Document(s) 10 of 10

In the early and mid-1990s, the phrase “like Somalia and Yugoslavia” was a frequent refrain in both policy and academic circles. The phrase punctuated a wide array of positions and policies — many of which were mutually incompatible. Yet, one commentator cautioned enigmatically that “we should be careful not to learn too much from

NB. A version of this chapter appeared in the Spring 1997 issue of the Journal of Conflict Studies. It is republished here with the kind permission of the Centre for Conflict Studies, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada. I thank Todd Baseden, Kerry Buck, Chris Cushing, Nigel Fisher, and Tracey Goodman for their contributions to this chapter.

Somalia.” One is faced with two equally important questions: What lessons should be drawn from the case of Somalia? To what extent can these lessons be applied to other complex humanitarian emergencies? These are the principal questions that underpin this study of Somalia and that confront foreign policymakers trying to make sense of the Somalian conflict. On the one hand, Somalia was initially cast as “the ideal test case” for the leadership of the United Nations (UN) in a new and evolving world order (Hutchinson 1993; Jonah 1993). However, the complexities, particularities, and indeterminate outcome of international intervention make it clear that Somalia cannot be used as a model for the construction of a “new” world order. Indeed, unless the international community can discern and learn the appropriate lessons from its experience in Somalia, the case may serve as a convenient justification for retrenchment, isolationism, and retreat from the most pressing challenges of the post-Cold War era. In the end, it may well pave the way for the capricious and inconsistent foreign-policy responses that have been labeled elsewhere as “bungee cord humanitarianism” (Bush 1996).

This chapter reviews the evolution of the crisis in Somalia and the international response in the form of the First United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM I), the UN Unified Task Force in Somalia (UNITAF), and the Second United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM II). The article develops the concept of a mission for peace as an aid to understanding and assessing large-scale, multifaceted, externally led humanitarian interventions. (This concept was introduced in a series of workshops sponsored by the Parliamentary Centre for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade in 1993 and 1994.) By developing this concept, we may not only improve our capacity to assess international responses to Somalia but also formulate better responses to other humanitarian crises when they arise — and, ideally, before they arise.

The most recent example of this type of operation was the short-lived Canadian-led initiative in late 1996 to establish a multinational force in eastern Zaire, as sanctioned by Security Council Resolution 1080 (in 1996). We should be clear about the context in which missions for peace are attempted. They are undertaken only after national and international actors have failed to resolve, defuse, or perhaps even just recognize those simmering tensions and conflicts that have usually followed a clear and unambiguous descent into violence. Mohamed Sahnoun, the former Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) to Somalia, has argued forcefully that the international community missed the opportunity to undertake preventive measures, both

political and humanitarian, that would have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and averted the tragedy that will scar generations of Somalis (Sahnoun 1994b).

This chapter examines some of the methodological and conceptual issues related to a mission for peace. It focuses on the evolution of the Somalia crisis and the subsequent international and Canadian responses. The chapter concludes with a discussion of lessons from the case that can be applied to similar challenges elsewhere in the world.

MISSIONS FOR PEACE

The objective of a mission for peace is not a return to the status quo ante. A status quo ante bellum is rarely a desirable state of affairs. Also, in most cases, years of violent conflict and profound changes in the international political economy have destroyed any chance of returning to the status quo. The ultimate objective of a mission for peace is the creation of a new basis for peaceful coexistence. The end point of a mission is not the creation of a conflict-free utopia; rather, it is the creation of a society in which conflict may be dealt with nonviolently, as it arises, through sustainable, indigenous structures and processes.

Missions for peace are premised on the understanding that even in the most extreme cases of conflict, violence is rarely so undifferentiated or impenetrable that it completely forecloses all efforts to deconstruct the structures of violence and to reconstruct structures of peace. After years of studying conflict and discord in the Middle East, Azar (1986, pp. 30–31) came to the following conclusion:

Conflictual and cooperative events flow together even in the most severe of intense conflicts. Cooperative events are sometimes far more numerous than conflictual ones even in the midst of intense social conflict situations. However, conflictual events are clearly more absorbing and have more impact on determining the consequent actions of groups and nations [and one might add, on determining the outsider’s impression of the conflict]. Cooperative events are not sufficient to abate protracted social conflicts. Tension reduction measures may make the conflict more bearable in the short term, but conflict resolution involves a far more complex process than mere conflict management.

In other words, even in cases of severe, protracted conflict, local and international actors have the peaceful spaces in which to collectively engage in missions for peace. These spaces are fluid, tenuous, and dangerous but very much in existence. The optimization of the opportunities offered by

these spaces requires sensitivity, creativity, and timing. These are precisely the spaces that are created by and catalyze the activities of a variety of community groups in conflict situations around the world. Such groups include citizens’ committees, such as the Batticaloa Peace Committee in Sri Lanka; mothers’ groups campaigning for the end of disappearances, such as the Mothers of Acari in Brazil; intercommunal peace-and-reconciliation groups, such as Corrymeela, the Cornerstone Community, PACE (Protestant and Catholic Encounter), and the Peace People in Northern Ireland; and many others.

Missions for peace may serve to consolidate and expand these “islands of peace,” even in the midst of continuing violence. The importance of this process is threefold. First, it empowers peace-seeking groups and individuals to begin to establish alternative and accommodating bases for structuring social relations that challenge the brutal might-is-right ethos of the predominant system. Second, it encourages the development of a partnership between international and local actors and may thereby increase the efficacy of a mission for peace and its chances for success. Finally, and related to the last point, both the cultivation and the expansion of peace-seeking segments of society add to the sustainability of the results of the mission.

The concept of a mission for peace needs to be added to the debates about Boutros-Ghali’s (1992) Agenda for Peace. A conspicuous limitation of Boutros-Ghali’s position paper is its insistence on maintaining the state as the principal actor in international peace efforts. Although state actors undoubtedly are central to some of these efforts, they are neither the only nor necessarily the most important actors. Nonstate actors are also playing central roles in international responses to conflicts attracting international attention — from the crucial role of civilians in the UN mission in Cambodia to the front-line humanitarian role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Rwanda, Zaire, and other areas of conflict around the world.

