Hirsi Magan Isse

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Hirsi Magan Isse (Somali: Xirsi Magan Ciise; born 1935) is a scholar and one of the leading figures of the Somalian revolution. Magan Isse was one of the leaders of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), one of the many factions in this civil war. He is a former comrade-in-arms of president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and the father of the former Dutch MP and prominent critic of Islam Ayaan Hirsi Ali. After living in several countries, he has settled in exile in London.

1 Personal life
2 Political and military career
3 Footnote
4 References
5 See also

[edit] Personal life

Hirsi Magan Isse was born in Somalia in 1935 as one of the nine children of Magan Isse Guleid (1845-1945)1). He belongs to the Darod-tribe, clan-family Harti, clan Majeerteen, sub-clan Osman Mahamoud.

Magan Isse has been married four times and has five daughters and one son. He had two daughters in his first marriage. From his second marriage were born his son Mahad, his activist daughter Ayaan and his daughter Haweya. Haweya died in 1998. He also has a daughter from his third marriage.

He studied in Italy and in the United States at Columbia University, New York (where he got a degree in anthropology). As a linguist and anthropologist he is known as a champion of the Somali script, the so-called Somanya, unlike the former head of state, Siad Barré, who made Latin script the national standard in Somalia in 1970.

[edit] Political and military career

After the assassination of president Abdirashid Ali Shermarke and the coming to power of Siad Barré in October, 1969, Magan Isse was considered dangerous to the new leadership and was imprisoned from 1972 to October 1975. One of the objectives of Siad Barré, who was a member of the clan Darod-Marehan, was to limit the power of the Darod-Majeerteen in the country's government.

In 1976 Magan Isse escaped from prison and fled from Somalia to Saudi Arabia. In the same year, Siad Barré banned all political parties with the exception of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (SRSF), so the SODAF (a forerunner of the SSDF) was founded in exile in Rome. In the following year Magan Isse moved to Ethiopia, where he witnessed the year-long Ogaden War, one of the bloodiest conflicts ever to have happened in Africa. It was also the period of the Red Terror of Mengistu's Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party, and its victims included the Western Somali Liberation Front, the adversaries of the SSDF. In 1980 Magan Isse chose Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, as a more stable and peaceful residence for his family, while he continued to live in Somalia and Ethiopia most of the time.

In the summer of 1982 the SSDF played a key role in the second armed conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia. The SSDF, supported by Mengistu's air force, waged a low intensity guerilla war against the Somali army. Magan Isse became a well-known figure in Somalia at the time as director and presenter of Radio Kulmis (meaning "Unity" in Somali), which aired anti-Barré programs from Addis Abeba, Ethiopia (1979-1981).

In 1988, Magan Isse headed an insurrection near Eyl in the Nugaal region, part of Puntland, mainly inhabited by Majerteen of the Omar and Issa Mahamoud sub-clans. This insurrection of the SSDF, which started in the southern part of Nugal and Bari and the western part of Mudug, would eventually lead to the autonomy of the province of Puntland in 1998. In the 1990s the SSDF switched sides: from the SNM of Somaliland to its former adversary, Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan, former minister of defense of the government of Siad Barré, and, after the fall of Barré, head of the Somali National Front (SNF). With the SNF the SSDF tried, in vain, to capture the region around Kismayu.

[edit] Footnote

1) According to a statement by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her brother Mahad Hirsi Magan, the father of Hirsi Magan Isse was initially called Ali Isse Guleid, but changed this to Magan Isse Guleid after proven courage in battle in 1870 (verklaring van mevrouw Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 29-6-2006, nr. 30559, nr. 6, document-id BLG 8996)[1].

[edit] References

The Guardian, May 17, 2005;[2]
New York Times, April 3, 2005,[3]
Somalia Tribal Study, 2005, p. 14 (on the structure of the clan of Hirsi Magan Isse)[4]
Programs by Xirsi Magan on Radio Kulmis, 1979-1981 (3th column, 6th from the top)[5]
On the Osmanya script (interview with Michael Everson) [6]
Telephone conversation between Hirsi Magan Isse and his daughter in "Levy and Sadeghi" (Dutch television program), September 2002 [7]
Ending the conflict in the Somali inhabited territories of Horn of Africa, column by Samtalis Hussein Haille, 2002[8]