From: jnr@igc.apc.org (Jim Rosenfield)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: L.A.Times SOMALIA Editorial
Date: 21 Nov 92 00:40:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1471700263:000:3531
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!jnr    Nov 20 16:40:00 1992


/* Written  4:39 pm  Nov 20, 1992 by jnr in igc:hunger.general */
/* ---------- "L.A.Times SOMALIA Editorial" ---------- */
This editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times --- 11/20/92

reprinted without permission.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What Is The World Waiting For?

End the killing, relieve the starving and save Somalia

Somalia has become an international disgrace. Children and their
parents continue to die by the thousands as relief efforts are
frustrated by a vicious civil war.

The world must react-now.

President Bush and President-elect Bill Clinton talked about
Somalia Wednesday in their broad discussion of foreign policy. 
Somalia belongs high in any analysis of the world's trouble
spots.  Talk, however, must turn to action to end the slaughter
and mass starvation. 

Before he turns the White House over to Clinton, President Bush
must encourage the United Nations to send more food, more relief
supplies and many more troops.

The U.N. Security Council, after moving too slowly on the Somali
crisis, finally agreed in September to send 3,500 troops to
protect the airport, the port and the relief truck convoys. 
Until now, only 500 Pakistani soldiers have arrived-far too few
to provide the protection that is needed.

Security is the first priority.  The United Nations must send in
thousands of soldiers who are very well-armed and willing to do
battle with Somali fighters-who themselves are well-armed by way
of a huge arsenal left over from the Cold War.

The United States and the Soviet Union took turns arming the
small East African nation as the two super-powers competed to
control that strategic region in the Horn of Africa.  Both the
United States and Russia now have an obligation to address the
suffering that resulted from those policies.

The tools of war are plentiful in Somalia.  Grenades are piled
like mangoes in an open-air market in Mogadishu, reports an Oxfam
America relief worker who recently returned from what has become
the starvation capital of the world.  Military weapons, including
antiaircraft guns, are being sold.  Rows of bullets are used like
bunting to decorate market stalls.  

The wide availability of weapons is central to the wholesale
looting of relief supplies.  Thugs steal supplies by the ton, and
they further cripple relief efforts by attacking convoys, killing
relief workers, making death threats or extorting huge fees-in
one case $10,000 twice a week-for "protection."

The gunmen move freely because their clan leaders, specifically
the powerful Gen. Mohamed Farah Aideed, have refused to allow the
U.N. soldiers to leave their base at the international airport at
Mogadishu.

That airport should be bustling with movement of relief supplies,
but it is idle because of the lack of security.  The port is full
of food, but because it is closed by shelling, truck convoys have
been unable for nearly two weeks to move the supplies out.  These
delays are costing lives.

What is the United Nations waiting for?  It is time to go into
Somalia with the soldiers, the arms and the mandate to end this
genocidal, internecine war for control of a country that may have
no future.

What is the Arab League waiting for?  The member countries have
plenty of arms and money.  Somalia is a member.  Why don't they
help to end the tragedy?

The international hesitation has already costs hundreds of
thousands of lives.  The world must act in concert now to begin
to end the killing, relieve the starving and save Somalia.