This chapter adopts Korten’s (1990) structural and operational definition of an NGO; that is, an NGO is an organization with the following characteristics:

• Formal existence — The organization is institutionalized to some extent (it is formalized in terms of regular meetings, office bearers, and some degree of organizational permanence);
• Private status — The organization is institutionally separate from government, although it may receive some government support;
• Nonprofit-distributing modis operandi — Although the organization may generate a financial surplus, this does not accrue to the owners or directors;
• Self-governing — The organization is able and equipped to control and manage its own activities; and
• Voluntary character — There is some meaningful degree of voluntary participation in the conduct or management of the organization. (This does not mean that all or most of the income of an organization must come from voluntary contributions or that most of its staff must be volunteers.)

Missions for peace require that both state and nonstate actors, such as NGOs, participate not only in the implementation phase of a mission but also in the planning, formulation, and decision-making phases.

Although Boutros-Ghali reinvigorated and delineated peacekeeping, peacemaking, peacebuilding, and preventive diplomacy, the cases acting as the major points of reference in contemporary international politics involve a combination of these activities. Thus, the concept of a mission for peace in this chapter is rooted in the belief that any successful peace initiative must necessarily include elements from all of these areas of action. It is important to distinguish each of these four types of activity conceptually and operationally, but a central idea in a mission for peace is that the success of a peace initiative is more than the sum of the separate impacts of each of these activities. Success depends on the ways the different components of these types of intervention mesh with each other and (as importantly) with existing social, political, and economic structures in war-torn societies. To the extent these pieces fit together, the likelihood of an effective intervention is increased. Conversely, to the extent they fail to fit together, there is a danger that such interventions may be ineffective, or worse, counterproductive. As others have pointed out, the minimum requirement of international actors in conflict-prone settings is that they “do no harm” through their interventions (Anderson 1996).

As noted above, missions for peace are made up of a variety of both actors and activities. However, it should be clear that some types of actors are better suited to playing particular roles in each of the areas specified by Boutros-Ghali. Peacekeeping is best undertaken by military actors. Clearly, peacekeeping operations have increasingly employed civilians in their activities. However, this does not challenge the understanding that peacekeeping is best undertaken by military personnel;

rather, it raises the question of whether the “changing nature of peace-keeping operations” is pushing peacekeepers from peacekeeping and into activities for which they may not be suited or into activities better undertaken by other actors (Bush 1995). The formal political actors and organizations, including political leaders, statesmen, and stateswomen, as well as recognized and accepted leaders of the groups involved in a conflict, are best suited to tackle peacemaking and preventive diplomacy. Peacebuilding falls most clearly within the purview of private-sector actors, NGOs, community organizations, and so on. Therefore, just as NGOs should not be expected to play a peacekeeping role, the military, as conventionally constituted, should not be expected to play a peacebuilding role. In missions for peace, the success of one activity is often related to the success of the others. Although these types of activities may be interdependent, they are not interchangeable. By focusing broadly on missions for peace, one is better able to understand the linkages between these distinct but interrelated activities.

Because missions for peace encompass such diverse types of activity, the scope of their activities in the security, political, and socioeconomic arenas is broad. Such activities may include the stabilization of security; provision of humanitarian relief; brokering of local, national, and international peace agreements; cultivation of appropriate and acceptable political and economic institutions; rehabilitation; reconstruction; and reconciliation. Each of these activities is but one component of a mission for peace. By considering these as a whole, one comes closer to understanding the phenomenon of a mission for peace.

Was the operation in Somalia a mission for peace? Yes, the operation was a mission for peace: it possessed many of the components discussed above. However, it was a failed mission for peace. As such, it may teach us as much about what not to do as about what we should do when confronted by similar challenges in the future.

THE EVOLUTION OF CRISIS IN SOMALIA

The media have tended to characterize Somalia as a brutal “war of all against all” — a Hobbesian world where human action is motivated entirely by selfish concerns and where the desire for security is inseparable from the desire for power pursued through the use of force (Makinda 1993, p. 29). Although this characterization serves to highlight one facet of the dynamic of violence that has escalated steadily in Somalia, it

simultaneously obscures traditional forms of conflict management (such as elder-based systems) that have addressed disputes nonviolently both before and during the concerted international intervention. Furthermore, the Hobbesian world-view makes the individual the basic political unit, but the Somalian world-view is deeply grounded in the clan. In Somalia, it is the social network, rather than the individual, that constitutes the bedrock of social, political, and economic life. This is the social reality that must orient international responses in Somalia and in other regions with similar kinds of social structures. Although the Hobbesian conception of anarchy is an inaccurate characterization of Somalia, a broader political-realist conception of the term may be appropriate if it is understood to refer generally to a system lacking a central authority capable of imposing order or control. Anarchy in this sense has been used by political realists of all stripes to describe an essential feature of the international system. Using anarchy in this sense, one can describe international intervention in Somalia as the meeting of two anarchies — one international, the other intranational.

The Somali Republic came into being in 1960 as a result of the merger of the British Somaliland protectorate and the Italian Trusteeship Territory of Somalia. The analysis in this chapter begins with the successful coup by Major General Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1969. Notwithstanding the importance of the pre-Barre period, the discussion begins with the Barre regime because it (aided and abetted by international actors) established the foundation for the intensity and destructiveness of the conflict that followed. Like previous Somali leaders after independence, Barre established a support network based on nepotism, clan allegiances, and connections (for example, Barre’s son-in-law was variously the head of the National Security Services, Interior Minister, and Assistant Secretary General of the ruling party). By playing off clans and subclans, Barre fueled factional power struggles as a means of defusing opposition to his rule. He concentrated power in his own hands, cracked down on dissent, weakened the civil service, and politicized the military.

