In this issue:
* HAROLD MARCUS INTERVIEWS AIDEED
* STRANDED IN ADDIS?
* UN SOMALIA FORCE SPENDS HEAVILY ON ITSELF-REPORT
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S O M A L I A N E W S U P D A T E
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Vol 2, No 35 December 7, 1993. ISSN 1103-1999
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Somalia News Update is published irregularly via electronic mail and
fax. Questions can be directed to
[email protected] or
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HAROLD MARCUS INTERVIEWS AIDEED
(SNU, Uppsala, December 7, 1993) - One of the leading scholars of
Ethiopian Studies, Professor Harold Marcus, appeared last week at a
Somali studies meeting held at the College of the Holy Cross in
Worcester, Massachusetts. At the conference Marcus read excerpts of
an interview he recently conducted with Mohammed Farah Aideed in
Mogadishu. The full interview is forthcoming in a 7,500-word article
in the New Yorker.
Marcus first of all made clear that he thought the term warlord
has to go. He thought that its continued use reflected that UNOSOM
has misunderstood the most basic things about the Somali conflict. He
also blamed the US command in Somalia for being misinformed and the
journalistic community for simply "playing the game of UNOSOM".
Marcus said the six-hour interview in the Casa Popolare part of
Mogadishu had been carefully prepared in advance. In addition to
seeing Aideed twice he had met with many of Aideed's senior officers
and large numbers of his "army" consisting largely of men in their
twenties. His soldiers appeared, said Marcus, to be as devoted to
their leader as young men in the US army are devoted to their leader.
Aideed claimed to be "anti-clanism" which he sees as sparked by
the colonial powers in the north and south of the country and further
reinforced by the exploitation of the military regime of Siyad Barre.
He told Marcus that UNOSOM has done the same thing, by setting up
district and regional councils based on clan needs.
Twice in his career, Aideed said, he had stood up for what he
thought was right and went to prison war 6 and half years for doing
so once and the other time ending up as UN's prey. He said Siyad
Barre was anti-Somali in the way he formed his governments. Aideed
also claimed that he himself will revert to true Somali politics
"when and or if I am given the peoples trust". SNA, the alliance led
by Aideed, is a true alliance that crosses clans, he said.
Marcus went on to describe how Aideed wanted to reorganize
districts to force people to vote across clan lines. He had said that
he wanted to have real multi-clan organzations developing in Somalia.
The clanism had also been sparked by foreign aid and NGO:s, he added
and said that there was a need for controlling both international aid
and the NGO:s in the future.
Aideed said that he sees the district and regional councils set
up by UNOSOM as a dagger pointed to himself and that they are also
un-somali. He argued that the role of the traditional elders is
different than what UNOSOM seems to think. He pointed out that UNOSOM
is badly advised.
Marcus said that Aideed when discussing the North (Somaliland)
had described it as a "delicate problem". He said he was sympathetic
to Northerners, having worked there as a Colonel [under Siyad Barre].
The North had been badly handled by Siyad, exploited by him, and the
only solution would be to "go back to old Somali ways and talk this
problem out". He didn't think that the "problem of the North" would
resolve easily but said he was willing to discuss any solution "short
of the disruption of the national state". According to Marcus, Aideed
is "willing to give them a very high degree of autonomy".
Aideed was grateful for the Ethiopian policy under Meles because
as he saw it it gave the Somalis breathing room since they do not
need to worry about the Ogadeen clan.
Professor Marcus told SNU that he had not discussed the Sudanese
links with Aideed. His general impression of the man was the he was
the most intelligent leader in Africa he had ever talked to.
what ha ve you been reading Alan Toffler's latest book on
Futurologly He was the most intelligent leader in Africa I have ever
talked to. He actually resembled Ethiopia's former Emperor Haile
Selassie since both men actually had the capacity to laugh about
themselves.
STRANDED IN ADDIS?
(SNU, Mogadishu, December 4) - Since the US was humiliated by their
transport of Aideed becoming publicly known it appears that Aideed
might be facing an acute logistical problem. Col. Steve Rausch,
spokesman for US forces here, said the use of an Army plane to carry
Aideed and his armed bodyguards was requested by the staff of the US
liaison to Somalia, Richard W. Bogosian, which has routine use of an
American military aircraft.
He said the office's request was cleared at the military staff
level without being run past Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Montgomery,
commander of US troops here. Rausch said the US military doesn't want
to fly him home, although it would if the State Department insisted.
UN SOMALIA FORCE SPENDS HEAVILY ON ITSELF-REPORT
(Reuters, Los Angeles, November 28) - The United Nation's mission to
rebuild Somalia has spent more than $300 million in the last six
months on its own forces and profit-seeking contractors but has done
little to reconstruct the country, the Los Angeles Times reported
Sunday last week.
Only a fraction of the money the United Nations has spent in the
war-torn nation has gone toward projects that directly benefit
Somalis, the newspaper said, citing documents and interviews with
dozens of UN officials and business people.
The United Nations, which once billed its most costly operation
as a blueprint to define a new world order of peacemaking and
national reconstruction, has spent most of the millions on itself,
the Times reported from Mogadishu.
In the process, business people from countries such as the
United States, Canada and Saudi Arabia have reaped huge profits, it
said. The services they have provided include $6.50 fast-food pizzas,
a $9 million sewer system for the UN headquarters in Mogadishu and a
$2 million-a-month helicopter taxi service to ferry UN personnel
across a city still unsafe for travel by land, the Times reported.
But in the capital itself, the United Nations has not installed
an electrical line, a sewer pipe or telephone wire for use by the
general population, the newspaper said.
Somalia offers a case study in how the United Nations and the
contractors who profit from its missions in troubled lands have
transformed international peacekeeping into a growth industry, the
Times said. UN officials defended their record by insisting there are
high costs attached to maintaining, feeding and transporting a
peacekeeping force of 29,000 soldiers from around the world in a
dangerous land with little infrastructure.
UN officials were cited as saying that in addition, humanitarian
and development projects are financed out of a separate budget for
which international contributions are harder to obtain.
UN documents examined by the Times show that the largest single
expenditure that the United Nations has made in Somalia -- more than
$200 million since last May -- has been paid in cash to governments
contributing to the peacekeeping force.
The money, which mostly comes from donations by the United
States and the world body's wealthier European members, is a valuable
source of foreign exchange for the poorer countries contributing
troops, such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, the Times said.
But the international force has thus far fallen far short of its
mandate to maintain safe land and supply route throughout Somalia and
to restore enough order to the capital for the delivery of
humanitarian aid.
The newspaper cited documents showing that in the first six
months of the mission, only $7 million has been spent on
infrastructure and repairs outside the agency's compounds.
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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 University, Sweden. SNU is produced with support from the
Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, Sweden.
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