History

1st Century BC and Before: The Land of Punt

Somalia together with Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti (collectively known as the Horn of Africa), were known to the Ancient Egyptians as the Land of Punt. The earliest definite record of contact between Ancient Egypt and Punt comes from an entry on the Palermo stone during the reign of Sahure of the 5th Dynasty (around 2250 BC). It says in one year 80,000 units of myrrh and frankincense was brought to Egypt from Punt as well as other quantities of goods that were highly valued in Ancient Egypt. Between the 13th and 17th Dynasties (1782 BC - 1549 BC), the contact between Egypt and Punt was broken. This was due to the fact that Egypt was invaded by the Hyksos. The fifth ruler in the 18th Dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs was Queen Hatshepsut, daughter of Tutmose III. She became Queen in the year 1493 BC and made a landmark expedition to the land of Punt which is recorded on the walls of the Deir ci-Bahari temple located in Alexandria. Her eight ships sailed to Puntland and came back with cargoes of fine woods, ebony, myrrh, cinnamon and incense trees to plant in the temple garden.

Writings from the first century BC have indicated that parts of Somalia were familiar to Roman and Indian traders by this time. The inhabitants were referred to as the Black Berbers.

Somali in the First Millennium

For five centuries (2nd to 7th century AD), parts of Somalia came under the rule of the Ethiopian/Eritrean Kingdom of Aksum.

In the northern part of the Eastern Horn, change of much less sweeping sorts characterised the end of the last millennium B.C and the first five centuries A.D. The most notable external impact came through the growth of seagoing trade in the Red Sea. At the turn of the era, several significant trading emporia existed along the southern shores of the Gulf of Aden, the most significant of these being at Malao (present-day Berbera). Other commercial sites included Mundu (modern Hais) and Mosyllon (modern Elayu; or Ceelaayo). A good variety of commodities were imported at these locations, such as clothing, drinking vessels, iron wares and Roman coins. A lesser range of goods passed into the outward bound trade - mainly raw materials, in particular myrrh from Malao and frankincense from Mundu and Mosyllon. Tortoise shell also was a valued product of those coasts.

In the 7th century AD, Arab traders began to trade with the locals who (according to contemporary sources) were already active in commerce with foreign nations. The local Cushitic people founded the sultanate of Adal, the main port of which was Zeila (now Saylac in northern Somalia).

The newly established Sultanate put the Somalis in contact with Arab traders travelling along the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. In the ensuing centuries, the Somalis converted to Islam. To the west there was much trading done with the people living with the Oromos, the Afars and the people living in modern-day Eritrea.

Somalia and the Ethiopian Empire

Muslim Somalia enjoyed friendly relations with neighbouring Christian Ethiopia for centuries. Despite jihad raging everywhere else in the Muslim world, Muhammad had issued a hadith proscribing Muslims from attacking Ethiopia (so long as Ethiopia was not the aggressor), as it had sheltered some of Islam's first converts from persecution in modern-day Saudi Arabia.

Parts of north-western Somalia (modern north-western Somaliland) came under the rule of the Solomonic Ethiopian Kingdom in medieval times, especially during the reign of Amda Seyon I (1314-1344). In 1403 or 1415 (under Emperor Dawit I or Emperor Yeshaq I, respectively) measures were taken against the medieval Muslim kingdom of Adal (located in eastern Ethiopia and western Somaliland, centred around Harar and comprised of both Somalis and Afars), a tributary kingdom that had revolted and whose raids were disrupting rule in adjacent areas. His campaign was eventually successful, but took much longer than other campaigns at the time due to the tendency of Adal warriors to vanish into the countryside after fighting. In 1403 (or 1415), the Emperor eventually captured King Sa'ad ad-Din II in Zeila and executed him, with the Walashma ruling family exiled to Yemen. After the war, the reigning king had his minstrels compose a song praising his victory, which contains the first written record of the word "Somali".

The area remained under Ethiopian control for another century or so. However, starting around 1527 under the charismatic leadership of Imam Ahmed Gragn (Gurey in Somali, Gragn in Amharic, both meaning "left-handed), Adal revolted and invaded Ethiopia. Regrouped Muslim armies with Ottoman support and arms marched into Ethiopia employing scorched earth tactics and slaughtered any Ethiopian that refused to convert from Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity to Islam. Moreover, hundreds of churches were destroyed during the invasion, and an estimated 80% of the manuscripts in the country were destroyed in the process.

