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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEK, Page 16NATIONPlunging Ashore into Blazing -- TV Lights?
The U.S.-led intervention in Somalia gets off to a relatively
peaceful start
Tarawa it was not. To be sure, the U.S. Marines who hit the
sands of Somalia before dawn last Wednesday were wearing full
battle dress; an advance guard of Navy SEALs sported camouflage
paint. But the Marines jumped from hovercrafts and helicopters
into a blaze not of gunfire but of TV lights, aimed and fired by
a media army that had flown into the capital of Mogadishu in
advance. Hardly any Somalis were to be seen; a few who showed up
later wanted to shake hands.
The Marines quickly took control of Mogadishu's airport
and docks. By Wednesday afternoon, the first plane in six weeks
to bring in foreign food had landed. Two Somalis were killed and
seven more injured on Thursday when their unarmed van crashed
into a checkpoint established by French Foreign Legionnaires.
Other Somalis were believed to have died Saturday when two U.S.
Cobra helicopter-gunship crews returned fire and destroyed three
armed Somali vehicles, including an armored personnel carrier.
A third helicopter, hit by bullets in a separate incident, flew
off because there were too many civilians nearby to risk
shooting back. But for the most part, armed gangs vanished from
the streets of Mogadishu. At week's end the country's two main
warlords met for the first time in more than a year, under U.S.
auspices, to vow truce and cooperation.
Whether the warlords' word will be obeyed, especially in
the anarchic countryside, is another matter. Amid continued
reports of bloody clan battles, kidnapping of relief workers and
looting of food supplies, U.N.-sponsored troops could not
quickly get outside Mogadishu to help. They did seize an
airstrip at Bale Dogle, about 60 miles outside the capital, but
postponed a truck convoy to Baidoa, in the heart of the famine
zone 150 miles from Mogadishu, until sufficient force could be
mustered.
Somalia is a desert country with no railroads and not much
of anything else. Ships and planes must bring in not only
personnel -- 28,000 American and 2,000 French troops, plus
contingents from about a dozen other countries -- but also all
their vehicles, gasoline, electric generators and even their
water. There is also continuing confusion about their mission.
U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali told American
officials that besides shooing away looters and distributing
food, troops should disarm Somali war bands and train a military
police force before leaving the country in the hands of a U.N.
peacekeeping force.
Even so, the initial success raises anew the question: If
Somalia, why not Bosnia? U.S., European and U.N. officials are
in fact discussing possible intervention: shooting down Serbian
planes now venturing with impunity into a supposed no-fly zone,
perhaps even bombing Serb supply lines and artillery
emplacements. But nobody is talking publicly of sending in U.S.
ground troops. In Bosnia, unlike Somalia, a lot of them might
get killed.