The Somali Democratic Republic, 1969–1991: how the state was run

In short

On 21 October 1969, six days after President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke was killed by a bodyguard, army units took over Mogadishu. A Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) took power with Major General Siad Barre as its president. It banned political parties, closed the National Assembly, suspended the constitution and renamed the country the Somali Democratic Republic (Library of Congress, Somalia: A Country Study).

The name lasted until Siad Barre left Mogadishu in January 1991. This page covers how the state was organised. The events of the period are told in the Siad Barre era, 1969–1991.

The coup, October 1969

• 15 October 1969. A bodyguard killed President Shermarke while Prime Minister Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal was abroad. The killer was later tried and executed by the new government (Library of Congress).
• 21 October 1969. When it became clear that the Assembly would back Egal's choice for president, army units seized key points in Mogadishu, with police cooperation. Leading members of the civilian government, Egal among them, were detained at the presidential palace (same source).
• Aims. The new government said its goals included an end to "tribalism, nepotism, corruption, and misrule". It said it would honour existing treaties and support "national liberation movements and Somali unification" (same source).

The Library of Congress writes that Siad Barre was "not regarded as the author of the military takeover" but took the lead of the officers who carried it out. It also says that "no evidence indicated that the coup was Soviet-inspired" (Library of Congress).

Rule by the SRC, 1969–1976

Two texts set up the new state: Law Number 1, issued on the day of the coup, and the First Charter of the Revolution (Library of Congress).

• The SRC. Law Number 1 gave the 25-member council all powers of the president, the National Assembly and the Council of Ministers, and many duties of the courts. It decided by majority vote and rarely published its debates.
• The cabinet. A 14-member Council of the Secretaries of State ran daily government but "lacked political power". Until 1974 several ministries were headed by officers who also sat on the SRC.
• Siad Barre's posts. He was head of state, chairman of the cabinet, commander-in-chief and president of the SRC.
• The 1960 constitution. It was repealed in February 1970. Earlier laws stayed in force unless the SRC struck them out as "incompatible...with the spirit of the Revolution".
• Officials. Military officers replaced civilian regional and district officials. Civil servants attended courses mixing training with "political indoctrination", and those judged "politically unreliable" were dismissed (same source).

On 21 October 1970 Siad Barre declared Somalia a socialist state. He described the ideology, "scientific socialism", as made of three parts: self-reliance, socialism on Marxist lines, and Islam. He said: "Socialism is not a religion... It is a political principle" (Library of Congress).

Plots and trials, 1970–1974

• April 1970. The first vice president, General Jaama Ali Qoorsheel, was arrested, convicted of treason by the National Security Court and jailed (Library of Congress).
• May 1971. The second vice president, General Mohamed Ainanche, Lieutenant Colonel Salah Gaveire Kedie and other officers were arrested for plotting to kill Siad Barre. Ainanche, Gaveire and one more officer were executed after a long trial (same source).
• 1974. Qoorsheel and most of the detained civilian leaders were freed. Egal and four former ministers were not; Egal was sentenced to 30 years for embezzlement and conspiracy (same source). He was released in 1982 (Library of Congress).

Rule by the party, 1976–1991

In June 1976 a congress founded the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (SRSP). On 1 July 1976 the SRC dissolved itself and handed power to the party (Library of Congress).

• The Supreme Council. The party's central committee had 73 members. They included the 19 officers of the SRC, but most were civilians.
• The politburo. Five former SRC members, among them Siad Barre and his son-in-law, the security chief Ahmad Suleiman Abdullah, made the decisions. Siad Barre was the party's secretary general.
• Membership. It "never numbered more than 20,000". Members carried out directives and "did not debate policy" (Library of Congress).

The Library of Congress writes that "in practice real power over the party and the government remained with the small group of military officers who had been most influential in the SRC" (Library of Congress). In October 1980 the SRC was revived beside the party and the cabinet. The same source says the overlap "left decision making solely in Siad Barre's hands" (Library of Congress).

The 1979 constitution and the People's Assembly

The 1979 constitution was approved by referendum (Library of Congress):

• A presidential system. The president was head of state and head of government, chose and chaired the Council of Ministers, ran foreign affairs, could declare war and emergency, and appointed the Supreme Court president.
• Elections. At first the legislature elected the president by a two-thirds vote for six years. Amendments in December 1984 made it a direct vote for seven years. In the first such vote, in 1986, Siad Barre was the only candidate and received 99.9 percent.
• The People's Assembly. 177 members: 171 elected and 6 appointed by the president (Library of Congress).

Assemblies were elected in 1979 and 1984 from single lists of SRSP members, and the government announced over 99 percent approval each time. The Library of Congress writes that the Assembly met "for several days each year" and "ratified whatever laws the executive had decided to submit". The 1989 election was postponed because of the war (same source).