Adal's use of firearms, still only rarely used in Ethiopia, allowed the conquest of well over half of Ethiopia, reaching as far north as Tigray. The complete conquest of Ethiopia was averted by the timely arrival of a Portuguese expedition led by Cristovão da Gama, son of the famed navigator Vasco da Gama. The Portuguese had been in the area earlier in early 16th centuries (in search of the legendary priest-king Prester John), and although a diplomatic mission from Portugal, led by Rodrigo de Lima, had failed to improve relations between the countries, they responded to the Ethiopian pleas for help and sent a military expedition to their fellow Christians. A Portuguese fleet under the command of Estêvão da Gama was sent from India and arrived at Massawa in February 1541. Here he received an ambassador from the Emperor beseeching him to send help against the Muslims, and in July following a force of 400 musketeers, under the command of Christovão da Gama, younger brother of the admiral, marched into the interior, and being joined by Ethiopian troops they were at first successful against the Muslims but they were subsequently defeated at the Battle of Wofla (28 August 1542), and their commander captured and executed. On February 21, 1543, however, a joint Portuguese-Ethiopian force defeated the Muslim army at the Battle of Wayna Daga, in which Ahmed Gragn was killed and the war won.

Ahmed Gragn's widow married Nur ibn Mujahid in return for his promise to avenge Ahmed's death, who succeeded Ahmed Gragn, and continued hostilities against his northern adversaries until he killed the Ethiopian Emperor in his second invasion of Ethiopia, Emir Nur died in 1567; the Ethiopians sacked Zeila in 1660. The Portuguese, meanwhile, tried to conquer Mogadishu but did not succeeded in taking it. The sultanate of Adal disintegrated into small independent states, many of which were ruled by Somali chiefs. Zeila became a dependency of Yemen, and was then incorporated into the Ottoman Empire.

Scramble for Africa

From 1875, the age of imperialism in Europe transformed Somalia with Britain, France and Italy all making territorial claims on the peninsula. Britain already controlled the port city of Aden in Yemen, just across the Red Sea, and wanted to control its counterpart, Berbera, on the Somali side. The Red Sea was a crucial shipping lane to British colonies in India, and they wanted to secure these 'gatekeeper' ports at all costs.

The French were interested in coal deposits further inland and wanted to disrupt British ambitions to construct a north-south transcontinental railroad along Africa's east coast, by blocking an important section.

Italy had just recently been reunited and was an inexperienced colonialist. It was happy to grab up any African land it didn't have to fight other Europeans for. They took control of the southern part of Somalia, which would become the largest European claim in the country, but the least strategically significant.

In 1884, Egypt, which had declared independence from the waning Ottoman Empire, had ambitions of restoring its ancient power, and set its sights on East Africa. However, the Sudanese resisted Egypt's advance and the Mahdist revolution of 1885 ejected the Egyptians from Sudan and shattered Egypt's hope of a neo-Egyptian empire. The few advance troops that had made it to Somalia had to be rescued by the British and escorted back to their own side of the fence.

Thereafter, the biggest threat to European colonial ambitions in Somalia came from Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II who had successfully avoided having his own country occupied, and was planning to invade Somalia again. By 1900 he had seized the Ogaden region in western Somalia, which was re-conquered by the Mullah during the Dervish colonial resistance war (see below) and then ceded to Ethiopia by Britain in 1945. Even today, long after all the Europeans had given up on their relatively valuable colonial possessions, Ogaden, the most barren of Somali provinces, is still frequently fought over by the two bordering nations.

Dervish Resistance

Somali resistance to foreign powers began in 1899 under the leadership of religious scholar Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, Ogaden sub-lineage of the Darod tribe and his mother was Dulbahante sub-lineage of the Darod tribe. Their primary targets were their traditional enemies the Ethiopians, and the British who controlled the most lucrative ports and were squeezing tax money from farmers who had to use the ports to ship their livestock to customers in the Middle East and India. Hasan was a brilliant orator and poet with a very strong following of Islamic fundamentalist dervishes all of which came from the Dulbahante tribe; these relentless and well organised warriors were Hasan's maternal relatives.

A bloody guerrilla war was waged, which lasted over two decades until the British Royal Air Force, having honed their skills in World War I, led a devastating bombing campaign against dervish strongholds in 1920, which caused Hasan to flee (he died of pneumonia soon after). The dervish struggle was one of the longest and bloodiest anti-Imperial resistance wars in sub-Saharan Africa, and cost the lives of nearly a third of northern Somalia's population: the Dulbahante lost half of their population during this era and there were heavy casualties on the Ethiopian and British sides as well. This was mainly due to the Dulbahante's refusal to sign the Protectorate Treaty and submit to British colonial rule. The Isaaq, the Issa, the Warsangali as well as the Gadabuursi signed the treaty with the British without any loss of life. The Dulbahante viewed themselves as the sole protector of greater Somalia, and resented the signatory tribes.

