The concept and the context
Discussing the work of Victor LeVine, Ali Mazrui proposed a new innovative way of tracing “the role of the killer rather than the status of the victim.” Le Vine lamented that the subtle distinction between the assassination and a political murder is “admittedly a tenuous one,” suggesting that, when combined, they could expose the culprit in an enigmatic element of surprise.12 Mazrui argued for an “alternative rendering” because every political murder cannot be termed an assassination.13 A murder becomes political when the action serves the political motive behind it. Political murderers have been plenty in Somalia since 1969, and a study by a “historical detective”—to borrow from Williams— is necessary to uncover who killed whom, where, and why.14 Because
Abdirashid’s assassination was directly related to the success of the subsequent military coup, it is vital to explore the political murder that made the coup possible. When the news of Abdirashid’s assassination reached the United States, Time magazine titled its front cover “Somalia: Death of a President.”15 Inside, the editors of one of the most famous American magazines avoided using the word “assassination” in their news coverage. They were probably following the official line of the U.S.-style Cold War diplomacy. On the evening of the day that Abdirashid assassinated, the then U.S. secretary of state wrote a memo to President Richard Nixon to inform him of the assassination:
Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, President of the Somali Republic, was assassinated on October 15. President of the National Assembly, Sheikh Muktar, is next in line constitutionally and is taking charge. Somali Prime Minister Egal, third in line, is still in the mass protests in cities around the U.S. against an executive order that would block millions of people from entering the United States. Egal and the Somali Ambassador, Azhari who is the son-in-law of President Shermarke have been informed. Egal is expected to leave immediately for Mogadiscio. President Shermarke fully supported Egal’s détente policy. Peace in the Horn of Africa during the past 2 years has been important to us because of our interests in Ethiopia. A new president, according to the constitution, is to be elected within 30 days. Likely candidates include former President Osman, a former Prime Minister [Abdullahi Iise], and Egal himself. All these possibilities are pro-West and likely to continue the détente. A Muslim country burial within a short period (twenty-four hours) is likely. Hence a request for high-level representation at a state funeral is not expected.16
Though this briefing may suggest an attempt to capitalize on the status quo, the White House authorities argued that the assassination was aggravated by “tribal resentment” while leaving out the question of complicity.17 In the introduction to Ethnicity Kills? The Politics of War, Peace and Ethnicity in Sub-Saharan Africa, Einar Braathen, Morten Bøås, and Gjermund Soather question the salience of ethnicity (clan, in the Somali case) in the overall reconfiguration of African politics and conflicts.18 Subsumed into things clan and cloaked under clan vendetta, the Barre regime maintained for over two decades (1969–1990) that Abdirashid was killed in a “clan reprisal.” Equally, the accused political players in the murder referred to the clan as the culprit.
If the clan killed the president that does not mean clan killings merit no inquiry. Steve Fenton has argued that the Somali State despite its deep reliance on clan “cannot be relied upon to create conditions of security either for material survival or personal protection.”19 As they compete for state power and scarce resources, Somali political elites tend to pursue dangerous paths by checking and rechecking how many playing cards are on the desk prior to taking the political decision to act and react.
The available evidence reveals that Abdirashid’s assassination was a political murder. Embedded within the assassination were the politics of the Cold War, the local Somali clan politics, and the underground coup preparation. Abdirashid was assassinated after having implicated himself in several controversies pertaining to both internal and external relations. The internal ones were: (1) how his administration handled an election in which the fraud level was at an unprecedented scale and (2) the prevalence of clan nepotism and corruption.20 The external were: (1) the abandonment of the Greater Somalia Policy by his administration and (2) the aggravation of relations with the Soviet Union. Even if the assassination of Abdirashid was solely a clan-motivated initiative, this cannot exclude broader political motives in the larger context of the Cold War.
It was such violent confusion in the wake of the assignation that Barre took advantage of to seize power.21 Yet a clan motivation was so intrinsic to the plot that it was difficult to reconsider that the assassin was not alone in the crime. Such suspicion was reinforced by the fact that the assassin pointed out during the initial trial that other individuals whose names he had exposed were involved in assisting him in the assassination.
Interwoven with internal policies but constrained by external pressures, the concept of the clan in Somali politics should be understood as only one among many cards. Which card to play has internally hinged on which card has been locally available. However, both cards can be externally pressed through what Jean-François Bayart has termed a “reciprocal assimilation” within international economic aid.22 While the importance and the exploitation of clan in the Somali case can hardly be overlooked, clan, in any case, has not been a machine programmed to kill with impunity. True, clannism and corruption were characteristic in his administration, and Abdirashid was not immune. As for corruption, both Drysdale, the British adviser to his administration, and General Jama Mohamed Ghalib, a senior police officer who was later to become the Somali police Commissioner, gave testimony to how the president personally emboldened—at times even approved—corruption with his statements and speeches.23 As per clannism, a former American Peace Corps volunteer also recounted an incident in which Abdirashid chauvinistically told him that he would appoint himself as the “sheikh of the Darood clan.”24 There was an elected national president who saw himself not as the representative of all clans but of his clan. It was such a clan mentality that his plotters exploited in eliminating him. This made it possible to murder the president with his own knife.
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