Word: siad
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Siad Barre grew old and sick, his ability to command dwindled, and he ^ turned to his family and his Marehan clan to run things. In May 1988 the Somali National Movement, formed by the northern Isaq clan, rose in rebellion and seized several towns. The army put down the revolt with vicious bombing and shelling that killed as many as 50,000 civilians and insurgents. Said a relief worker in Mogadishu last week: "This regime has cold-bloodedly murdered or starved to death nearly 10% of the population, driven another 25% into exile and holds a multitude in jail...
...foreign residents, but neighbors and the world community are making little effort to halt the carnage. Only a few years ago, it would have been different. Superpower rivalry in the Horn of Africa, near the entrance to the Red Sea, was intense; both Moscow and Washington had stakes in Siad Barre's rise or fall...
...Somali dictator was in fact a client of both superpowers at different times. The Soviet Union supported his brand of "scientific socialism," then also lent its backing to his neighbor, Ethiopia, when it turned Marxist in 1977. Somalia was at war with Ethiopia over the disputed Ogaden province, so Siad Barre reversed his allegiance and appealed to the U.S. Washington was happy to provide him with $100 million in military and economic aid annually in the mid-1980s to counter Moscow...
Washington did not finally cut off aid until 1989, when Siad Barre's massacres of rival clans became too blatant to ignore, but the level of its contributions had been sinking steadily. Now that the cold war is over, Third World conflicts no longer figure as potential victories or losses for the U.S. or the Soviet Union, ironically making the world safer for brush-fire wars and insurrections...
Somalia's three rebel fronts dismissed Siad Barre's call for a cease-fire and negotiations last week, and the United Somali Congress marched reinforcements into Mogadishu for what it called the "final offensive." In a joint statement issued in London, the three groups announced their agreement to form a "transitional government that will pave the way for the restoration of democratic institutions...