Emergency in Somalia

Press, 23 October 1980, Page 7

Emergency in Somalia

NZPA-Reuter Mogadishu President Mohamed Siad Barre of Somalia has declared a state of emergency to combat dissidents and clan rivalries at a time of pressure frorii neighbouring Ethiopia. In a speech to a parade marking the eleventh anniversary of his coming to power in a bloodless.military coup d’etat the President said that the country’s stability was threatened by a few opportunists who used tribalism and corruption for their/own interests and a state of ent-

ergency would be enforced for an unspecified period. He announced the reinstitution of the Supreme Revolutionary Council of Army generals, which he headed for his first seven years in power and which was suppressed when the central committee of the Somali Socialist Party became the_ supreme State organ in 1976. Diplomatic sources in Nairobi sat’d that the President’s reference to tribalism suggested that trouble was being fomented among the Mijetteyn clans of central Somalia which dominated politics

under Italian colonial rule and the first years of independence before the President, a southerner, led by an Army coup in 1969. Both Somalia and Ethiopia have reported border fighting in the last few weeks.

Ethiopia has also been opposing a plan by the United States to use a big Sovietbuilt naval base in Somalia for which it will pay with American weapons’ supplies. The Americans want the base for ships guarding Western oil supplies from-the Gulf.