The Bantu Somalis and the Breed Somalis groups live in Somalia. Although the two groups have lived in the same country for a long time, they are not best friends. The Breed Somalis have constantly attacked the Bantu Somalis and made their lives unlivable in the land that Bantu Somalis call home. Since Somalia gained self-rule, the Bantu people have suffered terribly under the Breed Somali-led government. The Breed Somalis have oppressed the Bantu Somalis in many ways. For instance, the Breed Somalis have devised schemes to disinherit the Bantu people and kick them out of their land. The southern region is resource-rich. It has plenty of water and minerals. The Bantu Somalis have been living in this area since before independence. After Somalia got self-rule, the Breed group, which was lucky to take over the government, used all means to ensure they took these lands from the hands of the Bantu Somalis. For the Breed Somalis to achieve this end, they have used different evil schemes. Precisely, the Breed Somalis have attempted to subvert the Somali nationality, spread falsehoods about the actual population of the Bantu Somalis, use government-led resettlement tactics, deny the right of the Bantu to live in the land by spreading myths, and perpetuate false online stories that demean the Bantus to enslaved people as excuses to take their land. These actions are aimed at marginalizing and displacing the Bantu Somalis from their ancestral homeland.
One of the schemes used by the Breed Somalis to disinherit the Bantus is to subvert Somali nationality. Initially, the word "Somali" was used as a nationality for the people of Somalia. The Bantu and Breed people shared the name "Somali" as their nationality. Later, the Breed took over the name and made up the term "Somali ethnic" to say that they owned the whole country by themselves. Even today, many Breed people don't know any better but think that all of Somalia belongs to them. With this scheme, the Bantu Somalis would not be recognized as landowners because they were not considered Somali nationals. Although President Barre crushed this scheme after he rose to power and came up with the idea to use the name Somali as an ethnic identity for the Breed group only, not a nationality, it had done irreversible damage to the land ownership rights of the Bantu Somalis. Therefore, the scheme helped the Breed Somalis move an inch closer to owning the Bantu Somalis' land.
Still, the Breed Somalis spread a lot of falsehoods about the actual population of the Somali Bantu to con them out of their land. When Siad Barre took power, he went on a tour to analyze the natural resources in the country. When he got to the south, he couldn't believe how many natural resources the Bantu people owned everywhere. So, he hired someone to count people in the south to see the majority clan in the south. His government counted the Bantu and Breed people to determine which group was the most common in southern Somalia. Research shows that when they presented the results of the statistics, he was shocked and tore up the paper because he thought they would be the majority. When people asked him why he tore up the paper, he said that if I told the public the result, it would cause a big problem. After finding out that Bantus were the majority in the south, his government started dividing the Bantus and making up false statistics about them. According to their figures, the Bantus comprised about 10% of the population. However, in a real sense, the proportion of Bantu Somalis was closer to 85% in south Somalia. That clearly illustrates how deceitful and wicked the Breed were in a region that was not theirs. Through this scheme, the Said Barre government succeeded in handing over the rich southern land to the Breed Somalis. The fabricated numbers showed the Bantu Somali population was small and could not be left to occupy this region alone.
After Said Barre came up with misleading population figures, he used government resettlement tactics to help the Breed Somalis takeover the southern region from the hands of the Bantus. He started illegally resettling three of his Daarood sub-clans without consulting the indigenous Bantus. First, looking at Said Barre's history shows he was not a Somali citizen. Instead, he was born in Ethiopia, in a place called Shilabo. Second, when Somalia was becoming independent, the colonial powers built a Somali army, and Siad Barre lied about being a Somali citizen so he could join the Somali army. After Somalia achieved its independence, the former president, Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, was assassinated in 1969, and Siad Barre took over the office immediately as president of Somalia without the people of Somalia voting. Due to Said Barre's background, he had a hidden intention of allocating the best lands to his tribe. Thus, his resettlement plan in the southern region was to provide land to his people. That explains why human rights abuses, corruption, and economic mismanagement characterized Siad Barre's rule over Somalia for over two decades. He ruled with an iron fist to perpetuate his ethnic community's interests while arm-twisting others. Siad Barre was still not satisfied by the relocation of two of his subtribes to the Bantu Southern region. Later on, after the Ethio-Somali war, he added another Darood subclan, from the north to occupy the territory, and gave them full control. Consequently, the Somali Bantus had no control over the country, not even over their own regions. He sacrificed everything to administer his sub-clans. Although Siad Barre's dictatorship eventually led to the outbreak of a civil war in 1991, he had managed to displace the Bantu Somalis from a big chunk of the land that he used to resettle his Breed subclans. Thus, the Bantu Somalis lost their land to the Breed subgroups associated with Said Barre during the schemed resettlement plan.
