by Guy Arnold
In the end the UN and the US committed themselves to disarm Aideed and became involved in a battle – or series of battles – in Mogadishu that provided Aideed’s forces with perfect conditions in which to take on a superior enemy force while proving a disaster for both the UN and the US marines. When the Americans departed they claimed, with astonishing self-delusion if not hubris, that they had ‘brought Somalia back from the brink of self-destruction’. Peterson describes the daily US press briefings as fabrications and double-speak. He says of Dave Stockwell, the US information spokesman, ‘He knew that we knew that he had been ordered to fabricate the truth as necessary – to revise recent history – so that UNOSOM-II or at least the American role, was bathed in the warmest possible glow.’9 The warlords were in control when the UN and then the US went into Somalia and they were still in control when they departed. The much-vaunted mission to Somalia turned into a tragedy as well as a public relations disaster with the Americans and the UN blaming each other for what went wrong while going against all the rules laid down for conducting peacekeeping operations as they demonized Aideed and used unacceptable force. Not only did they inflict heavy casualties upon the people they had come to protect and succour, they did not even succeed in their objective. One final comment by Peterson is worth recording: ‘The myth that American troops were bullet proof Rambos would be broken forever in Somali minds.’ Shocked by a similar realization – and reluctantly admitting that the relief mission had in fact turned to war – President Clinton would end the manhunt and withdraw US forces six months later. The front lines of ‘peace enforcement’ were to be abandoned. The pullout precipitated the retreat of the 14 other Western contingents, irreversibly undermining the UN’s nation-building dream.’10 This fiasco would ensure the non-participation of the US in the even greater looming calamity in Rwanda.
Now, if the US intervention in Somalia can be faulted, so too can the way in which the UN operation was deployed. In his book Unvanquished the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, makes plain in only semi-diplomatic language the extent to which he blamed the Americans for what went wrong. At the same time, he reveals something of the constraints upon his power, none of which hindered the United States. Boutros-Ghali addresses the issue of the failed state: ‘By 1992 Somalia had become a “failed state”. For the past half century, it had been assumed that nations emerging from colonialism and gaining entry into the United Nations would achieve “statehood” as a permanent condition; it was never envisaged that statehood could be lost.’11 Here at any rate was a problem that applied to other states in Africa during the 1990s and not just Somalia. The difficulties of mounting an effective UN peacekeeping operation when the necessary military forces have to be drawn from some 35 countries are clearly illustrated by the behaviour of Italy in relation to Somalia.
Because Italy was the former colonial ruler of Somalia, it should not, according to UN practice, contribute troops to serve there. But I had been in desperate need of troops for the UN operation in Mozambique, and in order to get an Italian contingent there, I was compelled to accept Italian forces in Somalia. This was a mistake. The United Nations established policy was correct. Once on the ground in Somalia, the Italian forces, under instructions from Rome, pursued their own agenda at the expense of the common UN effort.12
Not only did the Italians conduct unilateral talks with Aideed but, according to Boutros-Ghali, were suspected of tipping him off as to UN movements.
Trouble with the Italians was as nothing compared with the Secretary-General’s problems with the United States and, in retrospect, it is clear that the subsequent American determination to prevent Boutros-Ghali continuing for a normal second term as Secretary-General was at least in part due to the number of leading American politicians he had crossed swords with over Somalia. Throughout the Somali crisis the United States and Boutros-Ghali were at loggerheads: every US move, he concluded, was designed not with Somalia but with the US Congress and electorate in mind and as he concludes, plaintively, ‘It was clear that the United States, having failed to disarm the Somali factions at the start, was under strong congressional pressure to get itself out of the resulting mess.’13 Certainly, a great deal of blame was aimed at the UN by the US and vice versa. What also emerges from this debacle is the sheer difficulty of organizing an effective peacekeeping initiative in a country whose principal actors did not want it in the first place while the main supporters of the UN, who alone could provide it with the operational thrust it required, in fact each pursued their own political agendas rather than working together to make the UN operation a success.
