Somalia ( ; ), officially the
Republic of
Somalia ( , ) and formerly known as the
Somali
Democratic Republic, is a country located in the
Horn of Africa.
It is bordered by
Djibouti
to the
northwest, Kenya
to the
southwest, the Gulf of
Aden
with Yemen
to the
north, the Indian
Ocean
to the east, and Ethiopia
to the
west.
In antiquity, Somalia was an important center for
commerce with the rest of the
ancient world.
Its sailors and
merchants were the main suppliers of
frankincense, myrrh and spices, items which
were considered valuable luxuries by the Ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians
, Mycenaeans and
Babylonians
with whom the Somali
people traded. According to most scholars, Somalia is
also where the ancient
Kingdom of Punt
was situated. The ancient Puntites were a nation of people that had
close relations with
Pharaonic Egypt during
the times of
Pharaoh Sahure and
Queen
Hatshepsut. The
pyramidal structures,
temples and ancient houses of
dressed stone littered around Somalia are said to
date from this period. In the classical era, several ancient
city-states such as
Opone,
Mosyllon and
Malao that
competed with the
Sabaeans,
Parthians and
Axumites for the wealthy
Indo-
Greco-
Roman trade also flourished in Somalia.
The
birth of Islam on the opposite side
of Somalia's Red
Sea
coast meant that Somali merchants, sailors and
expatriates living in the Arabian Peninsula gradually came under the
influence of the new religion through their converted Arab Muslim trading
partners. With the migration of fleeing Muslim families
from the Islamic world to Somalia in
the early centuries of Islam and the peaceful
conversion of the Somali population by Somali Muslim scholars in the following
centuries, the ancient city-states eventually transformed into
Islamic Mogadishu
, Berbera
, Zeila
, Barawa
and Merka
, which were
part of the Berberi civilization. The city of Mogadishu came
to be known as the
City of Islam, and controlled the East
African
gold trade for
several centuries.
In the Middle Ages, several powerful Somali
empires dominated the regional trade including the Ajuuraan State, which excelled in hydraulic engineering
and fortress building, the Sultanate of Adal, whose general Ahmed Gurey was
the first African commander in history to
use cannon warfare on
the continent during Adal's conquest of the Ethiopian Empire, and the Gobroon Dynasty, whose military dominance
forced governors of the Omani
empire
north of the city of Lamu
to pay
tribute to the Somali Sultan Ahmed Yusuf. In the late
19th century after the
Berlin conference had ended,
European empires sailed with their armies
to the
Horn of Africa. The
imperial clouds wavering over Somalia alarmed
the
Dervish leader
Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, who
gathered Somali soldiers from across the Horn of Africa and began
one of the longest colonial resistance wars ever.
Somalia was never formally colonized. The
Dervish State successfully repulsed the
British empire four times and forced
it to retreat to the coastal region.
As a result of its
fame in the Middle East and Europe, the Dervish state was recognized as an ally
by the Ottoman Empire and the
German
empire
, and remained throughout World War I the only independent Muslim power on
the continent. After a quarter of a century holding the
British at bay, the Dervishes were finally defeated in 1920 when Britain for the first time in Africa used
aeroplanes when it bombed the Dervish
capital of Taleex
. As a
result of this bombardment, former Dervish territories were turned
into a
protectorate of Britain.
Italy
similarly
faced the same opposition from Somali
Sultans and armies and did not acquire full
control of parts of modern Somalia until the Fascist era in late 1927.
This
occupation lasted till 1941 and was replaced by
a British
military administration.
Northern Somalia would remain a
protectorate while southern Somalia became a
trusteeship. The Union of the two
regions in
1960 formed the Somali Democratic
Republic.
Due to its longstanding ties with the
Arab
world, Somalia was accepted in
1974 as a
member of the
Arab League.
To strengthen its
relationship with the rest of the African continent, Somalia joined
other African nations when it founded the African Union, and began to support the
ANC in South Africa
against the apartheid regime and the
Eritrean secessionists in Ethiopia
during the Eritrean War of
Independence. A Muslim country, Somalia is one of the
founding members of the
Organisation of the
Islamic Conference and is also a member of the
UN and
NAM. Despite
suffering from
civil strife and
instability, Somalia has also managed to sustain a
free market economy
which, according to the
UN, outperforms those of
many other countries in Africa.
History
Prehistory
Somalia has been inhabited by man since the
Paleolithic period.
Cave paintings dating back as far as
9000 BC have been found in northern Somalia.
The most
famous of these is the Laas Geel
complex
, which contains some of the earliest known rock art
on the African continent. Inscriptions have been found
beneath each of the rock paintings, but
archaeologists have so far been unable to
decipher this form of ancient writing. During the
Stone age, the Doian culture and the Hargeisan
culture flourished here with their respective
industries and factories.
The oldest evidence of
burial customs in the
Horn of Africa comes from
cemeteries in Somalia dating back to the
4th millennium BC. The
stone implements from the
Jalelo
site in northern Somalia are
said to be the most important link in evidence of the universality
in Paleolithic times between the East and the West.
Antiquity & the Classical era
Ancient
pyramidal structures,
tombs
, ruined cities and
stone walls such as the Wargaade Wall littered in Somalia are evidence
of an ancient sophisticated civilization that once thrived in the
Somali peninsula. The findings of archaeological excavations
and research in Somalia show that this civilization had an ancient
writing system that remains
undeciphered, and enjoyed a lucrative trading relationship with
Ancient Egypt and
Mycenaean Greece since at least the second
millennium BC, which supports the view of Somalia being the ancient
Kingdom of Punt.
The Puntites "traded not only in their own produce of
incense,
ebony and
short-horned cattle, but also in goods from other
neighbouring regions, including
gold,
ivory and
animal skins."
According
to the temple reliefs at Deir el-Bahri
, the Land of Punt was ruled at that time by King
Parahu and Queen Ati.
Ancient Somalis domesticated the
camel
somewhere between the
third
millennium and
second
millennium BC from where it spread to Ancient
Egypt and
North Africa.
In the classical period, the city states of
Mossylon, Opone,
Malao, Mundus and
Tabae in Somalia developed a lucrative trade
network connecting with merchants from Phoenicia
, Ptolemaic Egypt,
Greece
, Parthian Persia, Saba
, Nabataea and the Roman
Empire. They used the ancient Somali maritime vessel
known as the
beden to transport their cargo.
After the
Roman conquest of the Nabataean
Empire and the Roman naval presence at Aden
to curb
piracy, a mutual agreement by Arab and Somali merchants
barred Indian
ships from
trading in the free port cities of the Arabian peninsula because of the nearby
Romans. However, they continued to trade in the port cities
of the
Somali peninsula, which was
free from any Roman threat or spies.
The reason for
barring Indian ships from entering the wealthy Arabian port cities
was to protect and hide the exploitative trade practices of the
Somali and Arab merchants in the extremely lucrative ancient
Red
Sea
– Mediterranean Sea
commerce.
The
Indian merchants for centuries brought large quantities of cinnamon from Ceylon
and the
Far East to Somalia and Arabia. This
is said to have been the best kept secret of the Arab and Somali
merchants in their trade with the
Roman
and
Greek world. The Romans and Greeks
believed the source of cinnamon to have been the Somali peninsula
but in reality, the highly valued product was brought to Somalia by
way of Indian ships. Through Somali and Arab traders,
Indian/Chinese cinnamon was also exported for far higher prices to
North Africa, the
Near East and
Europe, which made the cinnamon trade a very
profitable revenue generator, especially for the Somali merchants
through whose hands large quantities were shipped across ancient
sea and land routes.
