order to survive. There was lots of looting, and teenaged gangsters.
By September–October [1992], that region was already re -
covering. Even though groups like US Care and the UN operations
were extremely incompetent, other aid groups—like the
International Red Cross, Save The Children, and smaller groups like
the American Friends Service Committee or Australian Care—were
getting most of the aid through.
By early November, 80–90% of their aid was reportedly getting
through; by late November the figures were up to 95%. The reason
was that they were working with the reconstituting Somalian
society. In this southern corner of real violence and starvation,
things were already recovering, just as they had in the north.
A lot of this had been under the initiative of a UN negotiator,
Mohammed Sahnoun of Algeria, who was extremely successful and
highly respected on all sides. He was working with traditional elders
and the newly emerging civic groups, especially the women’s
groups, and they were coming back together under his guidance, or
at least his initiative.
But Sahnoun was kicked out by [UN Secretary General] Boutros-
Ghali in October because he publicly criticized the incompetence
and corruption of the UN effort. The UN put in an Iraqi
replacement, who apparently achieved very little.
A US intervention was apparently planned for shortly after the
election. The official story is that it was decided upon at the end of
November, when George Bush saw heart-rending pictures on
television. But, in fact, US reporters in Baidoa in early November
saw Marine officers in civilian clothes walking around and scouting
out the area, planning for where they were going to set up their
base.
This was rational timing. The worst crisis was over, the society
was reconstituting and you could be pretty well guaranteed a fair
success at getting food in, since it was getting in anyway. Thirty
thousand troops would only expedite it in the short term. There
wouldn’t be too much fighting, because that was subsiding. So it
wasn’t Dodge City.
Bush got the photo opportunities and left somebody else to face
the problems that were bound to arise later on. Nobody cared what
happened to the Somalis. If it works, great, we’ll applaud and cheer
ourselves and bask in self-acclaim. If it turns into a disaster, we’ll
treat it the same as other interventions that turn into disasters.
ann
(Ann)
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