By Dr. Mohamed-Rashiid Sh. Hassan

This is the seventeen article of a series of articles that Dr. Mohamed-Rashid analyses the military coup and its legacy

Somali-Ethiopian War 1977/1978 and Super Power Politics continued ...

Internationally, the country's image improved remarkably particularly on the Africa continent and in the Arab world. The image of Somalia as a progressive African country was generally accepted. The internal propaganda activities for social change and progress had a positive impact in the country's foreign affairs. We can mention two significant events. Firstly, the OAU conference in Mogadishu in 1974 in which most of the African leaders participated, even Haille Selassie, the Ethiopian emperor and the natural enemy of Somalis attended. He regarded Somali nationalism and the Somali nation state non-existent, a conspiracy constructs of the British and Italians to weaken the Ethiopian Empire. The Amhara has a proverb in the past, before Somali became independent which the translation would be like this: If Somalis achieved statehood, a donkey will grow horns. In Somali translation: Somali dowlad heshay waa dameer keeso bixiyay.

Two separate events of this period are worth mentioning, which had wider implications at the time. (1) the Djibouti liberation struggle entered a new stage of political development, when the French Ambassador in Mogadishu was kidnapped by group of armed men belonging to FLCS who demanded the release of two colleagues in prison in France. They were Omar Osman Rabi and Omar Khaire. France at last agreed to grant Djibouti its independence but on its own terms and it became independent in 1977.

(2) In 1974 a military coup toppled the Ethiopia emperor, Haille Selassie, a close ally to the United States and other Western countries for a long time. The new military regime already declared their intentions of being pro Soviet Union. The political landscape of the Horn of Africa was about to change, which added a new dimension to the Somali foreign policy issue of the "missing territories" particularly Ogaden

At this point, we can pose a question, what was the general attitude of the majority of the population towards the regime? The answer can be summarized simply by saying “indifference”. Support for the regime drastically declined and the euphoria generated in the early years remarkably disappeared. Many educated people left the country and in general people lost confidence in the regime. What made this situation even more problematic was the regime erased from the national calendar, national days as the 26th June when the Northern Regions "Somaliland" achieved its independence, and the 1st July when Somalia achieved its independence, and also unification day. These days were not considered important anymore, there were no national celebrations for them; their place was taken by the day when the military came to power, 21st October 1969. This was officially made the day that freedom of the Somali people was won and every year the people were coerced to celebrate 21st October. Huge public money was spent on military parades, exhibitions, cleaning streets and on student uniforms, so as to create a powerful image and a never to be forgotten symbolism to overshadow all previous national symbolism. The history of the Somali people was re-written similar to Hitler of Germany and Stalin of Russia, as if no other history existed before October 1969 and that no national leader existed before Siyad Barre. It was a period when political ideas were generally accepted in a Marxist framework, and Islam and clan considered politically destructive forces. Discussions and preparations for organized opposition against the regime came on the open and for the first time Ethiopia was mentioned to be the base of this armed struggle.

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