During the remaining years of the decade, from 1996 when UNOSOM was withdrawn from Somalia, and into the new century, the Somalis worked to create regional administrations. In August 1999 a Somali Peace Alliance was launched. The northern Republic of Somaliland, still unrecognized, benefited from the use of the port of Berbera to import relief food for eastern Ethiopia and, in March, from the lifting of the livestock ban imposed by Saudi Arabia in 1998. By 2000 there were signs of recovery. In May a Somali reconciliation and government conference opened at Arta in Djibouti. A 245-member Transitional National Assembly was finally chosen in August under a complex clan-based system, and on 27 August Abdiqasim Salad Hasan, a former deputy prime minister and minister of the Interior under Barre, was sworn in as President. The regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the Arab League, the United Nations and the European Union endorsed the results. However, it could only claim to be half a settlement since 14 clan leaders and warlords stayed aloof as did the Republic of Somaliland and the separate administration of Puntland, who between them condemned the conference as unrepresentative. The Transitional National Government failed to extend its authority over the whole of Mogadishu or outside it and though not much progress was made at reconciliation there was far less fighting. Following the events of 11 September 2001, Somalia, as a collapsed state, was identified by the US as a possible haven for Osama bin Laden. Despite its status as a failed state at the beginning of the new century, Somalia appeared less violent and somewhat less troubled than when it played unwilling host to the UN, the US marines and military forces from another 35 countries, a fact that should give pause to advocates of intervention.
SUDAN
By 1997 Sudan was generally isolated in the Arab world; its relations with the West, which had cut off virtually all aid, were poor, and those with the US were positively bad. The United Nations estimated that to the end of 1989 500,000 people had died since the resumption of the civil war in 1983. Outside Sudan the tragedy of this long-lasting war was largely ignored by the international community, and no serious attempts to halt it were mounted. By 1992 seven million Sudanese suffered from food shortages and three million were either refugees or displaced within the country, while many violations of human rights were regularly reported. Sudan was ruled by Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the soldier who had led the bloodless coup against the government of Sadiq al-Mahdi. Bashir created a Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation (RCC-NS). Over 100 army officers, seen as opposed to the coup, were arrested. Although Bashir claimed that his coup was a national one, he did not hold talks with the southern leader John Garang and it soon became apparent that he was a supporter of Islamic fundamentalism. He insisted that Sharia should be applied nationwide. In April 1990 Bashir had 28 army officers executed on the grounds that they were plotting a coup. A second coup attempt was launched in September 1990 but by the end of the year Bashir appeared more secure. He continued the war against the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in the South.
Talks between the government and the SPLA were held during 1993 in Abuja, Nigeria, and Nairobi, Kenya, but they came to nothing. In May 1993 the UN identified 1.5 million people in the South who required food aid, 600,000 of whom were wholly dependent upon UN supplies. In October 1993, the military Revolutionary Command Council dissolved itself and Sudan reverted to civilian rule with B
ashir as its president. In the South there was fierce fighting between rebel factions and this led to a new exodus of refugees into Uganda. In February 1994 the government launched a massive military operation against the SPLA while the UN appealed for humanitarian aid to meet the needs of another 100,000 displaced people. Further peace talks in Kenya produced no results. During 1995 the war continued but at a lower intensity and made few international headlines although the London-based Africa Rights group accused the government of launching a campaign of genocide against the Nuba people of Kordofan Province. By 1996 there was a possibility that Uganda would become embroiled in the war when the Khartoum government accused it of assisting the SPLA and Kampala in return accused Khartoum of assisting the Christian fundamentalist rebels (the Lord’s Resistance Army) in northern Uganda. Renewed fighting in January 1997 caused a new wave of refugees to cross into western Ethiopia.
