Expert Opposes U.S. Military Intervention in Somalia

(NLNS)—On December third, the prominent international human rights group, Human Rights Watch, fired the executive director of its Africa Watch program. Rakiya Omaar, a Somali native and Africa Watch founder, was dismissed “for insubordination and failure to abide by our internal procedures on establishing policy.” Omaar has come out strongly opposed to the U.S. deployment.

Omaar is convinced that such a deployment would disrupt peacemaking efforts by traditional Somali clan and community leaders and international relief workers. These groups have been making progress, she says, and a major intervention will both break these talks and force relief organizations under the gun and out of the country.

Furthermore, under the current situation of neglect, the Somali population may well interpret the intervention as an invasion, which would only serve to fuel support for clan rivalries in their attacks against international agencies and relief organizations.

Most experts agree that the original decision to send a 3,500 person U.N. force would easily be sufficient to insure food delivery and the continuation of peace talks. This original plan, says Omaar, “was very well prepared on the ground by the former representative of U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Mohammed Sahnoun,” who was fired from his post by Ghali for criticizing the Security Council’s unwillingness to force Clan leaders to accept the intervention. She comments that Sahnoun “was working with everyone, with Somali society, as part of a larger effort of political negotiation and reconciliation.”

It is local initiatives, she says, and the use of traditional Somali rituals that have enabled many relief groups to deliver food with relatively high degrees of success. Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services, and the Intl. Red Cross, which have used the local structures, have been able to deliver food and negotiate with the militias.

Thus, both the former executive director of Africa Watch and the ex-director of the UNOSOM operation agree that the previous plan would be sufficient given the sort of political strength we saw exercised by the U.S. Furthermore, they agree that in the short-run U.S. forces will prevent looting and get some food to the population. Accordingly, however, they point out that the 3,500 already allocated could accomplish the same task, and that this would prevent the breakdown of local initiatives and peacetalks.

The result could be tragic. Basic relief structures may well be destroyed, clan rivalries may well consolidate against what appears to them to be a U.S. invasion. The U.S. will be faced with the difficult decision of whether to withdrawal, leaving open a power vacuum over unsolved political disputes. Under such circumstances, the U.N., led by the U.S., may well attempt to institute a U.N. protectorate. State Department officials have already hinted that such a program may well be best directed and operated by the United States, putting Somalia in a pseudo-colonial status.

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