Page 199 - Rassegna 2021-3

STATE BUILDING E SICUREZZA NELL’ESPERIENZA
DELL’AMMINISTRAZIONE FIDUCIARIA ITALIANA IN SOMALIA

after the constitution of the Somali Units. Ultimately, all the burden of educa-
ting the recruits and their military training fell on the shoulders of the very few
officers of the Somali Units” .
(10)
In the meantime, a generation had grown up that considered Italy as the
ancestral enemy of the resurrected Somali people, who adhered to the posi-
tions of the SYL, all aimed at independence, and recognized the militancy with
foreigners as an unbearable ignominy: in a report dated 12 April 1950 drafted
by the Commander of the Somali Battalion, for example, reference is made to
the behaviour of a driver inside a hotel in Danane, one of the three recruitment
centers initially set up, who addressed 47 Somali recruits uttering that only
Italian askari were there because the real Somalis had refused to enlist .
(11)
But in addition to the technical profile, reliability was also important in
relation to the loyalty that the new recruits could ensure: a sector in which the
difficulty, especially at the beginning, consisted in the obstacles to lead accurate
preventive checks on the personal histories of the recruits, among which ele-
ments at risk could well be hidden as, for example, we read in a report dated
(12)
13 October 1950 by the Personnel Office of the Security Corps, relating to the
case of a convict enlisted under a false name, subsequently identified and arre-
sted.
An unreliability that could also be hidden behind the events of those who
had already enlisted for Italy and who, at least on formally, should have guaran-
teed greater trust: this is testified by the case of a Iusbasci chief of the zaptié,
or a NCO of the Somali Carabinieri, assigned, until 1941, at the Belet Uen
Station who, during the war, rather than following the retreating metropolitan
troops, had obtained his discharge and from 1942 had passed to the British ser-
vice for 120 shillings a month: he had then tried to be recruited again but,
suspected of espionage for the British , was rejected. It is clear that, in a situa-
(13)
tion like this, at least initially, an intuitu personae enlistment was preferable,
especially if ensured by officers or officials who, due to previous experience in

(10) Rapporto “riservato del CSS datato 12 gennaio 1952, avente ad oggetto “Il problema delle
scuole e dei corsi militari in Somalia nel quadro dell’assolvimento del mandato fiduciario”,
AUSSME, f. I-2, Busta 26, fasc. 224.
(11) Rapporto del Comando del I Btg. Somalo n. 165 di prot. Datato 12 aprile 1950 indirizzato
a CSS, avente ad oggetto “Comportamento somalo Abdurraman Issa - Migiurtino (Ali
Soleman)”, AUSSME, f. I-2, Busta 37, fasc. 398.
(12) Rapporto del CSS - Ufficio Personale n. 200 di prot. datato 13 ottobre 1950, diretto a
Comando Truppe Esercito et a., avente ad oggetto “Sostituzione di persona negli arruolati
militari somali” AUSSME, f. I-2, Busta 37, fasc. 397.
(13) Nota informativa del Gruppo CC Somalia n. 28/28 di prot. Datata 13 luglio 1950 e diretta a
CSS, avente ad oggetto “ex iusbasci capo degli zaptié Mohamed Abdalla” AUSSME, f. I-2,
Busta 37, fasc. 401.

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