Grigori Rasputin
Former Somali Minister of Mismanagement & Misinfo.
Staff Member
Wariyaha SomaliSpot
physically beautiful people-- argumentative and frequently one may be exasperated with them, but they are, nevertheless, a very strong, handsome, and attractive people"
After saying this nigga unleashes the savageness of the Somalis
Vice Consul Mogadishu (1965-1966) Richard L. Jackson was born in New York in 1939. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Princeton University in 1962 and his Master’s Degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1964. His career has included assignments in Mogadishu, Tripoli, Thessaloniki, Athens, Rabat and Casablanca. Mr. Jackson was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy on August 17, 1998.
Q: You served in Mogadishu from when to when?
JACKSON: I was there from 1965-66.
Q: What was the political/economic situation in Somalia?
JACKSON: Well, Somalia was then one of the great hopes in Africa; of course then there was tremendous optimism about Africa as a whole. There had been the great wave of African independence in 1960. There were people like Soapy Williams structuring Africa policy. The thinking was that with our resources and know-how, we could quickly pattern these countries after ourselves and that they would prosper in the democratic path. I think there was a vast underestimation of the problems involved in development, notwithstanding the theories, then current, about well-defined stages of economic growth. The AID bureaucracy and sheer numbers in the missions abroad, certainly in Somalia, was tremendous. Somalia was probably considered one of the most hopeful cases, although it’s one of the poorest countries--and still is today--in Africa. Yet it was the only one that was considered a genuine nation, in the sense that it was one ethnic group, speaking one language, leaving aside that it overlaps areas of former French Somalia (Djibouti) and in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia, as well as vast areas of northern Kenya. Yet there was a feeling of tremendous optimism. I think people overestimated and romanticized the Somali democratic leaders. There was a charismatic, young prime minister, Abderrazak Hagi Hussein, who wore stylish white suits and was literally seen as a knight in white armor. There were, however, underlying problems of corruption and tribalism. Other issues were not well understood or, if known, were minimized and swept under the table, I think. It was an exciting place to be, in those years, which, after all, were only five years from Somali independence.
( Hey Sspot folks, who was this guy)
Q: I had served as an INR Officer for the Horn of Africa from 1960 to ‘61, I think. I didn’t have that much, I mean Somalia was up for grabs and our whole policy revolved around, at that point anyway, maintaining Kagnew Station, which was in Eritrea, then part of Ethiopia. Somalia was considered almost an intruder if it screwed up our relations with Ethiopia. How did that play in Somalia when you were there some years later?
JACKSON: It’s fair to say there was a very antagonistic relationship between U.S. Embassies in Somalia and Ethiopia. There was a political ambassador, Ed Korry, in Addis, who was tremendously aggressive in telling the Ethiopian story and stimulated lots of competition with Somalia. Somalia, of course, did not particularly count because of Kagnew Communications Station and the close U.S. relationship with Haile Selassie. Our eggs were in the Ethiopian basket. Yet it was tremendously interesting to be in Somalia as they were attempting to shape their future in those years. The Somali, often described as the Irish of Africa, are a very engaging, physically beautiful people-- argumentative and frequently one may be exasperated with them, but they are, nevertheless, a very strong, handsome, and attractive people.
Q: Who was our Ambassador?
JACKSON: I had two while I was there. First, Tully Torbert, an excellent, old-line type of Ambassador, although we didn’t have much of an overlap. For most of the time, it was Ray Thurston.
Q: How did he operate?
JACKSON: Ray was a very experienced diplomat. He had been burned somewhat as Ambassador to Haiti, I believe. He was the caricature of the unfortunate American Ambassador in one of the Graham Greene novels.
Q: “The Comedians” or something.
JACKSON: I think so. You couldn’t utter Graham Greene’s name in his presence. I liked Ray Thurston very much. I found him encouraging and interested in the young people in the embassy, as well as inclusive in terms of trips within Somalia. He was someone easy to stay up late with over a couple of drinks discussing where Somalia was going and clearly enjoying his time in what was undoubtedly a retirement post. I have to say, among all the other duties you get in your first post, I was the Post Language Officer. He instructed me to identify the best Italian teacher available for him, which I did. The lessons evidently progressed, and he subsequently left his wife and she her husband, although that was a scandal well after my time in Somalia.
Q: Talking about Somalia as the hope of the future, all I can think of is a parched area with bananas. And that’s about it. I mean, what were we basing our hopes on?
