Barre threatened to kill former leaders who reentered politics

Evidence

But the real message they were called to hear was that this government was unlike any other they had known and that he was warning them to stay out of public affairs, otherwise the regime would act swiftly against them if they reentered politics. The final message was, “We do not wait to be shot first, but when we feel threatened we preemptively go for the kill.” — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 1054

Categorization

• XREF: Barre’s preemptive-kill doctrine foreshadows the murderous repression that came to mark his two-decade rule of Somalia.