The Road to Hell, page 37
… Mr. Blais will propose a toast to all men and women, military and civilian, who have paid the supreme sacrifice in the service of peace and to all who are serving today. Piper will play a short lament… Mr. Blais will then raise his glass and say: “To All Peacekeepers.”
Mr. Blais introduces Maj.-Gen. Cordy-Simpson.
The keynote speaker, Major General Roderick Cordy-Simpson, former chief of staff for the UN operation in Bosnia, spoke in a tight-jawed, upper-crusty Prince Charles sort of manner that seemed to suck all the air out of the room and make everyone sit up straight and take their elbows off the table. He described the Balkans conflict as “a thoroughly evil three-sided civil war,” and painted a nightmare scenario about what would happen if the world failed to keep the peace: “Kosovo will be next, and if Kosovo is next then Albania will be called in, and if Albania comes in Macedonia will, and if Macedonia comes in Greece will, and if Greece comes in Turkey will, and if Turkey comes in Bulgaria will. Oh no, it won’t happen, we all know it won’t happen. Of course it won’t. Our grandfathers said it wouldn’t happen. And then …” He went on to describe the start of the First World War. All of this was, of course, the domino theory again. The enemy this time wasn’t communism, it was chaos. But the call to arms was just as clear.
A representative from the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies stood to sum up the show. He spoke of the “inspiring and educational displays” that were in the exhibition hall. Then he presented Eskimo carvings to the general and to Elliot Richardson.
“It’s really nice. A seal on the ice.” Richardson said when he accepted it. Then it was as if at the last minute he remembered that he must address the commercial aspects of Peacekeeping ’94. He tossed in a little plug for the $295 book on UN procurement his organization had published, “which means, of course, procurement of the kinds of things that Peacekeeping ’94 expo is all about.” Richardson went on: “People my age grew up with the familiarity with the phrase, ‘merchants of death.’ Merchants of death were, of course, the manufacturers and traffickers in weapons. You represent— this expo represents—a new and far more open generation of the merchants of peace.”
One of the waiters working tables was Mohamed Aweis, a refugee from Mogadishu who had been in the United States for about two years. He paid little attention to the conference, didn’t really care what it was about, and just wanted everyone to leave the room so he could clean up and get home to his family. His constant presence around the table reminded me that Somalia had hardly been mentioned.
Perhaps this was because Canada is now going through convulsions similar to what the United States went through after the My Lai massacre. In the town of Beledweyne in March 1993, several Canadian soldiers from their elite airborne unit found a Somali boy sneaking onto their compound. One of the soldiers beat the boy, Shidane Abukar Arone, to death while others watched and took pictures. It was later revealed that the soldiers were members of the neo-nazi Heritage Front. Some of those pictures were published in the Washington Post the day before Peacekeeping ’94 began.
Although one incident shouldn’t cripple an entire peacekeeping industry, it nonetheless should have raised questions about the assumed moral superiority with which the powerful nations now address the small wars of the world. No one asked where that moral superiority came from. There was no banner honoring Shidane or the uncounted hundreds of Somalis who died at the hands of UN troops. No one raised a glass in their honor. Then again, the purpose of all of this was to sell hardware.
The marketplace of ideas is as important to this new industry as the market for hardware. For the NGOs, these ideas are reduced to buzzwords and clichés. The military, the NGOs, and quite a few journalists have now invested heavily in the idea that the world after the Cold War will be one of chaos and violence. In their forecasts, it is possible to sense a degree of excitement.
While the problems that NGOs once sought to address are arguably worse, they are seeking ever new tasks to tackle. Where they once spoke of basic human needs, women in development, and sustainable development, they are now addressing the issues of land mines, conflict avoidance, and, the latest and trendiest cause, “civil society.” The same aid workers and volunteers who once tried (and largely failed) to teach farmers to grow things are now fanning out and sowing the seeds of “civil society” across the world.
Generally speaking, a civil society is one that is held together by rule of law, not one of loyalties to clan. It is the essence of the cultural struggles taking place in Somalia, Bosnia, and even New York City. In many ways it is a constant struggle, and one that seems bizarrely juxtaposed with the traditional notion and capacities of an NGO. Yet it is a growth opportunity. Along with land-mine clearance and conflict avoidance/resolution, it’s where the money is. Few NGOs have ever seen a contract they didn’t like, or a problem they didn’t believe they could solve.
The first priority of an NGO, like any bureaucracy, is its own survival. Nowhere is this more clear than with NATO, the ultimate relic of the Cold War. Yet with the new mood of doom and gloom in vogue, NATO has been able to advertise itself as more necessary than before. During the Cold War it seemed we rarely heard about NATO. Then, with the Cold War over, the organization seemed threatened by internal squabbles and a lack of focus. The decision in the summer of 1995 to ignore the United Nations and bomb the Bosnian Serbs into submission, and the apparent success of NATO’s peace implementation force (IFOR), has led to the rebirth of the organization. Now, with their reason for existence gone, the headquarters in Brussels is busier than ever. Perhaps the organization was just ahead of its time.
