Talk:Isaaq genocide

Article discussion

SUPPORT - As shown in this quote, the Isaaq weren't the only clan involved: "Government atrocities inflicted on the Hawiye were considered comparable in scale to those against the Majeerteen and Isaaq". In addition, very few individuals classify these events as a whole as a genocide, let alone the Isaaq clan solely. Nor is there any cultural, national, racial, religious, etc. differences between them and other clans as they are all ethnic Somalis. [1]. Those differences are what legally defines a genocide.[2]. In addition, the majority of the events already mentioned and those of other clans are current present on the Somali Rebellion article.

After reviewing this users past edits, such as: continuously removing its territorial dispute with neighboring region Puntland in favor of Somaliland (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), changing the map of Somaliland to present it as separate nation (see here, here, and here), removing the disputed Khatumo State (see here), and changing Somalia's map to present its dispute with its Somaliland region as if it had some form of international recognition (see here, here, and here), this article seems to be further WP:PROPAGANDA. Due to the reasons mentioned this article should be deleted. AcidSnow (talk) 05:40, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support - hyperbole as per o/p. Already more neutrally and contextually discussed elsewhere. Lacks the uniqueness that distinguishes actual genocides, as it's just one of various clan conflicts. Fails genocide on ethnoracial/cultural/national/religious grounds for reasons enumerated above, which are legal prerequisites for genocide per the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide [3]. Also, sensationalist infobox file flouts MOS:LEADIMAGE. Along with the non-neutral political maps, does appear to be political WP:PROPAGANDA. Soupforone (talk) 16:57, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Keep - Note: I am the author of the Wiki article.

The article describes the systematic, state sponsored campaign conducted by Siad Barre and the Somali state against the Isaaq. It was a specific campaign against a specific target, in this case against Isaaq civillians. The article meets all of Wikipedia's guidelines on notability, I was frankly surprised not to find a stand alone article for the subject, given its widespread discussion both academically, officially (by various international organisations) and in international media.

To that point please allow me to quote from various official and academic sources to illustrate my point and prove the article is notable, neutral WP:NPOV, verifiable WP:V and indeed not WP:NOR and thus abides by the principal core content policies of Wikipedia. I hope this will comprehensively clear the issue.

(Please note, emphasis mine):

Selection of references of the Isaaq Genocide in official reports:

1- Report commissioned by the United Nations, comprised of the findings of a human rights investigator recruited by the United Nations to find out if crimes of international jurisdiction (i.e. war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide had been perpetrated in Somaliland.

Based on the totality of evidence collected in Somaliland and elsewhere both during and after his mission, the consultant firmly believes that the crime of genocide was conceived, planned and perpetrated by the Somali Government against the Isaaq people of northern Somalia between 1987 and 1989. .

— Chris Mburu, Past human rights abuses in Somalia : report of a preliminary study conducted for the United Nations (OHCHR/UNDP-Somalia)

2- Report by the Africa Watch Committee, a branch of Human Rights Watch:

* The government has been at war with the Isaaks since 1981, after the creation of the SNM. Apparently suspecting every Isaak of supporting the SNM, the government unleashed a reign of terror and lawlessness in northern Somalia.

• Apparently frustrated by their efforts to defeat the SNM in direct combat, the army turned its firepower, including its air force and artillery, against the civilian population, causing predictably high casualties. On the claim of looking for SNM fighters and weapons, systemic house-to-house searches were carried out and thousands were shot in their homes. Residential areas were targets of artillery shelling; a substantial number of people died as their homes collapsed on them.