Birth of Islam & the Middle Ages
The
history of Islam in the
Horn of Africa is as old as the
religion itself.
The early persecuted Muslims fled to the Axumite
port city of Zeila
in modern
day Somalia to seek protection from the Quraysh at the court of the Axumite Emperor in present day Ethiopia
. Some of the Muslims that were granted
protection are said to have settled in several parts of the Horn of
Africa to promote the religion.
The
victory of the Muslims over the Quraysh in the 7th century had a significant impact on
Somalia's merchants and sailors, as their Arab
trading partners had then all adopted Islam,
and the major trading routes in the Mediterranean
and the Red
Sea
came under the sway of the Muslim Caliphs. Through commerce,
Islam spread amongst the Somali population in the coastal cities of
Somalia. Instability in the
Arabian
peninsula saw several migrations of Arab families to Somalia's
coastal cities, who then contributed another significant element to
the growing popularity of Islam in the
Somali peninsula.
Mogadishu
became the center of Islam on the East African
coast, and Somali merchants established a colony in Mozambique
to extract gold from the Monomopatan mines in Sofala
. In
northern Somalia,
Adal was in its
early stages a small trading community established by the newly
converted Horn African Muslim merchants, who were predominantly
Somali according to
Arab and
Somali
chronicles.
The century between 1150 and 1250 marked a decisive turn in the
role of Islam in Somali history.
Yaqut
Al-Hamawi and later
ibn Said noted that
the Berbers (Somalis) were a prosperous Muslim nation during that
period. The
Adal Sultanate was now
the center of a commercial empire stretching from
Cape Guardafui to
Hadiya. The Adalites then came under the influence of
the expanding Horn African
Kingdom of Ifat, and
prospered under its patronage.
The
capital of the Ifat was Zeila
, situated in
in northern present-day Somalia, from where the Ifat army marched
to conquer the ancient Kingdom of
Shoa
in 1270. This conquest
ignited a rivalry for supremacy between the
Christian Solomonids and the Muslim
Ifatites that resulted in several devastating wars, and ultimately
ended in a Solomonic victory over the Kingdom of Ifat after the
death of the popular Sultan
Sa'ad ad-Din
II in Zeila by
Dawit II.
Sa'ad ad-Din II's
family was subsequently given safe haven at the court of the
King of Yemen
, where his
sons regrouped and planned their revenge on the Solomonids.
During the
Age of the Ajuuraans, the
sultanates and
republics of
Merca
,
Mogadishu
,
Barawa
,
Hobyo
and their
respective ports flourished and had a lucrative foreign commerce
with ships sailing to and coming from
Arabia,
India
,
Venetia,
Persia
,
Egypt
,
Portugal
and as far away as
China
.
Vasco da Gama, who passed by Mogadishu in the
15th century, noted that it was a large city with houses of four or
five storeys high and big palaces in its centre in addition to many
mosques with cylindrical minarets.
In the
1500s, Duarte Barbosa noted that many
ships from the Kingdom of
Cambaya
in modern-day India sailed to Mogadishu with
cloths and spices, for
which they in return received gold, wax and ivory. Barbosa also
highlighted the abundance of
meat,
wheat,
barley,
horses, and
fruit on the coastal
markets, which generated enormous wealth for the merchants.
Mogadishu, the center of a thriving weaving
industry known as toob benadir (specialized for the
markets in Egypt and Syria
), together
with Merca and Barawa also served as transit stops for Swahili merchants from Mombasa
and Malindi
and for the gold trade from Kilwa. Jewish merchants
from the
Hormuz brought their Indian textile
and fruit to the Somali coast in exchange for
grain and wood.
Trading
relations were established with Malacca
in the 15th century with cloth, ambergris and porcelain being the main commodities of the
trade. Giraffes, zebras and incense were exported
to the Ming
Empire
of China, which established Somali merchants as
leaders in the commerce between the Asia and Africa and influenced
the Chinese language with the Somali language in the
process. Hindu merchants from
Surat
and Southeast African merchants from Pate, seeking to bypass both the Portuguese
blockade and Omani
meddling,
used the Somali ports of Merca and Barawa (which were out of the
two powers' jurisdiction) to conduct their trade in safety and
without interference.
Early modern era & the Scramble for Africa
In the
early modern period, successor
states of the
Adal and
Ajuuraan empires began
to flourish in Somalia. These were the
Gerad Dynasty, the
Bari Dynasties and the
Gobroon Dynasty. They continued the
tradition of castle-building and seaborne trade established by
previous Somali empires.
Sultan Yusuf
Mahamud Ibrahim, the third Sultan of the House of Gobroon,
started the Golden age of the Gobroon Dynasty. His army came out
victorious during the Bardheere Jihad, which restored stability in
the region and revitalized the East African
ivory trade.
He also received
presents from and had cordial relations with the rulers of
neighbouring and distant kingdoms such as the Omani
, Witu and Yemeni Sultans.
Sultan Ibrahim's son
Ahmed
Yusuf succeeded him and was one of the most important figures
in
19th century East Africa, receiving
tribute from Omani governors and creating alliances with important
Muslim families on the East African coast.
In northern Somalia,
the Gerad Dynasty conducted trade with Yemen
and Persia
and
competed with the merchants of the Bari
Dynasty. The Gerads and the Bari Sultans built
impressive
palaces,
castles and
fortresses and
had close relations with many different empires in the
Near East.
In the late
19th century, after the
Berlin conference, European powers
began the
Scramble for Africa,
which inspired the
Dervish leader
Muhammad Abdullah Hassan to
rally support from across the
Horn of
Africa and begin one of the longest colonial resistance wars
ever. In several of his poems and speeches, Hassan emphasized that
the British
infidels "have destroyed our
religion and made our children their children" and that the
Christian Ethiopians in league with the British were bent
upon plundering the political and religious freedom of the Somali
nation. He soon emerged as "a champion of his country's political
and religious freedom, defending it against all Christian
invaders."
Hassan issued a religious ordinance stipulating that any Somali
national who did not accept the goal of unity of Somalia and would
not fight under his leadership would be considered as
kafir or
gaal.
He soon acquired
weapons from Turkey
, Sudan
, and other
Islamic and/or Arabian countries, and appointed ministers and
advisers to administer different areas or sectors of
Somalia. In addition, he gave a clarion call for Somali
unity and independence, in the process organizing his forces.
Hassan's Dervish movement had an essentially military character,
and the Dervish state was fashioned on the model of a
Salihiya brotherhood. It was characterized by a
rigid hierarchy and centralization. Though Hassan threatened to
drive the Christians into the sea, he executed the first attack by
launching his first major military offensive with his 1500 Dervish
equipped with 20 modem rifles on the British soldiers stationed in
the region.
He repulsed the British in four expeditions and had relations with
the
central powers of the
Ottomans and the
Germans.
In 1920, the Dervish state collapsed after
intensive aerial bombardments by Britain
, and Dervish territories were subsequently turned
into a protectorate.