After the long Anglo-dervish wars, the British colonial leaders did not trust the Somalis; therefore, immediately after the Isaaq, the Issa, the Warsangali, and the Gadabuursi signed the treaty, they invoked article 7 of the treaty, sub-section 3(a)(j)(k) of which allowed the British Colonial Authority to enforce segregation rule and a head tax. It also subjected the children of the tribes that signed the treaty to CCTP (Children under Colonial Power under sub-section 3k). CCTP dictated separating a percentage of the children from their mothers for special education, although the actual intent was to instil fear into the treaty members to enforce law and order.

While the British were involved with Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (known to the British as 'The Mad Mullah'), the French made little use of their Somali holdings, content that as long as the British were blocked, their job was done. The Italians, though, were intent on larger projects and established an actual colony to which a significant number of Italian civilians migrated and invested in major agricultural development. By this time, Mussolini was in power in Italy. He wanted to improve the world's respect for Italy by expert economic management of Italy's new colonies, upstaging the British and their various embarrassing problems with the Somalis.

Due to the constant fighting, the British were afraid to invest in any expensive infrastructure projects that might easily be destroyed by guerrillas. As a result, when the country was eventually reunited in the 1960s, the north, which had been under British control, lagged far behind the south in terms of economic development, and came to be dominated by the South. The bitterness from this state of affairs would be one of the sparks for the future civil war.

World War II

Fascist Italy, under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, tried to pursue its colonialist expansion policy and attacked Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in 1935. The invasion was condemned by the League of Nations, but little was done to stop Italian military and industrial build-up. Abyssinia was occupied, and the government of Emperor Haile Selassie I was exiled to the UK, from where the Emperor appealed to the international community. Little was done to liberate occupied Ethiopia. Britain would regret the failure of it and its allies to impose sanctions on Italy.

In August 1940, Italian troops crossed the Ethiopian border and invaded British Somalia to take the colony from the United Kingdom. The invasion was launched on August 3, and concluded with the taking of Berbera on August 14.

The British launched a campaign in January 1942 from Kenya to liberate Italian Somaliland, British Somaliland and Italian-occupied Ethiopia, again with many Somalis being incorporated to fight a war led by foreigners. By February, most of Italian Somaliland was captured. In March, British Somaliland was retaken by a sea invasion.

During the war years, Somalia was directly ruled by a British military administration and martial law was in place, especially in the north where bitter memories of past bloodshed still lingered. Unfortunately these policies were ill-advised. The irregular bandits and militias of the Somali outback received a windfall in weaponry, thanks to the world wide surge in arms production from the war. The Italian settlers and other anti-British elements made sure the rebels got as many guns as they needed to cause trouble. Despite a fresh Somali thorn in their side, the British protectorate lasted until 1949, and actually made some progress in economic development. The British established their capital in the northern city of Hargeisa, and wisely allowed local Muslim judges to try most cases, rather than impose alien British military justice on the populace.

The British allowed almost all the Italians to stay, except for a few obvious security risks, and regularly employed them as civil servants, and in the educated professions. The fact that 9 out of 10 of the Italians were loyal to Mussolini and probably actively spying on the Italian army's behalf, was tolerated due to Somalia's relative strategic irrelevance to the larger war effort. Indeed, considering they were technically citizens of an enemy power, the British lent considerable leeway to the Italian residents, even allowing them to form their own political parties in direct competition with British authority.

Post-War Period

After the war, the British gradually relaxed military control of Somalia, and attempted to introduce democracy, and numerous native Somali political parties sprang into existence, the first being the Somali Youth League (SYL) in 1945. The Potsdam conference was unsure of what to do with Somalia, whether to allow Britain to continue its occupation, to return control to the Italians, who actually had a significant amount of people living there, or grant full independence. This question was hotly debated in the Somali political scene for the next several years. Many wanted outright independence, especially the rural citizens in the west and north. Southerners enjoyed the economic prosperity brought by the Italians, and preferred their leadership. A smaller faction appreciated Britain's honest attempt to maintain order.

In 1948, a commission led by representatives of the Allied nations granted Ogaden to Ethiopia; a decision that would spark war decades later. The United Nations decided in 1949 that in recognition of its genuine economic improvements to the country, Italy would retain a nominal trusteeship of Somalia for the next 10 years, after which it would gain full independence. The SYL, Somalia's first and most powerful party, strongly opposed this decision, preferring immediate independence, and would become a source of unrest in the coming years.

