Osman remembers this was in 1923 because of the arrival of the ship carrying the new Italian fascist governor of Somalia, Cesare Maria De Vecchi, one of the four leaders who marched on Rome with Mussolini, in the Mogadishu harbor. A year later, in 1924, the gover- nor brought Italian settlers to Somalia, mainly from his home region, Piedmont. Somalis along the Shabelle River were dispossessed and turned into bonded laborers for the Janale irrigation project. Other Somalis in the Upper Juba region were enslaved to toil in their land to enrich the colonial settlers.

Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, loc. 1167