Protests break out in Egypt

[Saleh]

Signed away Galbeed and NFD? I’m done these hooyo mataalo kids are wild

Signed away galbeed in 1986 and NFD in 1984 if I am not mistaken. I will send you the sources as well if you dont believe me until today ina cigaal is blamed for the sale of NFD when in reality it was barre who sealed the deal

 

[Ugazate]

Signed away galbeed in 1986 and NFD in 1984 if I am not mistaken. I will send you the sources as well if you dont believe me until today ina cigaal is blamed for the sale of NFD when in reality it was barre who sealed the deal

Bring sources this is the Information age you can’t hide any more reer baadiye

 

[Saleh]

Bring sources this is the Information age you can’t hide any more reer baadiye

An agreement was signed in 1984 between Somalia and Kenya relinquishing any claims we had over NFD

The deal was signed by no other than siad in December of 1984

As for galbeed, barre signed a peace agreement with mengistu on April 3 1988 relinquishing any claims to the region in exchange for support in his war on SNM

Your hero was a fraud

 

[Idilinaa]

Bruh infrastructure and institutions most infrastructure projects in Somalia under kacaan were financed through foreign development aid, just like todayView attachment 368630View attachment 368631

there are many projects falsely attributed to siad and co, many of them were conjured before he even took power. Take the berbera airport for example, famously attributed to siad but in fact the soviets planned to built it 7 years before he even took powerView attachment 368632
To put it into perspective kacaan was so reliant on foreign entities that they were indebted to every international organization in the world at the time View attachment 368633
Do not try and revise history, especially a history which just happened yesterday

Kacaan financed one-third of all development projects using budget surpluses. The remaining two-thirds came from foreign financing. But it was the government that was responsible for executing these projects, coordinating technical assistance, and ensuring completion and delivery.

''According to foreign economists the government made commendable efforts to mobilize domestic financial resources for development during the 1970s"

It’s funny how you claim “the Soviets planned to build Berbera port seven years earlier,” when in reality, the Soviets only intended to provide technical assistance. There were various external financing offers during the civilian government, but those funds remained idle due to inefficiency and political instability. Many development plans stalled, while other projects were outright failures.

The Kacaan government stepped in, mobilized those funding channels, increased development expenditure, and made good on unrealized pledges.



Also, as highlighted in the reports. foreign financing primarily targeted large-scale economic and productive sector projects. In contrast, domestic revenue funded social services : education, public wages, health care, and similar sectors.


Beyond that, the government ran extensive self-help schemes that mobilized community labor and resources for agriculture, public works, and local development including construction of schools, mosques, sports facilities, well-digging, reclamation projects, and road repairs.

Housing developments and the expansion of major urban centers (like Mogadishu) were largely built using local labor and resources:

The government was even able to utilize local resources to partly fund agricultural projects and it was greater than the global investment from previous programs:

Also @Zak12 is right Somalia had lower rates of poverty than most African countries at the time. But this has more to do with the fact Somalia, even as we have seen today has more spread out distribution of wealth and income.

Same assessment given here in another UN report which calculated cost and earnings and found that only 17% of Somalis in urban areas are poor, compared to perhaps 30% of rural areas. Even the 17% of those who fell under the poverty line had access to food.

That being said, Somalia in the 1980s faced rising inflation, real wage erosion, and growing income disparities. However, income levels were partially stabilized through expansion of the private and informal sectors, remittance inflows, and agricultural output. Many Somali households became multi-income, with public sector workers supplementing their earnings through side jobs or small trade.

These trends were driven largely by currency devaluation, monetary expansion, and austerity measures imposed through IMF reform programs.
International donors largely scaled back development funding after the Ogaden War, leaving remittances from the diaspora to fill critical gaps .

While donor financed development projects and investments existed earlier, the accumulation of external debt and dependency on aid only became prominent after 1979 when Somalia began formal borrowing arrangements with the IMF and World Bank

I have explained before many times:

Yeah, the government ran into serious financial problems after the Ogaden War but it wasn’t mainly because of war costs. The real economic blow came from Mengistu's villagization campaign, when he pushed nearly 1 million refugees into Somalia. That’s what broke the budget.

Somalia took them in , with no international help at first and spent everything it had to feed, shelter, and support them. That’s what triggered the debt and IMF loans. Even that Wikileaks cable you shared highlights this , external account issues, aid cuts (like Saudi’s cattle ban), and a growing humanitarian burden.