• Africa Watch's estimate of the number of people killed by government forces, shot point blank, or killed as a result of arial bombardment and artillery shelling and war related wounds, is in the vicinity of 50,000-60,000. (pages. 9,10)
  — Africa Watch, Reference

3- World Bank:

Isaaq grievances deepened over the course of the 1980s, when the Barre regime placed the northwest under military control and used the military administration to crack down on the Isaaq and dispossess them of their businesses. The civil war mounted by the SNM began in May 1988 and produced catastrophe. Government forces committed atrocities against civilians (an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 Somalis died, mostly members of the Isaaq clan, which was the core support for the SNM); aerial bombardments leveled the city of Hargeysa [the second largest city in Somalia]; and 400,000 Somalis were forced to flee across the Ethiopian border as refugees, while another 400,000 were internally displaced.. (page. 10)

— World Bank, Link

Selection of references of the Isaaq Genocide in academic works:

4-

Following its defeat by Ethiopia in 1978, the Somali government of Siad Barre became discredited. The Somali National Movement headed armed opposition, with core support among the Isaaq clan family of north-west Somalia. In May 1988 the SNM nearly captured Hargaisa, the main city of the north-west, and another town, Burao. Siad Barre responded by reportedly declaring that the Isaaq should be wiped out. His son-in-law and commander of the operation, Gen. Mohamed Said Hersi Morgan, reportedly answered that the order couldn't be fulfilled because there were too many of them to kill. This is the closest case of attempted extermination of a group in north-east Africa, thwarted by the intrinsic difficulty of carrying out such a task when faced with fierced armed resistance and the ability of the population to flee across a nearby border.

The city of Hargaisa was destroyed [second largest city in Somalia] in the government's counter-attack. (No other city in contemporary Africa has suffered comparable destruction.) Tens of thousands of people were killed. Virtually the entire populations of Hargaisa and other towns fled the country. The livelihoods of the people of north-west Somalia were all but destroyed by looting, the collapse of markets, the destruction of infrastructure, and the dissemination of landmines which meant that camel herds were unable to move safely to many areas of pasture.

Testimonies from the war are extraordinarily harrowing, comparable in the intensity of fear and violance to the depths of the Rwanda genocide..

— Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses, The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies

Further academic sources below, I understand I have quoted at length above so I will try to keep the rest as brief as possible, full citation and links where possible are added:

5-

In January 1986, the Morgan Report was issued, the work of General Mohamed Sidi Hersi "Morgan", Siad Barre's son-in-law of Majerteen background [and commander of operation as mentioned above]. Officially it was a top secret report on "implemented and recommended measures" for a "final solution" to Somalia's "Isaaq problem". Morgan writes that the Isaaq and their supporters must be "subjected to a campaign of obliteration" in order to prevent them "rais[ing] their heads again." .

— Nicholas A. Robins, Adam Jones, Genocides by the Oppressed: Subaltern Genocide in Theory and Practice

6-

In a wave of terror that followed the initial military assault, the Somali Armed Forces engaged in a "systematic pattern" of attacks against unarmed Isaaq villages, as well as summarily executing an unknown number of suspected SNM supporters. Despite the devastation of the north that bordered on genocide, the Siad regime ultimately was unable to stop the advance of guerrilla armies on the capital of Mogadishu, especially after USC guerilla forces stepped up their attacks in the central region of the country. .

— Lowell Barrington, After Independence : Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States p.125

7- Furthermore, in the Encyclopedia of Genocide, edited by genocide scholar Israel Charny (executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem ), the only named group from Somalia in two published tables in that book are the Isaaq.

First table is titled "Minorities Victimized by Discrimination, Ethnic Warfare, Repression, and Genocide 1980-1997" only lists the Isaaqs from Somalia. In fact, they are one of only three named groups from Africa that are designated 'Geno/Pol' in that table. The other two groups designated 'Geno/Pol' in that table are the Tutsi of Rwanda for the period of 1993-1994 (you can read on Rwandan genocide here, and from the Sudan (now South Sudan) the Dinka, Nuba and Shilluk.

