NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9374

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-15 | 5.5 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Alex Brozan)
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: Somalia
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Date: 15 Dec 92 19:55:21 GMT
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/* Written  9:45 am  Dec 10, 1992 by [e-mail] in igc:reg.africa */
/* ---------- "AFSC Statement on Somalia 12/8/92" ---------- */



   A STATEMENT BY THE AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE
                ON THE SITUATION IN SOMALIA

                      December 8, 1992


     The American Friends Service Committee has carried on
development and relief work in Somalia for more than ten
years and presently has representatives there implementing
emergency programs.  On the basis of this direct experience
and our knowledge of the country and its people, and drawing
on the experience of others and on Quaker pacifist
tradition, we believe that a grave mistake is being made in
the decision to send into Somalia almost 30,000 U.S. troops
under U.S. command.  While the stated mission of this force
is to make it possible for relief organizations to get food
to starving people, a goal for which the AFSC is also
working, we believe that the approach may be
counterproductive in the long, if not also in the short run.

1.  In a situation created and perpetuated by the violence
of arms, peacemakers rather than more soldiers would seem to
be called for.  Processes have been undertaken among
traditional leaders facilitated by Ambassador Mohammed
Sahnoun of the United Nations and others, to try to build
peace from below.  These will be interrupted and possibly
totally disrupted by an invading army, however well
intentioned.

2.  Some have called the Somali culture concentric, meaning
that brother will fight brother, but brothers will join
against cousins, while cousins will band together to fight
outsiders.  There is a possibility that the invading U.S.
troops will unite Somalis against them and that bloody
fighting will result.  If this does not happen, fighters and
weapons may be withdrawn into the bush, to reappear as
raiders, or when the U.S. troops leave.  Relief workers
identified with the United States and other outsiders could
be targets of reprisals, seriously jeopardizing further
humanitarian efforts.

3.  The United Nations has had a small peace-keeping force
in Somalia.  With others, the AFSC agreed that this should
be increased, as a multinational force under U.N. command,
to give better protection to the relief effort.  By sending
in its own forces with its own command, the United States
displaces the United Nations and weakens the possibility of
effective non-partisan U.N. involvement in future conflicts,
even though the U.S. forces go in on the basis of a
resolution of the U.N. Security Council.  It also makes more
likely a quick resort to armed force, rather than hard and
patient work on negotiations, in future conflicts or
disasters.  As the only military superpower in the world
today, the U.S. has a special responsibility to strengthen
multilateral processes and avoid direct unilateral
interventions in any country.



4.  Humanitarian assistance should be provided by agencies
and people with no interest but the humanitarian one, as
called for in the Geneva conventions.  To intoduce armed
forces into the business of huimanitarian aid is inevitably
to militarize such aid in the present and the future and to
make it susceptible to maipulation in the interests of the
party providing the soldiers.  Giving the U.S. miltary a
role in humanitarian assistance may also give justification
for the maintenance of military budgets above what would
otherwise be granted by Congress or deemed right by the
people of the United States.

5.  Given the complexity and chaos in parts of Somalia, and
the delayed attention of the world community to the
problems, AFSC recognizes that no solution will come quickly
or easily.  Nevertheless, we feel that a major U.N.-led
initiative with the following elements has the best chance
to save lives, avoid escalation of the violence and
contribute to a return to peace in Somalia:

     a.  an expanded diplomatic initiative under the U.N.
     involving traditional and other leaders from all
     regions and clans in Somalia;

     b.  deployment of the 3,000 person U.N.-commanded
     multi-national contingent approved by the Security
     Council in August with the mission of protecting
     humanitarian relief efforts with a minimum use of
     force;

     c.  creative efforts to disarm the rival Somali groups,
     by purchase of weapons or exchange of food for weapons,
     and serious multilateral action to halt the arms flow
     into Somalia.

     The situation of large numbers of the people of Somalia
is indeed terrible.  They must receive food and other
relief.  It is the hope of the American Friends Service
Committee that they can receive that relief in ways that
help to build the foundations for peace and reconciliation,
not in ways that seem to confirm the opinion of too many
that their own lives will be served by firearms and
violence.

     For further information contact:
     American Friends Service Committee
     1501 Cherry Street
     Philadelphia, PA  19102
     [phone]

A flyer describing AFSC's current work in Somalia is also
available.