The dawn
of fascism in the early 1920s heralded a change of strategy for Italy
, as the
north-eastern sultanates were soon to be forced within the
boundaries of La Grande Somalia according to the plan of
Fascist Italy. With the arrival of Governor
Cesare Maria De Vecchi on 15 December
1923, things began to change for that part of Somaliland known as
Italian Somaliland. Italy had
access to these areas under the successive protection treaties, but
not direct rule.
The Fascist government had direct rule only over the
Benadir territory.
Fascist Italy, under
Benito Mussolini, attacked
Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935, with an aim to colonize it. The
invasion was condemned by the
League
of Nations, but little was done to stop it or to liberate
occupied Ethiopia.
On August 3, 1940, Italian troops, including
Somali colonial units, crossed from Ethiopia to invade British
Somaliland, and by August 14, succeeded in taking Berbera
from the British.
A British force, including troops from several African countries,
launched the
campaign in January
1941 from Kenya to liberate British Somaliland and
Italian-occupied Ethiopia and conquer Italian Somaliland. By
February, most of Italian Somaliland was captured and in March,
British Somaliland was retaken from the sea. The
British Empire forces operating in Somaliland
comprised three divisions of South African, West and East African
troops. They were assisted by Somali forces led by
Abdulahi Hassan with Somalis of the
Isaaq,
Dhulbahante, and
Warsangali clans prominently
participating. After World War II, the number of the
Italian colonists started to decrease;
their numbers had dwindled to less than 10,000 in 1960.
The State of Somalia
Following
World War II, although
Somalis aided the
Allied
powers in their struggle against the
Axis
powers, Britain retained control of both
British Somaliland and
Italian Somaliland as
protectorates. In November 1949, the United
Nations granted Italy trusteeship of Italian Somaliland, but only
under close supervision and on the condition—first proposed by the
Somali Youth League (SYL) and
other nascent Somali political organizations, such as Hizbia Digil
Mirifle Somali (HDMS) (which later became Hizbia Dastur Mustaqbal
Somali) and the Somali National League (SNL), that were then
agitating for independence—that Somalia achieve independence within
ten years. British Somaliland remained a protectorate of Britain
until 1960.
To the extent that Italy held the territory by UN mandate, the
trusteeship provisions gave the Somalis the opportunity to gain
experience in political education and self-government. These were
advantages that British Somaliland, which was to be incorporated
into the new Somali state, did not have. Although in the 1950s
British colonial officials attempted, through various development
efforts, to make up for past neglect, the protectorate stagnated.
The disparity between the two territories in economic development
and political experience would cause serious difficulties when it
came time to integrate the two parts.
Meanwhile, in 1948, under pressure from
their World War II allies and to the dismay of the Somalis, the
British "returned" the Haud (an important
Somali grazing area that was presumably 'protected' by British
treaties with the Somalis in 1884 and 1886) and the Ogaden
to
Ethiopia, based on a treaty they signed in 1897 in which the
British ceded Somali territory to the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik in exchange for his help against plundering
by Somali clans. Britain included the
proviso that the Somali nomads would retain their
autonomy, but Ethiopia immediately claimed sovereignty over them.
This prompted an unsuccessful bid by Britain in 1956 to buy back
the Somali lands it had turned over. Britain also granted
administration of the almost exclusively Somali-inhabited
Northern Frontier District (NFD)
to Kenyan nationalists despite an informal
plebiscite demonstrating the overwhelming desire
of the region's population to join the newly formed Somali
Republic.
A
referendum was held in neighbouring Djibouti
(then known as French Somaliland
) in 1958, on the eve of Somalia's independence in
1960, to decide whether or not to join the Somali Republic or to
remain with France. The referendum turned out in favour of a
continued association with France, largely due to a combined yes
vote by the sizable
Afar ethnic group
and resident Europeans. However, the majority of those who voted no
were Somalis who were strongly in favour of joining a united
Somalia as had been proposed by
Mahmoud
Harbi, Vice President of the Government Council. Harbi was
killed in a plane crash two years later.
Djibouti finally
gained its independence from France
in 1977
and Hassan Gouled Aptidon, a
French-groomed Somali who campaigned for a yes vote in the
referendum of 1958, eventually wound up as Djibouti's first
president (1977–1991).
British Somaliland became independent on June 26, 1960, and the
former Italian Somaliland followed suit five days later. On July 1,
1960, the two territories united to form the Somali Republic,
albeit within boundaries drawn up by Italy and Britain. A
government was formed by
Abdullahi
Issa with
Aden Abdullah
Osman Daar as
President, and
Abdirashid Ali Shermarke as
Prime Minister, later to
become President (from 1967–1969). On July 20, 1961 and through a
popular
referendum, the Somali people
ratified a new
constitution, which was
first drafted in 1960.
However, inter-clan rivalry persisted. In 1967,
Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal became
Prime Minister, a position to which he was appointed by Shermarke.
Egal
would later become the President of the autonomous Somaliland
region in northwestern Somalia.
In late 1969, following the assassination of President Shermarke, a
military government assumed power in a
coup d'état led by Major General
Salaad Gabeyre Kediye, General
Siad Barre and Chief of Police
Jama Korshel. Barre became President and
Korshel vice-president. The revolutionary army established
large-scale public works programmes and successfully implemented an
urban and rural
literacy campaign, which
helped dramatically increase the literacy rate from 5% to 55% by
the mid-1980s. However, struggles continued during Barre's rule. At
one point he assassinated a major figure in his cabinet, Major
General Gabeyre, and two other officials.
It was in July 1976 when the real dictatorship of the Somali
military commenced with the founding of the
Somali Revolutionary
Socialist Party (Xisbiga Hantiwadaagga Kacaanka Soomaaliyeed,
XHKS). This party ruled Somalia until the fall of the military
government in December 1990–January 1991. It was violently
overthrown by the combined armed revolt of the
Somali Salvation Democratic
Front (Jabhadda Diimuqraadiga Badbaadinta Soomaaliyeed, SSDF),
United Somali Congress (USC),
Somali National Movement
(SNM), and the
Somali
Patriotic Movement (SPM) together with the non-violent
political oppositions of the
Somali Democratic Movement (SDM), the
Somali Democratic Alliance (SDA) and the Somali Manifesto Group
(SMG).
In 1977 and 1978, Somalia invaded its neighbour Ethiopia in the
Ogaden War, in which Somalia aimed to
unite the Somali lands that had been partitioned by the former
colonial powers, and to win the right of self-determination for
ethnic Somalis in those territories. Somalia first engaged Kenya
and Ethiopia diplomatically, but this failed. Somalia, already
preparing for war, created the
Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF, then called the
Western Somali Liberation
Front, WSLF) and eventually sought to capture Ogaden.
Somalia
acted unilaterally without consulting the international community, which was
generally opposed to redrawing colonial boundaries, while the
Soviet
Union
and the Warsaw Pact
countries refused to help Somalia, and instead, backed Communist Ethiopia. Still the USSR, finding
itself supplying both sides of a war, attempted to mediate a
ceasefire.
In the first week of the conflict Somali armed forces took southern
and central Ogaden and for most of the war, the Somali army scored
continues victories on the Ethiopian army and followed them as far
as
Sidamo.
