ZOOMING INTO THE PAST

[Sakhraan]

23NOV 1989

Rebels fighting to bring down President Mohamed Said Barre's regime have made spectacular military gains, but seem short on practical ideas of what they would do if they won the battle.

“The Mogadishu Government is of a brutality that has no parallel in the rest of the world”, SNM [Somali National Movement] President Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo told an AFP reporter at its headquarters south of the northern capital, Hargeisa.

“Barre has no parallel. We want an egalitarian system, a democratic form of government, free elections and a multiparty system,” Silanyo said, setting out the aims of the Somali National Movement, which was founded in London in 1981.

He accused troops loyal to Major-General Barre, who has held power for two decades, of killing and wounding more than 50,000 people in northern Somalia in the past 18 months, mainly in heavy bombing raids against civilians. Many victims are Issaqs, who consider them­selves ignored by Mogadishu.

In May, the SNM launched a major offensive against main towns in the north. Though swiftly forced to pull out, it took control of vast tracts of territory east of the border with Djibouti and of several smaller towns, including Zeila and Loya’adde.

Four SNM divisions surround Hargeisa, a correspondent traveling through the region was told as he looked down on the abandoned town from the highlands with the rebel Commander-in-Charge. But Colonel Mohamed Ali Omar, a deserter, would not say how exactly many rebels fighters he led.


The SNM pulled out of Hargeisa for “tactical reason” in August, but sends reconnaissance teams in at night. Government troops hold a nearby barracks and airport. The 80,000 inhabitants have fled.

The rebels want full control over roads from Hargeisa to Borama in the west and the northeastern Port of Berbera, but government troops have mined access to the roads and shot at the SNM patrol taking in this reporter and a photographer early one morning.

Well-equipped, heavily armed, most of the fighters ques­tioned by AFP were unable to give a clear account of the rebel movement's goals, notwithstanding the policies sketched by Silanyo.

“People are fighting, but they don't know why,” one SNM intellectual said of the war that has pitted Sunni Muslims of the same faith and the same language against each other. “All these ideas of democracy are on paper; it is not put into practice.”

As moderate Muslims, SNM militants reject any form of fundamentalism and often forget their daily duties of prayer. “First we fight, then we'll see,” said one, Ibrahim Ahmed Musa.

Most often, the rebels compared themselves with the Muslim guerrillas fighting the Communist government in Afghanistan. “We are the Mujahidiin of the Horn of Africa,” as one put it. “Barre always regarded Issaqs as a threat,” said Silanyo. “The North has a lot of grievances, underdevelopment, and repression. We are at the receiving end.”

The intellectual, who asked not to be named, believes the political vacuum stems from the fact that “no leader has emerged so far from the fighting”.

“We believe we can win the war,” he added, “but there will still be a long way to go in terms of politics.”

Silanyo, who was a minister under major-General Barre until 1982, is not a fighter and his authority has been contested several times. The Movement's Central Com­mittee of 47 only includes seven soldiers; all colonels who deserted form the regular army and no guerrilla leaders.

There are also only seven Issaqs on the Central Com­mittee, though most of the Movement's thousands of combatants are drawn from the Northern clan. Last year, the SNM reached an accord with the neighbouring Issa people, on the fight against Central Authority.


But most of the high-ranking officers who have defected to the rebels come, like much of the Somali army itself, from the Ogaden clan. Internationally, the Movement could well find itself short of heavyweight allies.

The Soviet Union has in the past backed the regime in Mogadishu, which began as a revolutionary government but has over the years turned into what almost resembles a Barre family concern.

The Major-General switched to Washington at the begin­ning of the Ogaden war against Moscow's Ethiopian allies in 1977.

The United States has recently closely tied its backing for the government to an improvement in its widely criticized human rights records, but it is clear that the political future of the SNM rebels will largely depend on its ability to extend its support among the patchwork of clans in Somalia.

[Sakhraan]

25JAN 1990

Hargeysa (northern Somalia-A mere 13 years old, Mohamed Osman Elabi is the youngest recruit at the military training school in Toghoji, one of several cities in the coastal region “liberated” last May by the Somali National Movement (SNM). He has become the school’s mascot. There is no joy in his eyes and he speaks in a thin, young voice. “Siyaad Barre does evil things. He robs the poor of their money; he roughs up the Issaqs and steals their livestock. He is a plunderer,” he boldly recites, while his elders sitting on the dusty ground listen intently.

“Here, I am learning how to fight with rifles, knives, things like that....” Does he know any poems? Any songs? No, “but as soon as I have the time, I will study.

I want to be a schoolmaster in Hargeysa.” In the mean­time, he is fighting alongside his “brothers.” He has already killed and is willing to go back into combat: “I am not afraid of being killed or wounded. I am not afraid of anything. Why should I be afraid?

