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George Balario
In recent weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about the tenth anniversary of his death. Bettino Crassiwhich will fall on January 19. However, in recent days, the fifteenth anniversary of the death of another figure who had much in common with the PSI leader has passed without attracting attention, starting with the sincere friendship that bound them together and ending with his death in exile far from his homeland. Mohamed Siad BarreThe former president, “Father of the Nation”? A Somali, died on January 2, 1995 in Lagos, Nigeria, where he had taken refuge after being overthrown by armed opposition four years earlier.
«One of the last heroes of the magnificent lineage of African dictators died with Siad Barre, that group of brilliant young revolutionaries (Haile Selassie, Idi Amin, Bokassa) who rose up against colonialism like cyclopses but eventually became old, fat, dissolute, greedy dictators – driven out of the banana republics they had transformed their countries. ” So he wrote Lucia Annunziata exist Corriere della Sera The report of January 3, 1995, not only proves how easy it is to compare Siad Barre to characters from operettas such as Bokassa, but also proves that Haile Selassie was never a “revolutionary” and that there is very little information if any about Haile Selassie as the legitimate heir to a true dynasty, one of the oldest in the world.
Of course, the former president of Somalia was a dictator. He was indeed violent and perhaps greedy (he was nicknamed “Big Mouth?”), but he did not look dissolute or fat. For more than two decades, from 1969 until the coup that overthrew him, he ruled the former Italian colony with a firm hand, sometimes even using an iron fist against his opponents. Siad Barre, a shrewd and tightrope-walker in foreign policy, was initially a close ally of the Soviet Union, to whom he outsourced Somalia’s strategic position for about a decade, becoming a real bridge between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Even in internal politics, this alliance adhered lukewarmly to communist principles.
Then, as Moscow changed horses in East Africa, it focused on Ethiopia’s Marxist dictator HauntedThe Somali president then made a bold turn to the United States, reestablishing unbroken ties with his beloved Italy. In fact, Mohamed Siad Barre, an illiterate shepherd’s son, first served in the local police during the Italian Mandate (1949-1960), then successfully attended the Carabinieri Academy in Florence, where he obtained good grades. He achieved a high level of education and learned Italian perfectly.
Senator Andreotti tells an interesting anecdote in the monthly magazine: 30 days January 2001. During Siad Barre’s visit to Rome, then-President Pertini — whose national consciousness often wavered under the ideological legacy of the old anti-fascist guerrillas — had the strange idea of apologizing to the Somali president for what the Italians had done during the colonial occupation. “The guests replied that they had only gratitude for Italy — he wrote Andreotti – Pertini suddenly became gloomy, and it was the Ethiopians, not the fascists, who started the war in 1935. In his memoirs, Antonio GirelliThe then head of the press office said that the president later had very harsh words for “this Eritrean who studied Italian in the mornings at the gendarmerie (!)”.
This is the description of Somalia outlined by Siad Barre’s father in 2008 Piero GuidoWell-known missionary journalist specializing in African issues: “When I was in Somalia in 1978, the country was under the dictatorship of Siad Barre, in a state of peace, but development and democratic maturity were hampered. Any opposition was suppressed by force. But normal life went on peacefully according to the rhythm of tradition. The only strong emotion evident among the population was nationalism. Siad Barre strengthened the use of the Somali language by printing books and newspapers, and especially by organizing patriotic demonstrations, military parades, increasing literacy among the rural population and opening new roads. Italian is still taught and used by many, especially in universities, and there is an Italian newspaper and Italian schools promoted by our embassy.”
Father Guido remembers a long conversation with the bishop Salvatore Colombo, Somalia bishop, murdered by Islamic extremists since 1989. “He told me that Siad Barre was certainly a dictator – says Gedo – who used violent methods against his opponents. However, he added, “he managed to create a nationalist sentiment that kept the country, ethnic groups and Kabyles united. Without him, I am afraid that Somalia would fall into civil war and chaos”. Unfortunately, he was a good prophet. ” A few years before Siad Barre’s death, he himself tried to return to power at the invitation of his loyalists, to which he replied with frustration that Somalia would never be governed again.
Here, if you look at Somalia today, it makes sense to remember Siad Barre, a controversial figure, 15 years later. Time, as they say, is a gentleman. Or at least it allows us to look at the past more objectively. This is happening with the political figure of Bettino Craxi, who certainly cannot be reduced to a simple idol of Tangentopoli; the same will happen with the strong man who has been the powerhouse of Mogadishu and the Horn of Africa for more than two decades.
Apart from any moral assessment of the characters (in geopolitics, morality is a worthless commodity…), how useful would it be today to have one more “big mouth”? In Mogadishu. Someone who could restore national consciousness to a country torn apart between clans, kabyles, ethnic and family subgroups; a country torn apart by the internecine struggles of the “war lords”, which in a short time dragged Somalia into an economic abyss. A country that has become a “sanctuary”? The birthplace of pirates of the third millennium, a breeding ground for Islamic fundamentalism and a tactical base for Al-Qaeda terrorists. Even Barack Obamaabout to cover up in Yemen, looking for followers Osama bin Ladenwould rather have a shrewd but reliable interlocutor on the other side of the Gulf of Aden, such as old Siad Barre, than the obscure Somali Islamic Courts—
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