There is little to recommend any of the militia leaders, but Aideed's only saving WHEN the United States grace is that he refused to folpulled out of Somalia a low the simple plan the year ago to befollowed last US/UN arrived with - to instal his rival Ali Mahdi as month by the remaining Prime Minister, restore state United Nations troops, authority and replace the solhad suffered its greatest dierswith bankers and busihumiliation in twenty nessmen. years.
George Bush's parting gift Goose chase to his successor was "OperaFarah Aideed had a little tion Restore Hope".
more ambition than a Cabinet It was a "humanitarian in- post, but when the US/UN tervention" we were told, the issued a warrant for his arrest US acting out of pure self- he led them on a merry goose lessness, to deliver Somalia chase - which they ultimately from famine and the grip of lost. warring militias. They made him into a It was conveniently oversymbol of Somali pride and a looked that the famine had national hero, andmade peaked well before Decemthemselves almost as unber 1992, and that western popular as the hated ex-dictagovernments had ignored re- tor Siad Barre. peated appeals for food aid.
In Somalia we were introAlso ignored was the fact that duced to this new doctrine of these 'warlords' were using 'humanitarian intervention', western made arms. since used to justify the invaBefore long the United sion of Haiti. Nations contingent led by the But from the start the Left US began acting as just an- warned that this was simply other warlord, when it beimperialism re-inventing itcame entangled with General Farah Aideed. set.
Why was the US in Somalia? There are broadly three explanations advanced which overlap in places.
• Somalia is of strategic importance both for its location and its resources;
• Islamic fundamentalist regimes were being given a taste of US firepower;
• and, that it was an exercise in post-Cold War militarism.
In the event, the lure of a possible strategic military outpost in the Horn of Africa, hopes of monopolising potential oil reserves, and the desire to intimidate potentially hostile regimes in the region through a show of force proved insufficient to persuade Bill Clinton to commit more US forces to Somalia.
As a result, the world's most powerful military machine was given the runaround by a bunch of indisciplined local militias, and withdrew amid scenes of total chaos, confirming the impotence of firepower and hardware in the absence of a polltical base When we called for the withdrawal of the US/UN we were told that a bloodbath would occur, yet the reverse has happened.
Somalia has actually cooled down as a result of the withdrawal.
The militia leaders have been robbed of the media attention and UN patronage that kept them in power. Across Somalia the 'warlords' are losing authority to clan elders, who are drawing on traditional practices to contract with neighbouring clans for peace.
Agreements like these kept the northern republic of Somaliland free of famine and war the last few years.
Aideed's power base is shrinking LO south Mogadishu as his allies in the rest of the country tire of him and are preoccupied with their own political survival.
There are persistent rumours that the UN paid Aideed and his arch-rival Ali Mahdi huge sums of money not to restart the war and to broker a coalition government. True or not, this has only discredited them further before the people.
There are no other credible alternatives except small groups of liberal intellectuals mainly in exile.
A new feature is the emergence of fundamentalist movements asserting an Islamic identity to unify the Somali people when clan identities are blamed for the chaos and tragedies of the past.
In north Mogadishu, Islamic tribunals have been carrying out sharia punishments such as amputation of limbs and even stoning to death an alleged criminal.
Somalia may have collapsed as a nation state, but across the country regions are administering themselves, new hardware • were not enough to crush Somali militias drawing support from clan associations, and particularly women who are often the heads of families following the death of their husband.
Clad in the uniform of the United Nations and with "humanitarianism" as its badge, the US wants to be accepted as globo-cop.
The failure to build a movement for US withdrawal is lamentable, but any belief that this latest phase of imperialism is an improvement on the past is inexcusable.
Above all, Somalia should remind us that imperialism -contrary to its own mythology - doesn't always win.