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Mohammad Ali Samatar
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Mohammad Ali Samatar
Mohammad Ali Samatar. (Arabic: محمد علي سمتر, Somali: Maxamed Cali Samantar, Osmanya script: 𐒑𐒙𐒔𐒖𐒑𐒑𐒖𐒑𐒗𐒆 𐒖𐒐𐒘 𐒈𐒖𐒑𐒖𐒂𐒖; 1 January 1931 – 19 August 2016) was a Somali military officer, politician, Commander-in-Chief of the Somali National Army, Minister of Defence, Vice President (1971-1990), Deputy General Secretary of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party, and Prime Minister. He was known for his intelligent military tactics in the 1964 Ethiopian–Somali Border War, Ogaden War and 1982 Ethiopian–Somali Border War.
Samatar was born in 1931 in Kismayo, Somalia. For his post-secondary education, Samatar studied at the Frunze Military Academy in the former Soviet Union (Военная академия им. М. В. Фрунзе), an elite institution reserved for the most qualified officers of the Warsaw Pact armies and their allies.
A lieutenant general in the Somali National Army (SNA), Samatar was a key figure in Somali politics throughout the 1970s and 1980s. During the Ogaden campaign of the late 1970s, he led all SNA units and their Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) affiliates. He also served as national Defense Minister from 1970 to 1987.
Samatar was a member of President Siad Barre's ruling Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC). In May 1986, Barre suffered serious injuries in a life-threatening automobile accident near Mogadishu, when the car that was transporting him smashed into the back of a bus during a heavy rainstorm. He was treated in a hospital in Saudi Arabia for head injuries, broken ribs and shock over a period of a month. Samatar, who was then serving as Vice President of Somalia from 1971 to 1990, subsequently served as de facto head of state for the next several months. Although Barre managed to recover enough to present himself as the sole presidential candidate for re-election over a term of seven years on 23 December 1986, his poor health and advanced age led to speculation about who would succeed him in power. Possible contenders included his son-in-law General Ahmed Suleiman Abdille, who was at the time the Minister of the Interior, in addition to Barre's vice president, Lt. Gen. Samatar.
From 1 February 1987, to 3 September 1990, Samatar was the national Prime Minister, the first person to fill that post since the 1969 revolution that overthrew the civilian government.[citation needed]
Following the outbreak of the civil war in 1991 and the collapse of the Barre regime, Samatar moved to the United States in order to escape persecution as a member of the former government. According to Mario Sica, then Italian ambassador to Mogadishu, although the United Somali Congress (USC) professed that it was fighting against the Barre regime as a whole and not engaged in a clan-based struggle, public officials who belonged to the same clan as the USC's core constituents were not targeted. Instead, they were embraced as heroes and welcomed into the rebel group's senior leadership positions.
Samatar was alleged to have overseen the Isaaq genocide in what is now known as Somaliland. Approximately 50,000-100,000 civilians were killed in the genocide whilst local reports estimate the total civilian deaths to be upwards of 200,000 Isaaq civilians. Samatar is alleged to have commanded the forces that attacked the civilian population and committed severe crimes against humanity like mass killings, kidnapping, systematic rapes, arbitrary detentions, torture, as well as other war crimes. In 2012, seven Isaaq victims won a $21 million lawsuit in the United States against Samatar for crimes against the Isaaq people.
A distinguished graduate of Frunze, Samantar oversaw Somalia's military strategy. In the late 1970s, Samatar was the Chief Commanding Officer of the Somali National Army during the Ogaden Campaign. He and his frontline deputies faced off against their mentor and former Frunze alumni Marshal Vasily Ivanovich Petrov, who was assigned by the USSR to advise the Ethiopian Army, in addition to and likely not limited to 15,000 Cuban troops along with thousands of other socialist foreign ground forces supporting Ethiopia, led by General Arnaldo Ochoa. The Ogaden Campaign was part of a broader effort to unite all of the Somali-inhabited territories in the Horn region into a Greater Somalia (Soomaaliweyn).
