Agony and struggle in northern Somalia

Abstract

In May 1991, the breakaway Somaliland republic was established in what had been the northern regions of Somalia, with its first president, Abdirahman Ahmed Ali. But this attempt at creating a stable polity in a rapidly disintegrating situation is yet to be recognised by western powers.

The creation of this new republic was a direct result of the civil war in Somalia. This had begun to tear apart the fragile state from 1982, when the first organised resistance to the tyrannical rule of president Siad Barre had been mounted in the northern cities of Hargeisa and Burao.

By effectively redrawing the old colonial boundaries between what had been British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland before the brittle unity that had come with independence in 1960, the people of the new Somali land have declared their final dissatisfaction with the economic and cultural bias, the political structure and inbuilt inequity of the former Somalia. They are also systematically rejecting the brutal overlordship they have suffered for twenty years from the Mogadishu government's tribalistic policies, since Siad Barre's regime took power in 1969. 'All the countries in the Horn of Africa could establish economic cooperation and work together in many fields', declared the new president. 'But we want two separate Somali states. As far as we're concerned, there's no going back. ^'1

The initial optimism with which many exiled Somalis have greeted the announcement of the new nation is grounded in the fact that it is being established not by an assertion of military strength by the Somali National Movement (SNM), which challenged and finally overcame Siad Barre's military stranglehold on the north, but by a process of rebuilding through peace and civilian order. Abdirahman has said: 'We re-established law and order, disarmed all civilians and withdrew our forces to barracks. The next step is the reconstruction of the country.^'2

Cities in Somaliland have traditionally been centres of trade, admini stration and education. Now they lie shattered. In Hargeisa, for example, 80 per cent of the buildings have been destroyed, supply infrastructures like electricity and water have been smashed, the schools left roofless and ruined, the hospitals devastated and without the most basic facilities. 'Anti-personnel' mines and unexploded shells lie buried in the rubble of the city, still deadly, forbidding the clearance of much of the debris. Such terrifying conditions in what had been stable and well-established cities symbolise the legacy of Siad Barre's disastrous years of power. As the Africa Watch Committee set down in its 1990 report on the region:

It is difficult to overstate the Somali government's brutality towards its own people, or to measure the impact of its murderous policies. Two decades of the presidency of President Siad Barre have resulted in human rights violations on an unprecedented scale which have devastated the country. Even before the current wars the human rights of Somali citizens were violated systematically, violently and with absolute impunity.

The cost is staggeringly high in any terms, with people dead, wounded, displaced and impoverished and cities demolished. The most bloody conflict, and the longest lasting, has been the war in the north against the Isaak clan, the largest in the region.³

In Britain, the expatriate and refugee Somali community (many of whose family origins are with the Isaak clan and whose homes were in the cities of Hargeisa and Burao), is working for the reconstruction of the country. Through their community associations in cities like Cardiff, Sheffield, Liverpool and London, Somalis are constantly involved in organising support and solidarity. This loyalty to their homeland has not been helped by western governments, like that of Britain, which have refused to recognise the new state of Somaliland. This refusal has created a barrier to systematic relief and development aid, which in turn has encouraged the fissiparous tendencies of clan and sub-clan in Somali society violently to erupt - as they did in Burao and other towns in January 1992.⁴

British Somali communities strive to rebuild their cities in the Horn of Africa while facing blatant racism from both central government and local racists in the streets and estates where they find themselves living. As the Sheffield Star reported, on 9 July 1992, the Manor estate in the city has become a new battlefield for Somali refugees and their families. 'For months now, there have been reports of verbal abuse, attacks on black people's houses, and even sexual assaults', reveals a leaflet published by the tenants' association. 'Many of the families are refugees from a murderous civil war in Somalia and have had close relatives killed and injured in that war. It is wrong they should now be afraid of living on the Manor and feel that parts of the estate are no-go areas. The levels of stress for some black families on the estate have reached breaking point, with the result that some families have chosen to move out.'

John Major's government's attack on their rights of asylum through the introduction of new, exclusionist and racist legislation (spearheaded by former Home Secretary Kenneth Baker) was accompanied by a vicious press campaign against refugees and asylum-seekers in Britain, led in particular by the Daily Mail. ⁵

Thus, British-based Somalis face the struggle for survival on two continents. The interviews that follow are witness to this. The first is with two Somali activists and community organisers in Sheffield, Abdirasak Nur and Ibrahim Gure, who are stalwarts of the Somali Community Association in the city. They offer their perspectives on the origins of the conflict in northern Somalia and map out the events that have followed Fozia Mohamed A wad's account of her experiences in Burao during the most intense period of Siad Barre's oppression, her flight to refuge in Ethiopia and her family's further experiences settling into a different life in Sheffield - dealing with local council bureaucracy and living through the resurgent racism boiling up again in the heart of British cities - are set down in the second.