In June of 1996, sixteen NATO member states announced a new strategy of “combined joint task forces” to be their instrument of intervention outside NATO territory. This, they said, would give them the flexibility to deal with everything from peacekeeping to insurrection to wars. The new JTFs are modeled on the mission to Bosnia. Presumably if Somalia had been a “success,” the UN’s model would be ascendant.
Apparently some see NATO as the instrument for bringing civil society to Eastern Europe. Clinton administration security adviser Anthony Lake sees it this way: “We are … deepening security cooperation with all who share our values and our vision of peace. A key part of this process is NATO’s enlargement. NATO can do for Europe’s east what it did 50 years ago for Europe’s west: prevent a return to local rivalries; strengthen democracy against future threats; and provide the conditions for fragile market economies to flourish.”*
If governments start putting their faith in and channeling their money through NATO, it is almost certain that NGOs will follow. Everyone involved in the global fixit industry is fond of raising the specter of the “new world disorder,” much the same way they once might have announced death rates they could not substantiate. For NGOs, it has been a rallying cry for more money and resources, whatever is really happening out there.
Most of the disorder seems to reside in the minds of policymakers and analysts, who have lost the lens through which they once viewed the world. The world may not have changed as much as they would have us think. The Cold War, with its clear and present threat to Western interests, only seemed simpler. With the Soviet Union gone, we have lost focus. The proliferation of media, particularly television, has also served to add to the sensory confusion. Chaos in Africa seems more threatening because we can see the refugee camps in Goma or the violence in Monrovia. But is this any more threatening than Biafra, the brutal war in Angola, or earlier massacres in Rwanda and Burundi? It is the intense media attention that makes it seem more dangerous and confusing. It is the perceived immediacy of the crisis that makes everyone cry out, “Do something.”
In April of 1981, I was living in Beledweyne, Somalia. Rains in Ethiopia forced the Shebelle River over its banks and into the streets of the town. As the river continued to rise, the townspeople and the refugees from the surrounding camps evacuated to higher ground. The UN dropped in some large, white military-style tents for the expatriates, and we set up a camp on the highest point we could find. The Somalis set up a vast makeshift encampment across the plains below us.
One evening I was drinking Scotch with some of the expatriates—demographers, disaster relief experts of all sorts, and scores of doctors: an American from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, a French doctor from MSF (Doctors Without Borders), and several others. We were talking about the flooding, the evacuation, the suffering. We talked in numbers: 20,000 people here and 50,000 there. We came up with solutions to everything. We computed how many tons of food and how much medicine it would take to relieve this disaster upon a disaster.
It was a calm night with a cool breeze. Below us we could see the fires from the vast encampment. Then out of the darkness, a young couple approached us. The man held a bundle in his arms. As he offered it forward, the woman carefully unwrapped the package; it was a sleeping baby. As they moved toward the lights of our tent, we could see that the baby had been burned over its entire body. The man explained that a pot of scalding hot water had tipped and covered the child. If we’d been in America, if the couple had had insurance, if the child had survived, he would have spent years in a sterile burn unit and received hundreds of skin grafts to save his life. It would have cost fortunes. The parents knew how serious the child’s injuries were, but they also believed they were fortunate this night. We could see that they had full confidence that these foreign doctors would give the baby some injections and some balms, and the child would be fine. The doctors knew the child would die, painfully, over days. One of the doctors went and brought some pain killers for when the baby awoke. There was nothing else to do.
We went back to drinking our Scotch, in silence.
* ECOMOG soldiers were reported to have participated in some of the looting when fighting flared up there. And some of the troops profited from arranging charter ships for desperate Liberian refugees to flee the country.
* Address to Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, May 24, 1996.
SOMALIA TIMELINE
1960
July 1
British and Italian Somali territories join to form an independent Somalia.
1969
October 15
President Abdirashiid Ali Shermaarke is assassinated.
October 21
Siyaad Barre seizes power in military coup.
1970
October 21
Siyaad commits Somalia to “scientific socialism,” and officially aligns Somalia with the Soviet Union. The Soviets begin a massive arms buildup designed to shore up Somalia against the U.S. ally, Ethiopia.
1974
September 12
Ethiopian Emperor and U.S. ally Haile Selassie overthrown in military coup. U.S. continues to supply arms and aid to new regime in order to counter Marxist elements in the junta.
1977
February 3
Mengistu Haile Mariam takes control in Ethiopia and moves toward a radical Marxist agenda. Citing human rights abuses, the U.S. ends military and economic aid several months later.
September
The Western Somalia Liberation front launches a massive attack on Ethiopia and advances through most of the Ogaden region.
1978
April
Ethiopia retakes the Ogaden with the aid of Cuba and the USSR. Refugees flee into Somalia.
1980
August
The U.S. and Somalia sign an agreement exchanging U.S. arms for access to the abandoned Soviet military base at Berbera.
1981
January
The Somali National Movement (SNM) is founded to oppose the Barre regime.
June
CARE joins with the National Refugee Commission and forms CARE/ELU to deliver food to refugees in Somalia.
1988
April
Somalia and Ethiopia sign peace agreement forcing Ethiopia-based rebel SNM to return to Somalia. They occupy Hargeysa and the government responds by bombing the city, killing tens of thousands and creating new refugee problems.
