Some of the "remedies" he discussed included: "Balancing the well-to-do to eliminate the concentration of wealth [in the hands of Isaaq]. The campaign had completely destroyed Hargeisa, causing its population of 500,000 to flee across the border and the city was "reduced to a ghost town with 14,000 buildings destroyed and a further 12,000 heavily damaged". [141], Immediately after the SNM attack on Burao, the government started a campaign of mass arrests in Berbera. A Bosnian court found a member of the Republika Srpska police force, eljko Lelek, guilty of crimes against humanity in Viegrad, including rape and sentenced him to sixteen years in prison. TOO BAD I NE OF THOSE HAHA. Seemingly ever-present on the front lines and respected by his soldiers as a man of courage, Mladic oversaw an army of . These displaced people are hiding in the bush without adequate access to food and medical supplies.[146]. A "scorched earth" policy applied to the villages in the Elafweyn plains. They say a picture is worth a . [53] Somalia's defeat in the Ethio-Somali War caused an influx of Ethiopian refugees (mostly ethnic Somalis and some Oromo)[54] across the border to Somalia. Barre also targeted the Hawiye. [98], Barre's response to the SNM attacks was of unparalleled brutality, with explicit aims of handling the "Isaaq problem", he ordered "the shelling and aerial bombardment of the major cities in the northwest and the systematic destruction of Isaaq dwellings, settlements and water points". Killings in Hargeisa started on 31 May. A United States Congressional General Accounting Office team reported the Somali government's response to the SNM attack as follows: The Somali army reportedly responded to the SNM attacks in May 1988 with extreme force, inflicting heavy civilian casualties and damages to Hargeisa and Burao.The Somali military resorted to using artillery and aerial shelling in heavily populated urban centres in its effort to retake Burao and Hargeisa. The people now living in the three towns are believed to be totally non-Issaqi or military personnel who have been deputed to guard what has been retaken from the SNM. [155], On government orders, all Isaaq senior officials were proscribed from leaving the country for fear they would joining the SNM. The investigation was commissioned jointly by the United Nations Coordination Unit (UNCU) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. "[182], During the government campaign against the Isaaq in 1988 and 1989, numerous credible reports by the US and international media reported that Somalia had received shipments of chemical weapons from Libya. By the last year of the Barre regime, there was not a single school functioning at full strength. [53] Furthermore, Barre heavily favoured the Ogaden refugees, who belonged to the same clan (Darod) as him. The burnt nomads were buried in a spot about 10 kilometers east of Batalale, a communal beach and tourist spot in Berbera. [167], A particularly enduring aspect of the conflict was the Somali government's use of anti-personnel land-mines in Isaaq cities. [49], Successive Somali governments had continually supported the cause of Somali irredentism and the concept of 'Greater Somalia', a powerful sentiment many Somalis carried, as a core goal of the state. [24] The killings happened during the Somali Civil War and have been referred to as a "forgotten genocide". [158][159] These men included professionals, businessmen, and teachers. A Mobile Military Court sentenced 25 Isaaq men to death; they were executed the same day. The UN team reported that, with the Somali Army's encouragement, the Ogadeni refugees carried out extensive looting in several northern towns. Observers believe that Hargeisa is now composed largely of dependents of the military, which has a substantial, visible presence in Hargeisa, a significant number of Ogadeni refugees, and squatters who are using the properties of those who fled.[140]. Human Rights Watch reported that the refugees often "rampaged through villages and nomadic encampments near their numerous camps and claimed the lives of thousands of others, mostly nomads". [123] On the following day the curfew started earlier at 4:00pm; the third day at 2:00pm; and on the fourth day at 11:00am. The water well at Selel-Derajog was "destroyed and cemented over by government forces". [57] The Barre regime exploited the presence of such a large number of refugees as means of seeking foreign aid,[58] as well as a vehicle to displacing those deemed hostile to the state, notably the Isaaqs, Human Rights Watch noted that: "Northerners [Isaaqs] were dismissed from and not allowed to work in government offices dealing with refugee affairs, so that they would not discover the truth about the government's policies. One example of this is the case of Abdi Rageh, an Isaaq former military officer, was forcibly removed from a flight leaving for Frankfurt. In describing the government's