The 1950's

Despite the SYL's misgivings, the 1950s were something of a golden age for Somalia. With UN aid money pouring in, and experienced Italian administrators who had come to see Somalia as their home, infrastructural and educational development bloomed. This decade passed relatively without incident and was marked by positive growth in virtually all parts of Somali life. As scheduled, in 1959, Somalia was granted independence, and power transferred smoothly from the Italian administrators to the by then well developed Somali political culture.

Independence

The independence of the British Somaliland Protectorate from the United Kingdom was proclaimed on 26 June 1960, and on 1 July 1960, unification of the British and ex-Italian Somaliland took place. The government was formed by Abdullahi Issa. Aden Abdullah Osman Daar was appointed as President and Abdirashid Ali Shermarke as Prime Minister.

However, in the early 1960s, troubling trends began to emerge when the north began to reject referendums that had won a majority of votes, based on an overwhelming southern favouritism. This came to a head in 1961 when northern paramilitary organisations revolted when placed under southerners' command. The north's second largest political party began openly advocating secession. Attempts to mend these divides with the formation of a Pan-Somalian party were ineffectual; one opportunistic party attempted to unite the bickering regions by rallying them against their common enemy Ethiopia and the cause of re-conquering Ogaden. Other nationalistic party platforms included the independence of the northern Kenyan holdings of the Italian colony, from Kenya proper. These regions were largely inhabited by ethnic Somalis who had become accustomed to Italian rule, and were distressed by the different regime they faced in Kenya.

Clashes with Ethiopia

Somali's internal disputes were manifested outwards in hostility to Ethiopia and Kenya, which they felt were standing in the way of 'Greater Somalia'. This led to a series of individual Somali militiamen conducting hit and run raids across both borders from 1960 to 1964, when open conflict erupted between Ethiopia and Somalia. This lasted a few months until a cease fire was signed. In the aftermath, Ethiopia and Kenya signed a mutual defence pact to contain Somali aggression.

By the middle of the 1960s, the Somalis had formal military relationship with Russia whereby the Soviets provided extensive material and training to the Somali armed forces. They also had an exchange program in which several hundred soldiers from one country went to the others to train or be trained. As a result of their contact with the Soviet military, many Somali officers gained a distinctly Marxist worldview. China supplied a lot of non military industrial funding for various projects, and the Italians continued to support their displaced children in Africa, and the relationship between the rapidly communising Somalia and the Italian government remained cordial. The Somalis however were increasingly becoming jaded towards the United States, which had been sending substantial military aid to their neighbour, Ethiopia.

By the late 1960s, the Somali democracy that had set off with such an enthusiastic start just ten years previously was beginning to crumble. In the 1967 election, due to a complicated web of clan loyalties, the winner was not properly recognised and instead a new secret vote was taken by already elected National Assemblymen (senators). The central election issue was whether or not to use military force to bring about the long dreamed of pan-Somalism, which would mean war with Ethiopia and Kenya and possibly Djibouti. In 1968 there seemed to be a brief respite from ominous developments when a telecommunications and trade treaty was worked out with Ethiopia, which was very profitable for both countries, and especially for residents on the border who had been living in a de facto state of emergency since the 1964 cease fire.

1969 Coup d'Etat

The stage was set for a coup d'état, but the event that precipitated the coup was unplanned. On 15 October 1969, a bodyguard killed president Shermarke while prime minister Igaal was out of the country. Igaal returned to Mogadishu to arrange for the selection of a new president by the National Assembly. His choice was, like Shermarke, a member of the Daarood clan-family. Government critics, particularly a group of army officers, saw no hope for improving the country's situation by this means. Critics also saw the process as extremely corrupt with votes for the presidency being actively bid on, the highest offer being 55,000 Somali Shillings (approximately $8,000) per vote. On 21 October 1969, when it became apparent that the assembly would support Igaal's choice, army units, with the cooperation of the police, took over strategic points in Mogadishu and rounded up government officials and other prominent political figures.

Although not regarded as the author of the military takeover, army commander Major General Salad Gabeire Kediye and Mahammad Siad Barre assumed leadership of the officers who deposed the civilian government. The new governing body, the Supreme Revolutionary Council leader Salad Gabeire, installed Siad Barre as its president. The SRC arrested and detained at the presidential palace leading members of the democratic regime, including Igaal. The SRC banned political parties, abolished the National Assembly, and suspended the constitution. The new regime's goals included an end to "tribalism, nepotism, corruption, and misrule". Existing treaties were to be honoured, but national liberation movements and Somali unification were to be supported. The country was renamed the Somali Democratic Republic.