Economic conditions in the country deteriorated, as a result of both Barre’s rule and the ravages of the international political economy. According to World Bank figures for Somalia, the gross national product (GNP) per capita was US $80 in 1970, $150 in 1976, and only $120 in 1990. The same pattern of economic stagnation is evident in those African countries defined by the World Bank as low-income nations. Among this group, the average GNP per capita dropped from US $490 to $260 (a loss of 40%) between 1980 and 1990 (Weil 1993). Makinda (1993, p. 45) accurately described Somalia’s economic

predicament: “there has been so much disruption that it is possible to describe Somalia’s economy only in terms of the past and its potential. Its present is represented by disorders and uncertainties.”

During the Barre regime, interclan conflicts were militarized. The large quantity of arms amplifying the impact of violence and inhibiting conflict-management efforts in Somalia is the legacy of superpower rivalry during the Cold War. The importance of the Horn of Africa in the strategic calculations of the Soviet Union and United States in the 1970s and 1980s enabled Barre to play the two against each other so as to amass a substantial arsenal. According to Makinda (1993), by the mid-1970s — when the Soviet–Somali friendship was at its apex — Somalia possessed the best-equipped armed forces in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1977, Barre conveniently shuffled allegiances, expelled the Soviets, and made way for US military support. By 1990, under tutelage of the United States, Somalia had built up a military force of more than 65 000 personnel. In proportion to its population at the time (6 million), the Somali military force was huge by African standards.

The “militarization” of Somali society not only refers to the size of the military and the influx of weapons into streets and fields, but also refers to the tendency for intergroup relations and conflict to be defined in narrow military terms. Typically, this tendency coincides with an increase in military-related expenditures and a crackdown on even minor expressions of dissent. More generally, militarization is a phenomenon in which political problems come to be represented as military problems and, by extension, are seen to require military solutions. (The militarization of rule remained conspicuous even when Barre attempted to apply a civilian political veneer to his regime. For example, in 1981, 68 of the 85 new district and regional party secretaries were from either the military or the police [Makinda 1993].)

Increasingly, Barre was attacked by opponents (including some within the military), particularly following his military adventurism that led to the defeat of the Somali armed forces by Ethiopia in the war of 1977/78. In April 1978, a failed coup was launched against Barre by a subclan that had been excluded from central power. Attacks against the Barre regime occurred as shifts in interclan coalitions began to erode Barre’s ability to maintain a support base. Two dangerous and related processes were evident during this period: the “ethnicization” of the Somali military forces and the militarization of clan-based groupings. As Makinda (1993, p. 24) explains it,

Problems in the military became obvious in the late 1980s as feuding between rival generals and their clans hampered the army’s ability to

fight the rebels. The army’s problems were exacerbated by the fact that in the 1980s, recruitment proceeded along clan lines, with new recruits being put into units from their own areas and under officers from their own clans. As a result, by the late 1980s, there was no clear difference between regular army units and clan militias.

By 1988, violent opposition to the Barre regime had coalesced into a savage civil war, with all the attendant atrocities: the targeting and massacre of civilians, the indiscriminate use of land mines, the poisoning of wells, and the slaughter of livestock. Between May 1988 and December 1989, 50 000–60 000 people were killed in the violence — most were members of the Issaq clan, an anti-Barre group from northern Somalia (AWC 1990). Violence escalated as brutality and human-rights abuses perpetrated by one armed gang were matched (and often surpassed) by those of another. It was estimated that 450 000 Somalis fled to Ethiopia, seeking refuge, and 600 000 were internally displaced (CIIPS 1990).

Because power had been centralized in Barre’s hands for almost 20 years, the few existing political institutions functioned principally as an extension of his personal rule. Thus, one would have no reason to expect even minimal institutional continuity when Barre left the political stage. Not surprisingly then, when Barre was overthrown in January 1991, no real state institutions existed to be taken over. However, even if such institutions had existed, no group (or coalition of groups) was powerful enough to seize control or popular enough to win it. Following a fleeting period of post-Barre optimism in Somalia, violent interclan and intraclan rivalries were reignited in rural and urban areas. Although many people in the diplomatic community left the country following the fall of Barre, several NGOs and international organizations stayed on to respond to the needs of Somalis, despite changing and uncertain political and security environments. These organizations included the Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere (CARE), the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (OXFAM), Médecins sans frontières (Doctors without Borders), the Mennonite Central Committee, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs, and the World Food Programme (WFP).

Without an overarching system of political control within Somalia, self-protection became necessary, and self-aggrandizement by marauding bands of clan-based militias became rampant. Power and

authority resided predominantly in clan-based warlords and their gunmen. The leaders of the main armed factions in Somalia were the following:¹

• The late Muhammad Farrah Aideed, the major warlord of the Hawiye clan, who controlled most of the territory in southern Somalia, as well as that in southern Mogadishu (in late 1990, his forces invaded Somalia from their base in Ethiopia, helping to push Barre from power);
• Ali Mahdi Muhammed, also a member of the Hiwaye clan, who declared himself interim president of Somalia and controlled northern Mogadishu and a narrow strip of land running north from the city;
• Muhammad Said Hersi Morgan, the son-in-law of Barre and a member of the Darod clan, which controlled the city of Bardera (or Baardheere), located in the centre of the famine region;
• Colonel Omar Jess, also a member of the Darod clan, who controlled the strategic port of Kismayu in southern Somalia; and
• General Muhammad Abshir Musa, leader of the Somali Democratic Front, one of the first organizations to oppose Barre (Musa controlled an area in northeastern Somalia).

