Askari troops in Janale suppressed Somali resistance to colonial land seizure

Evidence

When Rossi’s tour of duty came to an end and he went back to Italy, Hawa and Osman met another Italian officer and went with him to Doon Dheere, near Janale, where he commanded a company of native soldiers. The Janale region was to become a major site of settler colonization in Somalia, which displaced large numbers of local farmers from their land. The askaris were there to suffocate Somali resistance to the colonial labor regime and prevent the uprising of the dislocated. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 139

Categorization

• XREF: The Janale colonization as settler dispossession backed by native troops connects to later Somali resistance and clan-land dynamics leading to the 1960 democracy era.