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In the view of many witnesses of
Somalia’s recent history, an important element of the terrible
abuse of power and authority during the dictatorial regime of the
late Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre was the arbitrary and widespread
detention of dissidents, political opponents and even ordinary
Somalis who would just express an honest opinion on the state of
affairs of their country. These incarcerations were usually without
any charges, whatsoever, and without trial. For this reason, men
like Gen. Mohamed Abshir Muse, former Commander of Somalia’s
Police Force, the late Mr. Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, ex-President of
self-declared Somaliland Republic and former Prime Minister of
Somalia, Col. Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, current President of Somalia,
the late Gen. Mohamed Farah Aideed, former USC leader, the late
Sheikh Mohamed Ma’alim, the famous Islamic scholar, Col. Jama Ali
Jama, former leader of the Puntland autonomous region of Somalia,
and many others, each had to spend 5 to 12 years behind bars, mostly
in solitary confinement.
These great injustices which had
turned many Somalis against that repressive government - despite its
popularity at the beginning of its reign in 1969 – were, in my
opinion, the main cause behind the start of the armed rebellion
against the old regime and its eventual downfall in 1991. However,
these insidious atrocities and this gross violation of the human
rights of the Somali people have never, to the best of my knowledge,
been chronicled or adequately recorded, with the possible exception
of a small booklet in Somali, entitled Xabsigaygii (My
Imprisonment) which was published in 2000 by Prof. Yusuf Hersi
Ahmed, the renowned TB specialist (who now lives in exile in
Pakistan). I think this record-keeping is of paramount importance so
that future Somali generations will draw useful lessons from it,
because it is my firm belief that this malicious exercise of
absolute power was one of the catalysts for the catastrophe that
followed later and led to the collapse of the Somali State and the
devastating civil war that Somalia has been undergoing in the past
15 years. That is why I have decided today to recount my story as a
former political prisoner under Barre’s loathed regime, the great
suffering I had endured and how this painful experience had later
helped me enormously in rebuilding my life. Again, our former
political prison, Laanta Buur, is currently in the news because it
is one of the main bases for the armed militias of the notorious
Mogadishu warlords who now claim that they plan to pacify that
unlucky city after failing to do so in 14 years of civil war.
I was imprisoned one night in
May 1976, one of the saddest and most memorable dates of my entire
life. I was first taken to the Mogadishu branch of the dreaded Nabad-Sugidda
Soomaaliyeed (i.e., National Security Service or NSS) where the
officer in charge, the fearsome Col. Ahmed Jili’ow (from
Mogadishu), gave orders for me to be thrown into jail without even
asking me about my name or place of work. On that night, about 50 of
us, ordinary civilians, most of whom from Galcaio, Bossaso, Hargeisa,
Burao and Hobyo were rounded up and dumped early in the morning at
Laanta Buur Prison, situated in the middle of nowhere (about 90 km
to the south of Mogadishu on the road to the coastal city of Merca).
This was an extremely harsh detention center which was built by the
“Revolutionary Government” in that remote area specifically to
punish dissidents or political prisoners more severely, as they were
not allowed to be visited by families and friends or be brought
decent food and reading materials from home.
The conditions at Laanta Buur
were extremely appalling: the food was awful - but we had to consume
it in order not to starve to death - and health services were
practically non-existent. We were deprived of radios - let alone TV
which was not then available in Somalia as a whole - and visits from
our families and loved ones. We were also deprived of all means of
reading and writing, and we were not allowed to do any work –
something that would have kept us a bit busy at least for a few
hours every day. (But to be fair to the regime, we were never
tortured, physically, or even interrogated). In comparison, the
living conditions of the common criminals at Mogadishu’s central
prison – some of whom might have committed murders or stolen
public funds - were much better than ours, because they had all
kinds of privileges.
Even detention under the very
despicable apartheid system in South Africa was much more merciful
and humane, because Nelson Mandela and his other colleagues at
Robben Island Prison – who, like us, were imprisoned for political
reasons - were allowed one letter and one visit every three months!
Not in Siad Barre’s cruel prison at Laanta Buur or the more
miserable concentration camp at Labaatan Jirow (near Baidoa city).
In this latter dungeon, all detainees had to spend their sad days in
solitary confinement, in terrible individual cells with no
amenities; the only relief they had was for each political prisoner
to walk for mere 20 minutes per day in the corridor outside his cell
under the strict watch of a prison guard.
I did not mind being deprived of
food and sleep, but the thing that bothered me most at Laanta Buur
was sitting idle, day in, day out, and not knowing why was I being
imprisoned? What were the specific charges against me, and how long
would I remain over there? If you commit a crime that you know of,
you easily accept your fate and you just start counting the
remaining years of your sentence, irrespective of its length. Not in
political imprisonment. I can, therefore, summarize the most
difficult part of a detention experience in one word: boredom,
boredom, and boredom. This reminds me about a famous Egyptian
journalist, the late Mustafa Amin, who wrote in one of his books,
after spending several years in Nasser’s prisons: If the year of
an ordinary person consists of 365 days, the day of a prisoner
equals 365 years!
