FT933-1807
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FT 22 SEP 93 / Africa's lunatic asylum: US ends in Somalia are admirable,
but do not justify the means
By EDWARD MORTIMER
'The UK gov-ernment said last night its forces would fire on civilians being
used by IRA gunmen as 'human shields', des-pite casualties among women and
children on Thursday when British helicopters fired into a crowd.'
Just imagine the worldwide outcry that would greet that news item. Imagine,
especially, the storm of indignation that would sweep across the US. It
would surely end, once and for all, any talk of a 'special relationship'
between the UK and the US.
Now read the item again, substituting 'United Nations' for 'UK government'
and 'Somali militiamen' for 'IRA gunmen'. I did not make it up. It was the
opening sentence of a report from the FT's Africa correspondent, published
10 days ago.
I tried this trick on several US officials and commentators in Washington
and New York last week. Needless to say, they did not like the analogy, but
they floundered somewhat in trying to explain what was wrong with it.
'But in Northern Ireland you'd be killing your own people, your kith and
kin,' said one. 'Aha,' I replied, 'so is it perhaps their skin colour that
makes Somali women and children expendable? If so, won't black American
leaders soon have something to say about it?'
Apparently not. Black leaders were to the fore in urging the US to go in and
save Somalis from starvation, complaining that the UN had become exclusively
obsessed with a 'white man's war' in Yugoslavia. Therefore, I was told, they
are not well placed to call for a pull-out now.
War and 'warlordism' - disrupting the production and distribution of food -
were the main causes of famine in Somalia. Everyone seems to agree about
that. That is why armed intervention was deemed necessary to end the famine.
The first UN force (Unosom I), dispatched in August 1992 to supervise and
protect food deliveries, failed to overawe the warlords. So in December a
stronger force (Unitaf) was sent in, authorised by the UN Security Council
but under US command.
Initially the US wanted to concentrate only on food deliveries. It was the
UN secretary-general, Boutros Boutros Ghali, who insisted that the warlords
must be disarmed at the same time if the operation was to have any lasting
effect.
By the time the US command handed over to the second UN force (Unosom II) in
May, the US had come round fully to Mr Boutros Ghali's view. In fact the US
view now seems to be that all remaining problems in Somalia are the fault of
one particular warlord, General Mohammed Farah Aideed.
'On food, we have done very well,' said US defence secretary Les Aspin on
August 27. 'On security, we have made progress.' Somalia, he said, is now
'generally peaceful', except for south Mogadishu, the Aideed stronghold.
'The danger now is that unless we return security to south Mogadishu,
political chaos will follow the UN withdrawal . . . The danger is that the
situation will return to what existed before the US sent in the troops.'
The US retains two separate forces in Somalia. There are logistics troops,
which are part of Unosom II and under its commander (who is a Turkish
general, but chosen for the job by the chairman of the US joint chiefs of
staff, General Colin Powell); and there is the 'quick reaction force' (QRF),
composed of combat troops which remain under US command but back up the UN
force when necessary, at the request of the UN special representative (who
is another American, Admiral Jonathan Howe). It is the QRF which retaliates
when UN troops are ambushed or fired on by General Aideed's forces, and
which, therefore, has inflicted most of the casualties on Somali civilians.
This complex command structure results from the unwillingness of the US to
do what every other contributor to UN forces has to do, namely place its
combat troops under a commander of another nationality. Presidential
Decision 13, which is supposed to define the availability of US forces for
UN peacekeeping and other duties, has been held up by prolonged argument
within the administration on this very point.
In the case of Bosnia, President Bill Clinton has insisted that if US troops
do go in to help enforce a peace agreement they will do so under Nato and
not UN command. (His aides say it is agreed within Nato that the French
General, Jean Cot, who commands the present UN force in Bosnia, would also
command the Nato troops; but it remains to be seen whether Mr Clinton is
really prepared to try and sell that arrangement to Congress.) Meanwhile,
the arrangements in Somalia ensure that the UN is identified, in the eyes of
local opinion and of the world, with a peculiarly American modus operandi.
Somalia is not another Vietnam, or even another Panama; still less another
Gulf war. It is like a grotesque re-enactment of all those by the inmates of
a small lunatic asylum (on the lines of the French revolution as portrayed
in Peter Weiss's play Marat-Sade). The objectives are admirable, and in this
case untainted by any discernible US national interest. But several hallowed
American principles are at stake:
The battle is one of good against evil, and evil has to be incarnate in one
man (Gaddafi, Noriega, Saddam and now Aideed).
US casualties must be as low as possible, but US military superiority must
make itself felt, no matter how great the 'collateral damage'.
Any attempt at a negotiated solution constitutes 'appeasement', if not
'betrayal'.
Whoever questions the method is assumed to be urging abandonment of the
entire enterprise.
Countries:-
SOZ Somalia, Africa.
USZ United States of America.
Industries:-
P9721 International Affairs.
Types:-
CMMT Comment & Analysis.
The Financial Times
London Page 24