The “power of the gun” became the basis for the authority of warlords, displacing the traditional system based on clan elders. A fluid and volatile environment arose, in which armed groups sought to protect or expand their territorial and resource base. Wollacott (cited in Gordon 1994, pp. 286–287) described the differences between old rivalries and new forms of conflict as follows:

[It was] a new kind of social violence, still clan-based, but with vicious differences. First, the main actors were not traditional “big men” from the clans, but upstart leaders without the same responsibilities or backgrounds. Second, the fighting was mechanized, machine guns replaced rifles. Third, traditional institutions which had mitigated and mediated clan rivalries, like the blood price system, had withered away. Fourth, the violence was now commercially sustained by a complex trade in which drugs, mainly the local favourite qat, and food, including aid shipments, are traded off for the fuel, ammunition, and other supplies necessary to maintain armies and patronage structures of the warlords.

¹ For further details on the factional leaders, see The Economist (1993); for a discussion of the intricacies of clan groups and interclan politics, see Makinda (1993).

The clan rivalries exacerbated by Barre’s regime are evident in the pattern of violence in Somalia today. On one level, Somali politics appear to have reverted to those of precolonial times, when clans and subclans fought and formed alliances in a series of perpetual skirmishes to maintain control of roughly defined parcels of land. However, one finds two fundamental differences in the more recent situation. First, the pervasiveness of powerful weapons profoundly increases the destructive and disruptive force of inter- and intraclan rivalry. Second, an equally profound change has occurred in the international context in which such corrosive types of conflict take place. The first difference has amplified the sense of anarchy in Somalia, and the second difference (as discussed below) made possible an unprecedented international intervention in a humanitarian crisis.

Somalia has always depended on erratic rainfall for its food supply. The country was again in the midst of a severe drought in late 1991. This, combined with the civil war, caused agricultural production to plummet. Food production in Somalia was estimated to be at only 30% of its normal level (Kunder 1992). The situation became increasingly desperate as hunger and starvation became conspicuous weapons of war. Armed factions prevented aid agencies from delivering food and humanitarian assistance. The looting of food convoys and feeding stations seriously hindered humanitarian efforts. In March 1992, the ICRC (cited in Leaning 1993, p. 114) reported “horrifying” levels (90%) of moderate to severe malnutrition in the populations around Beledweyne and Marka. It was estimated that of the 4.5-million Somali population south of the disputed territory of Somaliland, one-third, or 1.5 million people, were at serious risk of death from starvation over a 6-month period.

By the fall of 1991, the areas in and around Mogadishu had become a war zone. Armed groups launched massive artillery attacks on areas controlled by rivals in different parts of the city. Throughout the country, war had devastated much of Somalia’s physical infrastructure, especially bridges, schools, airports, and hospitals. For the period of mid-November 1991 to February 1992, an estimated 1 200 people per week were killed outright or died of their injuries, and another 2 500 were surviving wounded; the number of casualties reached 41 000 for this 11-week period (see Leaning 1993).

By February 1992, the military confrontation had reached a stalemate, despite heavy nighttime artillery barrages and sporadic daytime barrages. Mogadishu was cleaved in two, each section controlled by one of the major warlords and their respective clans. The southern two-thirds

of the city, including the hills overlooking the harbour, was controlled by Ali Madhi (see Leaning 1993).

As early as 1990, NGOs were warning of looming catastrophe in Somalia, and clearly the violence had been festering for considerably longer than that. But the international community was distracted by events elsewhere, especially in the Middle East and in the former Yugoslavia. Analysts reached a general consensus that the international community was very slow to respond to the conflict in Somalia. Despite the long-time activities of multilateral agencies and NGOs in Somalia, broader UN involvement did not begin until January 1992, when Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former Egyptian minister of state for foreign affairs, who had a long-standing interest in the Horn of Africa, became the UN Secretary-General. By mid-1992, the UN began to take a more prominent role in organizing the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

A BOLT FROM THE BLUE: CANADA–SOMALIA RELATIONS BEFORE AND AFTER UNOSOM

Before examining the Canadian role in the large-scale UN missions in Somalia, it is important to consider Canada’s relationship with Somalia before the international humanitarian interventions. This will help to shed light on the broader context and implications for Canadian foreign policy.

Canada–Somalia relations were decidedly ambivalent, despite the presence of Canadian NGOs in the Horn of Africa for decades before Canadian participation in the UNOSOM–UNITAF missions. In many ways, Somalia was invisible on the Canadian foreign-policy landscape before UN intervention. The annual reports of External Affairs in 1980–90 contain only two sentences making direct reference to Somalia. The annual reports of the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security illustrate the same point. References to the Horn of Africa (a parcel of countries in East Africa) in House of Commons debates and other governmental forums focus more directly on Ethiopia than on Somalia. Somalia’s lack of political presence in Canadian foreign policy may have been partly related to Somalia’s lack of economic presence as an international trading partner.² It may have also been due to the Cold

² The ranking of Somalia among African countries receiving Canadian exports was as follows: in 1985, 33rd of 35 ($148 000); in 1986, 29th of 35 ($1.817 million); in 1987, 30th of 35 ($825 000); and in 1988, 30th of 35 ($490 000) (EAITC 1988/89).

War; that is, given the superpower overlay of politics in the Horn of Africa, the Canadian government may have self-consciously maintained a low profile in the region.

Recent data from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) offer a more nuanced description of the Canada–Somalia relationship. From 1974 to the end of the 1990/91 fiscal year, Canada contributed $135.95 million in official development assistance (ODA) for humanitarian and development work in Somalia. This assistance was distributed through the following channels: $15.9 million in bilateral food aid; $50 million in multilateral food aid; $31 million through international financial institutions; $10 million in humanitarian assistance; and $15 million through other multilateral channels (CIDA 1994). However, from January 1990 to December 1993 — that is, throughout the crisis discussed above — Canada provided $42.8 million in food aid and nonfood assistance to Somalia and Somali refugees in the Horn of Africa. In other words, a very significant portion of Canadian ODA to Somalia was delivered in the last 3 of the past 20 years, when Canada was an active participant in the UN mission. Despite the impressive cumulative total amount, Canadian ODA to Somalia before this period was on average $5.18 million a year. These data support the view that Somalia was not an especially important consideration in the foreign-policy calculations of the Canadian government before 1991. If this is so, why did the Canadian government choose to participate so vigorously, so suddenly?

