Thu, 23 Mar 2017


A Brief History of the Somali Conflict
As many African Countries have a variety of clans and tribes, Somalia also has, but features of Somalis from the other African nations, they are speaking the same language, members of one religion and the same culture, on top of that, Somalis are feeling the same destiny. The objective of this paper is given a historical brief of conflict of Somali.
Somalia before the independence was two Regions north was under the British colonial while the South was under the Italian colony after that north get the independence on 26june 1960 while the south gets on 1 st July 1960 then they united to make the Somali Republic at that time the Government was   civilian but on 21October 1969 a revolution take place the leader was General Mohamed Siyad Bare as we mentioned.
After two decades of dictator regime, Rebel forces ousted the Barre regime in 1991, but turmoil, factional fighting, and anarchy have resulted. The Somali National Movement (SNM) gained control of the north, while in the capital of Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia; the United Somali Congress achieved to control the other part of the country, Somalia had been without a stable central government since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre fled the country in 1991.  
Barre created a socialist state and did a good relations with the Soviet Union, he also started to build the strong Army forces in Africa, then he decided to belong the Ogaden Region from Ethiopia to Somalia because the people of that region Somalis ethnic, shortly he had a goal to bring all Somalis under one flag, he invaded Ethiopia in 1977 .
Somalia under the leadership of Barre started to attack Ethiopia, Russia supported the Somali army at that time, by this immense support the Somali army was eager to take control the Ogaden region by force as mentioning many specialists, this war escalated the collapse of Barre administration in 1991, although Ethiopia was managed to defeat the Barre army and the fragmentation start among the invader army against the central direction, Barre learned that by that and he started to afraid from the Army that returned from Ethiopia to make the revolt against his government.
At the same time, the Somali communities were separated into two Blocks, one block has supported the war against Ethiopia, the other wasn't agreed with this step, mainly of them from the fighters in front of the war, Barre was miserable with this condition, and he started to criticize his army which was fighting with Ethiopia's army, by this step the armed revolution against his administration was started.
Following that, largest of the army commanders criticized the policy of Barre as we mentioned, they moved to Ethiopia which was the enemy of Somalia and they started to make operations in the northern regions of Somali, and they killed a lot of military officials, anyone against him and he started to negotiate with Ethiopian Government to hand him those rebels, instead of taking of the Ogaden region, Mengistu Haile Maryam accepted the idea, the commanders of the rebels get news about the convergence between Barre and Maryam, and they decided to invade the nitrogen regions instead of handing them to Somali Government  on sept 1991 they entered northern regions without return which was difficult decision for them, They attacked the northern regions by 60 thousand well equipped Army and struggle started all the people in the north regions asylum to Ethiopia, all the towns damaged by Barre's Army and the leaders of the rebels began to replace the war to the south especially in the capital Mogadishu. Barre started to defend the capital. Then the rebels defeated the barre's Army, Barre was achieved to run away to the south near the borders with Kenya. From that Somali government collapsed.
1. Afyare Abdi Elmi and Dr Abdullahi Barise, (The Somali Confl ict: Root causes, obstacles, and peace-building strategies), African Security Review 15.1 Institute for Security Studies.
2. Hassan Yussuf Muhammed, (The Role of External Actors in the Somali Conflict A Post 2000 Study of Kenya and Ethiopia’s Involvement In the Conflict of Somalia), Malmö University, Department of Global Political Studies Faculty of Culture and Society Spring semester 2014.
3. Mark Bradbury and Sally Healy, (The endless war a brief history of the Somali conflict)
İbrahim Nassir, Analyst, Strategic Outlook
18.12.2016 - Hit : 1034

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