This is a segment covering what happened at the time:

''Somalia was already dangerously fragile when the refugees came by the thousands, it aborbed about a million of them, a number amounting to a quarter of its population. In trying to care for the refugees Somalia went broke, it depleted itself completely

'' Somalia is not able by itself to carry a loads of burden"

From 1969 to 1978, the Somali gov had regular budget surpluses it was spending on development. After the war yeah, they had to start printing money to handle all the new costs, and that led to inflation.
View attachment 366642
View attachment 366643View attachment 366641

But here’s the key part people miss:

- The state struggled, but

-The private sector boomed.

- Agricultural output increased.

- Farmer incomes rose.

-Spending power and market activity grew.

View attachment 366644

Somalia actually achieve self-suffieciency in food production during the 1980s
View attachment 366645

Somalia didn’t just spiral into economic collapse, it adapted. While the state was under serious pressure, ordinary people and the private sector were finding ways to thrive. That’s why GDP per capita especially when it’s skewed by IMF loans and government debt doesn’t tell the full story.

 

[Idilinaa]

I'm only a layman when it comes to this topic so of course I will drop sources from others. With that said I also did some research myself and mostly came to the same conclusion: Barre was a highly flawed but ultimately decent leader that Somalia needed at the time.

His main argument boiled down to "hurr Kacaan needed foreign funding" as if every country doesn't do that starting out.

No need to lecture me, I already got humbled by others like @Idilinaa when I was first posting on this site.

They’ve become like a broken record ,I’ve corrected these talking points about the Kacaan era countless times.

I approach every era of Somali history from a development perspective. I’m not interested in clan politics. I genuinely don’t care about the faqaash, Isaaq, Darood, Hawiye labels that get projected onto every conversation. That mindset only holds us back.


What’s truly tragic is that there were real accomplishments during the Kacaan period , progress that all Somalis contributed to yet many are reluctant to even acknowledge it. Some go as far as downplaying or erasing it completely due to personal or political resentment toward Siad Barre. In doing so, they’re only cheating themselves of a full, honest view of history.


The minute we start discussing this period, objectivity goes out the window. People begin cherry picking whatever suits their narrative, and what follows is often a mess of paranoid, qabil driven conspiracy theories that ignore context, facts, and nuance.


With that said, let me directly respond to some of the claims made in this thread:

Siad barre just made the situation infinitely worse, actually he did the most damage cause because of him somalis despise each others more than they despise their neighbors,

But that’s not the full picture.

During much of the Kacaan government, Somalis largely coexisted without the kind of open clan animosity we saw later. Clan identity wasn’t a dominant narrative. People worked together, lived together, and shared a common national project.

What really ruptured that harmony were the armed proxy groups , many of which were backed by external actors , that pulled civilians into their political and military agendas. Ordinary Somalis bore the brunt of this, and unfortunately, it planted seeds of political mistrust and bitterness that still linger today.


So while the collapse of the state was devastating, reducing the Kacaan era to just “Siad Barre caused all our divisions” is both historically inaccurate and oversimplified.

, he shouldve accepted to resign after he lost 77 and destroyed the economy with the imf and world bank in the 80s;

No leadership resigns in the middle of wartime , especially not while the country is under external attack. That's simply not how states operate under existential threat.


Second, the economic challenges Somalia faced in the 1980s weren’t primarily caused by the Ogaden War itself. What truly strained the economy was Mengistu’s genocidal campaign and the forced displacement of millions of ethnic Somalis into Somalia. The Somali government had to absorb this humanitarian crisis , housing, feeding, and integrating refugees , all while dealing with rising instability caused by externally backed proxy groups.


Ironically, critics view this as a blemish on the Kacaan government. But what actually happened? Somalia broke from its policy of self-reliance to seek external borrowing not to enrich the regime, but to ''save Somali lives''. Every available resource was used to care for its people. Would it have been more virtuous to hoard money and let millions of displaced Somalis starve?


If anything, this was an act of national responsibility, not mismanagement.

but instead he did what any marxist dictator does when hes faced with discontent among the population and uprisings,

That statement is historically inaccurate on multiple levels.

First, Siad Barre was not a Marxist, and Somalia under his rule was not a Marxist dictatorship. He adopted the rhetoric of "scientific socialism" to win Soviet support, especially during the Cold War, to counterbalance U.S. backing of Ethiopia. But in practice, Somalia operated as a mixed economy, blending private markets with limited state intervention.


Second, socialism itself wasn't introduced by Barre , it was already on the policy agenda under the civilian government before him. Barre merely inherited and adapted it. Most diplomatic and academic assessments at the time noted that Somalia remained Islam-first in ideology, with socialism being more of a foreign policy branding exercise than a deeply institutional commitment.