The main factors motivating the Canadian government to respond to the conflict in Somalia were the same as those underpinning its involvement in the Ethiopian famine-relief efforts of the 1980s. Most significant was the public pressure fanned by the media coverage of the human face of the catastrophe. Mohamed Sahnoun was especially appreciative of the media for its role in attracting international attention and rallying international resources (see Sahnoun 1994b). The rallying of international attention through the media generated bottom-up pressure on the Canadian government. When a growing domestic constituency began to demand Canadian involvement, the government recognized the need to be seen to be responding to the now-public crisis. Thus, a crucial motivation for the large-scale Canadian response, through the UN, was the need for the government of the day to maintain public (that is, electoral) support. Interestingly, Boulton (1994) argued that this was a motivating factor for US-government involvement as well. In addition to the pressure from below — to be seen to be responding — the Canadian government was pressured from above by actors in the

international community. UN requests for Canadian participation in its missions provided the government with the opportunity to defuse pressure from both above and below while maintaining its traditional support for multilateralism, the UN system in particular. As discussed below, it appeared that the Canadian decision to participate in the UN mission was expedited by the perception among some advisers and decision-makers that it seemed doable.

I do not wish to downplay the humanitarian aspect of the Canadian government’s response. However, the fact remains that other humanitarian crises of equal or greater devastation did not attract equivalent attention. Humanitarianism alone does not prompt government action. Implicit and explicit cost–benefit calculations factor in perceived or actual changes in levels of domestic political support; opportunities to achieve political gains or avoid political losses and to tap new sources of political capital; and other such considerations.

Once the political will was in place, Canada massively increased its volume of assistance to Somalia, especially through multilateral channels. Significantly, the volume of assistance appeared to drop as precipitously as it rose (personal interviews with CIDA personnel, Hull, PQ, Canada, spring 1994). There are a number of possible explanations for this. A cynical, yet realistic, suggestion would be that Somalia may have lost its salience in Canadian domestic politics after it faded from the headlines. Just as the arrival of the Americans had pushed the conflict in Somalia onto the main stage, their exit pulled it into the wings. The departure of the Americans was followed by that of almost every peacekeeping contingent from developed countries. Another explanation is based on the law of supply and demand: by 1994, the food pipeline into Somalia had become congested. A basic emergency food-distribution system was in place, although it continued to be stressed by demand and looting by bandits. However temporarily, mass starvation had been postponed. Despite the easing of the immediate food crisis, the underlying causes remained unaffected, and, as significantly, violence seemed to be increasing. As a result, many NGOs and multilateral agencies pulled out or scaled down their operations. Thus, the reduction of direct Canadian assistance was also likely related to the fact that many aid agencies pulled out of Somalia because of the hazardous security situation. In April 1994, the general security situation was described by the WFP as “unstable and unpredictable with sporadic shooting, sniping, and kidnapping incidents” (WFP 1994). During that period, UNICEF and UNHCR food convoys were ambushed and looted; an Indian peacekeeper was shot dead; and some WFP field

operations had been forced to close because of armed attacks on its convoys and offices. Similarly, interclan violence forced a number of international organizations (including UNICEF, Claritas, and Intersos) to evacuate personnel from fighting zones. The response of Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel to a question on the Bosnian civil war applies equally to Somalia: to the question, “What light [does] the holocaust throw on the Bosnian civil war?” he responded, “No light — only shadows. All I can say is that the human condition is so fragile that the impossible is indeed possible. The unthinkable can indeed come to pass, for good as well as evil. We always have a choice” (The Gazette [Montréal], 18 June 1994, p. A1).

Thus, despite a significant Canadian-government contribution to the multinational missions to Somalia, the conflict limped on.

WHEN TWO ANARCHIES MEET

The dynamics of conflict among clans and subclans in Somalia was mirrored in less violent ways in the relations between the international actors involved in relief operations, especially those under the auspices of the UN. The squabbling and turf fights among and between UN and non-UN actors in Somalia became increasingly public as the operation expanded in size and scope. (Similar criticisms were made concerning UN operations in the former Jugoslavia by retired Major General Lewis MacKenzie, former commander of UN forces in Sarajevo [Whig Standard 1993]). Some of the most penetrating criticisms of the UN operation in Somalia came from Mohamed Sahnoun, the former SRSG to Somalia. He was reported to have said that the failure of relief operations was due to “an overwhelming United Nations bureaucracy that, in contrast to the Red Cross, is made up of civil servants more interested in careers and perquisites than in the job at hand” (The New York Times, 7 September 1992, p. A3). As discussed below, this has clear implications for the efficacy of a mission for peace or for any smaller scale UN intervention in a humanitarian crisis.

The UN responses to Somalia in 1992 had a discernible pattern. The year was marked by a series of Security Council resolutions that were passed but subsequently deemed ineffective and replaced by new ones. Through this process, the Security Council became increasingly prominent and interventionist in Somalia. Its resolutions spanned the range of options, from a complete weapons embargo in January 1992 to armed humanitarian intervention by the end of the year.

UNOSOM I was authorized by Security Council Resolution 751 on 24 April 1992. This operation followed from the failed February 1992 cease-fire agreement brokered by the UN, the Organization of African Unity, the Arab League, and the Islamic Conference. Although the agreement was signed by the leaders of the main warring factions (Aideed and Ali Madhi), it was summarily ignored by the warriors in each camp. Fighting continued unabated as factions blocked the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Somalis in increasingly desperate conditions throughout the country. In response to the lack of cooperation by combatants, the Secretary-General dispatched a UN technical team to Somalia to study the possibility of sending military observers. Canadian representatives supported the efforts by the Security Council to rally and direct an international response to the events in Somalia. This was reflected in the appointment of Robert Gallagher, a Canadian, to head the technical team sent to Somalia to assess the situation.

