___________________________________________________________________ S O M A L I A N E W S U P D A T E ____________________________________________________________________ No 27 September 27, 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. ____________________________________________________________________ Fax subscribers: Sorry about the recent delay in delivery. It was due to a computer break down at the site that distributes the faxes. ~From: Dorothy Morse ~Subject: 9/25 Wire stories on hunger /* Written 8:36 pm Sep 25, 1992 by jnr in cdp:hunger.general */ /* ---------- "9/25 Wire stories on hunger" ---------- */ Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. By REID G. MILLER NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- The U.S. military airlift of food to starving people in Somalia, begun a month ago with great fanfare, is proving disappointing to some international aid officials. They have accused the Americans of being overcautious about flying to unstable areas, unnecessarily slowing the delivery of vital food, medicine and other supplies. Some members of Congress also have called for a more active U.S. military role in Somalia, where more than 100,000 people already have died from war and starvation. Two million more are critically at risk, and aid officials say up to 500,000 people could die by Christmas unless food and medical aid gets to them first. Many private aid workers are angry and frustrated with the pace of the relief effort, which has been bedeviled by marauding local gunmen and transportation delays. Exhausted by the sight of children, mothers and the elderly dying every day, they have lashed out in many directions, including at each other -- and recently at the U.S. airlift. Such criticism, however, draws a sharp response from Washington. "This airlift has saved lives and has moved a lot of food that would otherwise have not been moved," James Kunder, the head of the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, said Thursday in Washington. "It's difficult enough to work in these utterly chaotic conditions. For people who are supposed to be relief professionals to take potshots doesn't save any Somali lives and just makes this operation all the more difficult." The real villains in Somalia, he said, are "the thugs on the ground" who threaten relief shipments. U.S. aircraft are an important part of the relief effort. But criticism of the airlift grew after the Americans temporarily suspended flights to the western town of Belet Huen on Friday when one of their C-130 Hercules cargo planes was struck by a stray bullet. "The least little thing and they stop," said Bob Koepp, whose Lutheran World Federation has been flying food to both Somalia and the besieged southern Sudan city of Juba in chartered C-130s. "When they got shot at, I think that scared them half to death," said Koepp, a veteran aid worker whose planes have landed at Juba under threat of shellfire by surrounding rebels. "We're very disappointed the Americans haven't been able to fly food aid into the most desperate areas of Somalia," said Ian MacLeod, a U.N. Children's Fund official in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Most U.S. aid flights have been to the towns of Belet Huen, Baidoa, Uejit and Hoddur, all considered relatively safe destinations. MacLeod asserted that Germany, using two military Transall cargo planes similar to the C-130s, was doing a better job of getting food to where it is needed than the Americans with their 14 C-130s. "We would like them to go to more places, but they have their own operational restraints," said Paul Mitchell, spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program in Rome. "What they do in relationship to the others flying, the others are going more places," Mitchell added. The World Food Program is using two C-130s chartered from Southern Air Transport of Miami to fly food to places the Americans haven't gone, including the southern town of Bardera. The Germans also fly to Bardera. U.S. and private aid officials in Nairobi and Somalia, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Americans haven't flown to Bardera because it is the field headquarters of Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, one of Somalia's chief warlords. The Americans scratched the town from their list of destinations for fear of appearing to favor him, according to these officials. In Washington, however, Kunder said U.S. planes are preparing to fly to Bardera, and "the idea that we are playing politics with it is absolutely silly." The C-130s leased by the World Food Program cost it about $7,200 a flight, Mitchell said. He said Southern Air Transport "is one of the few Hercules outfits worldwide that will go into combat situations." The operational differences between the civilian Southern Air Transport crews and the military crews flying the American C-130s are striking. The chartered Hercules carry more tons of cargo per flight, including combustible fuel for power generators and ground transportation that U.S. military planes refuse to haul. German planes transport fuel. When the chartered planes land on one of the dirt strips that serve many Somali towns, their flight crews turn off the engines, getting out to chat with aid workers while they're being unloaded. The Americans land, keep their engines running for a quick getaway and don't get out of their planes while Somali workers toil in the wash of their four giant propellers. "There is a view that the Hercules should normally carry about 18 metric tons and the Americans are only carrying nine metric tons," said Mike McDonna, field director for Irish Concern in Somalia. U.S. officials said the size of the relief shipments on U.S. military aircraft is determined by how much Red Cross officials in Somalia believe they can absorb. "If the ICRC says we can handle only X number of tons a week, that's what we provide," said Steve Hayes, an Agency for International Development official in Washington. Also, some military C-130s are armored or carry other military equipment, and therefore can handle less weight than commercial C-130s. Some aid workers said it was unfair to compare the size of military payloads to the size of those carried by commercial operators contracted to fly in aid. "It's not that they (the American military) are being conservative, they're operating on different payload parameters," said Stephen Tomlin, the field director for the Los Angeles-based International Medical Corps. But McDonna said without loading the U.S. aircraft to the maximum, food shipments will inevitably be delayed. "Let's say things are slow and we're not getting in enough still and there's 145,000 metric tons to move. If you divide that by nine, you're going to get an awful lot of flights," he said. A more active U.S. military role in Somalia was urged on Herman J. Cohen, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, by members of the House Subcommittee on Africa last week. "We ought to be using the military to clean out those marauding gangs stealing the food out of babies' mouths," Cohen was told by Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. Burton was referring to the clan militias and heavily armed freebooters who have raided the ports and food warehouses, hijacked truck convoys and killed and wounded scores of aid workers. ------------------------------------------------------------- Used with permission of the Associated Press