by Guy Arnold
In the elections of 30 May 2002, the FLN, reversing their humiliation of 1997, won 199 of 389 seats in the new National Assembly while the RND was reduced to 46 seats. It seemed at least possible that the FLN was making a recovery as the dominant factor in Algerian politics. Given the changed world situation, following 11 September, and US interest in closer ties with Algeria shadowed by a determined French push to improve its relations as well, European criticisms of the Algerian political structure may well become less evident. In any case, European interest in Algeria has always been geared more to economics than to politics and if Algeria was prepared to enter into closer military ties with the US its less than satisfactory political performance – from a Western point of view – could be overlooked without much difficulty. Despite the moves towards democracy initiated by Chadli Benjedid, which acted as the tinder to launch the civil war of the 1990s, by the early part of the new century though violence was still continuing the Islamist opposition had become muted, at least for the time being, and the power structure in Algeria still consisted of the army, the presidency and – following the elections of May 2002 – a somewhat rehabilitated FLN once more in the political saddle. At the beginning of March 2003, President Jacques Chirac of France made a state visit to Algeria – the first since independence in 1962 – to a hero’s welcome. Partly, this was due to his stand against the United States and Britain going to war with Iraq; but partly, also, for an embattled country, it represented a welcome recognition of a government that had been isolated and treated with semi-pariah status for 10 years.
SOMALIA
The Algerian civil war had been fought between Algerians alone, without external interference; this was not the case in Somalia. During the 1980s Siad Barre had become increasingly autocratic and isolated while his poor human rights record alienated international opinion. By 1990 he had not only failed to eliminate the Somali clan system but had produced a situation in which there was escalating fighting both between clans and between clans and government. The country was reduced to a state of anarchy and Barre was losing control. By mid-1990 the government was forced to impose a curfew in Mogadishu while Barre was obliged to promise political reforms and elections for 1991, but it was too late. By the beginning of January 1991 the dissident United Somali Congress (USC) controlled large parts of the capital and on 27 January the USC announced that it had taken control of the government. Barre fled under army protection and went into exile in Nigeria, leaving behind him a civil war situation that would last for the rest of the decade.
The two principal players in the unfolding drama that Barre left were Gen. Farah Aideed and the businessman Ali Mahdi Mohammed. Aideed had been Somalia’s ambassador to India from 1984 to 1989 as Barre, who did not trust him, wanted him out of the way. In 1989 Aideed went to Italy where he became the leader of the dissident faction there. He returned to Somalia in 1991, after Barre had been forced to leave the country, to discover that his rival Ali Mahdi Mohammed had been proclaimed interim president. Factional fighting had increased rapidly on the departure of Barre and Aideed now emerged at the head of the faction that controlled most of Mogadishu. Aideed was shortly to achieve a high international profile, following the arrival of some 28,000 US marines at the end of 1992 whose stated purpose was to ensure that humanitarian aid reached the huge number of Somalis who had become refugees as a result of the clan warfare and were close to starvation. Aideed’s forces repeatedly prevented the marines from gaining control of Mogadishu with the result that violence between his faction and the US forces escalated steadily through 1993. The US marines, who were technically part of the wider UN operation, made the mistake of demonizing Aideed. A UN resolution ordered his arrest but he was never captured despite enormous US efforts and in the end he was seen to triumph when the United Nations brought its mission in Somalia to a close. However, Aideed’s success in defying both the Americans and the UN did not continue after the withdrawal of the UN Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM-II) and he himself was mortally wounded in the faction fighting in 1996.