Third, there were no widespread uprisings or domestic unrest immediately after the Ogaden War. If anything, his popularity surged as Somalis broadly blamed the Soviet-Cuban betrayal rather than the government. The main opposition was based abroad, lacking popular traction inside the country during that period.


So no the lazy “Marxist dictator” label doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, and the idea that he ruled over a population in constant rebellion is revisionist at best.

, its always the same trend they start being more brutal and the people become more rebellious

This narrative that Siad Barre just became more brutal as people became more rebellious is overly simplistic and ignores important facts.


There are multiple documented instances where Barre demonstrated restraint and even leniency during counterinsurgency efforts. He didn’t order civilians to be targeted as a policy in fact, his government granted amnesty to rebels, reintegrated defectors, and even released political prisoners in response to public appeals. Time and again, whenever concessions were made, many of those same actors turned around and conspired against the state.


What’s also striking is the selective outrage. Mengistu who carried out widespread atrocities against Somalis and even against those who allied with him receives almost no condemnation in these conversations. The double standard is hard to ignore

Siad Barre stained forever the idea of a united Somali nation, hes the core reason of the wider problem and chain of events were facing today but not the reason why we still dont have a country after 30 years

The claim that Siad Barre ‘stained forever’ the idea of a united Somali nation ignores historical context and the reality of what he actually prevented.

Siad Barre didn’t destroy Somalia , in fact, he saved it on more than one occasion. First, by rebuilding and arming the military after years of neglect under civilian leadership, allowing Somalia to defend its borders and stand against Ethiopian aggression. Second, by stepping in during a deep political crisis when the civilian government had become paralyzed by corruption, infighting, and clan-based gridlock.

Let’s not forget what the political climate was like before the 1969 coup. Even diplomats and foreign observers noted how unstable and fractured the country had become:

So imagine claiming the Kacaan era stained the idea of Somali unity when in reality, they were the ones who restored and revitalized it.

Somalia was destroyed psychologically, no Somali believes in Somalia anymore and thats especially true with HSM and the history of the TFG/FGS, people are only getting behind FGS because its the only internationally recognized Somali government

It’s just not true that Somalis no longer believe in Somalia. In fact, Somalinimo , the sense of shared Somali identity is still alive and well across the country and even beyond its borders.

Yes, the political process has been heavily undermined by foreign interference, and that has understandably eroded trust in specific governments or institutions but not in the idea of Somalia itself.

There are countless Somalis across Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, South West, and even parts of Somaliland who still hold onto national unity. Even many in the Ogaden region continue to express a strong belief in pan-Somali solidarity.


The frustration is with leadership and process, not with Somalia as a nation.

Somalia was destroyed by traitors and the foreign super powers who ran the world at the time first rebel groups started after just 7 prosperous years Siad Barre was the greatest zookeeper ever

Whats ironic is that similar rebel groups actually existed prior to Siad Barre even came into office. They were primarily funded and supported by Ethiopia as well. SNM and SSDF had roots in the 60s as well.

I’ve said it before: blaming a single individual for Somalia’s collapse is grievance politics, not serious analysis. The truth is more complex:

And I reject the idea that Somalia is 'destroyed.' Somalis have rebuilt much of the country from the ground up and in some areas, we’ve even surpassed what existed under the Kacaan regime. There has been measurable regional progress.


What we need now is to channel that progress through civic engagement, sound policy, and a shared focus on development. That’s how we unite people not by endlessly mourning a past that cannot return.

 

[Saleh]

Kacaan financed one-third of all development projects using budget surpluses. The remaining two-thirds came from foreign financing. But it was the government that was responsible for executing these projects, coordinating technical assistance, and ensuring completion and delivery.

''According to foreign economists the government made commendable efforsts to mobilize domestic financia resources for develoment during the 1970s"

Bruh show me where kacaan financially assisted in any of the major projects I listed. The development programs you are citing that they introduced were detrimental to Somalia and more than doubled national debt

It’s funny how you claim “the Soviets planned to build Berbera port seven years earlier,” when in reality, the Soviets only intended to provide technical assistance. There were various external financing offers during the civilian government, but those funds remained idle due to inefficiency and political instability. Many development plans stalled, while other projects were outright failures.

Bruh the Soviet project in berbera was completed months before siad even took power as part of the first two development programs introduced by Aden and sharmarke. Also they did not “only want to offer technical assistance” they built the entire airport and wanted to build it before he even smelt the kursi what are you talking about

Beyond that, the government ran extensive self-help schemes that mobilized community labor and resources for agriculture, public works, and local development including construction of schools, mosques, sports facilities, well-digging, reclamation projects, and road repairs.

