From: obr@eskimo.com (Bob OBrien)
Subject: Re: Somalia News Update, No 41
Summary: well,well,welll
   the obr
Organization: -> ESKIMO NORTH (206) For-Ever <-
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 05:20:17 GMT

In article <antbh.723846428@strix>, antbh@strix.udac.uu.se (Bernhard
Helander) writes:
> 
> In this issue:
> RUKIYA OMAR FIRED!
> FEARS OF AID WORKERS SAFETY IF GUNMEN GO ON RAMPAGE@
> MORE BOMBASTIC STATEMENTS FROM UN HQ
> ____________________________________________________________________
> 
>                S O M A L I A  N E W S  U P D A T E
> 
> ____________________________________________________________________
> 
> No 41                 December 7, 1992.               ISSN 1103-1999
> 
> ____________________________________________________________________
> Somalia News Update is published irregularly via electronic mail and 
> fax. Questions can be directed to antbh@strix.udac.uu.se or to fax 
> number +46-18-151160. All material is free to quote as long as the 
> source is stated.
> ____________________________________________________________________
> 
> 
> RUKIYA OMAR FIRED!
> 
> Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.
> 
>     Washington, Dec 4 (IPS) -- The prominent U.S. human rights 
> umbrella body, Human Rights Watch, fired the executive director of 
> Africa Watch this week over differences regarding the deployment of 
> U.S. troops to Somalia to help get food to starving civilians there.
>    Human Rights Watch Deputy Director, Kenneth Roth, told the 
> 'Washington Post' friday that Rukiya Omar, a Somali native and Africa 
> Watch founder, had been dismissed "for insubordination and failure to 
> abide by our internal procedures on establishing a policy".
>    Omar, a frequent guest on public affairs television programmes, 
> has strongly opposed the U.S. deployment since president George 
> Bush's offer to send the troops was first leaked to the press late 
> last month.
>    She has argued that deployment of such a massive force is likely 
> to disrupt hopeful peacemaking efforts by traditional somali clan and 
> community leaders and international relief groups which have been 
> working closely with them.
>    Tuesday, however, the New York-based Human Rights Watch, the 
> umbrella organisation for regionally based Watch groups such as 
> Africa Watch, issued a formal statement in which it "welcome(d)" 
> Bush's offer.
>    At the same time, it ordered Omar, "not to keep speaking" against 
> the deployment, according to the post's account of Roth's remarks.  
> "She refused and said she was Africa Watch's expert on Somalia."
>    Roth's office told IPS friday he was not available to comment on 
> the story.
>    Contacted by IPS at her London home friday, Omar confirmed that 
> she had been told not to speak out against the deployment. in 
> subsequent media interviews, she told IPS, she had not identified 
> herself in any way with Africa or Human Rights Watch but had been 
> fired wednesday. her deputy, Alex De Waal, resigned in protest 
> shortly after.
>    Omar said the incident "highlights the limitations of Western 
> human rights organisations, which normally deal with issues such as 
> arrest and detention and other problems of elite groups, have no way 
> of knowing how to respond to these kinds of problems."
>    "They have a tendency to bypass local structures. they are much 
> more comfortable dealing with a few prominent elite individuals than 
> making the effort to understand how the large proportion of the poor, 
> especially in rural areas, work and operate," she told IPS.
>    "Ask Ken Roth what his understanding is of Somali clan structure.  
> I find it extraordinary that human rights watch, sitting in New York 
> and Washington, is making statements about the future of somalia 
> without talking with one single Somali."
>    Omar stressed the she had never opposed the use of force by u.n. 
> troops in securing relief supplies for the estimated two million 
> somalis considered in danger of starving.
>    But she said the implementation of the decision to send in a 
> 3,500-man U.N. force in Apr. 1992, was preferable to the massive U.S. 
> intervention sanctioned by the U.N. security council thursday night.
>    The original deployment "was very well prepared on the ground by 
> the former special representative of U.N. Secretary-General Boutros 
> Boutros-Ghali, Mohammed Sahnoun," who was himself fired from his post 
> by Boutros-Ghali for criticising U.N. relief efforts.
>    "He was working with everyone, with Somali society, as part of a 
> larger effort of political negotiation and reconciliation." Omar said 
> the U.S. deployment has been pushed by "U.S. relief organisations 
> which have either virtually no involvement in Somalia or, as in the 
> case of Care, have refused to consult Somalis or use local 
> structures".
>    "In Care's case, that's why they have suffered such a high degree 
> of looting," she added, adding that other relief groups, such as Save 
> The Children-UK, Catholic Relief Services, and the International Red 
> Cross, which have used local structures, have suffered relatively 
> small losses to looters and militias.
>    Omar also predicted the deployment, which bush formally announced 
> friday, "will be a disaster.  it will smash local initiatives for 
> political reconciliation and legitimise the warlords -- the very men 
> whose policies have created this catastrophe."
>    She also warned that it could "escalate the violence and 
> couldforce some relief organisations to leave the country."
>    "The deployment will do nothing to address the medium or long-term 
> political problems somalia must solve at the same time that,once the 
> U.S. withdraws, there will be a massive power vacuum,"she told IPS.
