The Failed International Intervention in Somalia - Essay Example

?The failed International Intervention in Somalia Introduction The African continent had witnessed a scene of colossal human tragedies, terrible sufferings and retarded economic progress all accruing to the fact-the absence of the leadership in the continent. The continent was characterized by a number of ethnic and civil wars, and wars for national liberation and interstate conflicts. At this moment the issues of conflict management and resolution became necessary for shaping an environment, which would ensure a political and economic development of the continent. Addressing these issues would also mean the promotion of broad objectives like the U.S. foreign policy to ensure regional stability in the whole of Africa in terms of trade and investments, supporting human rights and democracy and removing situation and circumstances which provides protected havens for the international terrorists and drug traffickers. The anarchy that followed the collapse of Somalia as a nation state in 1991 fathered large-scale migration of populations; the nation was facing economic chaos and the incidences of mass violence. The persistence of these problems triggered political dangers as groups emerged whose main aim was to initiate war and empower leaders. (Ohaegbulam, 2004, p. 65) Root cause of the conflict During the late 1980s the coalition of the three clans- the Marreexaan, Ogaadeen and the Dhulbahante – popularly known as the “MOD” under the leadership of President Maxamad Siyaad Barre was a declaration of war against the Isxaaqs of the previous British colony in the Northwest which was organized into the Somali National Movement- the SNM. He also organized the Majeerteens in the northeast as the Somali Salvation Democratic front, the SSDF and the Hawiyas to Mogadishu’s direct west and south, which was organized as the United Somali Congress, known as the USC. Siyaad was driven out of the country by the USC in 1991 and in his place a Hawaiya (Abgal subclan) businessman named Cali Mahdi was declared the president with the Italian ambassador’s encouragement. The Isxaaq and the Majeerteen did not accept the rule of Hawaiya armies and that was the reason they continued to fight. The issue became complex for the SNM as the Isxaaqs fought Siyaas Barre with huge loss in the personnel and their key metropolis Hargeisa was leveled. The SNM were angry about the fact that their army could not make it to Mogadishu- the major land holdings of the Isxaaqs before the armies of the USC. The SNM were reluctant of returning home in the north but they had to, so while returning they created a rump state. In the meantime the USC’s military leader Maxamad Faarax Aideed from the Habar Gidir subclan challenged Mahdi’s right to the presidency. Hence these all resulted in the inter-clan war in 1991 to gain a control over Somalia. Beside this an inter clan war also took place to have a control over Mogadishu. The absence of the central government placed the country at a disadvantage, as there was nobody to negotiate on the behalf of the state and both the Somali population and the international relief workers were vulnerable to attack. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 31; Webersik, 2004, p. 518; Somalia Civil War, n.d; The civil war in Somalia, n. d) The Social Economic and Political crisis After the collapse of the Somali state in January 1991 the country faced disorganization in their education and learning system, which was an impact of the division of the clan in the country. In the process of the social breakdown the schools, technical education centers and the university faced the worst consequences. The infrastructures of the institutes were destroyed. The major victims of the civil war were the children, as nearly 3000 of them were dying every day in the early days of 1992. (Abdi, 1998, pp. 327-328) The situation at that time had worsened in the South especially in Mogadishu where the instances of well armed youths along with their armed Land Rovers roamed around the city and the roadways plundering and looting masses, extorting from people and killing them have also been reported. Due to the civil war the complete infrastructure of the country was destroyed by the year 1992. The country was plagued with mass killing, starvation and disease, which affected the majority of the population. Due to the emergence of so many clans who were engaged in continuous fights the country was facing its worst days and the absence of any central government worsened the situation. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 31) The International Response, Intervention and Attention A year after Siyaad descended from the power the UN broke a ceasefire in February 1992 between Mahdi and Aideed. The Security Council set up the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM I) after the declaration of the ceasefire in the region. The UNOSOM I was declared to supervise the ceasefire and to provide emergency humanitarian aid. Mohammed Sahnoun a well-esteemed Egyptian was selected as the special representative (SRSG) of the Secretary General and 50 unarmed monitors were provided with him. In the Resolution 751 -April 1992 the UNH had promised to send a 500 man security force but instead they had send some lightly armed Pakistani troops to that place. The cease-fire did not last for long and by that time the country was characterized by starving men and diseased victims due to the continued fight in the country. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 32; Somalia: Civil war, intervention and withdrawal 1990-1995, 1995; Lofland, n. d., pp. 54-55) The horrified situation of the war was broadcasted through the international media, which gained the international attention and forced the then President Bush to commit the US forces for the airlift relief supplies to the victims of the civil wars. But seeing the situation President Bush had agreed to offer the US troops to lead a UN military action in the region to stop the occurrence of an even greater human tragedy. It was on December 3 that the Security Council passed Resolution 794 combining the Chapter VI (on peace keeping) and Chapter VII (on peace enforcement) of the UN Charter 794 which focused on the creation of the United Task Force (UNITAF) with a compulsion to create a lasting UN peacemaking operations in order to provide humanitarian aid and to reinstate order in Southern Somalia once the UNITAF ameliorated the human misfortune. During the period from December 1992 to May 1993 the UNITAF had brought in about thirty eight thousands troops from twenty one nations which also included twenty eight thousands Americans as well and the parallel operation led by this American soldiers was known as the “Restore Hope” operations. The mission was insisted to be a purely humanitarian mission to save the lives of the civilian and President Bush promised the completion of the mission to be not more than a few months. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 32; Mermin, 1997, p. 385) The UN was unenthusiastic in managing the transition in which UNITAF would be replaced. But in March 1993 UNOSOM II was made compulsory to replace UNITAF under the Security Council Resolution 814, which was crafted by the foreign Policy team of President Clinton. This resolution called for the rebuilding of the institutions of the state. This resolution of the Chapter VII was clear about the enforcement, which included the disarming of Clans of Somali. The administration of the mission was weak and Aideed took the advantage of this situation in June 1993 when some of his supporters attacked and murdered twenty-four Pakistani soldiers. Responding to this situation the UN sanctioned through Security Council Resolution 837 the U.S. Rangers to arrest those who were responsible for the act, which resulted in the disaster of UNOSOM II. On October 3, 1993 a manhunt for Aideed was initiated which resulted in the death of eighteen Americans and seventy-five were wounded. Following this series of incidence including the killings of the American soldiers, President Clinton immediately announced the phased withdrawal of the American troops that would be over by March 1994 thereby bringing an end to the international gendarmerie in the civil war of Somali. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 32) Inadequacy in the measure of the Conflict intervention in Somalia International efforts were made to improve the devastating effect of the Somali civil war and to reconstruct a working administration in the country. The efforts brought some noteworthy achievements but they were overshadowed by major severe failures. The humanitarian ruckus created by the continued civil war drove in the need of interventions. There were several NGOs that came in to provide a helping hand for the war stricken nation of Somalia. The NGOs included the International Islamic Relief (IIRO), the International Development and Relief Agency (IDRA), the Munzamai Islamic society (DAWA), the Muslim Aid UK (MAUK), Save the Children (SCF), and the African society for Maternity and childhood (ACSSOM). Philip Johnston the president of CARE assisted to create a security-coordinated mechanism for all the NGOs in 1992, which became the U.S led Civilian Military Operations Center (CMOC). Apart from these NGOs several other UN humanitarian agencies joined forces during the civil war, which includes the UNHCR, the UNICEF, the UNESCO, the UNDP, the UNCTAD, and the ECOSOC. Though these NGOs have came forward to lend a helping hand for the population of the Somalia the main aim behind this publicly stated humanitarian goals were to raise private money and to obtain international contracts for their activities. Several of these institutions chose Somalia as the perfect site to promote their organizations and thereby acquire potential donors. The personnel from the organization were there but they could not provide any help that would have justified their presence. In real practice their presence worsened the situation, as they possessed a constant threat from the Somali population and as well as from the militias present at the region. The only way to protect them was to by giving registered IDs to them, which aggravated the situation all the more as the registered IDs were a license to carry arms. The establishment of the CMOC in December 1992 was to reduce some of these problems but the greater problem was that the military commands had to expand their goals otherwise they were facing the bloods of these humanitarian relief workers on their hands. The presence of many humanitarian agents did not help the situation on the contrary it added to the problems. They need to be more structured and focused on their approach. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 34; Brown, 1996, p. 256; Clarke and Herbst, 1996) “The international community had an opportunity to stem the civil war in its bud” in 1988 when there were only small uprisings. