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SECURITY AND STATE BUILDING IN THE EXPERIENCE
OF THE ITALIAN TRUST ADMINISTRATION IN SOMALIA

ration in this sector, developed with the info-operational limits that the fewer
resources and the more difficult environmental conditions of the African con-
tinent generated. Since the first months of the AFIS there is a trace of corre-
spondence in this sense between the Administration and the British Kenya and
Somaliland developing, in terms of best practices, a concrete cooperation,
implemented by a circular from the AFIS Office of Internal Affairs, dated
January 25, 1951, concerning the “correspondence with the Criminal

Investigation Department”, following which the Carabinieri Group is made
aware of the possibility of exchanging data, in particular those relating to regi-
stered offenders, directly with the corresponding British office .
(38)
Furthermore, border cooperation was part of a more articulated work of
general pacification of inter-clan relations which, combined with Police and
internal prevention and control, aimed at creating the conditions of order and
(39)
security necessary for the consolidation of central authority. Examples of
such practices are a report by the Commissariat of Upper Juba, dated 30 April 1953,
about an agreement between Merehan and Cabile of Kenya, stipulated in
Italian and English and aimed at resolving the usual disputes generated by tre-

spassing for the purpose of raiding. . The agreement concerned a Diya, the
para-contractual instrument mentioned above, against the Garre, a Somali
population established within the Kenyan borders under English administra-
tion, for the killing of 5 Merehans and the restitution of 540 cows and 26
camels; the Anglo-Italian mediation of the tribal conflict, despite the initial dif-
ficulties also due to different drafting of the two versions of the agreement and
the particular interests that each administration supported, in order not to lose

authority towards its own representatives, the Merehans for the Italians and the
Garre for the British, resulted in a gradual relaxation of relations between the
towns on both sides of the southern border of Somalia. Another evidence is
the report of January 15 1953 by the AFIS Internal Affairs Office, relating to
an agreement of friendship and collaboration between Darod, Ogaden and
Merehan and oriented towards the future definition of borders, expressly
represented as a consequence of our policy of pacification among the populations in the nei-
ghboring Somali territories.

(38) Circolare n. 310947 di prot. datata 25 gennaio 1951 dell’AFIS - Ufficio Affari Interni e diretta
al Gruppo CC Somalia, Consolato Italiano di Nairobi e AFIS - Uff. Affari Internazionali,
avente ad oggetto “Corrispondenza con il Criminal Investigation Department”, ASMAE, f.
A.F.I.S., cassa 9, busta 28.
(39) Rapporto n. 12336 di prot. datato 30 aprile 1953 del Commissariato dell’Alto Giuba diretto
a AFIS - Uff. Affari Interni e Affari Internazionali e avente per oggetto “Accordo raggiunto
tra Marehan e le cabile del Kenya”, ASMAE, f. AFIS, cassa 9, busta 10.

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