Somali Democratic Republic (Somalia)

Statistics

National name: Al Jumhouriya As-Somalya al-Dimocradia

President: Abdiqasim Salad Hassan (2000)

Prime Minister: Ali Khalif Galaid (2000)

Area: 246,199 sq mi (637,657 sq km)

Population (2001 est.): 7,488,773 (average annual rate of natural increase: 2.9%); birth rate: 47.2/1000; infant mortality rate: 124.0/1000; density per sq mi: 30

Capital and largest city (1990 est.): Mogadishu, 900,000

Monetary unit: Somali shilling

Languages: Somali (official), Arabic, English, Italian

Ethnicity/race: Somali 85%, Bantu, Arabs

Religion: Islam (Sunni)

Literacy rate: 24% (1990)

Economic summary: GDP/PPP (1999 est.): $4.3 billion; per capita $600. Real growth rate: n.a. Inflation: n.a. Unemployment: n.a. Arable land: 2%. Agriculture: bananas, sorghum, corn, sugarcane, mangoes, sesame seeds, beans; cattle, sheep, goats; fish. Labor force: 3.7 million (very few are skilled laborers) (1993 est.); agriculture, (mostly pastoral nomadism) 71%; industry and services, 29%. Industries: a few small industries, including sugar refining, textiles, petroleum refining (mostly shut down). Natural resources: uranium and largely unexploited reserves of iron ore, tin, gypsum, bauxite, copper, salt. Exports: $187 million (f.o.b., 1998 est.): livestock, bananas, hides, fish (1997). Imports: $327 million (f.o.b., 1998 est.): manufactures, petroleum products, foodstuffs, construction materials (1995). Major trading partners: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Italy, Yemen, Djibouti, Kenya, Belarus, India, Brazil.

Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: n.a.; mobile cellular: n.a. Radio broadcast stations: AM 0, FM 0, shortwave 4 (1988). Radios: 470,000 (1997). Television broadcast stations: 1 (1997). Televisions: 135,000 (1997). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): n.a.

Transportation: Railways: 0 km. Highways: total: 22,100 km; paved: 2,608 km; unpaved: 19,492 km (1996 est.). Ports and harbors: Bender Cassim (Boosaaso), Berbera, Chisimayu (Kismaayo), Merca, Mogadishu. Airports: 61 (1999 est.).

International disputes: most of the southern half of the boundary with Ethiopia is a Provisional Administrative Line; territorial dispute with Ethiopia over the Ogaden.

Geography

Somalia, situated in the Horn of Africa, lies along the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. It is bounded by Djibouti in the northwest, Ethiopia in the west, and Kenya in the southwest. In area it is slightly smaller than Texas. Generally arid and barren, Somalia has two chief rivers, the Shebelle and the Juba.

Between Jan. 1991 and Aug. 2000, Somalia had no working government. A fragile parliamentary government was formed Aug. 22.

From the 7th to the 10th century, Arab and Persian trading posts were established along the coast of present-day Somalia. Nomadic tribes occupied the interior, occasionally pushing into Ethiopian territory. In the 16th century, Turkish rule extended to the northern coast and the Sultans of Zanzibar gained control in the south.

After British occupation of Aden in 1839, the Somali coast became its source of food. The French established a coal mining station in 1862 at the site of Djibouti and the Italians planted a settlement in Eritrea. Egypt, which for a time claimed Turkish rights in the area, was succeeded by Britain. By 1920, a British protectorate and an Italian protectorate occupied what is now Somalia. The British ruled the entire area after 1941, with Italy returning in 1950 to serve as United Nations trustee for its former territory.

By 1960, Britain and Italy granted independence to their respective sectors, enabling the two to join as the Republic of Somalia on July 1, 1960. Somalia broke diplomatic relations with Britain in 1963 when the British granted the Somali-populated Northern Frontier District of Kenya to the Republic of Kenya.

On Oct. 15, 1969, President Abdi Rashid Ali Shermarke was assassinated and the army seized power, dissolving the legislature and arresting all government leaders. Maj. Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre, as president of a renamed Somali Democratic Republic, leaned heavily toward the USSR In 1977, Somalia openly backed rebels in the easternmost area of Ethiopia, the Ogaden Desert, which had been seized by Ethiopia at the turn of the century. Somalia acknowledged defeat in an eight-month war against the Ethiopians that year, having lost much of its 32,000-man army and most of its tanks and planes. President Siad Barre fled the country in late Jan. 1991. His departure left Somalia in the hands of a number of clan-based guerrilla groups, none of which trusted each other.

Africa's worst drought occurred in 1992, and coupled with the devastation of civil war, Somalia was plunged into a severe famine�an estimated one-third of the population was in danger of dying from starvation. U.S. troops were sent in to protect the delivery of food in Dec. 1992. In May the UN took control of the relief efforts from the U.S. The warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid ambushed UN troops and dragged American bodies through the streets, causing an about-face in America's willingness to involve itself in the fate of this anarchic country. Peace talks in Kenya appeared to be moving slowly but steadily toward an agreement on an interim government, at least in principle, when on March 23, 1994, they collapsed. The last of the U.S. troops left in late March, leaving 19,000 UN troops behind.

Since 1991 Somalia has been engulfed in anarchy. Years of peace negotiations between the various factions have been fruitless, and warlords and militias rule over individual swathes of land. In 1991, a breakaway nation, the Somaliland Republic, proclaimed its independence. Since then several warlords have set up their own ministates�Colonel Abdullahi Yussuf Ahmed is president of breakaway Puntland and Mohamed �General Morgan� Said Hersi has ruled Jubaland in the fall of 1998. Although internationally unrecognized, these states have been peaceful and stable.

In Aug. 2000, a parliament convened in nearby Djibouti and elected Somalia's first government in nearly a decade. After its first year in office, the new government still controlled only 10% of the country. But it had made significant advances for a country starting over: a national police force and army are in place, half of the 20,000 militias roaming the country had been demobilized, and general violence has subsided.