Resolution 751 called for the establishment of a peacekeeping force to provide security for humanitarian activities in Mogadishu. This was to include 50 unarmed military observers to monitor the cease-fire agreement in the city. After much haggling between UN representatives and clan factions, UN troops were eventually deployed. On paper, the number of peacekeepers was increased by a few hundred, but on the ground the UNOSOM I force never grew substantially. Importantly, Resolution 751 also agreed in principle to the idea of a UN force to escort the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Canada was one of 39 countries at the October 1992 UN donor conference in Geneva. The conference produced a 100-day accelerated plan for Somalia that was intended to expedite and better coordinate international humanitarian efforts. By late October, it was clear that the new plan was not working as intended. Armed factions continued to obstruct and loot humanitarian aid, in addition to extorting aid from international humanitarian organizations in southern and central Somalia. It quickly became apparent that the small UN peacekeeping contingent was unable to ensure that humanitarian aid was delivered throughout the country.

Following the ineffective UNOSOM I mission, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali sought to launch a UN operation with a functioning military enforcement mechanism by invoking chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations (for a thorough discussion of the reinterpretations of the Charter and the legal dimensions and implications of UN operations in Somalia, see Hutchinson [1993]). James Jonah, UN Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs at the time, was candid

in his discussion of the Security Council debate on the Secretary-General’s request for what amounted to armed humanitarian intervention (Jonah 1992). One particularly striking feature of the debate was the degree to which the previously inviolable principle of state sovereignty was not a constraint on the Council’s decision-making. In fact, a precedent had already been set in the spring of 1991 when troops drawn from France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States participated in a NATO intervention in northern Iraq to protect 4 000–5 000 Kurds from attack by Saddam Hussein’s military forces (Mackinlay 1993). In the end, UNITAF was chosen as the most appropriate response for Somalia. This US-led force of 30 000 troops from 23 countries was authorized by Security Council Resolution 794, on 3 December 1992, “to use all necessary means to establish as soon as possible a secure environment for humanitarian relief operations in Somalia” (UN 1992b), in particular, the protection of relief convoys from looting by clan-based militias. Although UNITAF was UN endorsed, it was not UN controlled. It was not until UNOSOM II that troops fell under the direct control of the Secretary-General — although the operation remained US dominated until the Americans pulled out in March 1994.

Resolution 794 has profound implications for international humanitarian law. Traditionally, the UN claimed the right to use force only in response to an illegal act of aggression by one state against another, such as in the case of Iraq in 1990/91. In the case of Somalia, however, the Security Council circumvented the implied requirement that the UN obtain the consent of a government before entering its territory, citing the destabilizing potential of widespread famine and continued civil war in Somalia as a threat to international peace. The resolution (UN 1992b, p. 1) expressed

great alarm at continuing reports of widespread violations of international humanitarian law occurring in Somalia, including reports of violence and threats of violence against personnel participating lawfully in impartial humanitarian relief activities; deliberate attacks on non-combatants, relief consignments and vehicles, and medical and relief facilities; and, impeding the delivery of food and medical supplies essential for the survival of the civilian population.

Some members of the Security Council hesitated to intervene in the domestic politics of a state (even a failed state) without a formal request from political representatives, but their reservations were conveniently overcome through the creation and use of what Jonah (1993, p. 72) called a “legal fiction”: a Somali request for UN intervention arrived “in

the form of a letter from the Somali charge d’affaires in New York who, in reality, represented no one” (see also UN 1992a).

The idea of a large-scale armed humanitarian operation stood in contrast to the approach pursued by the SRSG to Somalia, Mohamed Sahnoun, a seasoned Algerian diplomat appointed by the Secretary-General in April 1992. The Secretary-General’s top-down interventionist strategy was compatible with Washington’s desired option (Jonah 1993). Indeed, this strategy would not have been feasible without Washington’s full support. However, it did not fit with Sahnoun’s own approach, which was to seek political settlement and national reconciliation in Somalia through existing social and political structures, such as elder-based authority systems, rather than rule by gun. In northern Somalia, Sahnoun negotiated an agreement with the administration of the self-declared “Republic of Somaliland,” an agreement that would have introduced 350 UN soldiers into the region to ensure that supply routes to northeast and central Somalia remained open for food aid. In return, the UN would be committed to repairing local infrastructure in the region (Makinda 1993). Sahnoun favoured a gradual approach that worked within the existing social and political structures to modify those very same structures. Yet, Boutros-Ghali’s insistence that Somaliland be treated as part of Somalia undercut an incremental, regionally based approach to conflict settlement.

This difference in approach led to the resignation of Sahnoun and the appointment of a new SRSG, Ismat Kittani, who was able to assess the Somalia situation in a way that was compatible with the Secretary-General’s desired option. Thus, in November 1992, Kittani wrote a letter to the Secretary-General requesting international intervention. Boutros-Ghali took this letter to President Bush. The Sahnoun–Boutros-Ghali disagreement was indicative of tensions within the UN and, more importantly, of competing approaches to the settlement of violent conflict, the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and long-term development strategies. Not surprisingly, Sahnoun’s assessment of the situation echoed that of many NGOs and Somalis: “the perception that the role of the UN presence has shifted from a humanitarian one to that of an ‘occupying force’ is widespread among Somalis” (Watson 1993).

Canada demonstrated its support for Resolution 794 by making a military contribution to the operation. By the first week of January 1993, a Canadian contingent of more than 1 300 personnel was in the field. Operation Deliverance principally comprised the Canadian Airborne Regiment of Petawawa. The force was based in Beledweyne

(Belet Huen) and was responsible for protecting humanitarian operations within a sector of 30 000 square kilometres. The supply vessel HMCS Preserver was stationed off Mogadishu to provide logistical, medical, and helicopter support for Canadian operations. Equipment, vehicles, and supplies were delivered by 18 air crews and a number of aircraft from CFB Trenton (DFA 1993). A flight of six CH-135 helicopters was also stationed in Somalia to provide reconnaissance and logistical support.

