____________________________________________________________________ S O M A L I A N E W S U P D A T E ____________________________________________________________________ No 36 November 16, 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. ____________________________________________________________________ In this issue: SOMALI REFUGEES TRICKLE BACK TO REBUILD LIFE MALARIA EPIDEMIC HITS THE OGADEN JAPAN CONSIDERING NEW AID FOR SOMALIA PENTAGON-SOMALIA SOMALIA - FARMING U.N. TROOPS CONTROL MOGADISHU AIRPORT U.N. APPEALS FOR FUNDING OF SOMALIA RELIEF PLAN U.S. SENATORS URGE MORE U.N. TROOPS FOR SOMALIA FAO CHIEF SLAMS RESPONSE TO CRISIS IN SOMALIA Acknowledgement: News wires from AP and Reuter have been kindly forwarded by Jim Rosenfield SOMALI REFUGEES TRICKLE BACK TO REBUILD LIFE By Andrew Hill MELKAHARI, Somalia, Nov 12, Reuter - Eighteen-year-old Somali Shinde Mahat Aden drew a circle in the dust and pounded an iron bar into the ground on Thursday to lay the foundations of a new life. She squatted beside a thorn bush and gouged out holes in the dirt in which to plant the branches of a new twig hut for herself, her husband and two small children. She was one of 184 Somali families who went home on Thursday from regimented rows of refugee huts in Kenya to rebuild lives torn apart by Somalia's two-year civil war and famine. "I am coming back to my village and settling again. But it will take two years to get things back to normal," she told reporters as she dug the ground under the fierce morning sun. The village, little more than one gutted concrete building looted by gunmen in fighting this year, is home to about 6,000 farming families on the banks of the Dawa river. But 80 per cent of its people fled to Kenya when warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed captured the area earlier this year to drive President Mohamed Siad Barre's forces from Somalia. The plan is part of United Nations attempts to ease the refugee burden of Kenya, which has had to absorb about half a million Somalis since their homeland collapsed after the clan war that toppled Siad Barre in January 1991. About 55,000 refugees live in Mandera, the single biggest settlement in Kenya, and their daily life is waiting for food handouts or visiting a clinic -- there is nothing else to do. Kenyan authorities say the burden is too much because the country has been forced to appeal for food aid for the first time in a decade because of a withering drought. As elsewhere in Somalia, every valuable object from rooftops to water pumps was looted in the fighting around Melkahari and refugees in Mandera are still prey to marauding bands of gunmen who steal their food rations, clothes and few valuables. But by Somalia's bizarre standards, Melkahari is a peaceful place and the fields around it are turning green with newly planted sorghum, beans and irrigation schemes. There are no gunmen or warring clans and the nearest fighting is hundreds of km (miles) away to the south. "We want to help ourselves and to stop being spoonfed," said Ali Mohamed, one of a handful of farmers who have crossed back in recent weeks to plant a few seeds. But their families are destitute and have been given the basic implements of subsistence -- cooking pots, plastic buckets and sheets and water cans under a $13 million scheme by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The first 150 families crossed back last month and Thursday's returnees were the second stage of a plan to send 1,258 volunteer families home. "It's so beautiful and encouraging to see," said television script writer Stephanie Liss, one of a group of seven Hollywood writers touring the region as U.N. guests to publicise the crisis. Rick Austin of the Irish agency Trocaire -- the word means compassion in Gaelic -- is helping the U.N. carry out the plan and beams at the paw paws and peppers already being harvested. "The farming potential here is absolutely incredible," he said. "But 80 per cent of the farmers have nothing. It was all looted. We're here to get it all going again." <<>> MALARIA EPIDEMIC HITS THE OGADEN ADDIS ABABA, Nov 12, Reuter - Ethiopia's eastern Ogaden region, already devastated by drought and famine, has now been hit by a malaria epidemic which is killing at least 14 people a day, the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) reported on Thursday. Hundreds of sufferers have swamped makeshift clinics in the region, one of the poorest places on earth, Regional health director Aklilou Menyilshoa Said was quoted as saying. ENA quoted him as saying treatment was hampered by a shortage of medicine, transport facilities and clean sanitary conditions pose serious problems. The furnace-hot Ogaden desert is overflowing with more than a million refugees fleeing conflict in Ethiopia and Somalia. <<>> JAPAN CONSIDERING NEW AID FOR SOMALIA TOKYO, Nov 11, Reuter - Japan is considering fresh measures to help famine-hit Somalia, a senior government spokesman said on Wednesday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Kato told reporters that Tokyo was considering chartering civilian aircraft to help food supplies reach starving millions in Somalia. Commenting on a newspaper report that Washington had asked Tokyo to send its