In this issue:
* MEAGRE DISARMAMENT RECORD
* HAWAADLE AND HABAR GEDIR IN ARMED CLASH
* AIDEED'S KHARTOUM CONNECTION
____________________________________________________________________
S O M A L I A N E W S U P D A T E
____________________________________________________________________
Vol 2, No 22 September 11, 1993. ISSN 1103-1999
____________________________________________________________________
Somalia News Update is published irregularly via electronic mail and
fax. Questions can be directed to
[email protected] or
to fax number +46-18-151160. All SNU marked material is free to
quote as long as the source is clearly stated.
____________________________________________________________________
MEAGRE DISARMAMENT RECORD
(SNU, Uppsala, September 11) The last two days of resumed fighting in
Mogadishu should come as no surprise to those within UNOSOM who have
been responsible for implementing the Addis Ababa-agreement on
disarmament.
Admiral Howe, in an address to the Somali people last month,
described the disarmament record so far: "Since May, UNOSOM II has
confiscated almost 1300 small arms, and more than 750 machine guns
and other heavy weapons such as rockets launchers and mortars. UNOSOM
II also disabled nearly 50 armoured vehicles; more than 400 artillery
pieces; almost 600 other weapons and over 87,000 pieces of ordnance".
In any other country in the world these confiscated weapons
would have constituted a tremendous success. However, for the Somali
factions it constitutes a mere skimming of the surface of their
holdings. A large number of the weapons have also turned out to be
out of order and had been voluntarily surrendered by the factions.
Some of the vehicles had actually been abandoned.
Very little of the confiscated weaponry appears to have been
collected in Mogadishu. In his address, Admiral Howe went on to say
that "UNOSOM will soon target Mogadishu in its disarmament campaign".
HAWAADLE AND HABAR GEDIR IN ARMED CLASH
(SNU, Uppsala, September 11) Tension has been mounting between
the Habar Gedir and Hawaadle clans in Mogadishu for a long time.
Before the arrival of the UNITAF in December last year the Hawaadle
clan controlled Mogadishu's airport. Politically they straddled
somewhere in between Abgaal's Ali Mahdi and Habar Gedir's Mohammed
Farah Aideed. Some elders within the clan has for a long time sought
to act as mediators between the two wings of the USC militia.
When the youngest brother of the current Hawaadle ugas (chief)
took up employment with UNOSOM as an advisor to Admiral Howe, some
Habar Gedir felt that they could no longer deal with members of a
clan who was actively engaged in what Habar Gedir sees as a war
against them. At the same time UNOSOM has fired a number of their
locally hired staff that were suspected of leaking information to
Aideed.
It cannot be ruled out that Thursday's ambush on the UNOSOM
troops originally had been intended as a trap for Hawaadle. At any
rate the clash between Habar Gedir and UN at the former cigarette-
factory, which left more than 100 Somalis killed, rapidly was
transformed into fighting between Habar Gedir and Hawaadle forces.
AIDEED'S KHARTOUM CONNECTION
(SNU, Uppsala, September 11) Throughout the past few months it
has repeatedly been alleged that Sudan has been smuggling arms and
weapons into Somalia to the USC militia of General Mohammed Farah
Aideed.
Last month the United Nations force in Somalia closed down two
small airstrips outside Mogadishu, claiming that they were being used
to smuggle arms and weapons to General Aideed. Observers generally
held that the real reason of the close-down was to inflict a serious
blow for the economically vital qat-imports that is largely in the
hands of Aideed's Habar Gedir clan. According to an article in this
month's edition of the Sudan Democratic Gazette, however, the UN
report on the airstrips omitted to mention that the arms are being
supplied by Iran and then transported to Somalia via Sudan. The
Khartoum regime does not have the capacity to supply such weaponry
from its own stocks and so is using this opportunity to win back
favour with Teheran.