Supreme Revolutionary Council

The SRC also gave priority to rapid economic and social development through "crash programs", efficient and responsive government and creation of a standard written form of Somali as the country's single official language. The régime pledged continuance of regional détente in its foreign relations without relinquishing Somali claims to disputed territories.

The SRC's domestic program, known as the First Charter of the Revolution, appeared in 1969. Along with Law Number 1, an enabling instrument promulgated on the day of the military takeover, the First Charter provided the institutional and ideological framework of the new regime. Law Number 1 assigned to the SRC all functions previously performed by the president, the National Assembly, and the Council of Ministers, as well as many duties of the courts. The role of the twenty-five-member military junta was that of an executive committee that made decisions and had responsibility to formulate and execute policy. Actions were based on majority vote, but deliberations were rarely published. SRC members met in specialised committees to oversee government operations in given areas.

A subordinate fourteen-man secretariat - the Council of the Secretaries of State (CSS) - functioned as a cabinet and was responsible for day-to-day government operation, although it lacked political power. The CSS consisted largely of civilians, but until 1974 several key ministries were headed by military officers who were concurrently members of the SRC. Existing legislation from the previous democratic government remained in force unless specifically abrogated by the SRC, usually on the grounds that it was "incompatible...with the spirit of the Revolution". In February 1970, the democratic constitution of 1960, suspended at the time of the coup, was repealed by the SRC under powers conferred by Law Number 1.

Although the SRC monopolised executive and legislative authority, Siad Barre filled a number of executive posts: titular head of state, chairman of the CSS (and thereby head of government), commander in chief of the armed forces, and president of the SRC. His titles were of less importance, however, than was his personal authority, to which most SRC members deferred, and his ability to manipulate the clans.

Military and police officers, including some SRC members, headed government agencies and public institutions to supervise economic development, financial management, trade, communications and public utilities. Military officers replaced civilian district and regional officials. Meanwhile, civil servants attended reorientation courses that combined professional training with political indoctrination, and those found to be incompetent or politically unreliable were fired. A mass dismissal of civil servants in 1974, however, was dictated in part by economic pressures.

The legal system functioned after the coup, subject to modification. In 1970 special tribunals, the National Security Courts (NSC), were set up as the judicial arm of the SRC. Using a military attorney as prosecutor, the courts operated outside the ordinary legal system as watchdogs against activities considered to be counterrevolutionary. The first cases that the courts dealt with involved Shermaarke's assassination and charges of corruption levelled by the SRC against members of the democratic regime. The NSC subsequently heard cases with and without political content. A uniform civil code introduced in 1973 replaced predecessor laws inherited from the Italians and British and also imposed restrictions on the activities of sharia courts. The new regime subsequently extended the death penalty and prison sentences to individual offenders, formally eliminating collective responsibility through the payment of diya or blood money.

The SRC also overhauled local government, breaking up the old regions into smaller units as part of a long-range decentralisation program intended to destroy the influence of the traditional clan assemblies and, in the government's words, to bring government "closer to the people". Local councils, composed of military administrators and representatives appointed by the SRC, were established under the Ministry of Interior at the regional, district, and village levels to advise the government on local conditions and to expedite its directives. Other institutional innovations included the organisation (under Soviet direction) of the National Security Service (NSS), directed initially at halting the flow of professionals and dissidents out of the country and at counteracting attempts to settle disputes among the clans by traditional means. The newly formed Ministry of Information and National Guidance set up local political education bureaus to carry the government's message to the people and used Somalia's print and broadcast media for the "success of the socialist, revolutionary road". A censorship board, appointed by the ministry, tailored information to SRC guidelines.

The SRC took its toughest political stance in the campaign to break down the solidarity of the lineage groups. Tribalism was condemned as the most serious impediment to national unity. Siad Barre denounced tribalism in a wider context as a "disease" obstructing development not only in Somalia, but also throughout the Third World. The government meted out prison terms and fines for a broad category of proscribed activities classified as tribalism. Traditional headmen, whom the democratic government had paid a stipend, were replaced by reliable local dignitaries known as "peacekeepers" (nabod doan), appointed by Mogadishu to represent government interests. Community identification (rather than lineage affiliation) was forcefully advocated at orientation centres set up in every district as the foci of local political and social activity. For example, the SRC decreed that all marriage ceremonies should occur at an orientation centre. Siad Barre presided over these ceremonies from time to time and contrasted the benefits of socialism to the evils he associated with tribalism.