The description of Geno/Pol at the bottom of the table states (emphasis mine):

Geno/Pol: The group was the target of deliberate, sustained policies aimed at its collective destruction. (p.270)

The second table which covers earlier genocides than 1980 (that the previous table covered), under the heading "Indigenous Populations, Genocide of" and is titled "Some Cases of Genocides of indigenous Peoples", again has only one group mentioned from Somalia, the Isaaq. (p.350)

Selection of references of the Isaaq Genocide in reputable international media

Below I am presenting coverage by international media as close to the dates of the Isaaq Genocide as possible, this is to confirm that it was a notable incident and discussed widely in the international media at the time as it was taking place.

8- This issue of Reporting by Survival International News, dated 1988 is especially valuable because it records the reporting on the genocide, by international media, in doing so it gives an idea of how the genocide was reported at the time, early on the campaign against the Isaaq:

Since May, government repression of the Isaaq has escalated into something like genocide. Though the Somali government which is armed by the USA in exchange for the use of the strategic port of Berbera has succeeded in sealing off the north to outside observers, account are filtering out that tell of mass bombing of civilians areas and summer execution and imprisonment of non-combatants. Estimates are being given of 10,000 or even 20,000 dead. The capital of the northern region, Hargeisa, is reported to be heavily bombed, with unburied corpses lying in the streets. Villages have been strafed by air-craft. Isaaq living in the south of the country are being rounded up and imprisoned. Meanwhile, refugees, most of whom are Isaaq are pouring across the border into Ethiopian territory; by end of August 1988 there were at least 250,000 in Ethiopia.

— Survival International News, publication

9- The Guardian (1989) and (1993)

... and ground bombardment of all major Isaaq towns and villages in the north in what was described as an act of 'genocide' (The Guardian 1989). This savage attack 'was seen, probably rightly, as an attack on the whole of the Isaaq people.... (page 243)

The number of deaths has been estimated at around 100,000 in the northern towns (The Guardian 1993). Up to 50,000 people are believed to have lost their lives in the capital city, Hargeisa, as a result of summary executions, arial bombardments and ground attacks carried out by government troops (Bake 1993). (page 244)

— Adebayo Adedeji, Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts: The Search for Sustainable Peace and Good Governance

10- The Washington Post (1990):

In Somalia, the Isaaq clan is the target of government genocide. The Isaaq-based Somali National Movement (SNM), an insurgency group headquartered in Ethiopia for years, invaded Somalia in mid-1988 and now controls a large part of the north.

The government's response has been brutal. An aerial bombing campaign devastated large sections of the cities and productive areas in the north. Wells have been poisoned, villages have been burned and Isaaq civilians have been rounded up and executed by government troops. President Barre has also supplied weapons to Ethiopian refugees inside Somalia and to opposition Ethiopian groups to attack Isaaq civilians. Africa Watch estimates that 50,000 Somali citizens have been killed during the past year and a half, the majority being Isaaq civilians. Link

11a- Aljazeera Article titled:

Investigating genocide in Somaliland

As many as 200,000 people were buried in mass graves in the 1980s under Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

— Aljazeera, Reference

11b- A documentary first aired on Aljazeera on the subject:

People and Power meets a community coming to terms with the horrors of the past and joins forces with a group of forensic investigators and human rights activists attempting to bring an alleged war criminal, Yusuf Abdi Ali, also known as Colonel Tukeh, to account. Link to video.

12- Genocide Watch:

For the purposes of this Mass Atrocities Alert, Genocide Watch sees the following warning signs of genocide and atrocities being committed against the civilian population of Somalia:

Prior unpunished genocidal massacres, such as those perpetrated by the Barre regime, primarily against the Isaaq clan, in the late 1980s. Source

The plethora of discussions on the subject attest to its notability. This is an important subject that features prominently in the scholarship about the civil war in the former Somali state and specifically pertaining to the period between 1988-1990. There are many more reports and academic works and documentaries that deal with the subject of Isaaq genocide, the list above is a small sample.