A rapid sequence of events unfolded when, on 13 January, President Bashir called for a Jihad against the enemies of Islam. His call followed reports that the SPLA (then estimated to number 30,000) had captured the towns of Kurmuk and Quissan 600 kilometres south-east of Khartoum and were threatening the Damazin power station, which supplied the capital. Khartoum University was closed so that students could ‘join the army and fight “Ethiopian aggression”’ since the government now accused Ethiopia of attacking Kurmuk and Quissan. On 17 January Maban in southern Blue Nile Province fell to the rebels and on 21 January Garang claimed that SPLA troops had killed 300 government soldiers at Aba Shameina, south of the Damazin Dam, and a further 150 at al-Keili. On 26 January government forces attacked a rebel base near the Uganda border and this led President Yoweri Museveni to ask the OAU to declare the Sudan civil war a colonial conflict, so as to permit other African countries to supply material aid to the rebels. In February Nelson Mandela, the President of South Africa, announced he was to hold talks with Bashir (he had already held talks with Garang). The SPLA captured Yei and took 1,000 prisoners and on 25 March Garang claimed to control the whole southern border of the country. The general picture was deeply confusing and both sides were suffering heavy casualties. The government lodged a complaint at the UN that both Uganda and Ethiopia had sent troops to fight in Sudan and there seemed a real possibility that the war would spread. On 22 April, after a battle between government and Uganda forces, the Uganda government admitted that its forces had entered Sudan. Meanwhile, the government signed a peace agreement with six southern factions that had broken their ties with the SPLA. The government promised that it would hold a referendum on self-determination for the South after four years and that it would suspend legislation to impose Sharia on the South and grant an amnesty for members of the six groups. These were: South Sudan Independence Movement (SSIM); Bahr el-Ghazal group of the SPLA; Bor group; Equatoria Defence Force; Independence Movement; and United Sudanese African Parties. Garang described the agreement as ‘a sham’. On 10 May Presidents Bashir and Museveni met in Nairobi with President Moi in the chair in an attempt to achieve a Sudan-Uganda reconciliation. Moi proposed that the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) comprising Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda should act as a forum. However, the fighting continued throughout May and Khartoum acknowledged the loss of Rumbuk.
Border tensions with Eritrea and Ethiopia increased dramatically in mid-year. On 9 July the government accepted a framework for peace negotiations at the annual IGAD summit. This IGAD Declaration included the separation of religion and the state, the principle of self-determination for the largely non-Muslim South and the recognition of Sudan as multi-ethnic. Bashir, however, said that the framework was not binding and Garang riposted that he would not negotiate unless the framework was accepted as binding on both sides. The SPLA, meanwhile, was making further advances and opened a new front in Upper Nile State. Bashir met Mandela in Pretoria in August and both called for a ceasefire in Sudan; Mandela offered to host talks between Bashir and Garang at the end of August but Garang failed to turn up. At the end of October talks did begin in Nairobi under IGAD auspices but were adjourned on 11 November without any progress having been made. It was agreed to resume them in April 1998. On 10 December 1997, the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright held a meeting in Kampala with members of the National Democratic Alliance based in Eritrea and John Garang of the SPLA after the United States had imposed economic sanctions on Sudan in November for its alleged support for terrorist activities and its bad human rights record.
The government, meanwhile, held gubernatorial elections in 10 southern states under the agreement with the six breakaway factions. The southern states were to be administered by the former rebel Riek Machar over a four-year period with the assistance of 10 elected governors. By the beginning of 1998 the SPLA appeared to have control over wide areas of the South although the situation was fluid and towns and regions frequently changed hands. Sudan continued to be isolated internationally. A power struggle developed – it had long been predicted – between Bashir and Dr Hasan al-Turabi, the leader of the National Islamic Front, causing Bashir to declare a three-month state of emergency on 11 December 1999 and suspend the National Assembly. While attending the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva (March 1999) Garang stated the objective of his organization was to end the civil war and achieve a peace by the creation of two separate but confederal states. The most important developments in 1999 concerned oil with the completion of preparations to export oil from the Hegliz field in the Muglud Basin. The first shipment of oil to Singapore represented a major breakthrough for the government. Immediate output was expected to be between 40,000 and 60,000b/d. The 1,600-kilometre pipeline to the Red Sea was vulnerable to sabotage.