>    She also charged that the attitude of Human Rights Watchtowards 
> the U.S. deployment may well be coloured by its identityas a U.S. 
> organisation.  "if this had been African or Europeantroops," she 
> said, the difference within the organisations wouldnot have been so 
> intense."
> 
> 
> 
> FEARS OF AID WORKERS SAFETY IF GUNMEN GO ON RAMPAGE
> 
>    MOGADISHU, Dec 6, Reuter - The commander of U.N. military forces 
> already on the ground in Somalia says he fears for the safety of 
> civilian aid workers if gunmen go on the rampage before U.S. Marines 
> sweep into the capital Mogadishu. 
>    "My worry isn't for my soldiers but all the civilian aid workers 
> in town. If they (the gunmen) start shooting we are in a dicey 
> situation," Brigadier-General Imtiaz Shaheen told Reuters on 
> Saturday. 
>    Top U.N. officers have said the 500-strong force of Pakistani 
> "blue helmets" deployed in the city since September would be 
> overstretched if called on to organise an evacuation of Mogadishu 
> where relief aid is at the mercy of ruthless gunmen. 
>    Shaheen said the mercy work of some 400 relief workers in the 
> anarchic city would be frozen during the deployment of the 1,800 
> marines, the vanguard of a U.S.-led force estimated at more than 
> 30,000 troops. 
>    U.S. defence officials said the operation to help starving Somalis 
> could start early next week following Thursday's Security Council 
> resolution approving the force. Many aid agencies believe the marines 
> will come ashore on Tuesday. 
>    The task force troops are authorised to use force if necessary to 
> protect themselves and to ensure aid gets to the million Somalis 
> dying of starvation. 
>    In a city where local warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed estimates there 
> are over two million guns, that could spell trouble between U.S. 
> troops and gunmen reluctant to hand over their weapons. 
>    "I don't see these 'technicals' (heavily-armed battle-wagons) 
> driving around the streets...They will have to go," Shaheen said. 
>    A dozen countries have offered to contribute to the U.S.-led task 
> force -- Operation Provide Hope. 
>    A thousand people a day are starving to death in Somalia where 
> famine has killed an estimated 300,000 since clan militias ousted 
> dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in January 1991, and then turned their 
> guns on each other. 
>    On Friday, gangsters in the famine-stricken inland town of Baidoa, 
> the securing of which will be of the marines' first tasks, robbed the 
> offices of the U.S. agency CARE on Friday after a shootout with 
> guards. 
>    Other firefights involving guards of foreign relief agencies were 
> reported on Saturday and the handful of aid groups in the town are 
> scaling down staff ahead of the expected U.S. deployment there next 
> week. 
>    Relief sources said the Dutch branch of Medecins Sans Frontieres 
> (Doctors without Borders) had reduced staff from 13 to three in 
> Baidoa, where the daily death rate has dropped from 400 to less than 
> 40 during the past two months. 
>   
> 
> 
> MORE BOMBASTIC STATEMENTS FROM UN HQ
> Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. 
> 
>    ATLANTA (AP) -- U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said 
> Saturday he was optimistic U.S. forces could restore order quickly in 
> Somalia and allow the United Nations to begin to negotiate a 
> political truce. 
>    But he acknowledged he didn't know how long it would take to 
> stabilize the war-torn east African nation. 
>    "It depends on the situation on the ground," he said. 
>    Speaking after a two-day conference on global development at the 
> Carter Center, Boutros-Ghali said he was confident that gangs blamed 
> for looting famine relief food will quickly lose power once the U.N. 
> forces start distributing food in Somalia. 
>    "When we will be able to distribute the food, the groups will 
> disappear," he said. The U.N. will then broker aggressive peace 
> negotiations with the warring Somali clans, Boutros-Ghali said. 
>    Then, he said, "We will need massive assistance in reconstruction, 
> in creating a police force, in resettling refugees." 
>    The secretary-general said a small peace-keeping force eventually 
> will replace the U.S. troops and the smaller number of troops from 
> other nations being sent on the mission of mercy. 
>    Former President Carter, who co-chaired the conference with 
> Boutros-Ghali, chided the news media for ignoring the issue of long-
> term international economic development, the topic of the conference. 
>    How the world responds to future tragedies partly depends on how 
> the media cover Somalia, Carter said. 
>    Public response would be weak, he said, "if your total focus is on 
> the efficacy of the American Marines and the soldier's wife and how 
> she's hurt over Christmas." 
>    "My hope is that the American people will see Somalia is a tragedy 
> for which we all are responsible and which we could have prevented," 
> he said. 
>    At an earlier news conference Saturday, Boutros-Ghali declared the 
> Somali aid project a new chapter in U.N. history because it is a 
> collective operation to provide purely humanitarian assistance. 
>    He also called on all countries to help end Somalia's strife by 
> curtailing the flow of weapons to African nations. 
>    "There are no gun factories in Somalia and Somalia did not buy 
> these guns. They were given to Somalia by outside interests," he 
> said. 
> ____________________________________________________________________
> Posted by Bernhard Helander in Uppsala, Sweden.
> 
> 


feel free to help america save this poor countrys system of government
by unarming the whole somalian populus
Xref: sparky alt.activism:19672 alt.conspiracy:13273 alt.discrimination:5371