world cop. the US does not see itself as having major strategic interests. Alter Bosnia is destroyed, the West wil eventually do business with the most powerful state in the region, Serbia.
What attitude to take towards the United Nations has been persistently among the most controversial questions on the left.
Today the UN is more firmly controlled by the United States than at any time in its history. Secretary General Butros ButrosGali takes his orders direct from the State Department.
In the 1950s western-domination of the UN was strongly contested by the Soviet Union. The 1950s and "60s saw the emergence of the third world non-aligned countries as a powerful bloc, making it often difficult for the US to impose its will.
All that was changed by the crisis of third world nationalist regimes and the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc.
With the UN Security Council under effective US control it was easy to get the "international community to agree to the slaughter of 200,000 Arabs in the Gulf War.
We have now seen the meaning of "humanitarian" intervention. It is a sick joke to believe store hope for anyone except the iver, we wond bank and the did corporations behind them.
Somalia needs massive aid. It is being disrupted, not helped, by UN military intervention. THE United Nations intervention to "restore hope' in Somalia is the culmination of a crisis which is the product of 15 years of chaos.
gained independence in July 1960, bringing together two former colonies. British Somaliland and the ItalNomadic Half the country's population of 6-7 million people live as nomadic herders. In 1988 almost 70 per cent of the export income was earned from livestock, bananas. The per capita income cent came from is about £100 per head, while the foreign debt is £1.5 billion, almost twice the GNP.
independence a series of civilian governmentsplagued by corruption, nepotism and favouritism made little progress in developing the country. In 1969 army and police officers, led by major-gencral Siad Barre seized powe and appointed Barre head of state.
At first the new regime announced reforms which would benefit the rural population. A friendship treaty was signed with the Soviet Ünion in 1974. Moscow sent 6000 civilian and military advisors, and Barre allowed the use of the Red Sea port of Berbera by the Soviet But an increasingly authoritarian Barre tried to whip up nationalist feeling over Somalia's claim on Ethiopia's Somali-speaking Ogaden region.
Invasion
His invasion of Ogaden in 1978 led to a falling out with the Soviet Union, which then helped Ethiopia defcat the atBarre responded by embracing Washington. The United States navy took over the Berbera port, and US military and come a Dogat to how to Clan-based guerrilla movements began to organise. Barre devastated the home territories of the various guerrilla fronts. Hardest hit was northern Somalia, where the Somali national Movement was active. In May 1988 the SNM captured and held the major northern cities of Burao and Hargeisa.
Genocide
Barre responded by launching virtual genocide against the Isaag people, the backbone of the SNM's fighters. Somali jets and tanks decimated every village as they passod through the north. Burao was all but oblitersica. Umy tve per cent or tair geisa's buildings were left standing.
The majority clan in the Mogadishu area and central Somalia, the Hawiye, formed the opposition United Somali Congress (USC), which began to infiltrate the capital. Now it was the tum of these areas to face Barre's wrath.
In late December 1990, the USC launched its offensive for the capital. In a final act of desperation, Barre ordered his troops 1o pound the rebel-held districts of Mogadishu day and night for weeks.
Barre scuttled out of Mogadishu towards his homeland near the Kenyan border in a tank convoy on 26 January 1991. On 31 January Hargeisa fell to the SNM; on 18 March the SNM declared Somalia the Independent Republic of Somaliland.
The country's cconomy was smashed and its infrastructure destroyed. Millions of Somalis were displaced and unable to plant their crops. WORLD NEWS Drought The whole area was stricken by a drought which would have been difficult enough to cope with in normal times. The aftermath of the war to oust Barre was famine and the beginnings of a break-up of the country along clan lines.
During the last few months of Barre's rule the West had suspended aid.
It took a full 18 months of famine for the UN to order emergency 1oog aa. somalia Is the victim of a Wester-backed dictatorship, and the economic stranglehold of the West which forces Africa into poverty.
It is this weeem-created catastrophe which is now cynithe pretext for full-scale military intervention by the US.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 45 June 26 1993. Page 8