JACKSON: I think the hopes for the future were political. The rest of Africa was seen as driven by tribal and linguistic conflict. This was the one country that truly existed as an ethnic nation. The Somali were also tremendously articulate. There were the beginnings of a democratic dialogue. There were rallies and political parties. The parliament was a very active place in those years. But basically you’re right, economically, there was very little. Camels and sheep and goats, bananas, as you said, between the two rivers, the Juba and the Uebi Shebelle. Uranium existed in the interior, but not in quantities that made it worthwhile to transport. There was no infrastructure whatsoever. The Italians had run it as an exploitive colony and left almost nothing, although there was still considerable Italian cultural influence in the south, particularly Mogadishu, at that time which contributed to the atmosphere of the place.
Q: What about the situation there? You say basically they were a unified nation. Later, we’re talking about the late 80's and early 90's, the whole place erupted into--if they weren’t tribal disputes--sub-tribal vendettas. Were any of those rifts apparent at that time?
JACKSON: Yes, of course. Somalis are intensely confrontational, litigious, and they have a very careful system of checks and balances among the various tribes and subfactions. There were continual feuds, which were regulated sometimes with bloodshed, sometimes with exchange of camels. But I have to say we and the other nations have distorted that balance over the years by introducing modern weaponry and thus building up tribal elements around Mogadishu, the tribe of long-term strongman President Siad Barre. In my time, he was the Defense Minister. In saying that we have shifted the balance in Somalia, what I mean is that, prior to the Cold War era, the various competing tribal factions, analyzed by writers like John Drysdale and I.M. Lewis, were in approximate equilibrium in a very harsh survival environment with severely limited resources. With the Cold War, the Russians became strong in Somalia with military bases, particularly a major naval base at Berbera and enormous quantities of armaments. Then, with the fall of Haile Selassie, they switched sides and backed the Ethiopians, and Somalia became our client. We also put in weaponry, and all of that was very destabilizing. When I say Somalia was the only real nation on the continent, I think the rest of Africa conspired against them in its unwillingness, under the OAU Charter, to revise boundaries, because the Somali populations did overlap other countries and constituted a threat to the established order. They had an irredentist dispute with each of the other territories. The Somali flag is the five-pointed star, which represents the five areas considered to be Somali; only two of which--the former Italian Somaliland and former British Somaliland in the north--have ever been incorporated into Somalia.
Q: Did that intrude at all at the time you were there, that irredentist side of Somalia?
JACKSON: There was always low-level skirmishing in the Ogaden with the Ethiopians and in the Northern Frontier District, the NFD, in Kenya. There was an active Ogadeni Liberation Front. I think I was one of the first officers to speak Somali, and I recall meeting the legendary head of the Ogaden Liberation Front, Makhtal Dahir. He was a giant of a man with red henna hair, said to be able to eat a goat at one sitting.
Q: What was your impression of our AID Mission there?
JACKSON: They were very large. Very difficult for the small embassy economic staff, I think, to keep tabs on everything they were doing. On the other hand, they were wonderfully qualified professionals and very committed people, who were really trying to do their best in each of their sectors to bring this country along. I think the problem was not the people; the problem was with the Cold War confrontation with the Soviets that kept flip-flopping. There was a continual stop and start on the major projects. So there was never the consistency of development that, if followed to term, might have led to real development over ten or 15 years. That particularly applied to the showpiece projects that we became engaged in, like the Chisimaio (Kisimayu) deep water port or like NTEC, the National Teacher Education Center. None of those were ever seen properly through to completion, and that was true of many other projects in that country. That was political and direct from Washington, in my view, rather than related to the quality of the people, many of whom were badly disillusioned by this course of events, or of the management within the Mission.
Q: Did you have much contact with our embassy in Addis Ababa?