To increase production and control over the nomads, the government resettled 140,000 nomadic pastoralists in farming communities and in coastal towns, where the erstwhile herders were encouraged to engage in agriculture and fishing. By dispersing the nomads and severing their ties with the land to which specific clans made collective claim, the government may also have undercut clan solidarity. In many instances, real improvement in the living conditions of resettled nomads was evident, but despite government efforts to eliminate it, clan consciousness as well as a desire to return to the nomadic life persisted. Concurrent SRC attempts to improve the status of Somali women were unpopular in a traditional Muslim society, despite Siad Barre's argument that such reforms were consonant with Islamic principles.

Language and Literacy

One of the principal objectives of the revolutionary regime was the adoption of a standard orthography of the Somali language. Such a system would enable the government to make Somali the country's official language. Since independence, Italian and English had served as the languages of administration and instruction in Somalia's schools. All government documents had been published in the two European languages. Indeed, it had been considered necessary that certain civil service posts of national importance be held by two officials, one proficient in English and the other in Italian.

During the Husseen and Igaal governments, when a number of English-speaking northerners were put in prominent positions, English had dominated Italian in official circles and had even begun to replace it as a medium of instruction in southern schools. Arabic -or a heavily Arabized Somali -also had been widely used in cultural and commercial areas and in Islamic schools and courts. Religious traditionalists and supporters of Somalia's integration into the Arab world had advocated that Arabic be adopted as the official language, with Somali as a vernacular. A few months after independence, the Somali Language Committee was appointed to investigate the best means of writing Somali. The committee considered nine scripts, including Arabic, Latin and various indigenous scripts. Its report, issued in 1962, favoured the Latin script, which the committee regarded as the best suited to represent the phonemic structure of Somali and flexible enough to be adjusted for the dialects. Facility with a Latin system, moreover, offered obvious advantages to those who sought higher education outside the country. Modern printing equipment would also be more easily and reasonably available for Latin type.

On coming to power, the SRC made clear that it viewed the official use of foreign languages, of which only a relatively small fraction of the population had an adequate working knowledge, as a threat to national unity, contributing to the stratification of society on the basis of language. In 1971, the SRC revived the Somali Language Committee and instructed it to prepare textbooks for schools and adult education programs, a national grammar, and a new Somali dictionary. However, no decision was made at the time concerning the use of a particular script, and each member of the committee worked in the one with which he was familiar. The understanding was that, upon adoption of a standard script, all materials would be immediately transcribed.

On the third anniversary of the 1969 coup, the SRC announced that a Latin script had been adopted as the standard script to be used throughout Somalia beginning January 1, 1973. As a prerequisite for continued government service, all officials were given three months (later extended to six months) to learn the new script and to become proficient in it. During 1973, educational material written in the standard orthography was introduced in elementary schools and by 1975 was also being used in secondary and higher education.

Somalia's literacy rate was estimated at only 5% in 1972. After adopting the new script, the SRC launched a "cultural revolution" aimed at making the entire population literate in two years. The first part of the massive literacy campaign was carried out in a series of three-month sessions in urban and rural sedentary areas and reportedly resulted in several hundred thousand people learning to read and write. As many as 8,000 teachers were recruited, mostly among government employees and members of the armed forces, to conduct the program.

The campaign in settled areas was followed by preparations for a major effort among the nomads that got underway in August 1974. The program in the countryside was carried out by more than 20,000 teachers, half of whom were secondary school students whose classes were suspended for the duration of the school year. The rural program also compelled a privileged class of urban youth to share the hardships of the nomadic pastoralists. Although affected by the onset of a severe drought, the program appeared to have achieved substantial results in the field in a short period of time. Nevertheless, the UN estimate of Somalia's literacy rate in 1990 was only 24 percent.

Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party

One of the SRC's first acts was to prohibit the existence of any political association. Under Soviet pressure to create a communist party structure to replace Somalia's military regime, Siad Barre had announced as early as 1971 the SRC's intention to establish a one-party state. The SRC had already begun organising what was described as a "vanguard of the revolution" composed of members of a socialist elite drawn from the military and the civilian sectors. The National Public Relations Office (retitled the National Political Office in 1973) was formed to propagate scientific socialism with the support of the Ministry of Information and National Guidance through orientation centres that had been built around the country, generally as local self-help projects.

The SRC convened a congress of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (SRSP) in June 1976 and voted to establish the Supreme Council as the new party's central committee. The council included the nineteen officers who composed the SRC, in addition to civilian advisers, heads of ministries, and other public figures. Civilians accounted for a majority of the Supreme Council's seventy-three members. On July 1, 1976, the SRC dissolved itself, formally vesting power over the government in the SRSP under the direction of the Supreme Council.

