not buried completely because they were in a hurry."
There are plans to unite the military wings of the two opposition movements and form a single body known as the Somali Liberation Army within the next two months. Hussein is predicting Barre's fall before the end of December.
It may come even sooner.
GEMINI NEWS SERVICE