Throughout 2000 Bashir and al-Turabi were in conflict. At the end of the year Bashir was re-elected President for another term of four years. In order to achieve reconciliation with the SPLA Bashir argued for a move towards democracy and the creation of a secular state. Al-Turabi strongly objected to the latter suggestion. At the same time Bashir emphasized the need to face the military situation in the South. In July Bashir issued a decree pardoning those who had raised arms against the state. In September al-Turabi called for an end to the war, and accused the President of abandoning the cause of Islam. Fighting continued widespread over much of the South and included action round the Bentu oilfield. Ongoing IGAD meetings in February, May and December reached no conclusions. Western aid agencies assisting displaced people in the South pulled their operations rather than sign separate memoranda with the government and the SPLA. The United States sent two officials in March and a delegation in September to assess the peace process in the South, the internal political difficulties and Sudan’s links with terrorism. Sudan protested against a visit without official permission by Susan Rice, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, to assess humanitarian aid and report on human rights violations in SPLA-controlled areas. In October the US blocked Sudan’s election to the Africa seat on the UN Security Council because of its alleged links with terrorism.
During 2001 IGAD made no progress in its attempts to resolve Sudan’s North-South differences, which appeared as intractable as ever. The fighting continued, large numbers of people were displaced, military operations escalated and the United States angered Khartoum by allocating US$10 million to the SPLA to pursue its cause in the civil war. Christian aid organizations claimed that oil companies operating in southern Sudan had forced people to move from their tribal areas. The government declared its control over the oilfields and turned down the SPLA proposal to link peace with a halt in oil exploration. In March Garang visited France in an attempt to dissuade Total from exploration in the south of Sudan. The United States approved a law to compel oil companies to reveal oil exploration in Sudan before registration on the US Stock Exchange. China signed an agreement with Khartoum to establish petrochemical activities in Sudan. Oil had now become a major issue in the war. The SPLA accused the government of using oil revenues to purcha
se weapons for use against the South. In June Talisman Oil Corporation announced it would continue with oil exploration and production reached a level of 200,000b/d to yield the government an annual revenue of US$400 million, that was equivalent to 40 per cent of oil revenues. Oil was clearly transforming Sudan’s economy and also providing the government with the revenue it would need to pursue the war. Relations with the United States remained tense and despite Khartoum expressing its willingness to co-operate with the United States against terrorism, following 11 September, Washington extended its sanctions against Sudan for another year and cited Sudan as one of three countries in line for possible military action in the US war on terrorism.
The recital of Sudan’s war scenario over this decade wearies by its sameness – year after year the same story: towns are captured and lost, the government launches a major military initiative, the SPLA gains ground, large numbers of refugees are created, aid agencies come and go, peace talks never make progress and all the while the horrific statistics of the dead and maimed steadily increase. In mid-2002, however, the peace talks at last seemed to have succeeded. Five weeks of talks in Machakos, Kenya, resulted in an unprecedented agreement between the Khartoum government and the SPLA. The government agreed to allow a referendum in the South after a six-year interim period to allow people to decide whether they wanted to remain part of Sudan. The constitution would be rewritten to ensure that while Sharia law could be used in the North it would not infringe the rights of non-Muslims in the South. However, despite the apparent breakthrough at Machakos the talks continued into 2003 and were not helped by President Bush signing the Sudan Peace Act under whose terms the President could impose sanctions against Sudan if in the opinion of the US government the Sudan government was not serious about the peace process. The act caused fury in Khartoum. It also illustrated how US pressures have become ubiquitous, at least in any country where the United States has particular interests: in the case of Sudan, oil and fundamentalism and possible links with Osama bin Laden.