Chronology of the History of Somalia and Somaliland Through the Year 2007

A Note to My Readers    >>>>>   In the days and weeks ahead, I am going to present the results of my reading and research this summer on the history and culture of key ethnic groups to which students of the Minneapolis Public Schools belong.  The following is a chronology of the history of Somalia and Somaliland through the year 2007 that is based on information in the indicated book by Ioan Lewis.

From Ioan Lewis, Understanding Somalia and Somaliland (London:  Hurst and Company, 2008)

Chronology of the History of Somalia and Somaliland Through the Year 2007

9^th century/           Arab families settled in ports along the Somali coast, spreading Islam.

      10^th century

12^th Century CE     Northern Somali clans spread southward (having probably fanned out into the Horn from an earlier movement northwards in the first millennium CE).

14^th Century CE     Arab Traveler Ibn Batuta provides vivid contemporary descriptions of life in the Towns of Zeila and Mogadishu.

1540/1560             First detailed reference in written chronicles to Somali people and component clans during the time of the great Muslim champion, Abmed Gurey (Gran), leader of jihad  against the Christian Ethiopian kingdom.  Somali Warriors in his forces described as being especially expert at road ambushes.

17^th century           Inhabitants of coastal town of Mogadishu, with predominant Arab and Persian influence, under pressure from Hawiye Somali (Abgal) of the hinterland, who settled in Shangani quarter of the city.  This was followed by a period of Omani influence along the southern Somali coast.

1848                        French explorer Charles Guillain visited southern Somali port and immediate hinterland providing excellent description of the local situation.

1854                        In the course of his famous expedition to the Muslim city stat of Harar on the edge of the Ethiopian escarpment, British Arabist and explorer Richard Burton spent several months on the northern Somali coast, between Berbera and Zeila.  His First Footsteps in East Africa contains detailed and accurate information on Somali culture in this period.  Burton describes Somails as a “fierce and turbulent race of republicans.”

1897                        Imperial partition of the Somali nation.  Following the short-lived Egyptian colonization of the northern Somali coast, Britain, France, and Italy signed “protection treaties” with various Somali clans and partitioned the whole area with Ethiopia.

 

1920                        Sayyid Mohammed Abdille Hassan (the “Mad Mullah”) led a holy war against“infidel” colonizers---  especially Ethiopians and British.

1920                        Invention by Osman Yusuf Kenadid of the first script for the oral Somali language.

1934                        “Walwal incident”-----  confrontation between Italian and Ethiopian forces at 

Walwal in the Ogaden, sparking the Italo-Ethiopian war that continued as part of  World War II.

1941                       Allies defeat Italians and establish British Military Administration throughout Somali region, with the exception of French Somaliland.

1943                        Somali Youth League, first major Somali nationalist party founded with the aid of the British Military Administration.

1946                        British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, proposed that Somaliland should remain united as a single state and prepared for self-government.                                                                                                              

1950                        After rejection of the Bevin Plan, Somalia placed under UN Trusteeship, administered by Italy, with ten-year mandate.  British Somaliland reverted to its former protectorate status and the Ogaden was returned to Ethiopian control.

26 June 1960         British Somaliland became independent.                           

1 July 1960             Italian Somalia became independent and joined Somaliland to form the Somali Republic (Somaliland).

1963                        Ogaden insurrection followed by brief outbreak of fighting between Somalia and Ethiopia.

1963-1967              Somali guerrilla campaign attempting to secure Somali independence from Kenya in the northeastern region.

21 October 1969  Military coup led by Siyad Barre, overthrew the civilian government of Mohammed Haji Ibrahim Egal.  State becomes the “Somali Democratic Republic (SDR), and embraces “scientific socialism”---  with the assistance of the USSR.

1973/1974            National literacy campaign using Latin script for writing Somali.

1974                       Catastrophic drought and famine leads to large displacement of northern Somali nomads to agricultural fishing “collectives” in southern Somalia.

1977                       Djibouti (French Somaliland, and then later designated by the French as French Coast of Afars & Issas) became independent under President Hassan Guleid, ethnic Somali.  Ogaden nationalists rebelled against an Ethiopia weakened by revolution followingHaile Selassie’s overthrow.

1977/1978            Somali-Ethiopian war.  Soviet Union changed sides to aid Ethiopia and was replaced in Somalia by the USA.

1978                       Somali defeat, followed by influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees.  Abortive coup against Siyad.

 

1982                       Formation of Somali Salvation Democratic Front (Mijerteyn) guerrilla forces in the Northeast, Somali national movement in the northwest.  Both based in Ethiopia.

 

1988                       Peace accord between Ethiopia and Somalia led to intensification of SNM struggle in the northwest.

1990                       Siyad’s divide and rule policies, arming his allies with Wester-supplied equipment to suppress his enemies led to general militarism and disintegration of the Somali state.        

