From: antbh@strix.udac.uu.se (Bernhard Helander)
Subject: Somalia News Update, No 43
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: Uppsala University
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 20:09:37 GMT

In this issue: 
BAIDOA LIBERATED
VAGUE STATMENTS ON DISARMAMENT 
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               S O M A L I A  N E W S  U P D A T E  
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No 43                December 17, 1992.               ISSN 1103-1999  
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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. 
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BAIDOA LIBERATED

   WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Thousands of cheering Somalis welcomed U.S. 
Marines and French Foreign Legionnaires Wednesday who rolled into 
the inland city of Baidoa, stricken by famine and, until then, by 
food thieving armed bands. "I have heard nothing but joy, waving and 
smiles," said Paul Jones, the deputy director for World Vision, one 
of the relief agencies working in Baidoa. "There's a lot of 
enthusiasm. The people were really looking for what we saw when the 
Marines came in." The Marines and their French allies moved quickly 
in delivering food to an orphanage supported by Jones' organization. 
The children welcomed their armed but humanitarian mission visitors 
by rhythmically clapping and chanting "welcome friends" in Somali. 
Some clasped the outstreched trooper's hands many times the size of 
their own tiny ones. Many were smiling. Another military delivery of 
relief supplies, into the stricken countryside outside Baidoa, is 
planned for Thursday. 
   The region is one of those hit hardest by Somalia's famine. The 
Franco-American move into Baidoa, where at least some Somali gunmen 
lingered Tuesday night, went almost exactly according to the plan 
outlined by Marine Lt. Gen. Martin Brantner, the director of 
operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Shortly after midnight 
Somali time, a 70-vehicle armored convoy of 532 Marines and 140 
French Foreign Legionnaires set out by road from their base at the 
former Soviet airfield of Bale Dogle, which the Marines occupied 
Sunday. Driving in darkness over rough, pitted and washed-out roads, 
the overland convoy reached Baidoa at first light. Although they 
avoided the most congested central parts of the city, their way was 
lined by crowds of cheering Somalis. 
   The convoy's objective was Baidoa's airport, a major storage 
center for the relief supplies which the U.S. Air Force has been 
flying in from neighboring Kenya since last August. As the Marines 
and French fanned out to secure the airport, helicopters bearing 
even more Marine reinforcements appeared after a 45 minutes, 150 
mile flight from Bale Dogle. The troops moving by truck arrived in 
four and a half hours. A ragtag, irregular Somalia airport guard 
force of 100 stood stiffly at attention to turn the facility over to 
the Marines and French. They had earlier stowed their weapons. A 
Marine officer saluted the guards, who had  protected the vital 
airfield and its supply dump against armed roving gangs for months.
   The Joint Chief' current intelligence officer, Navy Rear Adm. 
Michael Cramer, had earlier hailed the airfield security effort as 
"very well-organized" and "in good hands." Cramer also proved right 
in his earlier prediction of "no organized opposition or resistance 
to our coalition forces as they enter Baidoa. "There was none. All 
the armed Somali gangs had either left town or hidden their weapons.
   In the Somali capital, Mogadishu, the man whose negotiations with 
local warlords in Baidoa earlier this week contributed to the ease 
of the operation, special U.S. envoy and former Ambassador Robert 
Oakley, predicted more help to the stricken city would soon be on 
the way. "There will be a 10-truck convoy escorted from here to 
Baidoa this weekend," Oakley promised. "We're not sure whether it 
will be Saturday or Sunday." Opening of a safe land route between 
the capital and Baidoa had been a major objective of the military 
relief effort.
   But Oakley cautioned that the relief operation elsewhere in 
Somalia might not go as well as it had in Baidoa and in Mogadishu, 
where the first Marines landed a week ago. "We can't say that the 
examples of Mogadishu and Baidoa will automatically be replicated 
elsewhere," he warned, "because there are parts of the interior 
where there's more trouble, where the situation's more tense."
   Also in Mogadishu, American Red Cross President Elizabeth Dole 
toured relief facilities supported by her organization and said she 
would go to Baidoa as well. "My message to the American people," 
Dole said, "will be that they can give their money now and that the 
food supplies will all get through to the victims. A portion of it 
will not be ripped off in the process by looting." The Red Cross 
president praised the work of her organization's Somali counterpart, 
the Red Crescent. "Many of them have lost loved ones, people who 
have died from starvation," she said. "They have experienced all 
kinds of pain and suffering, and yet they are out there helping 
their neighbors, helping other Somalis." 
   Relief workers in the inland southern city of Bardera reported 
that 10 people were killed and 10 wounded by gunmen who raided a 
relief camp there earlier this week. Like the southern port of 
Kismayo, Bardera is not scheduled to be secured until the third 
phase of the current armed relief effort. Wednesday's occupation of 
Baidoa only marks the completion of the operation's first phase.


VAUGE STATMENTS ON DISARMAMENT

   (SNU, Uppsala) U. S. Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, 
who has been visiting Stockholm during theis week told journalist 
that disarming the Somali military factions falls clearly within the 
mandate of the U.S. forces. However, the very same day the Marine 
Lt. Gen. Martin Brantner said in an ITN interview that disarmament 
was too big a task for the U.S. and French forces. Media reports 
make it clear that hand guns are routinely confiscated by the 
Americans, although most heavy weaponry seem to be hidden away.
   It would seem fairly obvious that without disarmament as one of 
the main objectives of the operations the fighting will resume when 
the Americans leave. There are also signs that the some armed bands 
already have moved into the neighbouring countries. Relief workers 
on the Kenyan border reported already last week that heavily armed 
Somali units had crossed the border and looted a camp run by MSF.

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Posted by Bernhard Helander in Uppsala, Sweden.