JACKSON: Personally I had none. Relations were seriously strained at the upper levels and there was very little communication. But I have to say, relative to my A-100 classmates, who went to bigger and so-called better posts, I’m sure I had the best of it. The rotational experience in a small country like Somalia was fantastic. By virtue of learning to speak Somali, I think I met most people in that country from the Prime Minister on down. They were remarkably open. The embassy at that time was quite encouraging and not protocol conscious in that respect. My first assignment was head of the one-man consular section. The consular section, since there were very few Americans there and very few Somalis traveling to the United States, was almost entirely involved in protection of British interests, which was a large responsibility. The British had been asked to leave as a result of misunderstandings arising from Kenyan independence in 1963, which gave Somali-inhabited areas to the Kenyans. We were their protecting power. I had at my disposal a large Land Rover which had been left for the Vice Consul in charge of British interests for travel through the country. One focus was the work for the British War Graves Commission. We had a retired British Brigadier, based in Nairobi, who would inspect my work which sometimes involved reburials and regrouping regiments together. At one stage, he instructed us to bury a field piece that had become corroded and which he felt was an “insult to the Queen.” That was a fair amount of work. We also had two shipwrecks of British- protected persons during my time. One, was a large dhow from Oman, where almost everybody drowned. The Captain landed in the water with his small son and his daughter. He swam a little bit, and later told me, when I interviewed him, that he left his daughter because he couldn’t make it with both. He swam further and then left his son as well. The choices were automatic and he was proud to have survived and reached the shore, which made an impression on me because I think we Westerners probably would have all gone down together. The other was a more interesting shipwreck. It was a large group of 80 or 100 British- protected persons who had been blown off course and across the Indian Ocean from the Maldive Islands. We worked for many months reporting to London via Washington to get those people finally repatriated, but it proved to be an expensive care-and-feeding operation.
Q: Did you go up to former British Somalia, to Hargeisa? Did we have a post there? Was there a difference there?
JACKSON: I frequently went up to Hargeisa. We had a small post there, now long closed. Gordon Beyer was the Consul. It was--yes--very different. It was higher, dryer territory and inland, compared to Mogadishu. There was also a much different atmosphere, as a result of the English language and British influence. An interesting place in those years. Sadly decimated by tribal fighting later.
Q: At that point, was the central government in Mogadishu trying to extend itself and brush aside the British influence?
JACKSON: There was a difference, and there were tribal rivalries, but the Prime Minister who followed Abderrazak Hagi Hussein was from the North. He was also a very charismatic politician, Mohammad Egal, so there was an effort to knit the two parts of the country together, although the resources to do that were woefully absent. Some of the AID programs were intended to help in that respect.
Q: By the way, did you have children at this point?
JACKSON: We had one son. It was an ideal place to live, although there were recurrent bouts with fevers that could be somewhat frightening, as you would expect in that kind of place. The health facilities were very rudimentary. But it was a wonderful place, frankly, to live. The embassy had a half dozen very congenial couples of more or less similar age, and we had a lot of fun, and traveled frequently throughout the country. It was an unspoiled country in those years. You could take a lantern at night and simply pick up sufficient lobsters swimming to it to feed a picnic. I very much enjoyed those years. One always remembers the first post. It’s perhaps the best.
After saying this nigga unleashes the savageness of the Somalis
Vice Consul Mogadishu (1965-1966) Richard L. Jackson was born in New York in 1939. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Princeton University in 1962 and his Master’s Degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1964. His career has included assignments in Mogadishu, Tripoli, Thessaloniki, Athens, Rabat and Casablanca. Mr. Jackson was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy on August 17, 1998.
Q: You served in Mogadishu from when to when?
JACKSON: I was there from 1965-66.
Q: What was the political/economic situation in Somalia?
JACKSON: Well, Somalia was then one of the great hopes in Africa; of course then there was tremendous optimism about Africa as a whole. There had been the great wave of African independence in 1960. There were people like Soapy Williams structuring Africa policy. The thinking was that with our resources and know-how, we could quickly pattern these countries after ourselves and that they would prosper in the democratic path. I think there was a vast underestimation of the problems involved in development, notwithstanding the theories, then current, about well-defined stages of economic growth. The AID bureaucracy and sheer numbers in the missions abroad, certainly in Somalia, was tremendous. Somalia was probably considered one of the most hopeful cases, although it’s one of the poorest countries--and still is today--in Africa. Yet it was the only one that was considered a genuine nation, in the sense that it was one ethnic group, speaking one language, leaving aside that it overlaps areas of former French Somalia (Djibouti) and in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia, as well as vast areas of northern Kenya. Yet there was a feeling of tremendous optimism. I think people overestimated and romanticized the Somali democratic leaders. There was a charismatic, young prime minister, Abderrazak Hagi Hussein, who wore stylish white suits and was literally seen as a knight in white armor. There were, however, underlying problems of corruption and tribalism. Other issues were not well understood or, if known, were minimized and swept under the table, I think. It was an exciting place to be, in those years, which, after all, were only five years from Somali independence.
( Hey Sspot folks, who was this guy)
Q: I had served as an INR Officer for the Horn of Africa from 1960 to ‘61, I think. I didn’t have that much, I mean Somalia was up for grabs and our whole policy revolved around, at that point anyway, maintaining Kagnew Station, which was in Eritrea, then part of Ethiopia. Somalia was considered almost an intruder if it screwed up our relations with Ethiopia. How did that play in Somalia when you were there some years later?