By September 1977, Somalia controlled 90%
of the Ogaden and captured strategic cities such as Jijiga
and put
heavy pressure on Dire
Dawa
, threatening the train route from the latter city
to Djibouti. After the siege of Harar
, a massive
unprecedented Soviet intervention consisting of 20 thousand
Cuban
forces and several thousands Soviet experts came to
the aid of Ethiopia. The Somali Army
was forced to withdraw and consequently Somalia sought the help of
the United
States
. Although the
Carter Administration had expressed
interest in helping Somalia, it later declined, as did American
allies in the
Middle East and
Asia.
By 1978, the moral authority of the Somali government had
collapsed. Many Somalis had become disillusioned with life under
military dictatorship and the regime was weakened further in the
1980s as the
Cold War drew to a close and
Somalia's strategic importance was diminished. The government
became increasingly
totalitarian,
and
resistance movements,
encouraged by Ethiopia, sprang up across the country, eventually
leading to the
Somali Civil
War.
During 1990, in the capital city of Mogadishu, the residents were
prohibited from gathering publicly in groups greater than three or
four. Fuel shortages caused long lines of cars at petrol stations.
Inflation had driven the price of pasta, (ordinary dry Italian
noodles, a staple at that time), to five U.S. dollars per kilogram.
The price
of khat, imported daily from Kenya
, was also
five U.S. dollars per standard bunch. Paper currency notes
were of such low value that several bundles were needed to pay for
simple restaurant meals. Coins were scattered on the ground
throughout the city being too low in value to be used. A thriving
black market existed in the centre of the city as banks experienced
shortages of local currency for exchange. At night, the city of
Mogadishu lay in darkness. The generators used to provide
electricity to the city had been sold off by the government. Close
monitoring of all visiting foreigners was in effect. Harsh
exchange control regulations were
introduced to prevent export of foreign currency and access to it
was restricted to official banks, or one of three
government-operated hotels. Although no travel restrictions were
placed on foreigners, photographing many locations was banned.
During the day in Mogadishu, the appearance of any government
military force was extremely rare. Alleged late-night operations by
government authorities, however, included 'disappearances' of
individuals from their homes.
The Somali Civil War
1991 saw great changes in Somalia. President Barre was ousted by
combined northern and southern clan-based forces all of whom were
backed and armed by Ethiopia. And following a meeting of the
Somali National Movement
and northern clans' elders, the northern former British portion of
the country declared its independence as Somaliland in May 1991;
although de facto independent and relatively stable compared to the
tumultuous south, it has not been recognised by any foreign
government.
In January 1991, President
Ali Mahdi
Muhammad was selected by the manifesto group as an interim
state president until a conference between all stakeholders to be
held in Djibouti the following month to select a national leader.
However,
United Somali
Congress military leader General
Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the
Somali National Movement leader
Abdirahman Toor and the
Somali Patriotic Movement leader
Col Jess refused to recognize Mahdi as
president.
This caused a split between the SNM, USC and SPM and the armed
groups Manifesto,
Somali
Democratic Movement (SDM) and
Somali National Alliance (SNA) on
the one hand and within the USC forces. This led efforts to remove
Barre who still claimed to be the legitimate president of Somalia.
He and his armed supporters remained in the south of the country
until mid 1992, causing further escalation in violence, especially
in the Gedo, Bay, Bakool, Lower Shabelle, Lower Juba, and Middle
Juba regions. The armed conflict within the USC devastated the
Mogadishu area.
The civil war disrupted agriculture and food distribution in
southern Somalia. The basis of most of the conflicts was clan
allegiances and competition for resources between the warring
clans. James Bishop, the United States last ambassador to Somalia,
explained that there is "competition for water, pasturage, and...
cattle. It is a competition that used to be fought out with arrows
and sabers... Now it is fought out with AK-47s." The resulting
famine (about 300,000 dead) caused the
United Nations Security
Council in 1992 to authorise the limited peacekeeping operation
United Nations
Operation in Somalia I (UNOSOM I). UNOSOM's use of force was
limited to self-defence and it was soon disregarded by the warring
factions.
In reaction to the continued violence and the humanitarian
disaster, the United States organised a military coalition with the
purpose of creating a secure environment in southern Somalia for
the conduct of humanitarian operations. This coalition, (
Unified Task Force or UNITAF) entered
Somalia in December 1992 on
Operation Restore Hope
and was successful in restoring order and alleviating the famine.
In May 1993, most of the United States troops withdrew and UNITAF
was replaced by the
United Nations Operation
in Somalia II (UNOSOM II).
However,
Mohamed Farrah Aidid
saw UNOSOM II as a threat to his power and in June 1993 his militia
attacked
Pakistan Army troops,
attached to UNOSOM II, (see
Somalia ) in Mogadishu inflicting over 80 casualties.
Fighting
escalated until 19 American troops and more than 1,000 Somalis were
killed in a raid in Mogadishu
during October 1993. The UN withdrew
Operation United Shield in 3
March 1995, having suffered significant casualties, and with the
rule of government still not restored. In August 1996, Aidid was
killed in Mogadishu.
Politics

Current situation in Somalia
Following
the civil war the Harti and Tanade clans declared a self-governing state in the
northeast, which took the name Puntland
, but maintained that it would participate in any
Somali reconciliation to form a new central government.
Then in
2002, Southwestern Somalia,
comprising Bay
, Bakool
, Jubbada Dhexe
(Middle Juba), Gedo
, Shabeellaha
Hoose
(Lower Shabele) and Jubbada Hoose
(Lower Juba) regions
of Somalia declared itself autonomous. Although
initially the instigators of this, the
Rahanweyn Resistance Army, which
had been established in 1995, was only in full control of Bay,
Bakool and parts of Gedo and Jubbada Dhexe, they quickly
established the de facto autonomy of Southwestern Somalia.
Although
conflict between Hasan
Muhammad Nur Shatigadud and his two deputies weakened the
Rahanweyn militarily from February 2006, the Southwest became
central to the TFG based in the city of Baidoa
.
Shatigadud became Finance Minister, his first deputy
Adan Mohamed Nuur Madobe became
Parliamentary Speaker and his second deputy
Mohamed Ibrahim Habsade became
Minister of Transport. Shatigadud also held the Chairmanship of the
Rahanwein Traditional Elders' Court.
In 2004,
the TFG met in Nairobi
, Kenya and published a charter for the government
of the nation. The TFG capital is presently in Baidoa.
Meanwhile
Somalia was one of the many countries affected by the tsunami which struck the Indian Ocean
coast following the 2004 Indian
Ocean earthquake
, destroying entire villages and killing an
estimated 300 people. In 2006, Somalia was deluged by
torrential rains and flooding that struck the entire
Horn of Africa affecting 350,000 people. The
inter-clan rivalry continued in 2006 with the declaration of
regional autonomy by the state of Jubaland, consisting of parts of
Gedo, Jubbada Dhexe, and the whole of Jubbada Hoose.
Barre Adan Shire Hiiraale,
chairman of the Juba Valley
Alliance, who comes from Galguduud
in central Somalia is the most powerful leader
there. Like Puntland this regional government did not want
full statehood, but some sort of federal autonomy.
Conflict broke out again in early 2006 between an alliance of
Mogadishu warlords known as the
Alliance
for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (or "ARPCT")
and a
militia loyal to the
Islamic Courts Union (or "I.C.U."),
seeking to institute
Sharia law in Somalia.
