Colonel Mohammed returned to his native Somalia after the Somali independence and union in 1964 and straight away joined the young Somali military forces, After the coup in Somalia in 1969, Colonel Mohammed has been sent to Soviet, Iraq and USA for further study in military training.

"At night nobody can walk on this street," he added, crouching along the walls of Hawataka Street, named for a heroine of Somali independence.

This is the place where the long struggle for Somali independence and pride began and culminated in the creation of Somali republic in 1960.

Ebla travels first to the nearest town, where she becomes a put-upon servant, and then to Mogadishu, where she marries a low-level bureaucrat who soon leaves for Italy (it is the eve of Somali independence), then becomes the secret second wife of a married man who pays her after their trysts.

During the nine-year period of parliamentary democracy that followed Somali independence, freedom of expression was widely regarded as being derived from the traditional right of every man to be heard.