Word: somali
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Another African state was lurching into anarchy last week. The disintegration of order and government in Somalia looked like an agonizing replay of the collapse of Liberia last year. Almost duplicating the stages that shattered the West African state, a group of Somali rebel armies sapped the strength of a narrowly based and despotic regime over several years. They then closed in on the capital and smashed the government's rule without replacing it. If this is the end of Siad Barre, his successor has not yet emerged...
...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...
...Isaq rebellion did not collapse under the army's attacks and soon controlled the countryside in the north. Its success was matched by the Ogadeni clan, which launched the Somali Patriotic Movement and gradually took over the country's southern region. Those rebels were joined six months ago by the United Somali Congress, organized by the Hawiye clan, which predominates in the center of the country and in Mogadishu. The Hawiyes had been outraged in July 1989 when government troops opened fire on street demonstrations in the capital and killed 450 protesters. Last week the Hawiyes were doing much...
...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...