Social law changes, such as the forbidding of chewing
khat, were part of moves by the ICU to change
behaviours and impose strict social morals. It was widely reported
that soccer playing was being banned, as well as viewing of
broadcasts of soccer games, but there were also reports of the ICU
itself denying any such bans. The Islamic Courts Union was led by
Sheikh
Sharif Ahmed. When asked if the
ICU plans to extend its control to the rest of Somalia, Sheikh
Ahmed responded in an interview: "Land is not our priority. Our
priority is the people's peace, dignity and that they could live in
liberty, that they could decide their own fate. That is our
priority. Our priority is not land; the people are important to
us."

Somalia at the height of I.C.U. power,
December 2006
Several hundred people, mostly civilians caught in the crossfire,
died during this conflict. Mogadishu residents described it as the
worst fighting in more than a decade. The Islamic Courts Union
accused the U.S. of funding the warlords through the
Central Intelligence Agency and
supplying them with arms in an effort to prevent the Islamic Courts
Union from gaining power.
The United
States Department of State
, while neither admitting nor denying this, said the
U.S. had taken no action that violated the international arms
embargo of Somalia. A few e-mails describing covert illegal
operations by private military companies in breach of U.N.
regulations have been reported by the UK Sunday newspaper
The Observer.
By early
June 2006 the Islamic Militia had control of Mogadishu, following
the Second Battle of
Mogadishu, and the last A.R.P.C.T. stronghold in southern
Somalia, the town of Jowhar
, then fell
with little resistance. The remaining A.R.P.C.T. forces fled
to the east or across the border into Ethiopia and the alliance
effectively collapsed.
The Ethiopian-supported Transitional Government then called for
intervention by a regional East African
peacekeeping force. The I.C.U. meanwhile were
fiercely opposed to foreign troops—particularly Ethiopians—in
Somalia. claiming that Ethiopia, with its long history as an
imperial power including the occupation of Ogaden, seeks to occupy
Somalia, or rule it by proxy. Meanwhile the I.C.U. and their
militia took control of much of the southern half of Somalia,
normally through negotiation with local clan chiefs rather than by
the use of force.
However, the Islamic militia stayed clear of areas close to the
Ethiopian border, which had become a place of refuge for many
Somalis including the Transitional Government itself, headquartered
in the town of Baidoa. Ethiopia said it would protect Baidoa if
threatened.
On September 25, 2006, the I.C.U. moved into
the southern port of Kismayo
, the last remaining port held by the transitional
government.Ethiopian troops entered Somalia and seized the
town of Buur Hakaba on October 9, and later that day the I.C.U.
issued a declaration of war against Ethiopia.
On 1 November 2006, peace talks between the Transitional Government
and the ICU broke down.
The international community feared an
all-out civil war, with Ethiopian and rival Eritrean
forces backing opposing sides in the
power-struggle. Fighting erupted once again on 21 December
2006 when the leader of ICU, Sheikh
Hassan Dahir Aweys said: "Somalia is in a
state of war, and all Somalis should take part in this struggle
against Ethiopia", and heavy fighting broke out between the Islamic
militia on one side and the Somali Transitional Government allied
with Ethiopian forces on the other.
In late December 2006, Ethiopia launched
airstrikes against Islamic troops and strong
points across Somalia.
Ethiopian Information Minister Berhan Hailu stated that targets included the
town of Buurhakaba
, near the Transitional Government base in
Baidoa. An Ethiopian jet fighter strafed Mogadishu
International Airport
(now Aden Adde International Airport), without
apparently causing serious damage but prompting the airport to be
shut down. Other Ethiopian jet fighters attacked a military
airport west of Mogadishu.Ethiopian Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi then announced that his country
was waging war against the ICU to protect his country's
sovereignty. "Ethiopian defence forces were forced to enter into
war to the protect the sovereignty of the nation and to blunt
repeated attacks by Islamic courts terrorists and anti-Ethiopian
elements they are supporting," he said.
Days of heavy fighting followed as Ethiopian and government troops
backed by tanks and jets pushed against Islamic forces between
Baidoa and Mogadishu. Both sides claimed to have inflicted hundreds
of casualties, but the Islamic infantry and vehicle artillery were
badly beaten and forced to retreat toward Mogadishu. On 28 December
2006, the allies entered Mogadishu after Islamic fighters fled the
city. Prime Minister
Ali Mohammed
Ghedi declared that Mogadishu had been secured, after meeting
with local clan leaders to discuss the peaceful hand-over of the
city. Yet as of April 2008, the Transitional Federal Government and
its Ethiopian allies still face frequent attacks from an Islamic
insurgency.
The Islamists retreated south, towards their stronghold in Kismayo,
fighting rearguard actions in several towns.
They abandoned
Kismayo, too, without a fight, claiming that their flight was a
strategic withdrawal to avoid civilian casualties, and entrenched
around the small town of Ras Kamboni
, at the southernmost tip of Somalia and on the
border with Kenya. In early January, the Ethiopians and the
Somali government attacked, resulting in the
Battle of Ras Kamboni, and capturing
the Islamic positions and driving the surviving fighters into the
hills and forests after several days of combat. On January 9, 2007,
the United States openly intervened in Somalia by sending
Lockheed AC-130 gunships to attack ICU
positions in Ras Kamboni. Dozens were killed and by then the ICU
were largely defeated. During 2007 and 2008, new Islamic militant
groups organized, and continued to fight against transitional
government Somali and Ethiopian official troops. They recovered
effective control of large portions of the country. Ethiopian
forces retreated in 2009. The ICU no longer exists as an organized
political group, and is now part of the Transitional Federal
Government.
On
December 29, 2008, Abdullahi Yusuf
Ahmed announced before a united parliament in Baidoa
his
resignation as President of
Somalia. In his speech, which was broadcast on national
radio, Yusuf expressed regret at failing to end the country's
seventeen year conflict as his government had mandated to do. He
also blamed the international community for its failure to support
the government, and said that the speaker of parliament,
Aden "Madobe" Mohamed, would
succeed him in office per the charter of the
Transitional Federal
Government.
On January 31, 2009, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was
elected as president at the Kempinski hotel in Djibouti
.
In 2009, the Islamic Courts Union was absorbed into the
Transitional Federal Government, along with the
Alliance for the
Re-liberation of Somalia, a collection of moderate Islamist
groups. The Islamists were awarded with 200 seats in parliament.
Former Prime Minister
Nur Hassan
Hussein of the Transitional Federal Government and Sharif
Sheikh Ahmed also signed a power sharing deal in Djibouti that was
brokered by the United Nations. According to the deal, Ethiopian
troops were to withdraw from Somalia, giving their bases to the
transitional government, African Union (AU) peacekeepers and
moderate Islamist groups led by the ARS. Following the Ethiopian
withdrawal, the transitional government expanded its parliament to
include the opposition and elected Sheikh Ahmed as its new
president on January 31, 2009. Sheikh Ahmed then appointed
Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke,
the son of slain former President
Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, as the
nation's new Prime Minister.
Law
The legal structure in Somalia is divided along three lines:
civil law,
religious law, and
traditional clan law.
Civil law
While
Somalia's formal judicial system was largely destroyed after the
fall of the Siad Barre regime, it has
been rebuilt and is now administered under different regional
governments such as the autonomous Puntland
and Somaliland
macro-regions. In the case of the
Transitional Federal
Government, a new judicial structure was formed through various
international conferences.