Aideed was always a warlord rather than the statesman that post-Barre Somalia required. Ali Mahdi Mohammed was a businessman and pragmatist rather than a warlord. In 1990 he had been one of 114 private citizens who signed a letter condemning Barre’s policies and had then been obliged to flee the country to avoid arrest. Outside Somalia he raised money to finance the USC, which had offices in Rome. He returned to Somalia towards the end of 1990 by which time the USC had established a foothold in Mogadishu. He was not a military man or fighter and saw his role as one of raising funds for the USC. On 27 February 1991 he had been put forward as a compromise candidate to be interim president. Mohammed’s presidency was endorsed by six guerrilla groups though not by Aideed or by other factions outside Mogadishu who had not been consulted. Even so, he was sworn in as President of Somalia on 18 August 1991 for a two-year term. However, Aideed at once contested his presidency and in September a power struggle for control of Mogadishu erupted between the followers of the two men. The situation deteriorated through 1992 as famine and starvation affected a growing number of the population. Armed bands, acting independently, controlled their own areas and held people and food relief supplies to ransom.
The United Nations became involved in mid-1992 in the hope of restoring order and ensuring that relief supplies reached their proper destinations but its failure to do so persuaded US President George Bush (senior) to authorize the use of 28,000 marines (under UN auspices) in Operation Restore Hope to protect relief columns from the depredations of clan groups. The US-led United Nations Task Force (UNTAF) arrived in Somalia in December 1992 and in January 1993 began to search for weapons in Mogadishu and other centres of population. On 7 January the US Commander, Gen. Robert Johnson, announced that his troops had opened up supply routes to the famine-affected areas and that a ‘new phase’ in Somalia was about to begin. In Mogadishu, almost at once, the marines came up against sniper fire and other forms of resistance and it was clear that the various parties vying for political control did not intend to accept US mediation. Gen. Aideed, who was soon to be denounced by the US authorities in Somalia, had formed the Somali National Alliance (SNA) with a military wing, the Somali Liberation Army (SLA). One of the first marine actions was to destroy an SNA arms cache and kill 30 Somalis. On 13 January the US forces suffered their first casualty when a marine was shot dead. Marine ‘policing’ action now became more aggressive. By the end of the month there were 24,000 US marines and a further 13,600 troops from other countries in Somalia under the UN umbrella. Tensions quickly developed between the US and the UN over the role of the American forces. Washington wanted to withdraw its forces from Somalia by April 1993, which clearly gave them little time to accomplish anything worthwhile, but the UN argued they should remain longer to help control the situation. At the end of February Aideed went on the offensive with his SLA, following a rumour that the US favoured one of his rivals. The SLA barricaded streets in Mogadishu, fought running battles with the US marines and attempted to storm the US and French embassies. At the same time, about 100 people were killed in street fighting between the SNA and the supporters of Gen. Mohammed Siyad Hersi Morgan, a son-in-law of Barre. During March the United States began to pull out its troops and the UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, named 1 May as the date for the peacekeeping operation to be handed over to the UN (by the Americans) to become UNOSOM-II. The US agreed to leave 5,000 troops as its contribution to UNOSOM-II, bringing its strength up to approximately 20,000 troops, apart from 2,500 civilian staff. Fighting in the southern town of Kismayu in March required the US to send 500 marines to restore order and bolster the US-Belgian garrison. The operation resulted in 100 Somali deaths. On 15 March a national reconciliation conference was convened in Addis Ababa and both Mohammed and Aideed attended. By the end of the month the conference had agreed to establish a Transitional National Council as a temporary Supreme Authority. In May the US-led UNTAF handed over authority to the UN and
UNOSOM-II came into effect under the command of a Turkish general. UNOSOM-II had 20,000 troops from 35 countries and the authority to act anywhere in Somalia and use whatever means were required to disarm the warring factions, maintain peace and safeguard relief workers.
UNOSOM-II had an uneasy history and its operations in Somalia reflected little credit on the United Nations. Troops from several of the participating countries were accused of brutality and atrocities. In the north, meanwhile, the self-proclaimed state of Somaliland (former British Somaliland) behaved as an independent country and on 5 May 1993 elected Mohamed Ibrahim Egal as its president. On 5 June a street battle in Mogadishu resulted in 23 Pakistani casualties and Pakistan called for retaliatory action against Aideed. The United States sent reinforcements from the Gulf and the Security Council in New York condemned the unprovoked attack on UNOSOM forces. UNOSOM then launched a series of attacks on SNA. While this action may have given a certain satisfaction to the countries whose troops had been targeted, it could hardly be described as peacekeeping. Following US air attacks upon SNA targets, Aideed accused the United States of attacking civilians. On 13 June Pakistani troops fired on demonstrators in Mogadishu, killing 10 and wounding 50. There appeared to be little restraint on the part of UNOSOM forces and not much evidence of control from above.
