National Security Service (Somalia)

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The National Security Service was the primary intelligence service of the government of Siad Barre and the bedrock of its repressive internal security apparatus, existing from 1970 until 1990 when it was formally abolished.

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[edit] Organization and structure

The NSS was subordinate to the Interior Ministry, and (in the closing years of the Barré regime) was headed by Abdiqasim Salad Hassan (who would later be a one-time President of Somalia under the Transitional National Government.) Conceived in the Soviet model and organized with the help of the KGB, the NSS was an elite organization whose key officers maintained close links to Barré's Supreme Revolutionary Council.[1][2][3]

[edit] NSS prisons

The NSS headquarters and interrogation center in Mogadishu, referred to as Godka Muqdishu or "the Hole", was particularly notorious.[4] Other NSS centers included Mogadishu Central Prison, and stations at Lanta Bur, Labtanjirow and Burwein.

[edit] 1990 dissolution

In 1990 the NSS was formally dissolved as a palliative measure.[5] However, its abolition was not accompanied by the demise of other security agencies who also had effectively unlimited powers of arrest and detention and similarly notorious reputations for torture and ill-treatment of detainees. These include the President's own bodyguards, the Red Berets; the Dhabar Jabinta (or "Backbreakers") a branch of the military police; the Hangash, another branch of the military police; the Guulwadayal (or "Victory Pioneers"), a uniformed paramilitary group; and the investigative wing of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (SRSP).

Similarly, the decision to dismantle the NSC did not guarantee a fair system of justice because other courts, such as the Mobile Military Court and the Regional Security Court, retained the power to sentence people to long prison terms and even death without any pretense of due process. In an effort to show that the government was opening the political system, President Barre resigned as Secretary General of the ruling party, only to be replaced by a son-in-law who for many years headed the NSS.

[edit] Somali politicians with ties to the NSS

Controversy surrounds the activities of the NSS, as well as those politicians who served in or assisted the NSS during the Barre regime. This is a partial list of Somali politicians who had known or alleged ties to the NSS:

Ethiopian president Meles Zenawi and Eritrean leader Isayas Afewerki also had reported contacts to the NSS; according to a Somali government official quoted by IRIN news, Zenawi and Afewerki "lived together in a villa behind Tawfiq Hotel, north Mogadishu, and were handled by the National Security Service, provided with travel documents and Somali passports, trained and given a Tigrayan radio frequency".[9] Zenawi's NSS handler was the father of TFG minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Federal Research Division, Library of Congress ; edited by Helen Chapin Metz. Somalia : a country study.
  2. ^ unknown (July 21, 1975). The Russians on Africa's Horn. Time Magazine.
  3. ^ Comparative Criminology | Africa - Somalia
  4. ^ Somalia: National Security Service Prison (Godka), Mogadishu, Somalia. UNHCR. Retrieved on 2007-02-02.
  5. ^ Somalia: Human Rights Developments. Human Rights Watch World Report 1990. Human Rights Watch (1991). Retrieved on 2007-02-03.
  6. ^ Rakiya A. Omaar (1990). Government at War with Its Own People: Testimonies About the Killings and the Conflict in the North. Africa Watch.
  7. ^ Southern regional authorities: the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA) (2004). Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) (2004). Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
  8. ^ Issue 211
  9. ^ American Chronicle | Ali Mohammed Ghedi-Meles Zenawi's Stooge and Somalia's Traitor