In Somalia, the Goal Must Be "Do No Harm"

By Richard H. Curtiss

''Perhaps 500,000 Somalis died in the largely man-made disaster of civil war and famine. Far fewer Somalis are dying now. Well over one million had fled from their homes. They are starting to return. If some dozens of peacekeepers—not all American—have been killed to make this possible, they did not die in vain. But if the U.N. Operation were to collapse, the whole disaster could start again. "

—The Economist, Oct. 9-15, 1993

In Somalia, there is no right or wrong. What makes sense from a purely local view may not make sense in terms of the politics of world peacekeeping, and vice versa. The Oct. 3 crash of two U.S. helicopters during a raid by U.S. Army Rangers aimed at capturing Gen. Mohamad Farah Aidid, which precipitated a fire fight in which 18 Americans, one Malaysian and some 300 Somalis were killed, and some 80 Americans, Pakistanis and Malaysians and 700 Somalis were wounded, was a double tragedy—for the victims and for the United Nations mission to Somalia.

It made Somalia U.S. pack journalism's mid-October topic du jour, gave Capitol Hill's would-be 535 secretaries of state exposure in the national media and compelled President Bill Clinton to set March 31 as the deadline for withdrawal of U.S. troops.

To the people of Somalia, the vast majority of whom are intensely grateful that the U.S./U.N. intervention took place when it was needed, what matters now is only that the U.S. and U.N. leave Somalia in better, not worse, shape than they found it. Since the United States has decided to withdraw all but some logistical forces by the end of March, Americans should bear in mind the basic credo physicians are expected to follow before embarking on any course of treatment: "Do no harm."

Whether, in the long run, U.S. forces leave Somalia in better shape than they found it may depend on how the U.S. extricates itself in the next six months.

At the time U. S. forces arrived, Somalia's clan-based militias were locked in a many-sided turf war. None claimed all of the country. The battles were for domination of parts of it. Since the arrival of foreign forces, 13 of the 14 principal clan leaders ostensibly have been cooperating with the U.N. peacekeepers. Only one, Gen. Mohamad Farah Aidid, openly has refused to turn in his heavy arms. It was this refusal that prompted Pakistani U.N. forces to initiate a search of warehouses in south Mogadishu on June 3 for hidden arms, and perhaps for the portable radio transmitter by which Aidid was directing members of his Habir Gedir subclan of Somalia's Hawiya clan.

Two days later 24 Pakistanis were killed in seemingly coordinated ambushes. This set off the U.N. hunt for Aidid, which was punctuated by a July 12 U.S. attack in which 73 Aidid followers and bystanders were killed, another ambush on Sept. 5 in which seven Nigerian peacekeepers were killed, another seven injured, and one captured, and the return to Somalia of U.S. special forces, with their own reconnaissance aircraft, who were involved in the fatal events of Oct. 3.

More than anything else, the capture of one American, and televised scenes of jubilant Somalis dragging the dead body of one of his helicopter crewmates through the streets, set off America's public clamor for withdrawal of U.S. forces. The majority of Americans, most of whom still feel the U.S. intervention to prevent starvation in Somalia was necessary and successful, concluded it was time to go before any more Americans died in a far-away land in which the United States has no discernible national interest.

The problem, however, is that Aidid's militia is said still to have tanks and tracked artillery, most of it hidden in areas of northern Somalia controlled by his subclan and where there are no U.N. troops. If the U.S. withdraws too precipitately, setting off a scramble among other foreign forces not to be the last to leave, Aidid's militia, because it did not cooperate with the U.S. led United Nations peacekeepers, may be the only one left with heavy armaments.

If the war that was a stalemate resumes, and this time Aidid's heavily armed forces overrun their rivals, he could emerge as the military dictator of much or all of Somalia. In such a case, can the U.S. say that its intervention, which began so well and for a time seemed so successful, truly did no harm?

Or will General Aidid have demonstrated that one way to become a Third World president is to lure the United Nations into your country, and then deliberately target the blue-helmeted peacekeepers? In that case, should the lesson of Somalia be that neither the U.S. unilaterally nor the U.N. multilaterally should ever again intervene in another country's affairs? Should Americans and other world powers awash in surplus food and medical supplies in the future stand idly by while innocents die of starvation or from easily preventable or treatable diseases because bandits with uniforms and guns interdict the relief shipments?

The answers will not be found in emotional speeches from the Senate floor, the writings of smart-aleck columnists, or the rantings of talk show hosts. The search for answers to the Somalia problem, therefore, is best left to experts on the ground who know the country and its clans. Meanwhile, the lessons for future international peacekeeping to be derived from Somalia are worth considering by Americans in all walks of life.

Lessons Worth Considering

First, it is important for Americans, and their president, to break the habit of taking credit for the United States when things go well, and blaming the United Nations when they don't. In fact, the U.S. has directed virtually every move of the U.N. ever since the end of the Cold War. The Security Council no longer discusses problems anywhere in the world without first getting an American green light.

