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

the Mudugh and Migiurtinia area, where the clans most sympathized with
SYL: its penetration among the ranks was performed more than anything else
through the usual mechanisms of family and tribal knowledge and aimed to
persuade the recruits to avoid to intervene against members of the League
during demonstrations, shooting in the air and avoiding to proceed with the
arrest of demonstrators. In providing these indications, Captain Alberto
(44)
Russo, who in June 1950 wrote from the Chisimaio detachment specifying
that he had set up a surveillance service on presumptively unfaithful elements
and keeping informants extraneous to the department even at his own expen-
se, still had feelings of moderate confidence, highlighting that the information
about the participation of the troops in the SYL have been exaggerated. Among the
Migiurtini and Merehans of the department there are several excellent elements whose loyal-
ty is very difficult to doubt (...) We easily control the situation within the department, a
situation that can certainly be defined as good, morally and materially.
In this regard, however, Brunero more than optimistic is caustic about
the division of the territory desired by the top of the Security Corps, regar-
ding the areas of greatest operational interest, reporting on the Carabinieri

battalion, intended to operate as an Army Unit and not as a Police body which, due to
their braidings, received the arduous and particularly demanding task of garrisoning
Migiurtinia, that is to say the most distant and riotous Region, notorious stronghold of the
anti-Italian movement belonging to the ‘young Somalis’; nevertheless, without prejudi-
ce, he recognized that among the intellectuals of the Unit (...) represented by the
Non-Commissioned Officers (...) almost all [were] not very old, intelligent, prepared and,
in regard to the environment, educated: all spoke and wrote English with sufficient correct-

ness, few Italian. The problem of Police officers enlisted by the British was
accompanied by another, affecting the personnel, whose moral importance far tran-
scended the practical and contingent, though not negligible, always quoting the lucid,
frank and dry prose of the Lieutenant Colonel Brunero, in relation to the for-
mer zaptié who had once faithfully served in the ranks of the Arma and many of whom
had constantly abstained - or even refused, despite severe deprivation -to pass under the
orders of the occupier. After nine years of absence, of humiliation, sacrifices and groun-
dless hopes - they had joyfully greeted the return of the tricolor: it would have been a crime
to neglect and disappoint them since they were “friends” to the point that they woud never
hurt us. Insurmountable difficulties also stood in the way of their insertion into the Police

force created by the English and taken over under binding conditions: in fact, graduates

(44) Rapporto n. 13/Ris. Di prot. datato 3 giugno 1950 del Distaccamento di Chisimaio e diretto
al Comandante del CSS avente ad oggetto “Relazione militari simpatizzanti per il S.Y.L.”,
AUSSME, f. I-2, Busta 42, fasc. 415.

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