In addition to Canada’s participation in the UNITAF, Canadian Forces launched Operation Relief, a humanitarian airlift undertaken from September 1992 to late February 1993.³ The operation was part of Canada’s response to the UN appeal for emergency assistance to Somalia. Three Canadian Forces C-130 Hercules transport planes and some 70 Canadian military personnel from the 429 and 436 squadrons (CFB Trenton) and the 435 Squadron (CFB Edmonton) were based in Nairobi, Kenya, to support the humanitarian efforts, in particular those of the WFP and the ICRC. In total, 550 flights were required to deliver 7.44 million kg of food from Kenya to more than 20 locations in Somalia (DFA 1993). During this operation, Canadian Forces earned a reputation for their commitment and ability to “do the impossible” in the delivery of food aid. In the course of my discussions with an official in the High Commission in Nairobi, the two-way radio in his office provided a continuous background of exchanges between NGOs or UN agencies and High Commission staff as they coordinated airlifts. It was explained to me that many aid workers found that bureaucratic requirements inhibited the use of US transport planes to deliver aid. Consequently, many aid workers turned to the Canadians, who seemed to never turn anything away and always delivered the goods to location.

CARE Canada was an especially active player in international relief operations in Somalia. In addition to its ongoing activities in Somalia, it was subcontracted by the WFP to deliver food aid in Somalia. The scale of the increase in CARE Canada’s involvement in Somalia was reflected in the increase in its support and revenue income to $130.8 million in the fiscal year ending 30 June 1993 from $57.8 million in the previous fiscal year. During this period, support for its projects increased to $90 million from $31 million. The increase

³ The Canadian Armed Forces had acquired expertise in humanitarian airlifts in the Horn of Africa when it played a vital role in the UN airlift operation to Ethiopia, which began in August 1991. Two Canadian Hercules aircraft from the Air Transport Group of the Canadian Forces and about 60 personnel operated out of Djibouti to deliver 15 million kg of food and supplies to different regions in Ethiopia — almost half the total amount airlifted in the UN operation (DND 1991a, b).

included almost $72 million in grain (made available by the WFP and other donors), most of which was distributed in Somalia (CARE Canada 1993).

The support for the intervention option displaced the arguments of those favouring a UN-sponsored, bottom-up approach. The debate, which did not occur at that time, should be placed centrally in the discussions currently taking place concerning humanitarian interventions. Are the international community and Canada willing to make a long-term commitment to support the gradual evolution of peace in countries like Somalia? Or are they tied to the short-term, low-risk, high-profile interventions? Do alternatives exist somewhere in the middle, such as augmented support for NGOs?

The UNITAF troops were largely successful in meeting their primary military task: to open supply routes for the delivery of humanitarian aid. Yet, there was considerable disgruntlement over the US refusal to disarm Somali militias, despite the Secretary-General’s insistence that this task was central to the UNITAF mandate and a prerequisite to handing the operation back to the UN. The US definition of security was more narrow than the Secretary-General’s and applied to only 40% of Somali territory (Makinda 1993; Bolton 1994). In late 1994, one could observe a striking parallel between the refusal of the US military to disarm warriors in Somalia and its reluctance in Haiti to disarm police and soldiers loyal to the junta of Lieutenant-General Raoul Cedras. Thus, as US troops disembarked from their warships, they were met with the spectacle of pro-US Haitians being savagely beaten by Haitian police. The US military had not articulated its rules of engagement for dealing with “Haitian-on-Haitian violence” (Globe and Mail, 21 September 1994, pp. A1, A10).

The Canadian Forces in Beledweyne fulfilled its military mission of making the region safe for humanitarian operations. It is also important to point out that the Canadian soldiers were engaged in activities that went far beyond their UNITAF mandate. Canadian Forces doctors and dentists donated their time to hospitals in Mogadishu and Beledweyne. Canadian peacekeepers helped to reestablish four schools in Beledweyne and one school in each of four other communities. This involved not only building some of the schools from the ground up but also finding Somali teachers to staff them. The staffing problem was solved when the peacekeepers teamed up with a US NGO able to help find Somali teachers and acquire the necessary teaching supplies. In Mogadishu, Canadian Forces technicians repaired equipment for NGOs and for the Medina hospital. The support staff on the HMCS

Preserver would go ashore to Mogadishu daily to collect broken machinery from hospitals, schools, and shops. This broken machinery would be brought aboard the ship, repaired, and returned within a few days. Similar operations were undertaken by engineering staff in Beledweyne. Canadian Forces also repaired roads and runways in their assignment areas. Canadian peacekeepers were especially successful in initiating a training program for a local police force in Beledweyne — a task crucial to ensuring the community’s sense of confidence in those responsible for law and order. The argument has been made that the “Canadian effort may be a model for rebuilding [Somalia]” (York 1993).

Unfortunately, much of the media coverage of Canadian peacekeepers in Somalia has concentrated on the brutal torture and murder of a Somali while under Canadian Forces custody. This event tarnishes the reputation of every Canadian peacekeeper, past and present. It should not, however, completely obscure the wider contributions of Canadian peacekeepers. By most accounts, the Canadians developed an excellent rapport with the local Somali community because they were willing to roll up their sleeves and get down to work with the local Somalis. (The same observation has been made of the Canadian peacekeepers in Bosnia [Globe and Mail, 21 September 1994, pp. A1, A2].) One officer recounted a story of members of the Airborne Regiment waste deep in the mud of the banks of the Wabi Shebele river helping a farmer extricate his camel. A portable crane and a sling finally succeeded in freeing the frantic animal. The point is not that the Canadian military role in Somalia was without problems but that it is inaccurate to characterize the entire Canadian peacekeeping mission with exclusive reference to an inexcusable incident of ill-discipline. To do so would obscure the constructive lessons that may be at least tentatively drawn.