Despite some significant political differences between them, all of
these administrations share similar legal structures, much of which
are predicated on the judicial systems of previous Somali
administrations. These similarities in civil law include:
- A charter which affirms the primacy of
Muslim shari'a or religious law, although in
practice shari'a is applied mainly to matters such as marriage,
divorce, inheritance, and civil issues.
- The charter guarantees respect for universal standards of
human rights to all subjects of the
law. It also assures the independence of the judiciary, which in turn is protected by a
judicial committee.
- The laws of the civilian government which were in effect prior
to the military coup d'état that
saw the Barre regime into power remain in force until the laws are
amended.
Shari'a
Islamic
shari'a has traditionally played a
significant part in Somali society. In theory, it has served as the
basis for all national legislation in every Somali
constitution. In practice, however, it only
applied to common civil cases such as
marriage,
divorce,
inheritance and family matters. This changed
after the start of the civil war when a number of new shari'a
courts began to spring up in many different cities and towns across
the country.
These new shari'a courts serve three functions:
- To pass rulings in both criminal and civil cases.
- To organize a militia capable of arresting criminals.
- To keep convicted prisoners incarcerated.
The shari'a courts, though structured along simple lines, feature a
conventional hierarchy of a
chairman,
vice-chairman and four
judges. A police force that reports to the court
enforces the judges' rulings, but also helps settle community
disputes and apprehend suspected criminals. In addition, the courts
manage
detention centers where
criminals are kept. An independent finance committee is also
assigned the task of collecting and managing
tax
revenue levied on regional merchants by the local
authorities.
In March 2009, Somalia's newly established coalition government
announced that it would implement shari'a as the nation's official
judicial system.
Xeer
Somalis for centuries have practiced a
form of
customary law which they call
Xeer. Xeer is a
polycentric legal system where there is no
monopolistic agent that determines what the law should be or how it
should be interpreted.
The Xeer legal system is assumed to have developed exclusively in
the
Horn of Africa since
approximately the 7
th century. There is no evidence that
it developed elsewhere or was greatly influenced by any foreign
legal system. The fact that Somali legal terminology is practically
devoid of
loan words from foreign
languages suggests that Xeer is truly indigenous.
The Xeer legal system also requires a certain amount of
specialization of different functions
within the legal framework. Thus, one can find
odayal
(
judges),
xeer boggeyaal (
jurists),
guurtiyaal (
detectives),
garxajiyaal (
attorneys),
murkhaatiyal (
witnesses) and
waranle (
police officers) to enforce the law.
Xeer is defined by a few fundamental tenets that are immutable and
which closely approximate the principle of
jus cogens in
international law:
- Payment of blood money
(locally referred to as diya) for
libel, theft, physical harm, rape and death, as well as supplying
assistance to relatives.
- Assuring good inter-clan relations by
treating women justly, negotiating with "peace emissaries" in good
faith, and sparing the lives of socially protected groups (e.g.
children, women, the pious, poets and guests).
- Family obligations such as the payment of dowry, and sanctions for eloping.
- Rules pertaining to the management of resources such as the use
of pasture land, water, and other natural resources.
- Providing financial support to married female relatives and
newlyweds.
- Donating livestock and other assets to the poor.
Cities
Regions and districts
Prior to the civil war, Somalia was divided into eighteen regions
(
gobollada, singular
gobol), which were in turn
subdivided into districts. The regions are:
On a
de facto basis, northern Somalia is now divided up among
the quasi-independent states of Puntland
, Somaliland
, and Galmudug. The
south is at least nominally controlled by the Transitional Federal
Government, although it is in fact controlled by Islamist groups
outside Mogadishu. Under the
de facto arrangements there
are now
27
regions.
Geography and climate
Africa's easternmost country, Somalia has a land area of 637,540
square kilometers. It occupies the tip of a region that, due to its
resemblance on the map to a
rhinoceros'
horn, is commonly referred to as the
Horn
of Africa. Somalia has the longest coastline on the continent.
Its terrain consists mainly of
plateaus,
plains, and
highlands.
Cal Madow is a mountain range in the northeastern
part of the country, extending from several kilometers west of the
city of Bosaso
to the
northwest of Erigavo
. The rugged east-west ranges of the Karkaar Mountains lie at varying distances
from the Gulf of
Aden
coast.
Major climatic factors are a year-round hot climate, seasonal
monsoon winds, and irregular rainfall. Mean
daily maximum temperatures range from to , except at higher
elevations and along the east coast. Mean daily minimums usually
vary from about to .
The
southwest monsoon, a sea breeze, makes the period from about
May to October the
mildest season in Mogadishu
. The
December to
February period of the northeast monsoon is
also relatively mild, although prevailing climatic conditions in
Mogadishu are rarely pleasant. The
tangambili periods that
intervene between the two monsoons (October–November and March–May)
are hot and humid.
Health
Somalia has one of the lowest
HIV infection
rates in all of Africa. This is attributed to the
Muslim nature of Somali society and adherence of
Somalis to Islamic morals. While the estimated HIV prevalence rate
in Somalia in 1987 (the first case report year) was 1% of adults, a
more recent estimate from 2007 now places it at only 0.5% of the
nation's adult population despite the ongoing civil strife.
Education
The Ministry of Education is officially responsible for education
in Somalia, with about 15% of the government's budget being spent
on academic instruction.
In 2006, the autonomous Puntland
region in the northeast was the second territory in
Somalia after the Somaliland
region to introduce free primary schools, with
teachers now receiving their salaries from the Puntland
administration. From 2005/2006 to 2006/2007, there was a
significant increase in the number of schools in Puntland, up 137
institutions from just one year prior. During the same period, the
number of classes in the region increased by 504, with 762 more
teachers also offering their services. Total student enrollment
increased by 27% over the previous year, with girls lagging only
slightly behind boys in attendance in most regions. The highest
class enrollment was observed in the northernmost
Bari region, and the lowest was observed in the
under-populated
Ayn region. The
distribution of classrooms was almost evenly split between urban
and rural areas, with marginally more pupils attending and
instructors teaching classes in urban areas.
Higher education in Somalia is now largely private. Several
universities in the country, including
Mogadishu University, have been scored
among the 100 best universities in Africa in spite of the harsh
environment, which has been hailed as a triumph for
grass-roots initiatives. Other universities also
offering higher education in the south include
Benadir University, the
Somalia National University,
Kismayo University and the
University of Gedo. In Puntland,
higher education is provided by the
Puntland State University and East
Africa University. In Somaliland, it is provided by
Amoud University, the
University of Hargeisa,
Somaliland University of
Technology and
Burao
University.
Qu'ranic schools (also known as
duqsi) remain the basic system of traditional religious
instruction in Somalia. They provide Islamic education for
children, thereby filling a clear religious and social role in the
country. Known as the most stable local, non-formal system of
education providing basic religious and moral instruction, their
strength rests on community support and their use of locally-made
and widely available teaching materials. The Qu'ranic system, which
teaches the greatest number of students relative to other
educational sub-sectors, is oftentimes the only system accessible
to Somalis in nomadic as compared to urban areas. A study from 1993
found, among other things, that about 40% of pupils in Qur'anic
schools were girls. To address shortcomings in religious
instruction, the Somali government on its own part also
subsequently established the Ministry of Endowment and Islamic
Affairs, under which Qur'anic education is now regulated.
