From: hrcoord@igc.apc.org (Human Rights Coordinator)
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Subject: Re: News stories on African Famine
Date: 14 Sep 92 21:27:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1476700469:cdp:1476700472:000:3403
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Sep 14 14:27:00 1992


/* Written  9:28 am  Sep 14, 1992 by jnr in cdp:hunger.general */
09/14 
U.N. troops in Somalia have to confront gangsters
By Aidan Hartley   

MOGADISHU, Sept 14, Reuter - United Nations troops flying in to
Somalia to guard relief operations face a showdown with clan
gangs that have grown rich from 20 months of fighting and famine. 
 "There are those who took the best houses, the guns, the best
women -- and they will fight if they think the U.N. troops will
bring an end to that," said one Somali relief worker.  
Battle-wrecked Mogadishu has been carved up by rival families of
the Hawiye clan into gangland zones that make them big profits.  
The first 40 Pakistani soldiers out of a force of 500 arrived on
Monday to take control of key facilities such as the airport,
protect relief convoys and personnel -- and put an end to the
gangsters' rackets.   Most relief agencies see deployment of
troops as the only way to ensure food and medical care reaches
Somalia's hungry, who number up to two million.   Foreigners
arriving at the international airport have to pay Hawadle clan
militias landing fees in dollars -- $2,000 for a plane and $100
per passenger.   Another clan, the Suleiman, loiter in the Indian
Ocean port trying to steal bags of relief food being unloaded
from ships.   

A bloody feud between Mogadishu warlords Ali Mahdi Mohamed and
Mohamed Faragh Aideed reduced much of the city to rubble and
killed or wounded 30,000 people.   A "green line" no-man's land
now splits the city between Ali Mahdi's Abgal clan-dominated
district in the north and Aideed's Habre Gedir in the south.  
Unruly clan forces are made up of youths, most of them country
boys who grew up herding camels in the bush but now patrol the
streets heavily armed and high on the leaf drug qat.  
Ironically, the youths are employed by the U.N. and other relief
agencies to guard relief supplies from looters in return for cash
payments and food.   

Their bosses are no longer the traditional elders who ruled
Somalia's two dozen mainly nomadic and Islamic clans and brokered
peace in feuds over water holes and pasture.   Power passed into
the hands of a new generation of warlords -- former hoteliers,
army officers and diplomats -- after rebels ousted dictator
Mohamed Siad Barre from Mogadishu in January last year.   All
government institutions collapsed and the arid state descended
into anarchy. The warlords have little authority over the clans
but five fiefdoms have emerged through a series of alliances.  
Siad Barre took refuge in southwest Somalia until he finally fled
into exile last April, but his own Marehan clan is still fighting
Hawiye forces under Aideed along the Kenyan border.   

The Hawiye are also feuding sporadically with Marehan and
Mejerteyn forces in the northeastern region around Galcaio.  
Aideed reluctantly accepted the deployment of 500 troops but is
bitterly opposed to the extra 3,000 approved by the Security
Council to fan out from the capital to areas of conflict.   Ali
Mahdi, on the other hand, wants 10,000 U.N. troops in the country
-- he thinks their presence will bolster his bitterly disputed
claim to the presidency.   The U.N. says the role of the troops
will only be to guard relief operations. But many analysts see
intervention by foreign troops as a first possible step towards
prodding the clans into peace talks and creating a new national
government.