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Mohammad Ali Samatar
Mohammad Ali Samatar. (Arabic: محمد علي سمتر, Somali: Maxamed Cali Samantar, Osmanya script: 𐒑𐒙𐒔𐒖𐒑𐒑𐒖𐒑𐒗𐒆 𐒖𐒐𐒘 𐒈𐒖𐒑𐒖𐒂𐒖; 1 January 1931 – 19 August 2016) was a Somali military officer, politician, Commander-in-Chief of the Somali National Army, Minister of Defence, Vice President (1971-1990), Deputy General Secretary of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party, and Prime Minister. He was known for his intelligent military tactics in the 1964 Ethiopian–Somali Border War, Ogaden War and 1982 Ethiopian–Somali Border War.
Samatar was born in 1931 in Kismayo, Somalia. For his post-secondary education, Samatar studied at the Frunze Military Academy in the former Soviet Union (Военная академия им. М. В. Фрунзе), an elite institution reserved for the most qualified officers of the Warsaw Pact armies and their allies.
A lieutenant general in the Somali National Army (SNA), Samatar was a key figure in Somali politics throughout the 1970s and 1980s. During the Ogaden campaign of the late 1970s, he led all SNA units and their Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) affiliates. He also served as national Defense Minister from 1970 to 1987.
Samatar was a member of President Siad Barre's ruling Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC). In May 1986, Barre suffered serious injuries in a life-threatening automobile accident near Mogadishu, when the car that was transporting him smashed into the back of a bus during a heavy rainstorm. He was treated in a hospital in Saudi Arabia for head injuries, broken ribs and shock over a period of a month. Samatar, who was then serving as Vice President of Somalia from 1971 to 1990, subsequently served as de facto head of state for the next several months. Although Barre managed to recover enough to present himself as the sole presidential candidate for re-election over a term of seven years on 23 December 1986, his poor health and advanced age led to speculation about who would succeed him in power. Possible contenders included his son-in-law General Ahmed Suleiman Abdille, who was at the time the Minister of the Interior, in addition to Barre's vice president, Lt. Gen. Samatar.
From 1 February 1987, to 3 September 1990, Samatar was the national Prime Minister, the first person to fill that post since the 1969 revolution that overthrew the civilian government.[citation needed]
Following the outbreak of the civil war in 1991 and the collapse of the Barre regime, Samatar moved to the United States in order to escape persecution as a member of the former government. According to Mario Sica, then Italian ambassador to Mogadishu, although the United Somali Congress (USC) professed that it was fighting against the Barre regime as a whole and not engaged in a clan-based struggle, public officials who belonged to the same clan as the USC's core constituents were not targeted. Instead, they were embraced as heroes and welcomed into the rebel group's senior leadership positions.
Samatar was alleged to have overseen the Isaaq genocide in what is now known as Somaliland. Approximately 50,000-100,000 civilians were killed in the genocide whilst local reports estimate the total civilian deaths to be upwards of 200,000 Isaaq civilians. Samatar is alleged to have commanded the forces that attacked the civilian population and committed severe crimes against humanity like mass killings, kidnapping, systematic rapes, arbitrary detentions, torture, as well as other war crimes. In 2012, seven Isaaq victims won a $21 million lawsuit in the United States against Samatar for crimes against the Isaaq people.
A distinguished graduate of Frunze, Samantar oversaw Somalia's military strategy. In the late 1970s, Samatar was the Chief Commanding Officer of the Somali National Army during the Ogaden Campaign. He and his frontline deputies faced off against their mentor and former Frunze alumni Marshal Vasily Ivanovich Petrov, who was assigned by the USSR to advise the Ethiopian Army, in addition to and likely not limited to 15,000 Cuban troops along with thousands of other socialist foreign ground forces supporting Ethiopia, led by General Arnaldo Ochoa. The Ogaden Campaign was part of a broader effort to unite all of the Somali-inhabited territories in the Horn region into a Greater Somalia (Soomaaliweyn).
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