SUMMARY
Rahanweyn, also known as Rewin, is the collective name for members of the Digil-Mirifle clan family. RRA (Rahanweyn Resistance Army) was a Rahanweyn militia formed in October 1995, borne out of a shir (an ad hoc elders assembly) in Jhaffey, west of Baidoa. The group was formed as a response to the occupation of the city of Baidoa by the Hawiye, and particularly Habr Gedir, clan based militia USC/SNA (United Somali Congress/Somali National Alliance), during which several prominent Rahanweyn leaders had been killed or imprisoned.
Members of the Rahanweyn clan were amongst those most affected by the conflict induced drought that had hit the inter-riverine region of Somalia in the early 1990s. Thousands of people were killed and more displaced as a result of the famine that followed. In response to this vulnerability the Rahanweyn started to politically organise and several political conferences were held in the period of 1993-1995, finally resulting in the Pan Digil and Mirifle Congress and the establishment of an inter-riverine political entity in May 1995, often referred to as the Riverine State which was made up of the Bay and Bakool regions in south western Somalia. The fertile lands of the region had been under the control of the foreign intervention, UNOSOM (United Nations Operation in Somalia) that intervened in Somalia in the early 1990s to stabilise the conflicts and provide aid to those starving. Once the Rahanweyn population started to organise and created a political entity of their own; USC/SNA responded by occupying Baidoa (also called Baydhabo) in Bay region in mid-September 1995. In response to this the Rahanweyn population began mobilising militarily and in October the same year armed conflict began between the groups.
There seems to be no direct link, besides clan affiliation, between RRA and SDM (Somali Democratic Movement) which was another Rahanweyn political and armed movement, formed in 1989 and which had been actively fighting against the previous Somali regime of Siad Barre. SDM ceased to exist in the early 1990s after the group split, with one section favouring the new president Ali Mahdi and the other supporting Mohammed Farah ‘Aideed’ of the USC/SNA.
RRA has had links to several other groups. The Somaliland government of Ibrahim Egal sent weapons to support RRA under the logic that the enemy of my enemy is my friend; RRA’s enemy USC/SNA supported the Garhajis clan-based Forces of Abdurahman Ahmed Ali ‘Tuur’ which was involved in a conflict with the government of Somaliland at the time (for more info see the section in the database on the non-state conflict between Republic of Somaliland and Forces of Abdurahman Ahmed Ali ‘Tuur’). Under the same logic, the group also received military support from the Ethiopian government, which also had an interest in seeing the USC/SNA weakened since they were supported by the Ethiopian government’s arch enemy, the Eritrean government.
The leader of RRA was Hassan Mohamed Nur ‘Shatigadud’ (Red Shirt). Other members of the leadership were Shaykh Adan Madobe and Muhammad Ibrahim Habsabe. In April 2002, RRA in Baidoa announced the formation of an autonomous "Southwest State of Somalia," making it a third separatist region in Somalia (in addition to Puntland and Somaliland). However, internal RRA fractionalisation hindered the consolidation of such a state as a bloody non-state conflict broke out in July 2002 between forces loyal to RRA chairman Shatigadud on one side and Shaykh Adan Madobe and Muhammad Ibrahim Habsade who created a pro-TNG RRA faction. Shatigadud and Madobe reconciled in 2004 and both joined the TFG (Transitional Federal Government), the internationally recognised government of Somalia which was established in 2004 but did not set foot in Mogadishu until 2006 when the ARS/UIC (Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia/Union of Islamic Courts) were ousted with the assistance of Ethiopian troops (for more information see the state-based conflict description).
RRA has been involved in the non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organised violence.