The UN then made the mistake of ordering the arrest of Aideed and UNOSOM mounted a massive manhunt for him in Mogadishu in which 31 UN soldiers were killed as the manhunt proceeded. Then the death of three Italian soldiers led to demands by the opposition in Rome for the withdrawal of the Italian contingent while Italy blamed US belligerency for the deaths. By this time there was growing criticism of the US contingent for its ‘macho’ attitude in Somalia and especially that of Adm. Jonathan T. Howe, the US Special Representative in Somalia. A second operation to capture Aideed was mounted on 12 July with no more success although it resulted in 54 deaths and 174 wounded. In August the elite US Rangers raided a house in which they thought to find Aideed but instead took UN and French aid workers prisoner. By this time the US forces appeared to be acting as though their operation was a vendetta against Aideed rather than part of a larger UNOSOM operation. Two hundred Somalis were killed on 9 September when a US helicopter fired on a crowd in Mogadishu; there were seven UN casualties. On 22 September 1993, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 865 that would bring the UNOSOM-II operation to a close in March 1995. In October a battle in Mogadishu led to the deaths of 300 Somalis and 18 US marines, while a US pilot and a Nigerian soldier were taken prisoner. On 9 October Kofi Annan, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, visited Mogadishu and decided that the UN casualty rate was too high; he subsequently argued for ‘some sort of judicial process’ to investigate Aideed’s responsibility for UN deaths. In effect, this represented a UN climb down, an admission that the demonizing of Aideed and the attempt to arrest him had been a failure, especially for the United States which had pushed the policy. On 27 October UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali announced that the UN would reconsider Resolution 837, which had authorized the arrest of Aideed. US President Bill Clinton called for the creation of a new Somali government and announced that all US troops would be withdrawn from Somalia by 31 March 1994. Germany, France, Belgium and Sweden announced their intention of also withdrawing early in 1994. Pakistan, on the other hand, said it was prepared to commit 5,000 troops to UNOSOM-II. In November the UN formally abandoned the search for Aideed and instead set up a Commission of Inquiry into responsibility for attacks upon UN forces. The UN renewed the UNOSOM mandate until 31 May 1995.
The end of 1993, which had been a disastrous year for the reputations of both the UN and US in Somalia, saw the withdrawal of a large proportion of the US, German, Italian and French forces. On 4 February 1994, in another softening of its earlier stand, the UN emphasized that its mandate was peacekeeping and reconciliation as opposed to enforcement. Violence continued throughout the first half of 1994 as UN troops were withdrawn. Aideed and Mohammed remained the two principal contenders for power. The problem throughout the country, which neither the US nor the UN had resolved, was how to disarm the various militarized groups. By 25 March 1994, after the withdrawal of the US and European contingents, UNOSOM-II was reduced from 29,000 to 19,000 troops drawn mainly from Africa and Pakistan. Aideed and Mohammed met in Nairobi, Kenya, during March and agreed to form a government of national reconciliation although the agreement was soon abandoned. There was more fighting in Mogadishu in May when Aideed’s forces captured the airport. In March 1995 the last UNOSOM-II forces were evacuated from Somalia by an international fleet and 1,800 US marines. The enterprise had been a disaster for the UN. Faction fighting continued to the end of 1996. On 1 August 1996 Aideed died of wounds received in a battle in Mogadishu a week earlier. His death threw the future of the SNA into doubt though immediately his son, Hussein Aideed, became the SNA leader.
