Siad Barre
Mohamed Siad Barre (6 October 1910 - 2 January 1995) was a Somali politician. He was a Somali general who served as President of the Somali Democratic Republic and the third President of Somalia from 1969 to 1991. He was given the childhood nickname Afweyne, which roughly translates to "extraversion." Barre, a gendarmerie major general by trade, became President of Somalia following the 1969 coup that overthrew the Somali Republic following the assassination of President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke. With Soviet Union support, the Supreme Revolutionary Council military junta reconstituted Somalia as a one-party Marxist-Leninist communist state, renaming the country the Somali Democratic Republic and adopting scientific socialism. He is regarded as one of the most important historical figures in Somalia.
Attempts at widespread modernization, nationalization of banks and industry, promotion of cooperative farms, a new writing system for the Somali language, and anti-tribalism characterized Barre's early rule. In 1976, the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party emerged as the country's vanguard party, and Barre launched the Ogaden War against Ethiopia on a platform of Somali nationalism and pan-Somalism. Barre's popularity peaked during the seven months between September 1977 and March 1978, when he controlled nearly the entire Somali region. It began to decline in the late 1970s, following Somalia's defeat in the Ogaden War, which precipitated the Somali Rebellion and severed ties with the Soviet Union. Somalia then allied with Western powers, particularly the United States, for the remainder of the Cold War, while maintaining its Marxist-Leninist regime and drawing close to China.
Opposition grew in the 1980s as a result of his increasingly dictatorial rule, the rise of tribal politics, abuses by the National Security Service, including the Isaaq genocide, and Somalia's sharp economic decline. In 1991, the Somali Rebellion successfully ejected Barre from power, resulting in the Somali Civil War and forcing him into exile, where he died in Nigeria in 1995 on his way to the hospital after suffering a heart attack.