JACKSON: It’s fair to say there was a very antagonistic relationship between U.S. Embassies in Somalia and Ethiopia. There was a political ambassador, Ed Korry, in Addis, who was tremendously aggressive in telling the Ethiopian story and stimulated lots of competition with Somalia. Somalia, of course, did not particularly count because of Kagnew Communications Station and the close U.S. relationship with Haile Selassie. Our eggs were in the Ethiopian basket. Yet it was tremendously interesting to be in Somalia as they were attempting to shape their future in those years. The Somali, often described as the Irish of Africa, are a very engaging, physically beautiful people-- argumentative and frequently one may be exasperated with them, but they are, nevertheless, a very strong, handsome, and attractive people.
Q: Who was our Ambassador?
JACKSON: I had two while I was there. First, Tully Torbert, an excellent, old-line type of Ambassador, although we didn’t have much of an overlap. For most of the time, it was Ray Thurston.
Q: How did he operate?
JACKSON: Ray was a very experienced diplomat. He had been burned somewhat as Ambassador to Haiti, I believe. He was the caricature of the unfortunate American Ambassador in one of the Graham Greene novels.
Q: “The Comedians” or something.
JACKSON: I think so. You couldn’t utter Graham Greene’s name in his presence. I liked Ray Thurston very much. I found him encouraging and interested in the young people in the embassy, as well as inclusive in terms of trips within Somalia. He was someone easy to stay up late with over a couple of drinks discussing where Somalia was going and clearly enjoying his time in what was undoubtedly a retirement post. I have to say, among all the other duties you get in your first post, I was the Post Language Officer. He instructed me to identify the best Italian teacher available for him, which I did. The lessons evidently progressed, and he subsequently left his wife and she her husband, although that was a scandal well after my time in Somalia.
Q: Talking about Somalia as the hope of the future, all I can think of is a parched area with bananas. And that’s about it. I mean, what were we basing our hopes on?
JACKSON: I think the hopes for the future were political. The rest of Africa was seen as driven by tribal and linguistic conflict. This was the one country that truly existed as an ethnic nation. The Somali were also tremendously articulate. There were the beginnings of a democratic dialogue. There were rallies and political parties. The parliament was a very active place in those years. But basically you’re right, economically, there was very little. Camels and sheep and goats, bananas, as you said, between the two rivers, the Juba and the Uebi Shebelle. Uranium existed in the interior, but not in quantities that made it worthwhile to transport. There was no infrastructure whatsoever. The Italians had run it as an exploitive colony and left almost nothing, although there was still considerable Italian cultural influence in the south, particularly Mogadishu, at that time which contributed to the atmosphere of the place.
Q: What about the situation there? You say basically they were a unified nation. Later, we’re talking about the late 80's and early 90's, the whole place erupted into--if they weren’t tribal disputes--sub-tribal vendettas. Were any of those rifts apparent at that time?
JACKSON: Yes, of course. Somalis are intensely confrontational, litigious, and they have a very careful system of checks and balances among the various tribes and subfactions. There were continual feuds, which were regulated sometimes with bloodshed, sometimes with exchange of camels. But I have to say we and the other nations have distorted that balance over the years by introducing modern weaponry and thus building up tribal elements around Mogadishu, the tribe of long-term strongman President Siad Barre. In my time, he was the Defense Minister. In saying that we have shifted the balance in Somalia, what I mean is that, prior to the Cold War era, the various competing tribal factions, analyzed by writers like John Drysdale and I.M. Lewis, were in approximate equilibrium in a very harsh survival environment with severely limited resources. With the Cold War, the Russians became strong in Somalia with military bases, particularly a major naval base at Berbera and enormous quantities of armaments. Then, with the fall of Haile Selassie, they switched sides and backed the Ethiopians, and Somalia became our client. We also put in weaponry, and all of that was very destabilizing. When I say Somalia was the only real nation on the continent, I think the rest of Africa conspired against them in its unwillingness, under the OAU Charter, to revise boundaries, because the Somali populations did overlap other countries and constituted a threat to the established order. They had an irredentist dispute with each of the other territories. The Somali flag is the five-pointed star, which represents the five areas considered to be Somali; only two of which--the former Italian Somaliland and former British Somaliland in the north--have ever been incorporated into Somalia.
Q: Did that intrude at all at the time you were there, that irredentist side of Somalia?
