Why I like Siyaad Barre and Cigaal

[Abdalla]

I am not a fan of the kacaan as they incarcerated several adeers and abtiyaal for clannish reasons and alhamdulilaah many of them have forgiven those that wronged them. My father's brother was incarcerated for 18 years, another adeer who was a professor was imprisoned for years too. That being said I always respected Siad Barre as a man because of the stories that I heard from relatives. Despite his disastrous government and lust for power, he didn't care about money. My aunt once told me that Siad Barre's daughter attended her school and she often saw her and her friends during lunch sharing canjeelo, or borrowing few shilings from her friends to buy lunch.

These anecdotes about Barre's character were confirmed by the former deputy mayor of Mogadishu, who was incarcerated by the regime. He wrote a mémoire about his time in prsion and the extraordinary people he met during his incarceration. He mentions that one of the inmates was none other than Barre's son.

Incidentally, one of the inmates of our prison at the time was Cap. Ali “Shigshigow,” or Ali the Stammerer—a reference to a natural speaking handicap of his—one of Siyaad Barre’s sons, and an officer in the Somali Army, who was put behind bars to force him to quit his habit of very heavy drinking.

Adan Bahnan’s help reminds me of a similar story that Gen. Mohamed Abshir told us in person, while he was living here in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, several years ago. It shows that despite their differences in politics or occasional kin antagonism, Somalis get along well on a personal level and can even be very kind to each other. Mohamed Abshir told us that while he and the late Mohamed Ibrahim Egal were in prison at Labaatan Jirow, the prison guards wanted to deepen Abshir’s suffering, so they forbade any reading materials and even confiscated his single copy of the holy Quran. When Mohamed Ibrahim Egal learned about this, he took an exercise book and copied by hand as many Quranic verses as he could, until it was full. He then smuggled the Quranic exercise book to Mohamed Abshir’s cell after distracting the attention of the guards. Gen. Abshir told us that he learned all the Quranic verses that were in that exercise book by heart and it was Egal’s humane gesture that helped Gen. Abshir endure these great hardships for another three years.

Cigaal was rageedi Prison made him more religious. I saw a speech of him and he was quoting lots of quranic verses.

Very interesting mémoire of a political prisoner. Somali politicians should write more mémoire.
http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1046&context=bildhaan

 

[cantspeak]

Interesting memoir. Insane to think about the fact that your closest associates could betray you like that. Seems like Somalinimo only existed pre 1967.


"Most of these men were Barre’s associates at one time or another. I am still amazed how resilient these men were. Moreover, I often wonder how most of them were able to get out of there in one piece and without becoming insane."

 

[Abdalla]

As they say in Arabic: “Elli faat, maat” (what is gone, is dead). I even at times feel thankful and offer prayers or “duco” to Col. Ahmed Jili’ow and Ali Adde, former Deputy Mayor of Mogadishu, the two men who were instrumental in my imprisonment mainly out of clanist animosity.

The colonel that betrayed the writer apperantly became one of the leaders of USC. I saw it in the other thread, the source comes from Bahal.

Once a weasel always a weasel

 

[waraabe]

Don't compare Cigaal AUN to the murderer afwayne.

 

[Mckenzie]

All Somali politicians past and present lived and chased for money and power and broke alliances to get it. But you're in no position to call anyone a "weasel" when 99.9% of the SSDF joined Siad after his offer of 'amnesty', which he never offered to either the SNM or the USC.