In Somalia, specifically, nearly the entire top U.N. political command, starting with Admital Jonathan Howe, consists of retired U.S. military and diplomatic personnel. The Security Council resolution on Somalia that the U.N. was carrying out at the time of the disastrous Ranger raid was largely drafted by the U.S. delegation to the United Nations.

To pretend that things developed as they did in Somalia because there is a U.S. as opposed to a U.N. policy is to ignore the reality that in Somalia, as virtually anywhere else in the world, the U.S.-U.N. dichotomy is a distinction without a difference. The U.N. is there largely as a result of television-fed U.S. public concern.

The first photos of stick-figure Somali children with vacant eyes and sharply etched rib cages forced themselves on U.S. consciousness in mid-l991. By 1992, international relief workers were complaining that this was not just another drought and desertification-induced African famine.

The needed food and medicine was available. When it was landed, however, it was seized by armed militiamen of feuding clans and subclans despite the efforts of U.N. peacekeepers.

The problem was particularly acute in Somalia's two major ports. In Mogadishu, the forces of General Aidid, who had played a major role in ousting Somalia's last president, Mohammad Siad Barre, in January 1991, were locked in battle with those of Mohammad Ali Mahdi, leader of a rival subclan, for control of the city. In Kismayu, a several-sided battle pitted an Aidid kinsman against the son-in-law of the deposed president. While the battling chieftains finally blocked the landing of any food at all, up to 2,000 people, mostly members of weaker clans or immigrant groups from other troubled African countries, died daily of starvation.

Meanwhile U.S. government interest in foreign problems had gone on hold for the quadrennial preoccupation with national elections. A month after his Nov. 3,1992 defeat, however, lame-duck President George Bush sent U.S. troops ashore at Mogadishu's seaside airport and, assisted by forces of many nationalities, rapidly opened the ports of Mogadishu and Kismayu, airfields in the interior, and the roads that tied the country together.

By the time Bill Clinton took the oath of office, food was reaching Somalis everywhere, and only two Americans, whose vehicle hit a mine, had been killed by hostile action. The first and only visible "policy difference" from that heady period occurred when U.N. secretary-general Boutros-Ghali requested that, before U.S. combat forces left, they "disarm the warlords." He made the request of the U.S. because at that point former U.S. Ambassador to Somalia Robert Oakley, who reported directly to the president, was running the show.

The U.S. response was to assemble 14 rival Somali clan leaders, eventually including Aidid, for meetings on neutral ground in Ethiopia. In the second such meeting, all pledged to cooperate in voluntary disarmament, by stages. To enforce it, U.S. forces announced that, after a certain date, any "technicals," the militias' even if the foreign forces and their uncerubiquitous gun-mounted jeeps, land rovers and pick-up trucks, still roving Mogadishu's streets would be seized. One or two were, and the others vanished.

So, in March 1993, did U.S. combat troops. Before they departed, U.S. troops in Somalia had numbered 28,000. Afterward some 4,000 American logistical support personnel remained. They were attached, with much fanfare, to the U.N. forces commanded by a Turkish general.

The transfer of authority went smoothly, but for insurance the U.S. kept in place outside but near Mogadishu and under direct U.S. command, a "rapid reaction force" of 800 U.S. heavy infantry, supported by U.S. helicopter gunships and the knowledge that at any given moment some 4,000 U.S. Marines on U.S. Seventh Fleet ships were just "over the horizon."

"He Who Will Not Be Insulted"

Things did not go as smoothly, however, with Aidid, whose name in Somali means "he who will not be insulted." Trained in both Italy and the Soviet Union, at one time he had been Barre's chief of staff. Later he had been imprisoned by Barre for six years. During the final revolt against Barre by nearly all of Somalia's clans, Aidid's forces played a leading role in forcing the dictator out. Aidid felt that earned him leadership of the country.

Egypt had played a key role in Somalia during the chaos that followed Barre's ouster. Aidid knew that Boutros-Ghali had been directing Egypt's foreign policy when Egypt recognized Mohammad Ali Mahdi rather than Aidid as head of a short-lived successor government.

Aidid therefore interpreted the United Nations moves in 1993, including the search for his arms and radio station and the shift of the lucrative trade in khat, Somalia's narcotic of choice, from an airport controlled by Aidid to an airport controlled by Ali Mahdi, as attempts to cut Aidid down to size. There followed the massacre of the Pakistanis, and the downward spiral that, following the highly successful relief operation, has derailed, and probably wrecked, the ambitious U.N. nation-building operation that Boutros Ghali had gotten underway.

The moral is that in Somalia, as in Boston, New York or Chicago, all politics is local. Those best prepared to deal with the situation, therefore, may be those who best understand Somali politics. With backing rather than second guessing from both New York and Washington, perhaps only they still can devise a way to ensure that certain Leaders, who did so much good in the short run, leave this afflicted country almost as suddenly as they came; in the long run they will have "done no harm."