Causes of Conflicts in Somali

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Many voices that the major cause of Civil War in Somalia is the segmentation of the Somali people into hostile clans who have been at war with each other throughout their history. As historian Mr Wais Kassim states, the clan system is an undeniable factor but that cause alone would not have led to such a disastrous war which shook the entire nation. There were other important factors that served as background of Civil War, which are repression by the military regime and the colonial legacy. General Mohamed Siad Barre took over power after a coup d'état in 1969 and this was the start of military regime. The government forbade clanism, which may become a source of rebel, and stressed loyalty to the central authorities. However, soon after taking over, Barre advocated the concept of a Greater Somalia, the returning of the missing Somali territories, but it came to an end in 1978 when Somalia lost in the Ogaden war. The huge failure in his dominant policy aroused many doubts from the Somalis and many Somalis became disillusioned with life under military dictatorship. The oppressed clans used this as an opportunity to stand against his regime, and armed, clan-based oppositions were formed. This served as a trigger of the Civil War. The oppositions were met with merciless atrocities from the Barre regime, resulting in thousands of people, mainly civilians, being killed. “The first clan group to organize against him were the Majeerteen. He came down on them hard, as if they were not Somalis, poisoning their wills,” says Mr Hussein Warsame, a professor at Calgary University in Canada. “Somalis should have told Barre to stop the killing. In 1988, he started doing the same thing to another group in the far north, the Isaaqs, and again the Somalis should have reacted,” he says, “but instead thought ‘They’re not killing my clan, so who cares?’” After Siad Barre was
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