5 things that I found interesting in my research

Before 1991, when Somalia was ruled over by a dictator, there was extreme media censorship. For example, only one newspaper was allowed to be published. Dissent or disagreeing with the government was a violation of the law, punishable by death.

In 2001, the UNDP published the following statement: "the 21-year regime of Siyad Barre had one of the worst human rights records in Africa."

In 1980, as the government began to collapse in Somalia, massive inflation occurred. In some years the annual depreciation of the Somali Schilling was over 300% compared to the US Dollar. What occurred was similar to what happened in Germany before Hitler came to power. The citizens were robbed from their savings because their money no longer had any value.

By the 1980s Somalia was essentially funded by other nations. By the mid 1980s 100% of their development budget and 50% of their recurrent budged was funded by foreign aid. By 1987 more than 70% of Somalia's total operating budget was financed through foreign aid.

Those are some of the facts about what Somalia was like before its period of statelessness. My research paper will investigate the before/and after of this event.