In theory, the SRSP's creation marked the end of military rule, but in practice real power over the party and the government remained with the small group of military officers who had been most influential in the SRC. Decision-making power resided with the new party's politburo, a select committee of the Supreme Council that was composed of five former SRC members, including Siad Barre and his son-in-law, NSS chief Abdullah. Siad Barre was also secretary general of the SRSP, as well as chairman of the Council of Ministers, which had replaced the CSS in 1981. Military influence in the new government increased with the assignment of former SRC members to additional ministerial posts. The MOD circle also had wide representation on the Supreme Council and in other party organs. Upon the establishment of the SRSP, the National Political Office was abolished; local party leadership assumed its functions.

Ogaden War

In 1977 the Somali president, Siad Barre, was able to muster 35,000 regulars and 15,000 fighters of the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF). His forces began infiltrating into the Ogaden in May-June 1977, and overt warfare began in July. By September 1977 Mogadishu controlled 90% of the Ogaden and had followed retreating Ethiopian forces into non-Somali regions of Harerge, Bale, and Sidamo.

After watching Ethiopian events in 1975-76, the Soviet Union concluded that the revolution would lead to the establishment of an authentic Marxist-Leninist state and that, for geopolitical purposes, it was wise to transfer Soviet interests to Ethiopia. To this end, Moscow secretly promised the Derg military aid on condition that it renounce the alliance with the United States. Mengistu Haile Mariam, believing that the Soviet Union's revolutionary history of national reconstruction was in keeping with Ethiopia's political goals, closed down the US military mission and the communications centre in April 1977.

In September, Moscow suspended all military aid to Somalia, and began openly deliver weapons to Addis Ababa, and reassigned military advisers from Somalia to Ethiopia. This Soviet volte-face also gained Ethiopia important support from North Korea, which trained a People's Militia, and from Cuba and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, which provided infantry, pilots, and armoured units. Somalia renounced the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union, expelled all Soviet advisers, broke diplomatic relations with Cuba and ejected all Soviet personnel from Somalia.

By March 1978, Ethiopia and its allies regained control over the Ogaden. Siad Barre proved unable to return the Ogaden to Somali rule, and the people grew restive; in northern Somalia, rebels destroyed administrative centres and took over major towns. Both Ethiopia and Somalia had followed ruinous socialist policies of economic development, and they were unable to surmount droughts and famines that afflicted the Horn during the 1980s. In 1988 Siyaad and Mengistu agreed to withdraw their armies from possible confrontation in the Ogaden.

The Last Years under Barre

Faced with shrinking popularity and an armed and organised domestic resistance, Siad Barre unleashed a reign of terror against the Majeerteen, the Hawiye and the Isaaq, carried out by the Red Berets (Duub Cas), a special unit recruited from the president's Marehan clansmen. Thus, by the beginning of 1986, Siad Barre's grip on power seemed secure, despite the host of problems facing the regime. However, on the evening of May 23, he was severely injured in an automobile accident. Astonishingly, although at the time he was in his early seventies and suffered from chronic diabetes, Siad Barre recovered sufficiently to resume the reins of government following a month's recuperation. But the accident unleashed a power struggle among senior army commandants, elements of the president's Marehan clan, and related factions, whose infighting practically brought the country to a standstill. Broadly, two groups contended for power: a constitutional faction and a clan faction. The constitutional faction was led by the senior vice president, Brigadier General Mahammad Ali Samantar; the second vice president, Major General Husseen Kulmiye; and generals Ahmad Sulaymaan Abdullah and Ahmad Mahamuud Faarah. The four, together with president Siad Barre, constituted the politburo of the SRSP.

Opposed to the constitutional group were elements from the president's Marehan clan, especially members of his immediate family, including his brother, Abdirahmaan Jaama Barre; the president's son, Colonel Masleh Siad, and the formidable Mama Khadiija, Siad Barre's senior wife. By some accounts, Mama Khadiija ran her own intelligence network, had well-placed political contacts, and oversaw a large group who had prospered under her patronage.

In November 1986, the dreaded Red Berets unleashed a campaign of terror and intimidation on a frightened citizenry. Meanwhile, the ministries atrophied and the army's officer corps was purged of competent career officers on suspicion of insufficient loyalty to the president. In addition, ministers and bureaucrats plundered what was left of the national treasury after it had been repeatedly skimmed by the top family.