In the Somalia resistance, not all the Mujahidiin (soldiers of God) have this young Toghoji warrior’s glacial aplomb. But many crossed the border as he did in 1988 to enter the SNM’s camps by the thousands. Some come from Djibouti and Kenya; others from Arab and North African countries.

Abdallah, a 23-year-old topographer, tells his story: “I arrived just after May 1988 and the big offensive. It was the battle of Hargeysa that decided me. I said to myself, `This is it. The guerrillas are finally coming out of Ethiopia and things are happening in Somalia. It’s now or never.’ So, I left everything behind.”

Hussein, age 32, did not have as far to go. Once a nomad, he used to graze his camel herd in the wadis at the base of the famous “Nasa habloods,” the two mountains (or “breasts” as they are known here) that closely frame the capital city of northern Somalia. Even though livestock is returning to the “liberated zones,” Hussein remains faithful to his Kalashnikov. Rashid, a 26-year-old mechanic, has somewhat mixed feelings: He spent sev­eral years in the brush and has been hit by four bullets. The last one, from April, still gives him pain and “bothers” him at little when he runs. Rashid, Hussein and Abdallah, unlike the younger ones, are not embar­rassed to admit their deep fear in combat.


Fear of Dying

“Even if you are highly motivated, even if it’s your 100th battle, you are always afraid of dying. Always.” Some, like Yusuf, readily admit their antimilitarist feelings. “To take up arms was a very difficult decision for me to make,” he explains. He wears dirty jeans, a leopard combat shirt and a green wool cap, Rastafarian style, over his thick head of hair. The anger is visible in his raised shoulders as he says, “How can you live when your freedom is subject to the arbitrary whims of sol­diers? The only language they understand is the language of weapons.”

Despite their different paths and often conflicting visions of the world, the young Mujahidiin share the same hatred for the Somalia Government and its president. Not one of their families is unscathed by the war. Not one of them has not seen an uncle killed, a sister raped, a cousin imprisoned, relatives in exile. Wherever they come from, they also share a loyalty to Islam and its values.

Perched on trucks that transport them close to the fighting, the young guerrillas can be heard chanting at the top of their lungs: “In the name of the prophet and the faith, young people, unite your blood and drive out the tyrant and the murderer.” Muslims, each and every one of them. But, to varying degrees.

The Shari’ah? Why Not

Those who have traveled or studied abroad speak either English or French. “We read NEWSWEEK, LE MONDE, whatever comes into our hands,” says Abdi­lalhi, age 22, nicknamed “Schumacher” for his skill at soccer. Abdallah, who knows Rousseau and Voltaire, recalls with nostalgia the last book he read: “It was `The Plague’ by Camus.” Here as everywhere else in Africa, when evening comes, they gather around the radio in a ritual. “Of course we are interested in Berlin and East Europe,” exclaims Schumacher ardently.

“It proves that socialism is not a good thing. Socialism is poverty. I have been to Ethiopia and Djibouti and I could see the difference clearly.” The fact that Ethiopia has become one of the SNM’s weapons arsenals does not bother him in the least. “Ethiopia helps us without asking us to become socialists. We are neither pro-so­cialist nor pro-democracy. Our goal is Islam,” insists the soccer playing Mujahidiin.

He himself is in favor of the establishment of an Islamic state “like Kuwait or Iran,” and the enforcement of Islamic law, the Shari’ah. The idea of cutting off the hands of thieves does not frighten him; neither does the exclusion of women who are totally absent from the ranks of the SNM. “Reactionary?” he echoes in surprise. “Women can cook and care for the wounded, but they do not have the right to fight in a war. That is Somalia tradition.” The only matter of importance is “to drive out Siyaad Barre. Then we will see about the rest,” he states with candor. It is said that the “minister” of religion and justice is one of the SNM’s most popular figures among the Mujahidiin.

Hard-line Muslims, although still a minority in the Somalia guerrilla [movement], complicate matters for the spokesmen of a movement that officially claims to be in favor of democracy and respect for human rights. “I am for a united Somalia, where the people will be able to freely elect their government,” argues Abdallah. “If we are in favor of reuniting the country, that means we are mindful of the diversity of views. We have to be,” he emphasizes. According to him, the attempts to apply the Shari’ah, which has been introduced in the “liberated zones,” are merely “provisional.” Perhaps.

In the context of terror, insecurity and disorder in which Somalia is now struggling, recourse to Islam-the only link to salvation-comes as no surprise. The economic, political, and moral chaos reigning in Somalia points to difficult days ahead. The disruption is long term. “Only the Romanians can understand the Somali system,” says Abdallah, breaking into a laugh.

[AhlulbaytSoldier]

SNM's jihad against the atheist regime was fully succesful.
I understand if somalilanders dont want to unite again with somalia after what happened in the past.