response to the SNM offensive, the report observed: The government response to the attack has been particularly brutal and without regard to civilian casualties in fact there is ample evidence that civilian casualties have been deliberately inflicted so as to destroy the support base of the SNM, which is composed mainly of people from the Isaaq tribe. Much of Hargeisa appears to be a "ghost town," and many homes and building are virtually empty. We were told that long lines of trucks heavily laden with Hargeisa goods could be seen leaving the city, heading south towards Mogadishu after the heavy fighting had stopped. The cash-strapped government spends $50,000 on the war crimes commission each year, and is building a $300,000 museum to showcase. [10] The government forces retreated, regrouped at Goon-Ad just outside the city, and in the late afternoon, entered the centre of town. Now that the civil war has ended, the victims of mines have been principally civilians, many of whom are women and children.[174]. [162], Atrocities committed by the Barre's forces against Isaaqs included the strafing (i.e. [139] When news of the outbreak of fighting in Burao reached Sheikh, government-armed Ogadeni refugees in the area as well as the army units stationed there started to kill civilians and loot their homes. [169][170], In addition to the "systematic destruction of Isaaq dwellings, settlements and water points", bombing raids were conducted on major cities in the northwest regions inhabited mainly by Isaaq on orders of President Barre.[99]. There is no doubt that the unity of these people will restore the balance of the scales which are now tipped in favour of the Isaaq. [97] The SNM felt the pressure to cease their activities on the Ethiopia-Somalia border, and decided to attack the northern territories of Somalia to take control of the major cities in the north. The report noted one case where a 13-year-old girl from Erigavo was raped by six government soldiers, it also stated that "looting, raping and bashing are commonplace. Dry-season grazing land and areas close to permanent water sources at higher elevation were particularly hard hit. [117], Following the first two days of the conflict, angered by the extent to which Isaaqs welcomed the SNM incursion, and frustrated by their inability to contain the SNM advance, the military started attacking the civilian population without restraint "as if it was the enemy". Those arrested Isaaqs included businessmen, Somali Airlines staff, army officers, employees of relief agencies, and civil servants. A Srebrenica massacre survivor touches a bullet riddled wall at a warehouse near the elementary school in Petkovci, 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Sarajevo, where Serb . BRUCE OR D MAKE IT EMIT WAVES OF AWEEK. 7 April 1992 - January 1994. The report noted that the agency's staff have reported "many violations of human rights for which they believe the Somali Government must take the main responsibility". The United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) recorded at least 596 civilian casualties, including 296 killings, by early August. There are landmines at such high-altitude grazing areas between Burao and Erigavo. [177], One of the most densely mined areas in the north were the agricultural settlements around Gabiley and Arabsiyo. The Isaaqs entrepreneurial disposition was also a factor of the large-scale looting, which the Ogadenis saw as 'undeserved': In northern Somalia, the Isaaq clans confronted a massive influx of Ogadeni refugees from eastern Ethiopia whom Siyad encouraged to loot property, attack people, and destabilize cities. "[87][self-published source]. [106], The Siad Barre government adopted a policy that "any able-bodied Isaaq who could help the SNM had to be killed. The sixth man was charged with being a member of the SNM and accompanying the SNM fighter who escaped. [124], The government, upon hearing of the SNM attack on Burao, began rounding up Isaaq men fearing they would assist an SNM attack on Hargeisa. The scale of destruction was unprecedented, up to 90 percent of the city (then the second largest city in Somalia) was destroyed,[132][133][134] (United States embassy estimated 70 percent of the city was damaged or destroyed). [68], The Isaaq clan was not the only target of violence. UN "peacekeepers" torture a Somali child over fire "We are not going to achieve a new world order without paying for it in blood as well as in words and money," warned Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in the July/August 1995 issue of Foreign Affairs.Schlesinger had taken to the pages of the flagship journal of the Council on Foreign Relations to vindicate the dubious proposition that the United Nations . Civilian refugees fleeing towards the border were bombed and gunned indiscriminately. This was the military's attempt at "punishing the civilians for their SNM sympathies" as