The argument here is not that Canadian peacekeepers achieved their military objectives because of their extramandate activities but that such activities reduced the potential friction of introducing a foreign military force. These activities played crucial supporting roles in the military mandate of Canadian peacekeepers. Although such actions were a tribute to the commitment of the Canadian peacekeepers, it would be inaccurate to define them as peacebuilding efforts. Their short-term, interventionary character and the specific capacities of the executing actors locate these activities within the peacekeeping realm. They would become peacebuilding activities if they sought to cultivate the indigenous capacities needed to achieve the same results in a way that built sustainable, constructive bridges between communities. This point needs to be emphasized because it bears on the recent efforts of

the Canadian military to justify budgetary continuity by repackaging itself as a jack of all trades. Such efforts both neglect and inflate the institutional and corporate capacities of national military organization. The Canadian Department of National Defence, like the military organizations of most other states, was organized for a world seen through the prism of the Cold War. In the context of the fundamental changes in the international political and economic system since the fall of the Soviet Union, it is a truism that armed forces need to be restructured to correspond to new security realities. The defence-policy review is an attempt to do just this. Suggestions regarding future Canadian peace-keeping efforts are presented below.

Significant changes occurred in the transition from UNITAF to UNOSOM II. UNOSOM II was the largest and most expensive UNcontrolled peacekeeping operation in history. It comprised more than 33 000 troops (including 1 250 Canadians) from more than 20 countries. Its first-year operations were expected to cost US $1.5 billion. Most importantly, significant changes occurred in the mandate. Whereas UNITAF was directed by the US military under the auspices of the UN, UNOSOM II was the first enforcement operation to be directly under the control of the Secretary-General. It was the first UN peacekeeping operation to have a mandate to employ force in the pursuit of UN objectives. It stood in stark contrast to the traditional peace-keeping model, in which force was sanctioned only in self-defence. Resolution 837 of 6 June 1993 reaffirmed UNOSOM II’s mandate to take all necessary measures to implement agreements reached and to arrest, detain, try, and punish those who attempted to frustrate the UN mission (UN 1993). This expanded mandate led inevitably to direct and assertive confrontations with Somali factions, the results of which were reported in the media — usually more widely when there were casualties among UN troops (for a discussion of North–South divisions between UN peacekeepers, see Dyer [1993]). Between 5 June and 5 September 1993, 46 UN troops were killed, along with more than 300 Somali children, women, and men.

The US dominance of the UNITAF and UNOSOM II mission drew criticism from countries like Italy, which felt that it deserved a more prominent role in the UN operations because of its past colonial connections with the Horn of Africa. US dominance was partly related to the fact that the United States had initially provided the largest contingent of troops for the peacekeeping component of the operation, including a significant logistical element. Americans were central to the top levels of the operation. Although the first UNOSOM II commander

was from Turkey, he was nominated by the United States; his deputy was an American Major General who, coincidentally, was also tactical commander of the 1 700-member American Rapid Deployment Unit — the unit that carried out the well-publicized and unsuccessful raids to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Aideed. The SRSG in 1993 was also an American, who happened to have been a retired admiral. Like Italy, the Organization of African Unity expressed misgivings concerning UN military command, in particular the tactics and interpretation of the peacekeeping mandate. The situation in Somalia at the time of UNOSOM II’s takeover from UNITAF in May 1993 was one in which “humanitarian assistance was reaching those who needed it, but serious security problems remained because of the availability of large quantities of arms, the lack of state structures, and chronic power struggles” (Makinda 1993, p. 185).

Not surprisingly, a lot of criticism has come from a number of camps, most vociferously — but certainly not exclusively — from Somalis and members of the NGO community, who argued that the Secretary-General had increasingly favoured military and security objectives at the expense of all others. This was amplified for both the UN development community and NGOs in Somalia in September 1993, when 50 “crack US Ranger troops” in search of General Aideed stormed a UN compound in Mogadishu and manhandled UN staff and looted the premises of a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) office (Toronto Star, 1 and 5 September 1993). In July 1993, 20 relief NGOs pleaded with the UN to put more resources into the delivery of food and other humanitarian aid — 725 tonnes of food aid had been left to rot at the port because of a lack of military escort outside Mogadishu (Globe and Mail 1993). In July 1993, Jan Eliasson, the UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, observed that the international community “was spending ten dollars on military protection for every dollar of humanitarian assistance” and that “unless sufficient funds are provided for rehabilitation activities, there is a risk that the military operation can be perceived as an end in itself” (Eliasson 1993, cited in Makinda 1993, p. 185). The same point was made by Sahnoun (1994a), who argued that peacekeeping costs in Somalia “dwarfed” humanitarian-aid costs. By his estimation, it cost US $2 billion in peacekeeping to deliver US $50 million of humanitarian assistance (Sahnoun 1994a).

A mission for peace is weakened when the scope of its activities is narrowed. If a mission becomes so deeply embroiled in the security or military dimensions of a conflict as to be unable to pursue activities in

the political or socioeconomic arenas, it ceases to be a mission for peace. Although the relative emphasis on the individual components that make up a mission will depend on the nature of the conflict, a balance needs to be struck among mission activities. In Somalia, the military objectives of the US-dominated UNITAF and UNOSOM II mission have been criticized for overshadowing the broader objectives. The skewed allocation of resources reflected the imbalance of the mission.

The emphasis on the military-security dimensions of a conflict, whether real or merely perceived, inevitably evokes accusations of bias, particularly from local communities. Thus, in the Somalia case, some commentators suggest that, as Jana (1993, p. 29) put it, “the international community has become an instrument of United States foreign policy” and that “the language of the Security Council has become so bellicose that it makes the UN appear not as an instrument of peace but rather a tool of militarism.” Accusations of bias, however, are not directed only toward foreign military actors in Somalia. Some have argued that the tragedy in Somalia has led to philanthropic imperialism, whereby relief agencies wield extraordinary power in war-ravaged Third World countries where the authority of governments has disintegrated (de Waal and Omaar 1993). As the conflict continues, international commitment wanes, and initial supporters like France, Italy, and the United States have disentangled themselves.

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