Somali Dictator Ousted In 1991 Dies In Exile

LAGOS, Nigeria - Ousted Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, who thrived during the Cold War but left his nation starving and in disarray when he was forced from power in 1991, died yesterday in exile.

Siad Barre, whose birth year has been given variously as 1912, 1919 and 1921, was diabetic and had been ill for some time, said a son, Dirie Barre. A Foreign Ministry official said the former president died en route to a Lagos hospital.

The Nigerian government granted Siad Barre asylum in 1992, more than a year after he was forced from the Somali capital of Mogadishu during a siege by rebels opposed to his increasingly brutal 21-year reign.

Siad Barre's departure left Somalia's 8 million people without a government and plunged it into anarchy. Rival clans looted government buildings and helped themselves to Siad Barre's vast arsenal built up during Cold War courtships by the United States and Soviet Union.

Drought and war caused a famine that killed about 350,000 people in 1992 and prompted a U.S.-led mercy mission to protect aid supplies from armed clansmen. Two years later, 42 Americans and more than 100 U.N. peacekeepers had been killed in clashes with clansmen loyal to the country's main warlords.

The mission, the United Nations' bloodiest since the Korean War, ended the famine but raised questions about U.N. political involvement in such conflicts. The last peacekeepers are due to leave by March, having failed to stop the clan-based war.

Siad Barre was appointed the new nation's army vice commander when Somalia gained independence in 1960. Five years later, he became commander-in-chief.

After leading a coup on Oct. 21, 1969, Siad Barre blended Marxist doctrine, Somali traditions and Islamic precepts into what he called "scientific socialism."