January 1991       Siyad overthrown by United Somali Congress (Hawiyi) guerrilla and chased out of Mogadishu by General Aideed.  General “clan-cleansing” of Mogadishu by USC forces, killing or driving out members of Darod clans associated with Siyad.  Followed by power struggle between USC leaders and Ali Mahdi

May 1991              SNM declares the “Somaliland Republic” independent of Somalia and distances itself from southern conflict and devastation.

March 1992          Mogadishu ceasefire followed by gradual return of humanitarian agencies to relieve spreading famine in southern Somali war zone.

April 1992             First UN special envoy appointed with prospect of UN security forces to protect aid workers.

October 1992       UN launched “100 day action programme” and UN special envoy was forced to resign because of his justified criticism of UN operations.

December 1992    UN Resolution 794 authorized use of all necessary means to secure relief, and US-led operation Restore Hope, involving 30,000 US and other troops, began its peace-keeping role in Somalia.                     

January and  March 1993         

                               Peace conference in Addis Ababa.  Leaders of militia groups signed agreements binding themselves to disarm and maintain peace, subject to heavy sanctions.

May 1993              Operation Restore Hope hands over to UNOSM II under Security Council resolution 814, which provided for a multi-national force of 28,000 military personnel and 3,000 civilians.

5 June 1993          Aideed’s forces ambushed Pakistani UN contingent, killing over 20 Blue Helmets.  Admiral Howe, UN special envoy in charge of UNOSOM II, declared Aideed a wanted outlaw and launched attacks o Aideed’s strongholds in Mogadishu.  Aideed’s forces retaliated with a guerrilla campaign against UN troops.

 

1993                      While these conferences for southern Somali leaders and warlords were proceeding, reaching conclusions that would never be implemented, the crucial state-forming Borama conference was held at that town in Somaliland.                 

(October)             Aideed’s forces shot down several Black Hawk helicopters and humiliated survivors causing huge furor at US casualties (subject of an American book and film).  New US President Clinton was forced to announce withdrawal by 31 March 1994.

1995                     The UN exodus proceeded relatively smoothly and was immediately followed in Mogadishu by extensive looting, as a new generation of warlords seized abandoned resources and prepared to assert strategic dominance.

1996                      Aideed was killed in battle over control of banana exports between his Habar Gidir clan and Abgal;  southern Somalis reverted to “normal patterns of conflict and insecurity.

1997                      Following over a year’s conflict over control of airport revenue in Hargeisa, Somaliland re-established peace and order and Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal was elected for a further five-year term as Somaliland President.

1998                      A Mijerteyn conference at Garne established the “new Puntland state of Somalia," which unlike Somaliland has not claimed complete independence from Somalia. 

2000                      The new Somali President of Djibouti, with UN support, laun ched a new Somali peace conference at Arta with, for the first time, “representatives” officially on a clan         basis.  In the absence of machinery to check whether or not the resulting “delegates” were actually accredited clan representatives, this issue bedeviled the whole process.  In fact 60 percent were former members of Muhammad Siyad Barre’s Assembly, which has been personally selected by the dictator.  These people appointed one of their number, an ex-minister under Siyad, Abdulqasim Salad Hassan, a Habar Gidir politician who campaigned for Hawiye unity, as “Transnational National President,” hoping he could hold things together and establish his political authority in southern Somali at least.  In fact, following the usual segmentary trajectory, Abdulqusim and his militias never managed to control (fitfull) more than a couple of streets in Mogadishu.

2002                      A new international Somali “peace conference” was organized by the EC and UN, as usual outside Somalia, this time at Mbagathi (Kenya), and with the usual top-down assumptions and battery of supporting “experts” whose especial distinction was failing to grasp the fundamentally decentralized character of Somali politics.  Since the previous international effort (Arta) which had collapsed was supposedly based on traditional class leaders, the formula here was to pass the baton to the warlords.  So, as wide a group of warlords as possible (some of them accused by members of the Somali public of being war criminals) was desperately scraped together by EU diplomats in Kenya.  With massive bribery and corruption, and more that year’s riotous debate, those attending the meeting, again comprising clan quotas, managed to “elect” a “transitional federal government under the Ethiopian candidate, Abdillahi Yusuf, a renowned guerrilla leader and warlord, formerly President of Puntland.

2005                      The transitional federal government moved back to Somalia.

2006                      In  Mogadishu a home-grown local association of Islamic clerics, based on mushrooming Islamic courts, gradually ousted criminal warlord (some supported by the US to “fight Islamic terrorism”) and re-establish law and order for the first time since 1990.  It wrested Mogadishu’s airport and main seaport from the control of warlords, repaired those public utilities and opened them to general use.  Bu June life in Mogadishu had miraculously returned to prewar normality.  Over playing their hand, these Islamic groups threatened the Egyptian-installed TFG president, calli him an infidel, and Ethiopians (with US complicity) increased their military support for the TFG. 

2007                      The TFG finally moved into Mogadishu with overwhelming Ethiopian (and US ) military support, rekindling insurrection in southern Somalia.  Hundreds of thousands of civilians fled Mogadishu.