London BBC World Service “Focus on Africa” program (in English) — 1615 GMT

In Somalia, President Siad Barre has sacked his son from the post of commander in chief of the Armed Forces. His son, Brigadier General Maslah Mohamed, has been looking increasingly vulnerable ever since last Thursday, [15 Nov] when President Barre chose his son-in-law, Brigadier General Siad Hersi Morgan, to be defense minister in a minor cabinet reshuffle. Many suspected that Brig. Gen. Morgan was in line to take on the leadership of the Army as well. Josephine Hazeley asked BBC Horn of Africa expert Patrick Gilkes why exactly President Barre hadmade the change:

[Begin recording]

[Gilkes] Well. I think probably the reason for any change in the military command structure in Somalia will be connected with the fact that the Army has not been doing very well against a multitude of opposition movements. There is in particular, the Somali National Movement (SNM) in the north, which has been claiming a number of victories again, and there have been reports that quite a lot of the opposition movements were given quite substantial collections of arms fairly recently, and they have been deploying these to some areas not just in the north of the country but elsewhere in the central and southern regions too. So the obvious answer is that there is some feeling that it is time for military change in an attempt to improve the military situation.

[Hazeley] We learned that this new job, the job of the Army commander in chief was given to Brig. Gen. Siad Hersi Morgan, who is Barre’s son-in-law. What else do we know about this new commander in chief?

[Gilkes] Well, he is an experienced soldier. He was formerly commander of the northern sector and in fact had a lot to do with the defense of Hargeysa against the attacks by the Somali National Movement last year and managed to hang on to Hargeysa in the face of a very determined attempt by the SNM to take it, and indeed a large amount of the city was actually devastated by the defense and the guerrilla attacks, and he has a reputation for being a tough soldier and someone who acts decisively if need be.

[Hazeley] But he did not actually succeed in stopping the rebels from getting all of Hargeysa. How sure are we that he will be successful now this time to drive back the rebels or defeat them?

[Gilkes] Well, it will depend very much on the state of the Somali Army which has not been too good in recent months, and to the extent, at least, that it has not had the success that the government would really want it to have. The fighting has moved, if you like, steadily towards Mogadishu, in the sense that guerrilla operations are being carried out fairly close to the capital, in the central regions, whereas previously, they were confined to areas much farther away.

[Hazeley] I understand that Brig. Morgan will also be dealing with the rising violent crimes in the capital. In fact, the government seems to have declared a total war on that.

[Gilkes] Well, certainly there has been a very substantial rise in crime rate in Mogadishu during the course of this year, a bigger number of attacks on foreigners, number of people killed and, according to some people, the amount of shootings that has gone on in the city at night is really very considerable, and dozens of people have been killed in all, and the government has said that this is largely due to armed gangs said to have been responsible for this [sentence as heard] There have been robberies and so on. but there have been suspicions that that there may be somewhat more than this, and certainly, I am sure the idea of appointing a new commander in chief, who has a [word indistinct] to deal with this, the intention is to crack down very hard on this kind of insecurity in the capital city.

[End recording]

_{FBIS-AFR-90-225, 21 Dec. 1990, p. 4}