Helsides Faksutskrift

IFS Info 6/1997 Robert G .. Patman Securing Somalia A Comparisollil of US am!! AWistll'aHcm IPeacekeepillilg oclmillilg the UIMITAf Operatiollil Note on the author .................................................................................................................. 4 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 5 The Disintegration of the Somali State ...................................................................................... 5 International Intervention: A Mandate to Disarm or Not to Disarm? .......................................... 7 Cosmetic Disarmament in Mogadishu ...................................................................................... 9 Active Disarmament in Baidoa ............................................................................................... 14 A Comparative Assessment . ... ... .. ... ... .. .. .... .. .. ... .. .. .. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. ... .. ..... .. .. .. .. .. .. ..... .. 18 I. Mission definition ............................................................................................................................. 18 2. Style of Peace Operations ................................................................................................................. 19 3. Cultural compatibility ........................................................................................................................ 20 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 21 Notes ................................................................................................................................... 23 IFS Info 6/97 3 Note on the author Or Robert G. Patman is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand. He is the author of The Soviet Union in the Horn of Adrica: the Diplomacy of lnten•emion and Disengagement (Cambridge University Press 1990) and has contributed with a number of book chapters, journal articles and media commentaries on internaional affairs. The author gratefully acknowledges that the research undertaken for this study in Australia was supported by a public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC) Fellowship. 4 IFS lnfo 6/97 Introduction The UN intervention in Somalia between 1992 and comparative analysis. The argument that emerges 1995 was one of the first substantial efforts to is that the absence of a consistent disarmament respond to a disturbing new trend in the current strategy in Somalia, not peace enforcement per se, era - the challenge of intra-state conflict. In 1992, condemned the UN operation to failure. If the US constant civil war and drought in Somalia had had positioned itself, like the Australians in Baidoa, combined to produce a catastrophic famine killing above the warlords instead of between them, the an estimated 300,000 people. 1 Unable to ameliorate picture for UN intervention in Somalia may have these conditions through UNOSOM I, a looked quite different. humanitarian assistance mission, the UN opted for drastic action. This consisted of two phases: The Disintegration of the Somali State UNITAF a US-led humanitarian intervention with limited enforcement powers; and UNOSOM II, a Somalia was a spectacular example of state UN-led humanitarian operation with extensive disintegration during the post-Cold War era. By the enforcement functions. While the existence of vast beginning of 1992, Somalia had dissolved into a amounts of weaponry in Somalia was closely Hobbesian "state of nature". A many-sided civil linked with the disorder and violence in the war had destroyed any vestiges of central authority country, US strategic planners focused on short in the country, and turned a severe drought into a term humanitarian need rather than the catastrophic famine. Moreover, around 70 percent prerequisites for long-term stability. Disarmament, of the country's livestock was lost and much of which is understood here as a process involving Somalia's farmland belt in the south was the reduction, removal or elimination of the means devastated. 3 of violence, 2 was not specifically written into The reasons for the failure of the Somali state UNITAF's mandate. The effects of this omission are complex ami widely misunderstood. On the one became clear in Mogadishu when UNOSOM II's hand, a number of commentators have attributed belated program of disarmament encountered the the demise of the Somali state to the overwhelming armed resistance of General Aideed's faction in impact of a "natural" disaster, the Somali famine of June !993. This confrontation eventually ended the 1991-92. On the other hand, some analysts who UN's experiment in peace-enforcement and led to saw politics rather than nature at the heart of the the humiliating withdrawal of UN troops and Somali crisis focused either on the divisive legacy personnel from Somalia on 2 March 1995. But the of the Si ad Barre dictatorship or on the destructive demise of the UN's first peace enforcement effects of abundant superpower weapons provided operation in a failed state was by no means during the Cold War. In reality, the Somali inevitable. In Baidoa, the Australian contingent in convulsion was not only shaped by both local and the international coalition achieved a remarkable international politics, but also by what one observer transformation in the security environment. It has called "structural impediments"~ to the involved, amongst other things, a policy of active formation of a centralised Somali state. disarmament. Historically, the notion of Somali statehood is The purpose of this article is to explore the relatively new. Prior to independence in July 1960, dynamics and linkages between "micro the Somalis did not have a cohesive state. As a disarmament" and the process of political nation of mainly pastoral nomads, the Somalis reconciliation in Somalia. To do this, we will traditionally had a de-centralised political consider the disintegration of the Somali state, the community based on an extensive clan structure. contested nature of the UNITAF mandate, the Here political identity and loyalty was largely experiences of disarmament in Mogadishu and determined by clan affiliation or descent. By eking Baidoa and the lessons that may be learned from a out an existence in the arid planes of the Horn of IFS lnfo 6/97 5 Africa, the Somali lifestyle was marked hy Congress, citing human rights violations by Siad's independence, assertive self-reliance and a general regime against rebels in northern Somalia, forced distrust of central government. the Bush government to suspend its military and From the time of Somalia's independence, the economic aid programme in Somalia. 9 Other clan persistence of clan politics frustrated the efforts of based opposition groups took up arms in southern central government in Mogadishu to build an and central Somalia. By I 990, the Si ad regime, enduring sense of Somali nationalism based on bereft of virtually all foreign aid, exercised only allegiance to the state. The task was complicated limited control over the regions surrounding by the fact that the boundaries of independent Mogadishu. Because of the civil war, the Somali Somalia did not fully correspond to the aspirations state had, in political and institutional terms, already of Somali nationalism. Over a million Somalis, collapsed before the final ousting of Si ad in living in French Somali land (later to become January 1991 by the United Somali Congress Djibouti), the Northern Frontier District of Kenya (USC). 111 Instead of heralding stability, the and the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, were left overthrow of Si ad accelerated the process of outside the borders of the new state. Thus, from disintegration. The leaders of the USC, which drew the very beginning of its existence, Somalia sought its support from the Hawiye clans became to expand its boundaries so that they coincided absorbed in a bloody power struggle almost as with those of the "nation"-' This goal quickly soon as they had driven Siad from Mogadishu. The brought Mogadishu into conflict with all its USC military commander General Mohamed Farah neighbours. But if Pan Soma! ism encouraged Aideed, who played a key role in defeating Siad, 11 solidarity against external threats, it failed to erase refused to accept Ali Mahdi Mohamed as interim antagonism among Somalia's clans. In 1969, President of a new USC government. The struggle President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke was also had a tribal dimension. Ali Mahdi's support assassinated in an apparent tribal dispute. Shortly base was in the Hawiye subclan, Ab gal, while afterwards, the military led by General Mohamed Aideed's backing derived from another Hawiye Si ad Barre seized power. Siad promised to unite the subclan, Habar Gidir. country through the doctrine of "scientific Fighting was not limited to Mogadishu but socialism". 0 spread chaos and starvation throughout southem Using Somalia's strategic location as a pawn in Somalia. As well as the confrontation between the the Cold War, Siad exploited superpower rivalry to heavily armed factions of Aideed and Ali Mahdi, maximise aid for his dictatorship. Alliances were there was fierce fighting involving these groups formed tlrst with the former Soviet Union and then and forces loyal to the Si ad regime led by Siad's with the US. Altogether, after 22 years in power, son-in-law

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