The Colonial Legacy in Somalia: Rome and Mogadishu: from Colonial Administration to Operation Restore Hope

234 Pages·1999·2.56 MB·English

by  Paolo Tripodi (auth.)

THE COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOMALIA
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The Colonial Legacy
in Somalia
Rome and Mogadishu: from Colonial
Administration to Operation Restore Hope
Paolo Tripodi
Lecturer in International Relations
The Nottingham Trent University
Foreword by Stephen Chan
Professor in International Relations and Ethics
The Nottingham Trent University
First published in Great Britain 1999 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-41457-4 ISBN 978-0-333-98290-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780333982907
First published in the United States of America 1999 by
ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-22393-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tripodi, Paolo, 1965–
The colonial legacy in Somalia : Rome and Mogadishu : from
colonial administration to Operation Restore Hope / Paolo Tripodi :
foreword by Stephen Chan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-22393-9 (cloth)
1. Somalia—Politics and government—1960–1991. 2. Somalia–
–Politics and government—1991– 3. Somalia—Foreign relations–
–Italy. 4. Italy—Foreign relations—Somalia. 5. Italy—Colonies–
–Africa—Administration. I. Title.
DT407.T75 1999
967.7305—dc21 99–21775
CIP
© Paolo Tripodi 1999
Foreword © Stephen Chan 1999
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1999 978-0-333-76351-3
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with
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the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99
To the best friends of my childhood
Paolo Tripodi and Rosario Di Bartolo
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Contents
Foreword by Stephen Chan ix
Preface and Acknowledgements xi
List of Acronyms xiii
1 Introduction 1
2 An Historical Perspective on Italian Colonialism 9
3 Italy and the Administration of Somalia: a Difficult
Mandate 49
4 AFIS: Two Difficult Tasks – Democratisation
and Somalisation 75
5 Co-operation and Diplomacy 106
6 Mogadishu versus the World 138
7 Conclusion 166
Notes 171
Bibliography 200
Index 208
vii
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Foreword:
Tripodi’s Ragamuffin
Colonialism and Reflective
Peacekeeping
When CNN cameras tracked US marines landing in Somalia the
cameramen formed their only obstacle. On the beaches, no guns
confronted the soldiers. Instead, they dodged floodlights and ran a
gauntlet of requests to assume the poses of fighting men. In a way,
this was prophetic. Soon they would be fighting, rather than keeping
something called a peace. In a way it was also ironic, for the grand
visual rhetoric that CNN purveyed prefigured the grander and
hollower rhetoric of a great state declaring it would safeguard a peace
and a people it could not understand. When it all seemed to grind to
an ignominious close – no battalion of cameramen to watch the with-
drawal – it seemed a triumph for anarchy and highly selfish localised
interests.
Once look at it all from a slightly different lens, and a more
complex – if not nuanced – history emerges. This is what Tripodi does
in this book. Against a detailed background of Italian colonial
thought – itself underdeveloped – we are able to see how superficial
the governments of independence had to be. It was a parlous colo-
nialism, what Tripodi calls a ‘ragamuffin’ colonialism. However, this
too had its irony. As the second largest peacekeeping power in
Somalia, Italian forces pointedly refused to take their lead from the
US command. It may be that Rome had designs upon a future influ-
ence within Somalia, but Tripodi is persuasive in arguing that Italian
policy reflected upon the earlier Italian experience in Somalia and
balanced the possibilities of policy against the lessons of history –
lessons that the US, never having been a colonial power itself, and
certainly nowhere in Africa, could not have learned.
Tripodi’s study makes use of a wealth of previously unavailable
materials. It is an original corrective to the view of television, and a
corrective to those who analyse Somalia outside history. In his
Preface, Tripodi kindly calls me his Virgil. The Latin poet guided
ix