Supreme Revolutionary Council (Somalia)

 

The Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC); Somali: Gollaha Sare ee Kacaanka, was the governmental body that ruled Somalia from 1969 to 1976.

History

Assassination of President and coup d'état

on 15 October 1969, while paying a visit to the northern town of Las Anod, Somalia's then President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke was shot dead by one of his ocwn bodyguards. His assassination was quickly followed by a military coup d'état on the afternoon of 21 October 1969 (the day after his funeral ), in which the Somali Army seized power without encountering armed opposition. The putsch was spearheaded by Major General Mohamed Siad Barre, who at the time commanded the army. 

Alongside Siad Barre, the Supreme Revolutionary council (SRC) that assumed power after President Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke's assassination was led lieutenant colonel Salad Gabeyre Kediye, General Mohamed Ainanshe Guled and Chief of Police Jama Korshel. Shortly afterwards Siad Barre become the head of the SRC. 

The SRC renamed the country the Somali Democratic Republic, arrested members of the former civilian government, banned political parties, dissolved the parliament and the Supreme Court, and suspended the constitution. Essentially a military junta, the SRC become the de facto executive government and consisted of 25 almost exclusively military officials. The SRC took over all the duties of the President, the National Assembly and the Council of Ministers through the proclamations of the Law Number 1.  The old constitution nominally remained under perpetual suspension until the SRC later repealed it in 1970.

Functions and political programme 

The revolutionary army established large-scale public works programs, including construction of the Mogadishu Stadium. It also sought to improve the social position of women, using Islamic precepts as a reference point. In addition to a nationalization program of industry and land, the new regime's foreign policy placed an emphasis on Somalia's traditional and religious links with the Arab world, eventually joining the Arab League (AL) in 1974.

The Supreme Revolutionary Council also attempted to resolve the outstanding issue of which of the various writing systems the in use in Somalia should be officialized as the main national orthography. In October 1972, the government unilaterally elected to use the modified Latin script of the linguist Musa Haji Ismail Galal for writing Somali instead of the Arabic or Osmanya scripts. It subsequently launched a large urban and rural literacy campaign designed to ensure the orthography's adoption, which helped dramatically increase the literacy rate.  

The SRC further enacted a number of reforms designed to weaken the influence of traditional lineage structures and processes, which Siad Barre regarded as a potential threat to his rule. Offences deemed clan-related were punished with fines and prison sentences, and traditional headmen employed by the previous civilian administration were substituted with hand-picked government peacekeepers (nabod doon). Orientation centers were likewise established, which took over hosting duties for marriage services. Over 140,000 nomadic pastoralists were also resettled in littoral towns and agricultural areas with the additional aim of increasing productivity.

Dissolution and reinstatement

In July 1976, Siad Barre's SRC disbanded itself and established in its place the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (SRSP), a one-party government claiming to be based on scientific socialism and Islamic tenets. The SRSP was an attempt to reconcile the official state ideology with the official state religion by adapting Marxist-Leninist precepts to local circumstances. Emphasis was placed on the Muslim principles of social progress. equality and justice, which the government argued formed the core of scientific socialism and its own accent on self-sufficiency, public participation and popular control, as well as direct ownership of the means of production. while the SRSP encouraged private investment on a limited scale, the administration's overall direction was nominally socialist. 

After the unsuccessful Ogaden campaign of the late 1970s, a new constitution was promulgated in 1979 under which elections for a People's Assembly were held. however, the Politburo of Siad Barres's Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party continued to rule. On 23 October 1980 Siad Barre reinstated the Supreme Revolutionary Council via Presidential Degree No. 3, and five subcommittees established, including Defense & Security and Political.  

Members & clan composition

Despite the  revolutionary regime's intention to stamp out the clan politics, the government was commonly referred to by the code name MOD. This acronym stood for Mareehaan (Siad Barre's clan), Ogaden (the clan of Siad Barre's mother), and Dulbahante (the clan of Siad Barre's son-in-law Colonel Ahmed Sulayman Abdullah, who headed the NSS). These were the three clans whose members formed the government's inner circle. In 1975, for example, ten of the twenty members of the SRC were from the Daarood clan=family, of which these three clans were a part; the Digil and Rahanwayn, the sedentary interriverine clan-families, were totally unrepresented.

The following is a list of members of the Supreme Revolutionary Council in February 1970:

Chairman

•  Maj. Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre

Vice Chairman

• Maj. Gen. Jama Ali Korshel

Members 

•  Capt. Ahmed Mohamud Farah
• Brig.-Gen. Hussein Kulmiye Afrah
• Maj.-Gen. Mohamed Ainanshe
• Lt.-Col. Salad Gabeyre Kediye
• Lt.-Col. Mohamed Ali Samatar  
• Lt.-Col. Ali Matan Hashi
• Maj. Mohamed Sh. Osman
• Maj. Ismail Ali Abokor
• Maj. Mohamed Ali Shirreh
• Maj. Ahmed Suleiman Abdulle
• Maj. Mohamud Gelle Yusuf
• Maj. Farah Wais Dulleh 
• Capt. Ahmed Hassan Musa
• Capt. Musa Rabille Goede
• Capt. Mohamed Omar Ges 
• Capt. Osman Mohamed Jelle 
• Capt. Abdi Warsame Isaq
• Capt. Abdulkadir Haji Mohamed 
• Capt. Abdirizak  Mohamud Abubakar
• Maj. Abdulkadir  Haji Masale