well as an attempt to "destroy the SNM by denying them a civilian base of support". Hargeisa was the second largest city of the country,[122] it was also strategically important due to its geographic proximity to Ethiopia (which made it central to military planning of successive Somali governments). This page was last edited on 11 April 2023, at 15:09. Jun 29, 2022. article 45 tfeu restrictions . Following the SNM attacks on the major towns of Hargeisa and Burao, government forces bombed the towns causing over 400,000 people to flee the atrocities across the border into Ethiopia, where they are now located in refugee camps, living in appalling conditions, with inadequate water, food, shelter and medical facilities. [72], By 1982 the SNM transferred their headquarters to Dire Dawa in Ethiopia,[73] as both Somalia and Ethiopia at the time offered safe havens of operation for resistance groups against each other. On 11 July 1995, Bosnian Serb units captured the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Another example of the simmering discontent in the north was a coup attempt by northern officers that was thwarted in 1961. According to Ali, "with funds and clan appeals, he [Barre] was able to entice the bulk of SSDF fighters to return from Ethiopia and participate in his genocidal wars against the Isaq in the north and later against the Hawiye in the South, including Mogadisho".[186]. Mogadishu? Among the victims were many students. [183] The US State Department denied the account, but NBC stood by its story when questioned by a Congressional office. "[59], Barre was essentially ensuring the loyalty of the Ogaden refugees through continued preferential treatment and protection at the expense of the local Isaaq who were not only bypassed for economic, social and political advancement but also forcefully suppressed by both the Somali Armed Forces and the Ogaden refugee militias.[53]. [142] The passengers were Somalis deported from Saudi Arabia after being imprisoned there before the war broke out. Las Anod? [95], In 1987, Siad Barre, the president of Somalia, frustrated by lack of success of the army against insurgents from the Somali National Movement in the north of country, offered the Ethiopian government a deal in which they stop sheltering and giving support to the SNM in return for Somalia giving up its territorial claim over Ethiopia's Somali Region. By 1979, official figures reported 1.3million refugees in Somalia, more than half of them were settled in Isaaq lands in the north. Aid officials said that up to 800,000 people almost all of them Issaq nomads have been displaced as a result of the civil war. More than 10,000 people were killed in the first month after the conflict began in late May, according to reports reaching diplomats here. The Somali army mined and blew up many of Hargeisa's principal buildings such as "the Union Hotel and a private maternity clinic near the Sha'ab girls School",[175] this was done in an attempt to clear the area between them and the SNM. The intervention culminated in the so-called Battle of Mogadishu on October 3-4, 1993, in which 18 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Somali militia fighters and civilians . [75] In order to weaken support for the SNM within the Isaaqs, the government enacted a policy of systematic use of large-scale violence against the local Isaaq population. The United Nations Development Programme stated that "the 21-year regime of Siyad Barre had one of the worst human rights records in Africa. The settlement of Ogaden refugees in Isaaq territory, and the arming of these groups (which effectively created a foreign army in the north[60]), further antagonised local Isaaq population. Bazookas, machine guns, hand grenades and other weapons of mass destruction were also directed against civilian targets in Hargeisa which had also been attacked as well as in Burao."[117]. [43], The northern dissatisfaction with the constitution and terms of unification was a subject that the successive civilian governments continued to ignore. Many thousands of others are being systematically denied food because Somali forces are deliberately holding up essential supplies. Water reservoirs at War Ibraan and Beli Iidlay were mined. [96] Ethiopia was in agreement and a deal was signed on 3 April 1988 that included a clause confirming agreement not to assist rebel organisations based in each other's territories. [53] Ideologically, the SNM was a Western-leaning movement and was described as "one of the most democratic movements in the Horn of Africa".[71]. Many Isaaq businessmen and elders were arrested as the government suspected they would support an SNM attack on Berbera.[141]. The principal towns have been subjected to a curfew for several years; arbitrary restrictions on the extension of the curfew have facilitated extortion by soldiers and curfew patrols.

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