In the north of the country, the Isaaq clan developed a rebel group named the SNM, who were supported morally and financially by Ethiopia. In order to combat these rebels, there were many raids against the north. Also in the north, there was a rebel group called the SSDF, which was led by Abdullahi Yusuf. Clan based militias, particularly, Isaaq, Majerten and Hawiye started a campaign of immense proportions of killings, rape and torture in the northern and middle regions of Somalia. In the late 1980s, rival factional groups began to make substantial territorial gains, especially in the northern Somaliland region. These rebels received aid from Ethiopia in hopes of overthrowing the Somali government.

By 1991, the situation in Mogadishu was very dire. The rebels, led by warlord Aidid and his rebel group, the USC attacked Mogadishu. Aidid fought against government foces, and Barre was finally overthrown on the evening of 26 January 1991. He was succeeded by Ali Mahdi Muhammad, another warlord of the Hawiye clan until November 1991, but Ali Mahdi's government never managed to exert political or military control over most of the country as by then, Somalia was thrown into chaos. Ali Mahdi and Aideed's personal militia and clans fought against each other, both vying for President.

Somali Civil War

The first phase of the civil war stemmed from the insurrections against the repressive regime of Siad Barre. After his ousting from power, a counter-revolution took place to attempt to reinstate him as leader of the country. The increasingly violent and chaotic situation evolved to a humanitarian crisis and to a state of anarchy.

In 1991, to insulate it from the more violent fighting in the south, the Republic of Somaliland declared itself independent, though it was not formally recognised as such by the international community. It comprises the northwestern section of the country (between Djibouti and the northeastern area known as Puntland). Although de facto independent and relatively stable compared to the tumultuous south, it has still not been recognised by any foreign government.

UN Security Council Resolution 794 was unanimously passed on December 3, 1992, which approved a coalition of United Nations peacekeepers led by the United States to form UNITAF, tasked with ensuring humanitarian aid being distributed and peace being established in Somalia. The UN humanitarian troops landed in 1993 and started a two-year effort (primarily in the south) to alleviate famine conditions.

However, many Somalis opposed the foreign presence. In October, several gun battles in Mogadishu between local gunmen and peacekeepers resulted in the death of 24 Pakistanis and 19 US soldiers, with most of the Americans were killed in the Battle of Mogadishu (the incident later became the basis for the book and film Black Hawk Down). The UN withdrew on March 3, 1995, having suffered more significant casualties. Order in Somalia still has not been restored.

Declaration of Autonomous States

Another secession from Somalia took place in the northeastern region. The self-proclaimed state took the name Puntland after declaring "temporary" independence in 1998, with the intention that it would participate in any Somali reconciliation to form a new central government. A further secession occurred in 1998 with the declaration of the state of Jubaland. The territory of Jubaland is now encompassed by the state of Southwestern Somalia and its status is unclear.

A fourth self-proclaimed entity led by the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA) was set up in 1999, along the lines of the Puntland. That "temporary" secession was reasserted in 2002. This led to the autonomy of Southwestern Somalia. The RRA had originally set up an autonomous administration over the Bay and Bakool regions of south and central Somalia in 1999.

War in Somalia

In 2000, Abdiqasim Salad Hassan was selected to lead the Transitional National Government (TNG). Abdinur Darman was elected in Mogadishu on June 5, 2003, but on October 10, 2004 Somali parliament members elected Abdullahi Yusuf, president of Puntland, to be the next president, leading the successor to the TNG, named the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Because of the chaotic situation in Mogadishu, a decision was made to hold the election in the relatively atypical venue of a sports centre in Nairobi, Kenya. The other institutions adopted at this time were the Transitional Federal Charter and the selection of a 275-member Transitional Federal Parliament.

Starting in May 2006 with the Second Battle of Mogadishu, civil war has again wracked Somalia, largely involving Ethiopian and Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces versus the Islamist militant umbrella group, the Islamic Court Union (ICU) and other affiliated militias for control of the country. On June 5, 2006 forces associated with the Islamic Court Union claimed to have taken control of Mogadishu.

Military events in 2007 focused on the southern section of Somalia, primarily the withdrawal of ICU forces from Kismayo, and their pursuit using Ethiopian air strikes in Afmadow district concurrent to the Battle of Ras Kamboni. During this battle, the US launched an airstrike conducted by an AC-130 gunship against suspected Al-Qaeda operatives. A second airstrike was made after the battle later in January 2007. In addition, there were various insurgent attacks in Mogadishu and around the country against Ethiopian and government forces, as well as inter-clan militia violence. The government meanwhile called for a disarmament of the militias, and declared martial law.