I hope one can now clearly see the claim by the initiator of this deletion request that very few individuals classify these events as whole as genocide is incorrect. I cite the specific use of the word genocide in the United Nations' commissioned report (above, point 1), also used academically by Bloxham and Dirk Moses (The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, point 4, above), by Barrington (point 6, if loosely), in the Encyclopedia of Genocide, notably as the single case from Somalia included and one of three from all of Africa (see point 7 please), and in reputable international media, like Survival International (point 8), by both The Guardian (point 9), and The Washington Post (point 10) as well as the title of an Aljazeera article (point 11a) as well as a documentary (point 11b) and finally on Genocide Watch (point 12).

Thus I conclude that the use of the word genocide is appropriate for the page.

The above demonstrates that the topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, and I hope, like me, you see that it is suitable for a stand-alone article WP:GNG.

I also hope the use of 'people' in relation to Isaaq is fair. Similar usage of 'Isaaq People' is found in both the UN report (point 1) and in 'Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts: The Search for Sustainable Peace and Good Governance' (point 9), I can provide further academic examples if needed.

Please note that the initiator of this deletion request has been waging an ongoing edit war both on the subject article of this request and other pages too. They have been the one causing vandalism in their deletion of this article (via redirection) see here. This is very disruptive and I have mentioned that much to them in the notes of my edits. The article is well sourced, notable and neutral, there is absolutely no merit to blanking it by putting a redirection on. That is vandalism.

This request for deletion does not make sense. It seems to me, and this is unfortunate, that the initiator of the deletion request harbors negative sentiment against Isaaqs. There is no other reason to request deletion of a well sourced article that deals with such an important subject. So important in fact that the air-bombardment and use of military force against civilians in Hargeisa it is the subject of a war monument erected in the middle of the capital city of Somaliland, Hargeisa, the same city that was levelled by the Somali army and airforce. The arial bombardment of Hargeisa by the Somali Airforce is a very painful and recent memory to many survivors of the genocide and their families. I hope the quotes above conveys the sheer scale of this atrocity.

As for what has been said about my other edits, I am very happy to discuss my edits in the specific articles' talk pages. On their claims of my editing of the dispute page of Somaliland and Puntland. I have updated the article to reflect the realities on the ground as of end of 2016 and beginning of 2017. The page was outdated. The facts are that Somaliland controls every single capital of all the regions it claims. I will be more than happy to provide evidece for this, the editor is relying on non-Somalis' ignorance of the situation on the ground, or perhaps a better way to phrase it is the lack of English language reputable sources the report on the issue.

It is true that there are opposing organisations under names like SSC (now defunct) and Khaatumo (very little support from locals, almost no resources), but these organisation exist in name only and are far from being governments and/or real actors on the ground. In fact, Khatumo itself acknowledges that Somaliland controls the capital of Sool region, I can provide video recordings of the president of this organisation, mr. Ali Galaydh himself admitting that they have no control over these territories. Furthermore, Somaliland is currently in talks with Khaatumo, again, in these talks the leaders of Khaatumo admit Somaliland's control of the capital of Sool region (Laascanood).

Puntland's claim is in name only too, this may not have been the case prior to 2007, but it is now. I am happy to provide extensive evidence in the talk page of that article.

As for the changing of Somalia map. That too is to reflect the realities on the ground, and it is in line with precedent set by other Wikipedia articles. Please see the landing maps of Morocco, India, Pakistan and many other countries where the landing map clearly indicates parts that the country claims but does not control. I tried to keep it to the same neutral colours used in the maps of aforementioned countries, light green and dark green. I am happy to discuss this in detail in that article's talk page.

Due to the above reasons, I hope you can see that the article is notable, neutral WP:NPOV,verifiable WP:V and not WP:NOR and thus abides by the principal core content policies of Wikipedia. I do not understand why it is marked for deletion, that is wrong and disrespectful to the victims of the genocide. I have noticed that much of the content the editor initiating this request works on, or is involved in edit wars over, are slanted against certain Somali groups namely the Isaaq, as is the case for this bizarre delete request, that much is clear. Kzl55 (talk) 02:36, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

SUPPORT - I'm sorry but I'm going to have to agree with Acidsnow and Soupforone for the following reasons:

(1) The page might give off the impression that the Isaaq clan was somehow "special" during this period in Somalia's recent history which is not the case:

"Barre's elite unit, the Red Berets (Duub Cas), and the paramilitary unit called the Victory Pioneers carried out systematic terror against the Majeerteen, Hawiye, and Isaaq clans.[31] The Red Berets systematically smashed water reservoirs to deny water to the Majeerteen and Isaaq clans and their herds. More than 2,000 members of the Majeerteen clan died of thirst, and an estimated 5,000 Isaaq were killed by the government. Members of the Victory Pioneers also raped large numbers of Majeerteen and Isaaq women, and more than 300,000 Isaaq members fled to Ethiopia." (quoted from Siad's own page)

"As an arid country inhabited by simple farmers and nomads, much of Somalia’s society is clan-based. Its politics under Barre reflected that. Barre was a member of the Darod clan, and in the 1970s after he got Somalia involved in a disastrous war, another clan called the Majeerteen decided to try to get rid of him. Barre cracked down with a paramilitary group called the Red Berets. Their weapon against the Majerteen was environmental: they destroyed the reservoirs their people depended on in the arid region where they lived. In 1979, thousands of them died of thirst." - link

"In other words, the Barre regime could be responsible for a genocide of the Isaaq and Majerteen clans if sufficient evidence to this effect exists, regardless of the fact that it may also have been seeking to quell civil unrest simultaneously."-link

"The widespread unrest in the army led to the April 9, 1978 coup attempt. Although its leader, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was Umar Mahamud (Majerten subclan), the core group came from various clans including Hawiye and Isaq. However the state repression focused on the Majerten, because from the onset, Siyad Barre had been wary of this clan's potential threat. He had antagonized the Majerten while for the Italians in the 1950s, when many radical nationalists came from that clan." - link

Other clans suffered atrocities, were targeted by the government and there were even "extermination" measures of sorts enacted against them, the Isaaq clan was not unique in all this. Barre and his regime were simply acting like a dictatorial regime normally does when there is insurrection in their midst rather than despising Isaaqs simply for being Isaaqs and seeking to annihilate every last one of them as a result. Instead, Barre and his regime were simply reacting cruelly to the formation of the "Somali National Movement" (SNM) which,like other Somali rebel militias of the civil-war period, had its "base" in a particular clan (in this case; the Isaaq clan) whom Barre associated with the militia and ordered attacks against as a result.

Unless this page is edited to be about "genocide" among several clans (i.e. with a title such as "Genocide of Somali clans" or something along those lines); it should not be kept, in my opinion. Again, because the Isaaq are not truly unique in this. However, a page with the edited title I mentioned would be totally redundant (as is this "Isaaq Genocide" page) for reasons Acidsnow mentioned since pages like the "Somali Rebellion" page (see here) do mention the atrocities suffered by various Somali clans during this period in recent Somali history. The creator of this page would be better served simply adding text and sources to pages such as the "Somali rebellion" page and leaving it at that (in fact, I welcome adding text to those pages that argues what the Isaaq suffered was a "genocide"). I see no reason why the Isaaq clan in particular deserves some sort of page of its own unless other clans are also to be given a similar page which is unnecessary for reasons mentioned prior.

(2) Acidsnow and Soupforone have a point about the somewhat hyperbolic nature of the article's subject and the fact that the creator's editing history (as pointed out by Acidsnow) seems to point to a bias toward pro-"Somaliland" politics (which often requires fostering & nurturing grievances toward "Somalia") and this thus presents a possible case of WP:PROPAGANDA.

There are sources which ultimately do not entertain the idea that what happened to the Isaaq clan (or even the Majeerteen clan) was a truly classifiable as a "genocide" (see here, for instance) and just adopting this title outright because some sources imply or lean towards the opposite makes this article, in my opinion, act against WP:NEUTRAL-POINT-OF-VIEW as it outright picks a side. A better set-up for it not to seem like a propaganda page would've been for it to be titled "Atrocities enacted against the Isaaq during the Somali Civil-War" and then have a section where both "pro-genocide labeling" and "anti-genocide labeling" sources are shared whilst, if possible, sharing why both sides are for or against the labeling. But this is totally pointless as stated earlier as this can just be more shortly done in pages like the "Somali Rebellion" page.

