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The Politics of the 1969 Somali Coup

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

I. M. Lewis
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Extract

In the lives of nations, as of men, reputations all too often achieve their widest currency when they are already out of date. The Somali Republic is no exception to this general rule. Although the real circumstances had already significantly altered before the military brusquely seized power in October 1969, Somalia was still generally known for democracy at home and trouble abroad. The first of these characterisations referred to the striking persistance of a vigorous and effective multi-party parliamentary system, and the second to the seemingly uniquely intractable nature of the ‘Somali Dispute’ which committed the Republic to supporting the secessionist claims of the contiguous Somali populations of Kenya, Ethiopia, and French Somaliland, at the price of severely strained relations with these neighbouring states. These and other attributes unusual amongst the new states of sub-Saharan Africa appeared to be closely connected with the Republic's exuberant sense of national identity, a quality all the more remarkable in being firmly grounded in a long-standing and entirely traditional cultural nationalism.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , October 1972 , pp. 383 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

Page 384 note 1 See Lewis, I. M., ‘Pan-Africanism and Pan-Somalism’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), I, 2, 08 1963, pp. 147–62.Google Scholar

Page 385 note 1 See Lewis, I. M., The Modern History of Somaliland (London, 1965),Google Scholar and ‘Integration in the Somali Republic’, in Haziewood, Arthur (ed.), African Integration and Disintegration (London, 1967), pp. 251–84.Google Scholar In 1967 and 1968, however, Somalia signed treaties with Kenya and Ethiopia which produced a détente and greatly improved relations between the three states— see Hoskyns, Catherine, Case Studies in African Diplomacy, No. 2, The Ethiopia-Somali-Kenya Dispute (Nairobi, 1969).Google Scholar

Page 385 note 2 In the work of Africanist anthropologists this is particularly marked in the writing of Abner Cohen, notably in his Custom and Politics in Urban Africa (London, 1969).Google Scholar

Page 385 note 3 As will be evident, I disagree here with the view of those who hold that ‘nations’ are quite distinct from ‘tribes’; see, for example, Gulliver, P. H. (ed.), Tradition and Transition in East Africa (London, 1969), pp. 28–31.Google Scholar

Page 390 note 1 For a detailed account of the traditional political system and its initial response to modern developments, see Lewis, I. M., ‘Modern Political Movements in Somaliland’, in Africa (London), XXVIII, 1958, pp. 224–61 and 344–64,Google Scholar and A Pastoral Democracy (London, 1961).Google Scholar

Page 395 note 1 For a fuller account of the politics of the integration of the two parts of the state, see I. M. Lewis, ‘Nationalism and Particularism in Somalia’, in P. H. Gulliver (ed.), op. cit. pp. 339–62. For an analysis of the legal problems engaged in this process, see Contini, P., The Somali Republic: an experiment in legal integration (London, 1969).Google Scholar

Page 398 note 1 The total number of candidates happens to be roughly equivalent to my estimate of how many dia-paying groups there are in the Republic. But I think that this is a fortuitous coincidence, because most candidates were presented by coalitions of such groups.

Page 398 note 2 According to a detailed statement made after the coup by a spokesman of the Supreme Revolutionary Council, and based on a close study of the accounts of the Premier's Office, Egal expended £500,000 of public funds in payments to members of the assembly in the period between January and October 1969.

Page 400 note 1 See Anglo-Somali Society Newsleter (Dalrrington, Devon), LVII, 1970,Google Scholar for a report of the trial of the culprit who was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Page 400 note 2 These included Mohammad Haji Ibrahim Egal, as well as his opponent Abdirazaq Haji Husseyn, and the former Head of State, Adan Abdulle Osman. This oddly assorted party of politicians and dignitaries was confined in the presidential guest-house at Afgoi, outside the capital, and has remained there in reputedly reasonable conditions ever since. The former police chief, General Abshir, was placed under house arrest.

Page 401 note 1 From the earliest days of colonisation, the bulk of recruits to the police, and indeed to other government employment, has come from the nomadic elements of Somalia. This is a direct reflection of the pressure of population on resources in the most nomadic regions.

Page 403 note 1 In January 1971, for instance, a number of people were sentenced to 18 months hard labour for ‘fostering tribalism’ by a district court in a remote northern part of the Republic.

Page 404 note 1 Some of General Siad's speeches are conveniently collected together in an official publication entitled My Country and My People (Mogadishu, 1970).Google Scholar

Page 405 note 1 Following General Korshell's disgrace, in May 1971 General Mohammad Ainanshe (another Vice-President) and General Salad Gavaire were arrested and charged with engineering a plot ‘to kill the revolution’. They were brought to trial, and publicly executed on 3 July 1972. Official reports emphasised that the 90-man firing squad was anti-tribal in composition, and that the Government would see to the funeral arrangements—traditionally a lineage responsibility.

Page 405 note 2 For an interesting recent, and far from uncritical, western Marxist assessment of the Republic's internal and external policies, see Wolczyk, A., ‘Il “Socialismo” Somalo: un industria per il potere’, in Concretezza (Rome), I, 01 1972, pp. 23–6.Google Scholar