Economy
Despite civil unrest, Somalia has maintained a healthy informal
economy, based mainly on livestock, remittance/money transfer
companies, and telecommunications. According to a 2003
World Bank study, the private sector grew
impressively, particularly in the areas of trade, commerce,
transport, remittance and infrastructure services, in addition to
the primary sectors, notably livestock, agriculture and fisheries.
In 2007, the United Nations reported that the country's
service industry is also thriving.
Anthropologist Spencer Heath MacCallum attributes this increased
economic activity to the
Somali customary law,
which provides a stable environment to conduct business in.
Agriculture is the most important sector, with livestock accounting
for about 40% of GDP and about 65% of export earnings. Other
principal exports include
fish,
charcoal, and
bananas;
sugar,
sorghum, and
maize are products for the domestic market.
At nearly
3 million heads of goat and sheep in 1999, the northern ports of
Bosaso
and
Berbera
accounted for 95% of all goat and 52% of all sheep
exports of East Africa.
The
Somaliland
region alone exported more than 180 million metric
tons of livestock and more than 480 million metric tons of
agricultural products. Somalia is also a major world
supplier of
frankincense and
myrrh.
The small
industrial sector, based
on the processing of agricultural products, accounts for 10% of
GDP. According to a 2005
World Bank report, the "private airline business in Somalia is now
thriving with more than five
carriers and
price wars between the companies."
With the help of the
Somali
diaspora, mobile phone companies, internet cafés and radio
stations have been established. In 2004, a new
Coca-Cola bottling plant also opened in Mogadishu,
representing a sign of growing business confidence.
In addition,
funds transfer services
have become a large industry in the country, with an estimated $2
billion USD annually remitted to Somalia by Somalis in the diaspora
via money transfer companies.
The largest of these informal value transfer
system or hawala dealers is
Dahabshiil, a Somali-owned firm employing
more than 1000 people across 40 countries with branches in London
and
Dubai
.
America
and Chinese
oil companies are also excited about the
prospect of oil and other natural resources in Somalia.
An oil
group listed in Sydney
, Range Resources, anticipates that the
Puntland
province in the north has the potential to produce
5 billion to 10 billion barrels of oil.
Media and telecommunications
In
Somalia, dozens of private
newspapers, radio
and television stations mushroomed in the last decade, (Mogadishu
has two fiercely competing TV stations), with
private radio stations or newspapers in almost all of the major
towns. Large media companies include the
Shabelle Media Network,
Radio Gaalkacyo and
Radio Garowe.
Internet usage in Somalia increased 44,900%
from 2000 to 2007, registering the highest growth rate in Africa.
Somali information technology companies
currently compete for a market with more than 500,000 Internet
users. The country has 22 established
ISPs and
234
cyber cafes with a growth of 15.6%
per year. Internet over the
satellite
services are also offered, especially in remote areas and cities
that have no dialup or wireless Internet services. Major clients
include
UN,
NGOs, financial
institutions particularly the
remittance
companies and Internet Cafes. Currently over three hundred
satellite terminals connected to various teleports in
Europe and
Asia are available
throughout the country. This type of service has shown a stable
growth of 10–15% per year.
Somalia has one of the best telecommunications systems on the
continent: several companies such as
Golis Telecom Group, Hormuud Telecom,
Somafone,
Nationlink,
Netco,
Telecom and
Somali Telecom Group provide
crystal-clear service, including international long distance, for
about $10 USD a month. Dial up internet services in Somalia are the
fastest growing internet services in Africa, as the nation enjoys
landline growth of more than 12.5% per year compared to other
countries in the Horn and eastern Africa at large, where landline
is experiencing a serious decline due to vandalism and an increase
in the cost of copper cables in the international market.
Installation time for a
landline is just
three days in Somalia, while in neighboring Kenya waiting lists are
many years long.
Military
Prior to
the outbreak of the civil war in 1991 and the subsequent
disintegration of the Armed Forces, Somalia's friendship with the
Soviet
Union
and later partnership with the United States
enabled it to build the largest army in
Africa. The creation of the
Transitional Federal
Government in 2004 saw the re-establishment of the
Military of Somalia, which now maintains
a force of 10,000 troops. The
Ministry of Defense is
responsible for the Armed Forces. The
Somali
Navy is also being re-established, with 500 Marines currently
training in Mogadishu out of an expected 5,000-strong force. In
addition, there are plans for the re-establishment of the
Somali Air Force, with two combat planes
already purchased.
A new police force was also formed to
maintain law and order, with the first police academy to be built
in Somalia for several years opening on December 20, 2005 at Armo,
100 kilometres south of Bosaso
.
Environment
Somalia is a
semi-arid country
with about 2%
arable land. The civil war
had a huge impact on the country’s
tropical
forests by facilitating the production of
charcoal with ever-present, recurring, but damaging
droughts. From 1971 onwards, a massive tree-planting on a
nationwide scale was introduced by the Siad Barre government to
halt the progress of advancing sand dunes. First environmental
organizations were ECOTERRA Somalia and then the Somali Ecological
Society, which created awareness about environmental concerns and
mobilized environmental programmes in all governmental sectors as
well as civil society. In 1986, the Wildlife Rescue, Research and
Monitoring Centre was established by ECOTERRA Intl. The
sensitization led in 1989 to the so-called "Somalia proposal" and a
decision by the state parties to
CITES, which
established for the first time a worldwide ban on the trade of
elephant
ivory. Later, activist and
Goldman Environmental Prize
winner
Fatima Jibrell created local
initiatives in her home area Buran that organised local communities
to protect the rural and coastal habitat. Jibrell trained a team of
young people to organise awareness campaigns about the irreversible
damage of unrestricted charcoal production. She also joined the
Buran rural institute that formed and organised the Camel Caravan
program in which young people loaded tents and equipment on camels
to walk for three weeks through a nomadic locale, and educate the
people about the careful use of fragile resources,
health care, livestock management and peace.
Fatima Jibrell has consistently
fought against the burning of charcoal,
logging and other man-induced environmental
degradation.
Her efforts have born fruits to the local
communities across Somalia and international recognition when she
won the prestigious Environmental Goldman award from San
Francisco
. Jibrell is also the executive director of
Horn Relief and Development Organisation.
Following
the massive tsunami of December 2004
, there have also emerged allegations that after the
outbreak of the Somali Civil War in
the late 1980s, Somalia's long, remote shoreline was used as a dump
site for the disposal of toxic waste. The huge waves which
battered northern Somalia after the tsunami are believed to have
stirred up tonnes of nuclear and toxic waste that was illegally
dumped in the country by several European firms.
The European Green Party followed up these
revelations by presenting before the press and the European
Parliament
in Strasbourg
copies of contracts signed by two European
companies—the Italian Swiss firm, Achair
Partners, and an Italian waste broker, Progresso – and representatives of the then
"President" of Somalia, the faction leader Ali Mahdi Mohamed, to accept 10 million
tonnes of toxic waste in exchange for $80 million (then about £60
million). According to reports by the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), the waste has resulted in far higher than
normal cases of respiratory infections, mouth ulcers and bleeding,
abdominal haemorrhages and unusual skin infections among many
inhabitants of the areas around the northeastern towns of Hobyo
and
Benadir on the Indian Ocean
coast—diseases consistent with radiation sickness. UNEP continues that the
current situation along the Somali coastline poses a very serious
environmental hazard not only in Somalia but also in the eastern
Africa sub-region.