(3) This does, partly, smell like a WP:NO-ORIGINAL-RESEARCH breach as well. The page creator's sources look as though they're just being used to weave a narrative that Isaaqs were perhaps specially gencodided when all many (not all) of the page creator's sources do is point out the obvious which is that Isaaqs were targeted, the government was at war with them and that they (the Isaaqs) suffered greatly-:

2- "The government has been at war with the Isaaks since 1981, after the creation of the SNM. Apparently suspecting every Isaak of supporting the SNM, the government unleashed a reign of terror and lawlessness in northern Somalia."

3- "Government forces committed atrocities against civilians (an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 Somalis died, mostly members of the Isaaq clan, which was the core support for the SNM); aerial bombardments leveled the city of Hargeysa [the second largest city in Somalia](page. 10)"

6- "In a wave of terror that followed the initial military assault, the Somali Armed Forces engaged in a "systematic pattern" of attacks against unarmed Isaaq villages, as well as summarily executing an unknown number of suspected SNM supporters. Despite the devastation of the north that bordered on genocide, the Siad regime ultimately was unable to stop the advance of guerrilla armies on the capital of Mogadishu, especially after USC guerilla forces stepped up their attacks in the central region of the country. ."

7- "7- Furthermore, in the Encyclopedia of Genocide, edited by genocide scholar Israel Charny (executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem ), the only named group from Somalia in two published tables in that book are the Isaaq."

^ (This means nothing and is bordering on "Original Research". Other Somali groups suffered comparable atrocities by both state and non-state actors; them not being mentioned does not place the Isaaq clan's terrible suffering ahead of theirs as the only one that was supposedly truly genocidal in nature.)

8- "Since May, government repression of the Isaaq has escalated into something like genocide..."

^ (Emphasis on the word "like". Nevertheless, this then just goes on to describe atrocities the clan suffered like other sources do.)

9- "The number of deaths has been estimated at around 100,000 in the northern towns (The Guardian 1993). Up to 50,000 people are believed to have lost their lives in the capital city, Hargeisa, as a result of summary executions, arial bombardments and ground attacks carried out by government troops (Bake 1993). (page 244)"

-and yes; other Somali clans, like the Majeerteen, were targeted, the government was at war with them and they suffered greatly. And, as even one of my own sources points out, it can possibly be argued that a "genocide" of sorts was enacted against other clans such as the Majeerteen as well. None of this, however, outright proves a "genocide" but really just that a dictatorial regime was enacting extreme violence against people it believed were rising up against it. Only sources that outright claim genocide are relevant, frankly. The ones that merely highlight atrocities are just being used to push the genocide viewpoint when they don't explicitly claim this was genocide, so this does partly look like Original-Research meant to support a certain viewpoint the page creator holds. Though this point among my 3 points, in my humble opinion, is the least pressing.

_______

At any rate, another source even points out that things like "genocide", perhaps more appropriately termed "clan cleansing" as per the source, were arguably enacted against several clans by both state and non-state actors. So why are Isaaq clan members getting a page and not the others? Why is there not a page on the "clan cleansing" enacted against Darods in Mogadishu by militias during this same period in recent history? I say simply because such pages would be redundant (as well as misleading in acting as though one clan's suffering was of unique importance within this trouble period) and would only help serve the political agendas of "clanist" types within the Somali Peninsula. The atrocities suffered by various clans can be outlined in the "Somali Rebellion" or even "Somali Civil-War" page (or both) but anything more than that, in my humble opinion, is unnecessary.

So yes, I support deleting this article. --Awale-Abdi (talk) 15:15, 16 January 2017 (UTC)