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 34) The Secretary General’s special delegate, Sahnoun was given the responsibility of the Security council Resolution 751 creating the UNOSOM I who soon realized the UN’s inability to coherent and maintain any policy and hence he quit on October 1992. While he was working there he got to know that his superiors had let enter a Russian plane with the UN markings to deliver shipments to Mahdi which was later added on by the UN’s announcement of the deploying three thousand troops to Somalia. He was at that time in a negotiation regarding the first five hundred. According to Sahnoun a more influential international involvement in mediating the political crisis after the fall of Siyaad would have ensured the establishment of a command, which would have been capable of legitimate domination thus preventing the civil war. But this has to be also noted that if one of the group leaders or a coalition of the groups were to given power then the other factions would had bargained for power as well if not in the form of war. But the argument can be placed in this way as the leaders of the factions in the nation were weak and anxious they would had agreed to get on terms if the deal would had been seconded by proper fiscal and military backing. (Lahneman, 2004, pp. 35-36; Woodhouse and Ramsbotham, 2000, pp. 159-161) UNITAF was a success from the operation point of view as 986 airlift missions moved over thirty three thousand passengers and over thirty two thousand short tons of cargo to Somalia. 11 ships and 1192 containers of supplies moved 365000 tons of cargos. But there were logistical problems that cropped up at that moment as the airport at Mogadishu was equipped with limited capacities and the central airlift control coordinating the U.S government and the NGO charters were absent. There were also certain problems associated with the delivery of the hazardous cargoes on chartered planes and the diplomatic clearance issues. The records of the different prolonged supplies were subjected to different methods of accounting and hence the failure in the consistency resulted in the wastage of the airlift assets. There were similar types of problem that cropped up like unload of a ship; there were always confusions. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 36) The major problem that had to be faced was the intervention of the military aspects in the non-military ones as the military goal of providing fast distribution of the food and medical supplies required place from the warlords. The goal of the civilian in establishing a legitimate government in Somalia required the warlords to be challenged and this dilemma could never be resolved by the UNITAF which emphasized on the necessity of cooperating with the warlords and in the process empowered them. The UNOSOM II was also unable to resolve the dilemma and hence wanted to diminish the power of the warlords. The UN operation never had a clear exit strategy. Ambassador Robert Oakley the Special Envoy to Somalia had a difficulty in taking decision in his effort to restore hope, as the warlords had the capacity to terrorize anyone who was found in the countryside. But eliminating the warlords in the initial stage would have been a major military and political undertaking but that would have jeopardized the entire Southern clan. And this strategy would have been an opposition to the presidential caution that all U.S troops be moved away from Somalia by three months. But Oakley made several efforts like appointing governors in the localities and appointing women in the local councils. He unavoidably became hostage to the orders of the warlords, as the establishment of the order was the key to the humanitarian effort’s success. The long-term outcome of such a policy was to establish a legitimate government, which was not possible. Hence the paramount plan for restoring hope required a rational strategy of exiting under peaceful conditions. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 37; Smith, 2010, p. 37; Salih and Wohlgemuth, 1994, pp. 153-155) The UNITAF started believing that their mission has been accomplished during the period of January 1993 as the death tolls had reduced and eventually stopped. There was hostility that could be felt by the Americans and many in the UNITAF started believing that as the appropriate moment for them to leave the nation. But the UN Secretary general Boutros- Ghali restricted his men to engage in any police and civic programs till UNITAF left the place. Hence there was no evolution for this effort as neither the United States nor the UN was thinking of a feasible exit strategy at that moment. The UNOSOM II led by the Admiral Jonathan Howe further concerned on “mission creep” which shifted the focus from the humanitarian intervention to the nation building. UNOSOM at that time did not had any civilian leaders who was required to parley a political solution. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 38; Prosser, 2010) There was some essential strategic dilemma in the International Peacekeeping operations like the permanent members of the Security Council have an interest in proposing operations that they do not wish to fulfill. The strategy of the original U.S intervention can be divided into two parts- the opinion of President Bush that is the establishment of UNISOM I and UNITAF for the humanitarian purposes to address the issues of immense starvation and illness as a result of the civil war in Somalia which was further enhanced by the airlifting supplies in response to a cable sent by Smith Hempstone Jr. o President Bush after his visit to the Kenya refugee camps. But the concern was not about solving the economic and political problem of the state, the US people were more concerned about feeding the people and leaving the land so that it could again turn into a mess. The Bush administration was expecting that as soon as UNITAF finishes its mission UNISOM II will take over to deal with the problems of disarmament of the groups and move towards a civilian administration in the nation. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 39) In the second phase the administration working under Clinton was given the task of handling the delicate issue of exit. They were of the opinion that the best way of existing would be the reestablishment of a legitimate government in Somalia under the prevalence of peace. They were going by the philosophy of “assertive multilateralism” (Lahneman, 2004, p. 39) and the men were finding it extremely difficult to develop an exit strategy. But soon the philosophy of assertive multilateralism changed into the quest of revenge in the context of 24 ill equipped Pakistani soldiers being killed by Aidded’s men. But the strategy of revenge backfired on the American Rangers as they were experiencing failure and hence they again moved on to the exit Strategy. It is all the more surprising that despite the mention in the Charter that the UN will act to end the scourge of war, it initially did not involve itself in any operation in the war of Somalia. The organization of Africa Unity (OAU) was also against such an operation as there was lack of presence of any sovereign government in the nation that would request for help as otherwise that would not had been justified in the context of UN Charter Article 2(7). It was further argued by the representatives of the OAU that the UN Charter also prevents against such intervention in the internal affairs of the member states. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 39) On the backdrop of this mismatch between the mandates and resources the UN was projected as to be the one who is not capable of assuming leadership of an international military engagement. It failed to take the lead when the member states accredited it with the leadership. This was not just a failure but also an international humiliation for the UN. There were several lacunas from the part of the UN like for example during the negotiations between the United States and the UN regarding the establishment of the UNITAF there was no serious plan developed by the Secretary General as per the Resolution 794 to transfer the power to UNOSOM II followed by the withdrawal of UNITAF. The Americans were shocked to realize that there was actually no staff working on the problem and there was no existence of any command center to get the operations done properly. The UN Command was operating with twelve thousand lesser troops than it had been signed to and even with the fewer troops Admiral Howe was facing restrictions in engaging in the operations in certain areas and hence it became difficult for him to develop a coherent tactical plan. The situation was all the more worsened as Howe was working with a group of 100 men which was reduced from 800 in a month and according to Howe the applicant pool was “people that nobody else wants”. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 41) It has been also opined that the operation of UNISOM II needed a much more powerful force to intervene as it was being carried about by 18000 troops and the operation was far more complex than the UNITAF mission. But the UNITAF troops were better trained and well equipped compared to the troops of the UNISOM II. (Lahneman, 2004, p. 41) The recent foreign intervention for the Ethiopia’s three year war which took place from May 1998 to 2000 which ended in January resulted in the empowering of the Islamists. The insurgent force had been all the more stronger and unified due to the intervention of the African Union force as to fight this foreigners the Al Shabab group had united themselves with another Islamist group of Hizbul Islam inspite of the dissimilarities in the two groups. This situation has also led the Al Qaeda to come to the country as they feel it to be the perfect place and situation to wage international jihad and all this results in the instability in the political scenario of the nation. (Andrew, 2009; A bloody border, 2011; Ahad, 2010) Conclusion Somalia has been considered to be the laboratory of applying new theories to bring in peace in the nation after the conflicts that the nation faced and is facing till now. Despite the number of efforts and the intervention by the international community in Somalia their efforts have been widely criticized. Throughout the various level of intervention the addressing of the cultural issues at all levels were evident at both the interaction and process phases. There arose the problem of cultural differences within the peacekeeping force as a measure of conflict intervention in Somalia. After the two decades of the civil war the country has faced accompanied by the failed foreign interventions the country still continues to be on the receiving ends of the humanitarian catastrophe. The recent incidence of 200000 men leaving the country due to the fight between the Al-Shabab which is believed to have ties with Al-Qaeda and African Union Peacemaking force. Instances of killing and mass murders are frequently reported from the nation. Now the last thing the country want is the international intervention in its inter affairs. The international interventions from time to time have proved to be a disadvantage for the country as is the evident from the past records. Every time the international institution intervenes in the internal affairs of the country it results in worst consequences by empowering those who should had been rooted out of the nation. References: 1. Lahneman, W.J,(2004), Military Intervention: Cases in the context for the twenty first century, New York, Rowman and Littlefield. 2. Ohaegbulam, F.U, (2004), U.S. Policy in postcolonial Africa, USA, Peter Lang. 3. Abdi, A, (1998), Education in Somalia: History, destruction, and calls for reconstruction, Comparative Education, Vol 34, No. 3, available at: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=8eb3ff43-cd20-4bf5-bbfb-792afa7c1d64%40sessionmgr113&vid=1&hid=108 (accessed on May 11, 2011) 4. 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