"Both Sudan and Iran have similar objectives for helping General
Aideed in Somalia" says the Sudan Democratic Gazette. "Firstly, they
believe that by helping him they will endear themselves to his
supporters and win their support for their long term Islamic agenda
in the region. Secondly, both Khartoum and Teheran wish to use Aideed
to embarrass the Americans in Somalia and to discredit them
throughout the region".
Khartoum is believed to have supported Aideed for a considerable
time, dating back to when Khartoum was the only regime in the region
which opposed UN intervention in Somalia. It has been thought that
Khartoum's opposition was purely a practical one, with the regime
suspecting that after Somalia, Sudan would be next on the UN's
agenda. However, the Gazette argues, "it now seems as if the
opposition was in fact far more ideologically based than at first
thought".
From the initial UN involvement in Somalia, the Khartoum regime
has pressed the case for allowing only Islamic relief agencies to
operate in the Moslem country. In particular, Khartoum would have
liked the Islamic world to only support Sudanese Islamic relief
agencies to operate in Somalia.
There is some evidence to suggest that Khartoum was behind the
difficulties experienced between the UN and the secretary general's
first personal representative to Somalia, Ambassador Mohammed Sahnoun
of Algeria. The ambassador eventually resigned his position amid a
public disagreement with the secretary general. The Gazette claims
that "rumours abounded at the time that Mr. Sahnoun had been invited
to Khartoum by the regime and that he travelled there without first
clearing the visit with UN headquarters in New York". It is possible,
however, that the Gazette have confused Sahnoun's Khartoum visit with
the meeting in Seychelles, at which Sahnoun did receive a fax from
the UN HQ pointing out that he lacked clearance for that trip.
However, at the time of Sahnoun's Khartoum visit last autumn, it
was rumoured that the leader of the Islamic Fundamentalist movement
in Sudan (the Akhiwaan Muslimen), Dr. Hassan Abdalla El Turabi -- a
former minister in Ali Mehdi's government -- had asked the Algerian
diplomat to permit only Islamic relief agencies to work in Somalia.
Just a week ago it was believed that Aideed was in Khartoum
meeting with the leaders of the regime, in spite of UN announcements
in Somalia that they are close to arresting him. "This", says the
Gazette, "is just one of many visits that the general has made to
Khartoum. On two previous occasions the Sudan People's Liberation
Army (SPLA) has revealed the presence of the Somali warlord in
Khartoum, only for the story's accuracy to be brought into question.
On both occasions the UN in Somalia eventually confirmed the accuracy
of the SPLA's stories."
Given the frequency of Aideed's Khartoum trips, it is not unlikely
that an additional reason for closing down the airstrips near
Mogadishu is to try and restrict Aideed's potential for moving in and
out of the country undetected.
The Gazette confirms that "the weapons being supplied to Aideed
all originate in Iran". Despite that transports by truck would seem
more rational, the arms "are flown to Somalia on small planes which
are capable of landing on any of the numerous small airstrips which
dot the country. Most of the weaponry comes through the Sudanese Red
Sea port of Port Sudan. The smuggling is proving very difficult for
the UN forces to stop".
There is also, the paper claims, "additional evidence that some
weapons have been transported from Sudan via Ethiopia. Marked as
relief supplies, the Ethiopian authorities have allowed such small
plane cargoes to pass through in good faith".
The Khartoum regime have not sought to help Somalia in any
appreciable way but have merely added to the troubles of that
disturbed land and the difficulties of its people. The Sudan
Democratic Gazette concludes: "It is well known that the Sudanese
Islamic Fundamentalists have tried in various trouble spots of the
region, with differing degrees of success, to offer aid to needy
people with a view to ideologically converting the unsuspecting and
overwhelmingly Moslem people to the Fundamentalist cause".
____________________________________________________________________
SNU is an entirely independent newsletter devoted to critical
analysis of the political and humanitarian developments in Somalia
and Somaliland. SNU is edited and published by Dr. Bernhard Helander,
Uppsala, Sweden.
____________________________________________________________________
