Grim times in Somalia
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from July 1993.
Brought to you by
Before the incident he was the most powerful war-lord in his country, in control of the capital and poised to take a leading part in any future government. Now he is in hiding with a warrant out for his arrest.
Aideed, whose name in Somali means "he must not be insulted," made a terrible mistake when he ambushed the UN workers trying to distribute relief aid. Using women and children as "human shields" his gunmen killed 23 Pakistani soldiers and wounded 59 others.
Many of the Pakistanis were found to be terribly mutilated with their stomachs cut open and their eyes gouged out. Fourteen UN peace keepers captured the in bloody battle were held as hostages in ransom.
It was this that led to the savage, United States-inspired retaliation. On June 13 and again on July 12, US gun ship helicopter bombarded Aideed's arms dumps throughout the capital, Mogadishu and his headquarters. Hundreds died in the engagements while Aideed slipped away into the bowels of the city.
The UN forces, motivated primarily by the US which seems to command the UN Security Council, have been heavily criticised for the violence of their response and for using gun ships which massacred the innocent as well as the war lord's gun men. Overall an estimated 100 innocent Somalis were killed. Ordinary citizens of Mogadishu felt they had been attacked by an alien, foreign power. Their saviours had become a brutal occupying force. Operation restore hope had become "Operation Bring Death." Wild rumours began to circulated about US troops dropping civilians out of helicopters into the streets.
The UN also proved itself remarkably incompetent in getting Aideed. The warrant for his arrest was put out in mid-June. The tiny quarter of Mogadishu where he is hiding is well known. Journalist have found him easily and interviewed him, yet the UN intelligence is so poor and their tactics so clumsy, that they have been unable to arrest him quickly and and cleanly. Hence the growing violence between Aideed's supporters (who are a minority from a small clan) and the Unosom forces.
The moment Aideed is captured his support will shrivel away. His capture could be a turning point. In the two and a half years since the dictator Siyad Barre was toppled from power in January 1991, an estimated 350,000 Somalis have been killed, anarchy has ruled, more than haif the capital has been reduced to rubble, the people have faced starvation and no permanent system of government has been established.
This is the legacy of President Barre, made worse by Aideed and the other war-lords who are equally to blame for the misery they have brought to their country.
Ali Mahdi Mohammed has been talking with honeyed words since his rival was driven underground, but he does not have the universal backing while General Mohammed Morgan (Barre's son-in-law) is responsible for more deaths in Somalia than Aideed himself.
Now that the UN has stumbled into a tougher role, it should continue with its policy of breaking the power of the warlords and total disarmament. It needs to assume a long-term law and order role to back the peace process and any new authority that emerges out of the chaos.
There are some hopeful signs. Two major reconciliation conferences sponsored by the UN, were held in Addis Ababa in January and March. The March conference gave Unosom the authority to "disarm all the militias within 90 days."
The conferences also established a theoretical framework for government and the outlines of a transitional National Council, though it has come to nothing with warlords still in power. UN special envoy Admiral Jonathan Howe met most of the leaders who had signed the reconciliation agreement and they issued a statement on June 25 saying that the UN should be supported.
One of the new leadership, Awad Asheh, said: "We must do everything in our power to help the UN its noble mission." Since then Howe has promised that the disarmament process will continue and that the UN confrontation will finally have been shown to be "helpful."
Meanwhile a Peace Committee of Somali elders has been gradually gaining some authority in Mogadushu. It is made up of former ministers, businessmen, civil servants, and women's leaders drawn from all the major Somali clans.
This representative committee was neglected while Aideed and his tiny Habir Gedir clan were in control in Mogadishu, but now it could come into its own.
The UN must not stagger from crisis to crisis by backing the most likely war-lord. Its task is to keep order and back democracy while peace loving Somalis work out a political solution. - Gemini News About the author:
Alan Rake is Managing Editor of New African and African Business. He broadcasts regularly on the BBC. He edited African Development, a Gemini publication for ten years before it became African Business.