Courts and law

• The ordinary courts. The four tiers set up in 1962 stayed in place: 84 district courts, 8 regional courts, courts of appeal at Mogadishu and Hargeisa, and the Supreme Court (Library of Congress).
• The Higher Judicial Council. In 1970 military officers took every seat on the council that appointed and disciplined judges. The Library of Congress says this made "the judiciary accountable to the executive" (same source).
• The 1973 civil code. It replaced Italian and British laws. It ended clan and lineage rights over land, water and grazing, and limited diya (blood compensation) to the victim and close relatives. A later amendment banned diya entirely (Library of Congress). See xeer, Somali customary law.
• The 1975 family law. It gave women equal inheritance. Ten religious scholars who spoke against it were sentenced to death by a state security court and executed on 23 January 1975. See the 1975 family law and the ten scholars.

The National Security Courts

The National Security Courts (NSC) were set up in 1970 "as the judicial arm of the SRC" (Library of Congress). Their first cases were Shermarke's killing and corruption charges against the former government.

• Who sat. A senior military officer presided, usually with two more officers. A military attorney general prosecuted (Library of Congress).
• What they heard. Offences the government defined as against state security: embezzlement by officials, murder, political activity against the state, and theft of government food stocks.
• Appeals. "No other court, not even the Supreme Court, could review NSC sentences". Appeals went only to the president.
• The end. In October 1990 Siad Barre announced that the courts were abolished.

The Library of Congress records that "opponents of the Siad Barre regime accused the NSC of sentencing hundreds of people to death for political reasons", and calls the courts "widely feared and detested" (same source).

Security and information

• The National Security Service (NSS). Organised "under Soviet direction", at first to stop professionals and dissidents leaving the country and to stop clans settling disputes in traditional ways (Library of Congress).
• Information. The Ministry of Information and National Guidance ran political education offices and used the press and radio for the "success of the socialist, revolutionary road". A censorship board shaped news to SRC guidelines (same source).
• After 1978. Following the Ogaden war, the Library of Congress records "jailings, torture, and summary executions of dissidents and collective punishment of clans thought to have engaged in organized resistance" (Library of Congress). See the armed movements, 1978–1991 and the Isaaq genocide, 1987–1989.

Clans and local government

The SRC made "tribalism" an offence punished by prison terms and fines. Paid clan headmen were replaced by government-appointed nabadoon ("peacekeepers"), and marriages had to take place at district orientation centres (Library of Congress). The government resettled 140,000 nomads in farming and fishing communities (same source).

Elected local councils were dissolved after the coup. The country was redrawn into 16 regions and 84 districts. Military officers chaired the regional councils, and most council members came from the army, the police and security services. A 1979 law allowed district elections, with candidates approved by the government first (Library of Congress).

The Library of Congress records that the government was "commonly referred to by the code name MOD": the Mareehaan (Siad Barre's clan), the Ogaden (his mother's) and the Dhulbahante (his son-in-law's). In 1975, 10 of the 20 SRC members were Daarood, and the Digil and Rahanweyn had none (Library of Congress). By 1980 most top SRSP leaders came from the same three clans (Library of Congress).

The Somali script and literacy

On 21 October 1972 the SRC announced that a Latin script would be the standard way of writing Somali from 1 January 1973. Officials were given three months, later six, to learn it (Library of Congress).

• Before. Government papers were in English and Italian, and literacy was estimated at 5 percent in 1972.
• The campaigns. Up to 8,000 teachers taught in towns, then more than 20,000, half of them secondary students, went to the nomads from August 1974.
• Result. "Several hundred thousand people" learned to read in the first phase. The UN put literacy at 24 percent in 1990 (same source).

See the Somali language.

The end, 1990–1991

In May 1990, 114 public figures signed a manifesto calling on the government to resign. In October 1990 Siad Barre proposed a new draft constitution and abolished the National Security Courts (Library of Congress; Library of Congress). In late January 1991 he asked his former foreign minister Omar Arteh Ghalib to form a government to negotiate with the armed movements, but he left the capital before power could be handed over (Library of Congress).

The interim government that followed kept the provisions of the 1979 constitution it had not voided (Library of Congress). See the collapse, 1991–2000.

Who suffered?

• Detained politicians. Egal and other civilian leaders were held from 1969, some until 1982 (Library of Congress; Library of Congress).
• Those tried by the NSC. Opponents said hundreds were sentenced to death for political reasons (Library of Congress).
• Whole clans punished for armed resistance, in the Library of Congress's words, after 1978 (Library of Congress).
• Ten religious scholars executed in 1975. See the 1975 family law.

Sources differ

• Who led the coup. The Library of Congress says Siad Barre was not seen as its author but took the lead of it. The government itself later presented the coup as a planned revolution (Library of Congress).
• How socialist the state was. Siad Barre called the ideology scientific socialism. The Library of Congress writes that "genuine Marxist sympathies were not deep-rooted in Somalia" (Library of Congress).
• Election results. The government announced over 99 percent approval in 1979, 1984 and 1986. Opponents and critics were not allowed to stand (Library of Congress).

Read the primary sources yourself

• Library of Congress, Somalia: A Country Study (1993): Coup d'Etat, The revolutionary regime, Supreme Revolutionary Council, Challenges to the regime, Scientific socialism, Language and literacy, The SRSP, 1980–90, Government structure, Constitution, Legislature, Local government, Legal system, Courts, Politics.