Demographics
Somalia has a population of around 9,832,017 inhabitants, about 85%
of whom are
ethnic Somalis.
Civil strife in the early 1990s greatly
increased the size of the
Somali
diaspora, as many of the best educated Somalis left for the
Middle East,
Europe and
North
America.
Non-Somali ethnic minority groups make up
the remainder of the nation's population and include Benadiri, Bravanese, Bantus, Bajuni,
Indians
, Persians, Italians, and Britons. Most Europeans left after
independence.
There is little reliable statistical information on
urbanization in Somalia. However, rough
estimates have been made indicating an urbanization of 5% and 8%
per
annum, with many towns quickly growing
into cities. Currently, 34% of the country's population live in
towns and cities, with the percentage rapidly increasing.
Languages
The
Somali language is the official
language of Somalia. It is a member of the
Cushitic branch of the
Afro-Asiatic language family, and its
nearest relatives are the
Afar and
Oromo languages. Somali is the best
documented of the Cushitic languages, with academic studies of it
dating from before 1900.
Somali dialects are divided into three main groups: Northern,
Benaadir and
Maay. Northern Somali (or
Northern-Central Somali) forms the basis for Standard Somali.
Benaadir
(also known as Coastal Somali) is spoken on the Benadir coast from Cadale to
south of Merca
, including
Mogadishu
, as well as in the immediate hinterland. The
coastal dialects have additional
phonemes
which do not exist in Standard Somali. Maay is principally spoken
by the Digil and Mirifle (
Rahanweyn) clans
in the southern areas of Somalia.
Since Somali had long lost its ancient script, a number of
writing systems have been used over the years
for transcribing the language. Of these, the
Somali alphabet is the most widely-used, and
has been the official writing script in Somalia since the
government of former President of Somalia Siad Barre formally
introduced it in October 1972. The script was developed by the
Somali linguist
Shire Jama Ahmed
specifically for the Somali language, and uses all letters of the
English Latin alphabet except
p,
v and
z. Besides Ahmed's Latin script, other orthographies that
have been used for centuries for writing Somali include the
long-established
Arabic script and
Wadaad's writing. Indigenous
writing systems developed in the twentieth century include the
Osmanya,
Borama and
Kaddare scripts, which were invented by
Osman Yusuf Kenadid,
Sheikh Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur
and
Hussein Sheikh Ahmed
Kaddare, respectively.
In addition to Somali,
Arabic is an
official national language in Somalia. Many Somalis speak it due to
centuries-old ties with the
Arab World,
the far-reaching influence of the Arabic media, and religious
education.
English is also widely used and
taught.
Italian used to be a major
language, but its influence significantly diminished following
independence. It is now most frequently heard among older
generations.
Other minority languages include
Bravanese, a variant of
Swahili that is spoken along the coast by
the
Bravanese people.
Religion
With few exceptions,
Somalis are
entirely
Muslims, the majority belonging to
the
Sunni branch of
Islam and the
Shafi`i school of
Islamic jurisprudence,
although some are also adherents of the
Shia
Muslim denomination. The
constitution
of Somalia defines Islam as the religion of the Somali Republic,
and Islamic
sharia as the basic source for
national legislation.
Islam entered the region very early on, as a
group of persecuted Muslims had, at Prophet Muhummad's urging, sought refuge across the
Red
Sea
in the Horn of
Africa. Islam may thus have been introduced into Somalia
well before the faith even took root in its place of origin. In
addition, the Somali community has produced numerous important
Islamic figures over the centuries, many of whom have significantly
shaped the course of Islamic learning and practice in the Horn of
Africa, the
Arabian Peninsula, and
well beyond.
Among these Islamic scholars is the 14th century Somali theologian and jurist
Uthman bin Ali Zayla'i of
Zeila
, who wrote the single most authoritative text on
the Hanafi school of Islam, consisting of
four volumes known as the Tabayin al-Haqa’iq li Sharh Kanz
al-Daqa’iq.
Christianity is a minority religion in
Somalia, with no more than 1,000 practitioners in a population of
eight million inhabitants. There is one
diocese for the whole country, the
Diocese of Mogadishu, which estimates
that there were only about about 100
Catholic practitioners in Somalia in 2004. In 1913,
during the early part of the colonial era, there were virtually no
Christians in the Somali territories, with
only about 100-200 followers coming from the schools and
orphanages of the few Catholic
missions in the
British Somaliland protectorate. There were also no known Catholic
missions in
Italian Somaliland
during the same period. In the 1970s, during the reign of Somalia's
then
Marxist government, church-run schools
were closed and
missionaries sent home.
There has been no
archbishop in the
country since 1989, and the
cathedral in
Mogadishu was severely damaged during the civil war.
Some non-Somali ethnic minority groups also practice
animism, the latter of which, in the case of the
Bantu, represents religious traditions
inherited from their ancestors in southeastern Africa.
Culture
Cuisine
The cuisine of Somalia varies from region to region and consists of
an exotic
mixture of diverse culinary
influences. It is the product of Somalia's rich
tradition of trade and commerce.
Despite the variety, there remains one thing that unites the
various regional cuisines: all food is served
halal. There are therefore no
pork
dishes,
alcohol is not served, nothing that
died on its own is eaten, and no blood is incorporated.
Qaddo or lunch is often elaborate. Varieties of
bariis (
rice), the most popular
probably being
basmati, usually serve as the
main dish. Spices like
cumin,
cardamom,
cloves,
cinnamon and
sage are
used to aromatize these different rice dishes. Somalis serve dinner
as late as 9 pm. During
Ramadan, dinner is often served
after
Tarawih prayers – sometimes as late as
11 pm.
Xalwo or
halva is a popular
confection served during special occasions such as
Eid celebrations or wedding receptions. It is
made from sugar,
cornstarch,
cardamom powder,
nutmeg
powder, and
ghee. Peanuts are also sometimes
added to enhance texture and flavor. After meals, homes are
traditionally perfumed using
frankincense (
lubaan) or
incense (
cuunsi), which is prepared inside
an incense burner referred to as a
dabqaad.
Literature
Somali scholars have for centuries produced many notable examples
of
Islamic literature ranging
from
poetry to
Hadith.
With the adoption of the
Latin
alphabet in 1972 as the nation's standard orthography, numerous
contemporary Somali authors have also released novels, some of
which have gone on to receive worldwide acclaim. Of these modern
writers,
Nuruddin Farah is probably
the most celebrated. Books such as
From a Crooked Rib and
Links are considered important literary achievements,
works which have earned Farah, among other accolades, the 1998
Neustadt
International Prize for Literature.
Farah Mohamed Jama Awl is another
prominent Somali writer who is perhaps best known for his
Dervish era novel,
Ignorance is the enemy
of love.
Music
Somalia has a rich musical heritage centered on traditional Somali
folklore. Most Somali songs are
pentatonic; that is, they only use five
pitches per
octave in
contrast to a
heptatonic (seven
note) scale such as the
major scale.
At first
listen, Somali music might be mistaken for the sounds of nearby
regions such as Ethiopia
, Sudan
or Arabia, but it is ultimately recognizable by its own
unique tunes and styles. Somali songs are usually the
product of collaboration between
lyricists
(
midho),
songwriters
(
lahan), and
singers (
odka
or "voice").
See also
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