JACKSON: There was always low-level skirmishing in the Ogaden with the Ethiopians and in the Northern Frontier District, the NFD, in Kenya. There was an active Ogadeni Liberation Front. I think I was one of the first officers to speak Somali, and I recall meeting the legendary head of the Ogaden Liberation Front, Makhtal Dahir. He was a giant of a man with red henna hair, said to be able to eat a goat at one sitting.
Q: What was your impression of our AID Mission there?
JACKSON: They were very large. Very difficult for the small embassy economic staff, I think, to keep tabs on everything they were doing. On the other hand, they were wonderfully qualified professionals and very committed people, who were really trying to do their best in each of their sectors to bring this country along. I think the problem was not the people; the problem was with the Cold War confrontation with the Soviets that kept flip-flopping. There was a continual stop and start on the major projects. So there was never the consistency of development that, if followed to term, might have led to real development over ten or 15 years. That particularly applied to the showpiece projects that we became engaged in, like the Chisimaio (Kisimayu) deep water port or like NTEC, the National Teacher Education Center. None of those were ever seen properly through to completion, and that was true of many other projects in that country. That was political and direct from Washington, in my view, rather than related to the quality of the people, many of whom were badly disillusioned by this course of events, or of the management within the Mission.
Q: Did you have much contact with our embassy in Addis Ababa?
JACKSON: Personally I had none. Relations were seriously strained at the upper levels and there was very little communication. But I have to say, relative to my A-100 classmates, who went to bigger and so-called better posts, I’m sure I had the best of it. The rotational experience in a small country like Somalia was fantastic. By virtue of learning to speak Somali, I think I met most people in that country from the Prime Minister on down. They were remarkably open. The embassy at that time was quite encouraging and not protocol conscious in that respect. My first assignment was head of the one-man consular section. The consular section, since there were very few Americans there and very few Somalis traveling to the United States, was almost entirely involved in protection of British interests, which was a large responsibility. The British had been asked to leave as a result of misunderstandings arising from Kenyan independence in 1963, which gave Somali-inhabited areas to the Kenyans. We were their protecting power. I had at my disposal a large Land Rover which had been left for the Vice Consul in charge of British interests for travel through the country. One focus was the work for the British War Graves Commission. We had a retired British Brigadier, based in Nairobi, who would inspect my work which sometimes involved reburials and regrouping regiments together. At one stage, he instructed us to bury a field piece that had become corroded and which he felt was an “insult to the Queen.” That was a fair amount of work. We also had two shipwrecks of British- protected persons during my time. One, was a large dhow from Oman, where almost everybody drowned. The Captain landed in the water with his small son and his daughter. He swam a little bit, and later told me, when I interviewed him, that he left his daughter because he couldn’t make it with both. He swam further and then left his son as well. The choices were automatic and he was proud to have survived and reached the shore, which made an impression on me because I think we Westerners probably would have all gone down together. The other was a more interesting shipwreck. It was a large group of 80 or 100 British- protected persons who had been blown off course and across the Indian Ocean from the Maldive Islands. We worked for many months reporting to London via Washington to get those people finally repatriated, but it proved to be an expensive care-and-feeding operation.
Q: Did you go up to former British Somalia, to Hargeisa? Did we have a post there? Was there a difference there?
JACKSON: I frequently went up to Hargeisa. We had a small post there, now long closed. Gordon Beyer was the Consul. It was--yes--very different. It was higher, dryer territory and inland, compared to Mogadishu. There was also a much different atmosphere, as a result of the English language and British influence. An interesting place in those years. Sadly decimated by tribal fighting later.
Q: At that point, was the central government in Mogadishu trying to extend itself and brush aside the British influence?
JACKSON: There was a difference, and there were tribal rivalries, but the Prime Minister who followed Abderrazak Hagi Hussein was from the North. He was also a very charismatic politician, Mohammad Egal, so there was an effort to knit the two parts of the country together, although the resources to do that were woefully absent. Some of the AID programs were intended to help in that respect.
Q: By the way, did you have children at this point?
JACKSON: We had one son. It was an ideal place to live, although there were recurrent bouts with fevers that could be somewhat frightening, as you would expect in that kind of place. The health facilities were very rudimentary. But it was a wonderful place, frankly, to live. The embassy had a half dozen very congenial couples of more or less similar age, and we had a lot of fun, and traveled frequently throughout the country. It was an unspoiled country in those years. You could take a lantern at night and simply pick up sufficient lobsters swimming to it to feed a picnic. I very much enjoyed those years. One always remembers the first post. It’s perhaps the best.
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