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The Italians intended to plant a colony of
settlers and commercial entrepreneurs in the
region between the Shabeelle and Jubba rivers
in southern Somalia. The motivation was
threefold: to "relieve population pressure at
home," to offer the "civilizing Roman mission"
to the Somalis, and to increase Italian
prestige through overseas colonization.
Initiated by Governor Carletti (1906-10),
Italy's colonial program received further
impetus by the introduction of fascist
ideology and economic planning in the 1920s,
particularly during the administration of
Governor Cesare Maria de Vecchi de Val Cismon.
Large-scale development projects were
launched, including a system of plantations on
which citrus fruits, primarily bananas, and
sugarcane, were grown. Sugarcane fields in
Giohar and numerous banana plantations around
the town of Jannaale on the Shabeelle River,
and at the southern mouth of the Jubba River
near Chisimayu, helped transform southern
Somalia's economy.
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In contrast to the Italian colony, British
Somaliland stayed a neglected backwater.
Daunted by the diversion of substantial
development funds to the suppression of the
dervish insurrection and by the "wild"
character of the anarchic Somali pastoralists,
Britain used its colony as little more than a
supplier of meat products to Aden. This policy
had a tragic effect on the future unity and
stability of independent Somalia. When the two
former colonies merged to form the Somali
Republic in 1960, the north lagged far behind
the south in economic infrastructure and
skilled labor. As a result, southerners
gradually came to dominate the new state's
economic and political life--a hegemony that
bred a sense of betrayal and bitterness among
northerners. |
