The Politics Of The 1969 Somali Coup

References

1. See I. M. Lewis, ‘ Pan-Africanism and Pan-Somalism’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 1, 2, August 1963, pp. 147-62.
2. See I. M. Lewis, The Modern History of Somaliland (London, 1965), and `Integration in the Somali Republic’, in Arthur Hazlewood (ed.), African integral/maid Disintegration (London, 1967), pp. 251-84. In 1967 and 1968, however, Somalia signed treaties with Kenya and Ethiopia which produced a (Menu and greatly improved relations between the three states — see Catherine Hoskyns, Case Studies in African Diplomacy, No. 2, The Ethiopia-Somali-Kenya Dispute (Nairobi, 1969).
3. 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).
4. As will be evident, I disagree here with the view of those who hold that ‘nations’ are quite distinct from ‘tribes’; see, for example, P. H. Gulliver (ed.), Tradition and Transition in East Africa (London, 1969), pp. 28-31.
5. For a detailed account of the traditional political system and its initial response to modern developments, see I. M. Lewis, ‘Modern Political Movements in Somaliland‘, in Africa (London), XXVIII, 1958, pp. 244-61 and 244-64, and A Pastoral Damara, (London, 1961).
6. 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 P. Contini, The Somali Republic: an experiment in legal integration (London, 1969).
7. 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.
8. According to a detailed statement made after the coup by a spokesman of the Supreme Revolution, 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^.
9. See Anglo-Somali Society Newsletter (Dalrrington, Devon), I, VII, 1970, for a report of the trial of the culprit who was found guilty and sentenced to death.
10. These included Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal, as well as his opponent Abdirasaq 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.
11. From the earliest days of colonization, 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.
12. In January 1971, for instance, a number of people were sentenced to 18 months of hard labor for ‘fostering tribalism’ by a district court in a remote northern part of the Republic.
13. Some of General Siyad’s speeches are conveniently collected together in an official publication entitled My Country and My People (Mogadishu, 1970).
14. 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 emphasized that the go-man firing squad was anti-tribal in composition and that the Government would see to the funeral arrangements — traditionally a lineage responsibility.
15. For an interesting recent, and far from uncritical, western Marxist assessment of the Republic, internal and external policies, see A. Wolczyk, ‘Il “Socialismo” Somalo: un industria per il potere’, in Concretezza (Rome), 1, January 1972, pp. 23-6.