We were detained indefinitely,
because in the jargons of those “revolutionary” days we were
simply known as “la-hayeyaal” (people in custody),
without any charges against us and without access to lawyers or
courts of justice or any of these legal niceties. Now you may wonder
why the Siad Barre’s regime and its hated NSS were treating their
citizens in such an extremely cruel and sadistic manner? The answer
is simple: it was part of the regime’s coercive control method and
its main instrument for keeping absolute power forever. As such, the
purpose behind this very merciless and inhumane detention was to
break the will of dissidents and those who oppose or even dare to
criticize Siad Barre’s military tyranny or its policies. It also
aimed at terrorizing other Somalis who knew that this might happen
to them as well.
The presence of older and wiser
men like Prof. Yusuf Hersi, Yusuf Samatar “Barda’ad”,
Abdirahman Aswad and Ali “Ambe” among us was very helpful,
because they used to counsel us and help us in enduring our ordeal.
We were also lucky because Mr. Adan Bahnan (from Burao), who was
imprisoned with us at Laanta Buur for a normal criminal case, was
often allowed to go to Mogadishu and would bring books with him and
then he would smuggle some of them to us. Thanks to Adan Bahnan’s
great and compassionate efforts, I was able to read several good
books by Shakespeare, Nobel Laureate, the Nigerian Wole Soyinka,
etc., and to survive this gruesome internment.
On the other hand, I was
fortunate, because I was released from prison after four painful
months due to the intervention of Siad Barre, after my family and
relatives appealed to him. (But even after almost 30 years, I
don’t know till now the real reason behind my imprisonment). Prof.
Yusuf Hersi and others had to spend around three more years in jail,
some of it in the notorious Labaatan Jirow detention camp. And
although I could have gone back to my old job, as Deputy Mayor of
Mogadishu, I refused to do so. I asked instead to be transferred to
the then Somali Institute of Development Administration and
Management (SIDAM) - an entity that was set up by the previous
civilian governments with the help of the UN to train the
country’s civil servants - to be a simple lecturer in accounting
and financial management. I took the latter option, because I wanted
to totally cut off my ties with this absolute dictatorship and not
to assume any more high position within its ranks.
Another reason why I chose being
a simple lecturer was that I planned to do graduate studies either
in Britain or USA, because I knew the UN used to give yearly
scholarships to the teaching staff of SIDAM to pursue further
studies. Sure enough, after 3 years, I was awarded a scholarship and
I enrolled at one of the finest universities in America, i.e.,
University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) where I obtained an
MBA and a Ph.D., after spending five of the best and most rewarding
years of my entire life. Upon finishing my studies, I went back to
Somalia, because I felt that I owed a great deal to my homeland and
I wanted to repay that debt in any way or capacity possible.
However, after spending another 6 months in Mogadishu, I realized
that the situation in the country was extremely hopeless and that
serious troubles were looming on the horizon. That is why I decided
to jump on a job opportunity which I found in Saudi Arabia and I
left Somalia for good in Oct. 1985.
Although I was initially bitter
about my political imprisonment in Somalia, I don’t feel it that
way anymore, because I have now come to terms with this unfortunate
but preordained incident. Due to this traumatic experience, I was
able, by the grace of Allah, to change the course of my life and
rebuild it from scratch and to obtain degrees and jobs that I would
have never dreamed of. Another important factor which helped me come
to terms with my traumatic experience was a visit I paid to South
Africa in October 2002. When I called on Robben Island and saw the
miserable 2x2 meter cell where the great Mandela had spent 20 out of
his 27 years in the apartheid prisons, I was really humbled and then
my old wounds were healed.
That is why I have decided long
time ago to forgive Siad Barre and his dictatorial regime, because
there is no point in dwelling on a past that you cannot change.
Moreover, I forgave that tyrannical administration because the
notorious warlords who followed it, and who caused the death of at
least half a million innocent Somalis according to some reliable
estimates, were much worse. I even at times feel thankful and offer
prayers or “duco” to Col. Ahmed Jili’ow, the man who
was instrumental in my imprisonment – mainly out of tribal
animosity – because he offered me, unintentionally, a crucial
wake-up call that changed my life for the better. (Incidentally, I
was told that Jili’ow is now stuck in lawless Mogadishu where he
survives by spying on students of Islam in Somalia, on behalf of USA
and other foreign governments, kidnapping some of them occasionally
and selling them to the highest bidder).
Finally, if I had not gone
through this very painful prison experience and learned from it, I
would probably have today been squabbling with unscrupulous and
tribal-minded former car drivers, ex-police sergeants and former
office messengers over a position in Somalia’s new transitional
federal government in anarchic Mogadishu. (It is really Somalia’s
great misfortune that these semi-illiterate men, none of whom has
ever run a village or even a small government office, have the
audacity to insist nowadays on leading a whole nation, simply
because they belong to a certain clan or they possess a few guns).
Or I would have been living in exile in cold Europe or North
America, as most of the high ranking officials of Siad Barre’s
defunct regime now do, surviving on the miserable dole or handout
that the “capitalist”, “imperialist” and “reactionary”
governments of these nations throw at them with utter contempt.
Mahamud Mohd. Yahye, Ph D.
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
E-mail: mm2yahya@yahoo.com |