In addition, the Breed Somalis denied the Bantu Somali community the right to occupy the land in the southern region by spreading myths. First, they spread the myth that, before the Somali civil war, the Somali government denied that Bantus lived in the country. That had far-reaching consequences for the Somali Bantu because it made them appear as outsiders. The claim that the government did not verify their existence in the land before the civil war indicates that they had no right to live in or own it. Moreover, the Breed Somalis made sure that people would only find writing by the Breed group if they searched for information about Somalia. Their society, contrary to what they say, is neither homogeneous nor egalitarian. Further, it is a myth that Somali people have one language, one culture, one tradition, and one ethnicity, as is propagated by the Breeds. The Somalis live in diverse communities, just like people in other African countries. There are different groups, languages, and societies. But still, the Breed people didn’t want the Bantu people to be known or appear outside of Somalia because they’ve been doing silent genocide since 1977. Moreover, they have never wanted the world to realize their criminal activities and thus masquerade as a good and friendly group. The Breed Somalis have always used myths to keep what is not theirs.
Yet, the Breed Somalis perpetuate false online stories about the Bantus to demean them and discredit their right to occupy the southern region. The stories show that the Bantu Somalis are enslaved people who came to the country through the East African slave trade. In that case, the Breed people wrote books and articles and posted online propaganda about the East African slave trade to show the Bantus were not the rightful heirs of the land. However, they fail to explain that the Arabs and the Bantus traded together like the Breed. Further, the writings do not categorically state that the Bantus lived in southern Somalia before the Arab trade began in east Africa. The Arabs only used to steal children from the Breed and Bantu groups and sell them to the Middle East and India. Neither does the writing explain how they could live apart in two regions if at all the Bantus were their slaves. How can the Bantus be enslaved and live in the best part of the country while the Breed people live in the worst, uninhabited area? If the Bantus were their slaves, why did the government commit silent genocide against them to take their farmland? Why would the Arabs, who were rich, prosperous, and civilized, waste time selling slaves to the Breed people, who were poor and uncivilized, when they could sell their slaves to rich people? The Breed people need to show proof that they enslaved the Bantu people, evidence from the Omani Arab period during the East African trade as well as from the British colonial period and the Italian colonial period. A written record describing which sub-clans were purchased and enslaved, as well as their location at the time. The Breed people have no proof for their claim but use perpetual deception to subjugate the truth in their writings about the Bantus being their slaves.
In conclusion, the Breed Somalis have used many evil schemes to disinherit the Bantu people from the resource-rich Southern region. These include subverting the Somali nationality, where the term "Somali ethnic" is used as the nationality to mean that the land belongs to the Breed Somali people only. Still, President Siad Barre spread falsehoods about the actual population of the Bantu Somalis to show they were a small population. He fabricated the statistics and did not allow the actual statistics of the Bantu Somalis to be known. In addition, Siad Barre used government-led resettlement tactics that displaced the Bantu Somalis from the lands where he resettled the people from his Breed subclan. Again, the Breed Somalis denied the right of the Bantu to live in the land by spreading myths. They denied the Bantus existence in the country before the Civil War and claimed that people of one culture and tradition occupied Somaliland. Moreover, the Breed Somalis perpetuated false online stories that degraded the Bantus to slave status as excuses to take their land. They claimed that the Bantus were their slaves who came to the land through East African trade, but they could not validate those claims, which turned out to be false. In that case, the Breed people know that the land in the southern region belongs to the Somali Bantu, and despite their myths, the truth is out there.
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