They “optimistically anticipated” their project would increase agricultural production and processing, which it did not

Production in Somalia between 1974 and 1978 was virtually stagnant and we have work bank data to confirm this

Housing developments and the expansion of major urban centers (like Mogadishu) were largely built using local labor and resources:

The government was even able to utilize local resources to partly fund agricultural projects and it was greater than the global investment from previous programs:

Very misleading the expansion of the xamar road grids was initiated by kacaan this is true but the project was almost entirely externally financed like I said EVERY development project from that era was externally financed the great myth of kacaan self sufficiency is a farce

Also @Zak12 is right Somalia had lower rates of poverty than most African countries at the time. But this has more to do with the fact Somalia, even as we have seen today has more spread out distribution of wealth and income.

Also not true Somalia suffered greatly under these people. We were one of if not the poorest in Africa. Look what the Americans had to say when surveying the economy in 1981

There was no production bro Somalia at the time had great potential and the kacaan did nothing but fail us

 

[Saleh]

Second, socialism itself wasn't introduced by Barre , it was already on the policy agenda under the civilian government before him. Barre merely inherited and adapted it. Most diplomatic and academic assessments at the time noted that Somalia remained Islam-first in ideology, with socialism being more of a foreign policy branding exercise than a deeply institutional commitment.

During much of the Kacaan government, Somalis largely coexisted without the kind of open clan animosity we saw later. Clan identity wasn’t a dominant narrative. People worked together, lived together, and shared a common national project.

What really ruptured that harmony were the armed proxy groups , many of which were backed by external actors , that pulled civilians into their political and military agendas. Ordinary Somalis bore the brunt of this, and unfortunately, it planted seeds of political mistrust and bitterness that still linger today.

the man who killed women and children based on clan was not a tribalist. the man who killed sheikhs and insulted the quran was pro-islam. give me a break

 

[Ugazate]

An agreement was signed in 1984 between Somalia and Kenya relinquishing any claims we had over NFDView attachment 368659
The deal was signed by no other than siad in December of 1984 View attachment 368661

As for galbeed, barre signed a peace agreement with mengistu on April 3 1988 relinquishing any claims to the region in exchange for support in his war on SNMView attachment 368663

Your hero was a fraud

You’re such a loser. Can’t even spread disinformation properly. Don’t show me excerpts from a random book. How about you show formal and legal agreements or treaties legally binding signed by Somalia ceding territories of NFD and Galbeed to Kenya and Ethiopia..You can’t. The only thing close to a formal agreement to relinquish claim is the 1967 Arusha Memorandum of Understanding signed by Egal.

 

[Rayaale]

6 pages of derailing, @Barkhadle1520 stop trolling

 

[Guure⁸]

the man who killed women and children based on clan was not a tribalist. the man who killed sheikhs and insulted the quran was pro-islam. give me a break

He wasn't qabilist since he massacred every major qabiil

 

[Saleh]

You’re such a loser. Can’t even spread disinformation properly. Don’t show me excerpts from a random book. How about you show formal and legal agreements or treaties legally binding signed by Somalia ceding territories of NFD and Galbeed to Kenya and Ethiopia..You can’t. The only thing close to a formal agreement to relinquish claim is the 1967 Arusha Memorandum of Understanding signed by Egal.

Siad said himself in 1981, “we have no claim over Kenyan territory”

His peace agreement with arap moi confirmed this he also shut down the NFD liberation front offices in xamar

And the MoU signed by Egal had no legal binding nor was it ratified just give it up you are a jahil masquerading as an aqoonyahan

 

[Ugazate]

Siad said himself in 1981, “we have no claim over Kenyan territory” View attachment 368672
His peace agreement with arap moi confirmed this he also shut down the NFD liberation front offices in xamar View attachment 368673
And the MoU signed by Egal had no legal binding nor was it ratified just give it up you are a jahil masquerading as an aqoonyahan

Where is the Signed documents of ceding? Are you dense or something,drop the subject your embarrassing yourself,so the Egal MoU doesn’t count but Siad Barre “verbal agreement” is proof of ceding territory great logic once again stop embarrassing yourself

 

[Saleh]

Where is the Signed documents of ceding? Are you dense or something,drop the subject your embarrassing yourself,so the Egal MoU doesn’t count but Siad Barre “verbal agreement” is proof of ceding territory great logic once again stop embarrassing yourself

His verbal relinquishment in 1981 is just further evidence of his intent to cede the territory, which he eventually did sign over in 1984 as I have already shown wipe your tears buddy

An agreement was signed in 1984 between Somalia and Kenya relinquishing any claims we had over NFD