At the end of 1996 Somalia remained divided among its factions; fighting periodically erupted in Mogadishu and elsewhere; the country was physically ruined; tens of thousands of people were maimed. The outside world that had briefly taken an interest in its problems had ceased to be interested. Thus, instead of Somalia providing the first example of a peacekeeping operation under the ‘new world order’ proclaimed by President Bush in the immediate euphoria following the end of the Cold War, it had led to the humiliation of both the UN and US and put in jeopardy any further effective UN peacekeeping operations. There had been little co-operation between the various peacekeeping forces and the most obvious lesson for the UN was how little its members either respected it or were prepared to ensure its success. The above is a chronological account of the operation in Somalia, but it is worth examining a few of the problems that had to be dealt with or – as too often was the case – were not dealt with adequately.
In the first place any peacekeeping operation requires at least a minimal desire amongst the combatants to find a solution to their confrontation. This, clearly, was not the case in Somalia. The Somali combatants had not asked for UN intervention, despised and resented UN efforts, and when the UN forces did attempt to intervene in Mogadishu fought them grimly, inflicting sufficient casualties to make UNOSOM-II change both its tactics and its objective. What did interest the Somali warlords was the relief food that UNOSOM was mandated to deliver to those in need. The inability to deliver food to the hungry became the problem in Somalia rather than any lack of food supplies. Sometimes the ships bringing food to Mogadishu were turned away by mortar fire as the militias fought for the incoming spoils. Mohammed Sahnoun was appointed by Boutros-Ghali as his special representative in Somalia in April 1992, yet in October the Secretary-General dismissed him for making high-profile complaints about UN incompetence. Throughout the UN operation too much attention was paid to public relations and not enough to what was actually happening on the ground. The US intervention with its high-sounding title – Operation Restore Hope – was geared to the US big power image while President Bush’s bombastic claims that the troops were doing ‘God’s work’ in Somalia, on a mission at which Americans ‘cannot fail’, was simply handing hostages to fortune.
The relief operation ought to have been relatively simple to handle. The relief agencies had been loud in their demands for military intervention since the supplies they provided were constantly looted. Since Somalia possessed two good ports and reasonable airports and highways the operation of relief did not face the kind of problems that existed in the south of Sudan. In fact, famine deaths had peaked by October–November 1991 and were in decline when the Americans arrived. A US government-commissioned report found that the US intervention may have saved 10,000–25,000 lives (plus 40,000 during the August–December 1992 airlift of relief food) while the number of lost lives ‘due to delays in undertaking earlier decisive action’ was between 100,000 and 125,000.7 Such calculations give a rough idea of the size of the problem.
The American journalist Scott Peterson, in his vivid
account of the Somali fiasco, describes the arrival of the US marines and the way in which their man on the spot, Robert Oakley who had only arrived two days earlier, stage-managed the arrival and in order to do so effectively had sought the support of the warlords so that he ‘may have actually’ elevated the status of the warlords at a time when their authority was ebbing. As one cynical UN official explained, ‘George Bush doesn’t want a war at Christmas’. This immediate US decision not to disarm the warlords caused the first rift with the UN Secretary-General. Thus, while Lt Gen. Robert Johnson, the marine commander, confirmed this decision: ‘I think the belief that we can disarm Somalia is totally naïve’, Boutros-Ghali complained publicly that President Bush had promised him disarmament. The aid agency Médecins sans Frontières added to the dispute when it said the new US stance ‘fitted in with its ambitious timetable to start withdrawing American troops as early as January and its commitment to “zero casualties”, an approach influenced by the lack of conviction behind a media-driven intervention’.8 Close examination of the US intervention makes clear how little it had to do with resolving problems in Somalia and how much it was geared to internal US politics at the tail end of Bush’s presidency and, as a Pentagon official said, ‘The best thing about Somalia was that it saved us from Bosnia’. A plan that envisaged rushing 28,000 marines to Somalia in December and beginning their withdrawal in January suggests an almost total lack of understanding of what was happening on the ground. At the same time Boutros-Ghali, though later he fell out bitterly with the Americans, wanted a massive US intervention to cover the abysmal failings of the UN operation at that time.