Government Corruption in Somalia of Yesteryears

Peter Bridges served as the American ambassador to Somalia from 1984 to 1986. In his memoir, Safirka: An American Envoy (2000), Bridges chronicled his dealings with top Somali government officials.

Bridges was considered a straight shooter. Before his appointment, his knowledge of Somalia was scant, and his experience in Africa nil. His prior postings had been Panama City, Moscow, Prague, and Rome (twice). In all, he served under seven American presidents. Bridges became the first ambassador appointed by Ronald Reagan immediately after his reelection, and he was one of 280 former American diplomats who overwhelmingly endorsed Obama in 2008. In one of his articles in The Huffington Post, Bridges concluded his ringing endorsement with a familiar phrase: that American politicians use after airing their commercials, “…and I approved this message.” Bridges wrote, “Barak Obama did not approve this message. It’s all mine.”

Bridges’ observations of Somalia seem, at times, to have been comical and stereotypical. He issued constant complaints about Somali government buildings’ structural flaws, bats in the Somali National Theater, animals wandering in the streets, and the bumpy roads of Mogadishu; he also characterized Hotel Uruba, at the time the city’s best hotel, as a place  “that was said to feature a rat in every room.” Even the American ambassador’s residence received its share of criticism. The Somali Foreign Ministry, in particular, Bridges called it, “the shabbiest ministry building I had ever seen.”

One thing that Bridges emphasized about his years in Mogadishu was the level of corruption in the Somali government. Bridges was managing one of the largest American military and foreign aid projects in sub-Saharan Africa. He wrote that every Somali cabinet minister he had met would badger him about the need for more aid. Interestingly, Bridges knew that the requests were unnecessary and unjustified. In fact, Bridges included a zinger about Somali officials being persistent beggars. The British ambassador to Somalia at the time of Bridges’ tour of duty, William Fullerton, advised him to read Richard Burton’s classic book, The First Footsteps in East Africa (1856). Burton wrote that Arabs called Somalia “Bilad wa[x] issi,” (Land of Give Me Something). “The longer you are there,” Fullerton warned Bridges, “the more you will think that name is apt.” Bridges grudgingly acknowledged that both Burton and Fullerton were right. Even so, on rare occasions, a government official would come up with a creative approach to foreign assistance. For example, Vice President Hussein Kulmiye Afrah told Bridges in 1985 that Somalia needed to exploit wind and solar energies instead of relying on oil handouts from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

Italian aid to Somalia in the 1980s amounted to a quarter billion US dollars. The money was spent on such projects as a road in northern Somalia, the renovation of a pharmaceutical plant, and the construction of a fertilizer plant that never produced a sack of fertilizers. According to an article in the Washington Post, “ The Italian Connection: How Rome Helped Ruin Somalia,” (01/24/1993), a former Somali minister testified in Italy that at least 10 percent of the Italian aid to Somalia was pocketed by members of Siad Barre’s family and their cronies. Many of the Somali state-owned companies made “no economic sense,” argued Bridges, but “did make business sense—family business sense.”

Bridges also mentioned how the Somali government inflated the number of refugees in the country in order to secure more foreign aid. For example, Abdi Mohamed Tarrah, Commissioner of the Somali National Refugee Commission, had the tendency to play with refugee numbers. “If there were no refugees,” Bridges stated,  “there would be no commission—and no Commissioner.”

One issue that angered Bridges was how Siad Barre courted Libya during a period of high tensions between Washington and Tripoli. Reagan had bombed Libya and Qaddafi’s compound in Tripoli, and the Libyans, were, of course, itching to retaliate against the Americans by any means necessary. Siad Barre, meanwhile, started courting Libya in part to dissuade Qaddafi from aiding Somali rebels based in Ethiopia. Bridges warned Barre about re-establishing diplomatic ties with Libya. However, Barre, the wily politician, saw an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: court Libya’s financial assistance and undermine his rivals. One day, Bridges read a news item from the Somali News Agency about Somalia and Libya resuming diplomatic relations “in consideration of the emphatic necessity to prepare for and face the problems posed by imperialism and its likes.” Bridges was livid! He asked to see Abdirahman Jama Barre, the foreign minister, who reassured him that the statement referred to the Ethiopian imperialism. However, when Bridges met Siad Barre, the Somali president said the word “imperialism” was in reference to the Soviet Union. One thing became clear to Bridges: Qaddafi had bribed Somali officials to resume diplomatic relations. Bridges said that he had heard credible reports that Jama Barre pocketed $1 million from the Libyans.  

In November 1985, the World Bank organized a conference in Paris to provide urgent aid to Somalia which was experiencing a budget gap of $100 million.  Many countries pledged to help except Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Bridges could not understand why fellow Muslim and Arab countries would not lend assistance to Somalia. He was later told by an Arab ambassador that Siad Barre had diverted $20 million to “private pockets,” that was intended for Somalia to purchase oil. In one instance, oil from Saudi tanker was even sold to the Apartheid regime of South Africa, a country under economic boycott, rather than delivered to Somalia.

Finally, there was the matter of Somali Ambassador to Washington, Abdullahi Ahmed Adow, who had purchased a house on Foxhall Road; the property was reported to be “the second-largest residential real estate sale in the District of Columbia that year.” Bridges did not accuse Ambassador Adow of any wrongdoing, but he sardonically noted that Adow “had done well for a nomad’s son on a Somali official salary.” However, Adow’s attractive wife, Asha, was another story. She asked Ambassador Bridges whether the Americans were interested in renting one of several villas she owned in Mogadishu for, oddly, six thousand US dollars cash; no Somali  shillings, please. Bridges was taken aback by the request and politely declined. What happened next was beyond comprehension. Bridges claimed that Asha Adow threatened to rent the villa instead to the Libyan Embassy. In essence, Bridges felt he was being blackmailed. If the Libyans had rented the said villa, they would have had access to the American military compound that operated a stone’s throw from the villa.  Bridges was upset and had to tell Somali officials that Somalia would regret renting the villa to the Libyan Embassy. An international incident was, hence, averted.

Despite Bridges’ allegations, there are those who say that Siad Barre was only interested in political power, and that he never gained any financial benefits from ruling Somalia for more than 21 years. If this assumption is correct, then he at least condoned the practice of corruption because he was perfectly aware that members of his government and family were guilty of embezzling from the country’s coffers. For Barre, allowing some of his ardent supporters to get rich was a reward for their loyalty. For the small number of his family that benefited from his long reign, it was simply an entitlement, and Barre had no problem with that.