I've created a C shared library (libSysEventProxy.so) that contains a
JNI wrapper that calls functions in another shared library
(libnetcomm.so); this shared library in turn calls functions in yet
another library (libnetgen.so). Thus, the static initializer in my Java
class loads the libraries in order:

static {
   System.loadLibrary( "netgen" );
   System.loadLibrary( "netcomm" );
   System.loadLibrary( "SysEventProxy" );
}

All the shared libraries reside in the same directory (which is listed
in my LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable), and the ClassLoader
locates the libraries OK.
The first shared library loaded (libnetgen.so) contains a global
variable defined and initialized as:

int someOldFlag = -1;

I used the nm utility to verify that someOldFlag is indeed listed in
the initialized data section of the libnetgen.so symbol table. This
library loads OK.
The second shared library (libnetcomm.so) declares a reference to that
variable as:

extern int someOldFlag;

The ClassLoader locates the library OK and tries to load it, but it
then throws the aforementioned UnsatisfiedLinkError, with the
traceback:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError:
/spec_platform/netcomm/libnetcomm.so.1:
/spec_platform/netcomm/libnetcomm.so.1: undefined symbol: someOldFlag
       at java.lang.ClassLoader$NativeLibrary.load(Native Method)
       at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary0(ClassLoader.java:1586)
       at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1511)
       at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:788)
       at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:834)
       at gbl_fw.vdasif.SysEventProxy.<clinit>(SysEventProxy.java:31)
       at SysEventProxyTest.main(SysEventProxyTest.java:13)

Thus, it appears that the ClassLoader can't link the variable
declaration in
libnetcomm.so to its definition in libnetgen.so.

Question: What can I do to make the ClassLoader load all of the
libraries cleanly?

Thank you in advance!

p.s. gcc version: gcc (GCC) 3.3.2 20040119 Red Hat Linux (3.3.2-8)