1989
January
The opposition United Somali Congress (USC) is founded by members of the Hawiye clan.
1990
December
USC forces approach the city of Mogadishu. Most aid workers leave the country.
1991
January 26
Siyaad Barre is finally driven from Mogadishu by the USC.
January 29
Ali Mahdi Mohamed is declared interim president by the USC. Part of the USC, led by General Mohamed Farah Aydiid, opposes the appointment.
May 18
At a conference in the town of Burao, the SNM declares the independence of the Republic of Somaliland.
July 5
Aydiid’s faction of the USC, now called the Somali National Alliance (SNA), declares him as their leader.
September
Siyaad Barre’s forces stage a comeback bid. He seizes Baidoa. His troops loot grain storage bins and destroy farms. Counterattacks against Barre by Aydiid’s militia lead to further destruction of agriculture. Both armies pursue a scorched-earth policy in Somalia’s agricultural region leading to the famine.
November 17
The beginning of four months of fighting in Mogadishu between the factions led by Aydiid and Ali Mahdi. The city is leveled.
1992
January 1
Boutros Boutros-Ghali becomes Secretary General of the United Nations.
March 3
After a conference at UN headquarters in New York, Aydiid and Ali Mahdi sign a peace agreement. Other factions continue to battle in the south.
April 24
UNSecurity Council Resolution 751 establishes UNOSOM. Mohamed Sahnoun is soon appointed Special Representative.
April 25
Aydiid drives Siyaad Barre’s forces out of Somalia and across the border to Kenya. Famine conditions become serious in the south.
August 12
Aydiid and Ali Mahdi agree to the deployment of a 500-man peacekeeping force to protect humanitarian operations.
August
A unilateral American operation, Provide Relief, airlifts tons of needed food into famine regions.
September 14
The 500 Pakistani peacekeepers arrive. Famine conditions begin to subside.
October 13
The UN approves the 100-day emergency Program for Somalia. Philip Johnston of CARE heads the program. For the first time the UN begins talking about 300,000 deaths in Somalia.
October
Aydiid decides he doesn’t want UNOSOM in Mogadishu and moves his troops into the city from Bardera. Siyaad Barre’s forces return from Kenya and capture Bardera leading to a spike in famine deaths. Speculation that the U.S. will send the Marines fuels press coverage of the violence and starvation.
November
WFP ships are attacked attempting to deliver food to Mogadishu. Both factions in the city engage UN troops.
November 25
U.S. President George Bush officially offers to intervene militarily in Somalia.
December 9
UNITAF forces land on the beaches of Mogadishu in full combat gear and are greeted by hundreds of journalists and cheering Somalis. The UN asks that UNITAF disarm the Somali factions.
1993
January 4-15
A meeting of 15 Somali factions in Addis Ababa agrees to cooperate with UNITAF and store heavy weapons at authorized inspection sites.
March 9
Admiral Jonathan Howe becomes UN Special Representative in Somalia in preparation for the U.S.’s handing the operation back to UNOSOM.
Late March
The forces of warlord Mohamed Hersi Morgan (loyal to Siyaad Barre) sneak weapons and soldiers past UNITAF troops into the port city of Kismaayo and defeat the forces of warlord Omar Jess, who is allied with Aydiid. Aydiid supporters feel betrayed by UNITAF.
March 26
Under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Security Council adopts Resolution 814 establishing UNOSOM II. The ambitious mandate talks of reestablishing political structures, a.k.a. nation building.
May 4
UNOSOM II officially takes over from UNITAF. The U.S. leaves behind a Quick Reaction Force to protect the UN from any attacks or to respond to emergencies.
June 5
24 Pakistani UNOSOM soldiers die in Mogadishu in clashes with forces loyal to Aydiid.
June 6
In a Sunday emergency session the Security Council adopts Resolution 837 authorizing UNOSOM II to take “all necessary measures” against those responsible for the attack.
June 12-17
UNOSOM forces, predominantly the American Quick Reaction Force, go on the offensive against Aydiid, destroying his radio station and other strategic locations.
June 17
Admiral Howe issues the arrest warrant against Aydiid and puts a $25,000 bounty on his head.
July 12
U.S. Cobra helicopters firing TOW missiles attack “Abdi House” where a group of Somali elders from Aydiid’s clan are holding a regular meeting. Around 50 are killed. Four foreign journalists are killed by angry mobs.
August 8
Four American soldiers in a Humvee are killed by a command-detonated mine in Mogadishu
August 26
Task Force Ranger arrives in Mogadishu to capture Aydiid.
September 25
Three U.S. soldiers are killed when their helicopter is shot down by Aydiid’s militia using a rocket-propelled grenade. Their bodies are desecrated, but the military keeps the information under wraps.
October 3
The debacle: 18 Americans and perhaps 700 Somalis die in a failed attempt to snatch Aydiid. Again the bodies of the dead are desecrated but this time a cameraman from Reuters is on hand to record the event. An American flier is kidnapped and photos of his battered body are broadcast and published around the world.
October 7
President Bill Clinton announces that the U.S. will beef up forces and also leave Somalia within six months.