Self-Defence Forces (SDF) transport aircraft, Kato said the United States had made a general appeal for Japan's cooperation but that Tokyo did not regard it as a specific request for a transport plane. Kato said it was impossible to send Japan's SDF to a war-torn country unless a ceasefire agreement is reached -- one of the conditions specified in the United Nations Peace-keeping Cooperation Law approved by parliament earlier this year. After enacting the law, Japan sent 600 troops abroad for the first time since World War Two to back up the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). Three months after Somalia's famine hit the headlines and triggered Africa's biggest relief operation since the Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s, hundreds of women and children are still dying each day. Japan has pledged a total $15 million of assistance through U.N.- led aid programmes in Somalia. <<>> PENTAGON-SOMALIA Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. WASHINGTON (AP) -- Brig. Gen. Frank Libutti will turn the command of the Pentagon's humanitarian relief operation in east Africa over to Brig. Gen. Paul Fratarangelo on Wednesday. The change-of-command ceremony for the Marine generals will take place at the headquarters of the relief operation's joint task force at Moi International Airport in Mombasa, Kenya, the Pentagon announcement said. Libutti will return to MacDill Air Force Base in Florida to resume his duties as Inspector General of the U.S. Central Command and the commander of its forward headquarters element, the announcement said. He arrived in Mombasa on Aug. 17. Under his command, more than 13,000 metric tons of food and other relief supplies have been delivered to northern Kenya and famine-stricken Somalia. Fratarangelo, a native of Corning, N.Y., has most recently served as the deputy commanding general of the First Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif, the announcement said. <<>> SOMALIA - FARMING Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. By G.G. LaBELLE Associated Press Writer MERCA, Somalia (AP) -- On Merca's chaotic main street -- among the centers for malnourished children, the donkeys hauling water and the charity kitchens -- there is a tiny sign of hope. Farmers in this coastal corner of famine-ridden Somalia are selling a small crop of tomatoes, grapefruit, mangos and coconuts. The local produce market is beginning to revive. Marc Aubert, International Red Cross representative in Merca, says small farmers are augmenting food donations in helping the region gain against hunger. "We had help from the local harvest. It was limited but still quite good," he said. The agencies realize the world cannot feed Somalia forever. They have been handing out seeds and tools to revive agriculture and keep aid from becoming an addiction. "People have got to grow their own food," said Rhodri Wynn-Pope, team leader in Somalia for the international aid agency CARE. Wynn-Pope and other relief officials talk of the need for "aid infrastructure" if they are to overcome the famine that has killed more than 100,000 Somalis. In Merca, 100 miles south of the capital Mogadishu, the aid setup works this way: Centers treat severely malnourished children; kitchens serve rice, beans and oil to the general population and the Red Cross and British agency Oxfam donate seeds and tools to farmers in the surrounding area. The Red Cross alone has given out nearly 45 tons of seeds in the region. Nationwide it has handed out 430 tons of seeds, mainly sorghum, rice and high protein beans, along with 18,000 hoes, picks and shovels. The problems are formidable. The area between the Shebele and Juba rivers, once Somalia's breadbasket, was devastated in the clan warfare that has raged over the past two years. Marauding militiamen have looted the stored grain of farmers, driving them off their land to charity kitchens in towns and cities. Raiders have stolen farm equipment that would allow people to begin planting and harvesting again. The most immediate problem is getting the farmers back to their fields. More important, they must stay there. Farmers must get seeds and also food to sustain them while they till their land. Otherwise, they may flee back to the towns, or even eat the seeds instead of planting them. In western Somalia, CARE gave 96 tons of sorghum seed to rural areas around Bardera and was trucking food to 186 villages. But then Bardera changed hands in a clan warfare. Relief workers were evacuated. Food aid was cut off to surrounding areas. Three weeks later, CARE officials still do not know what happened in most of the villages. Phoebe Fraser, who oversees the seed program, exulted when she saw "little green sprouts of sorghum" in some villages, but fears hungry farmers may eat the sprouts before they ripen into grain. Damage inflicted on farms is a major problem in reviving food production. Near Afgoi, 18 miles west of Mogadishu, Salah Ahmed Ali sat among grapefruit trees in an orchard owned and worked by several families. The 52-year-old farmer complained he was having trouble watering the trees. Looters took the pumps needed to bring the water from the canals. Now, the tractor plowing irrigation furrows in Ali's orchard bore not only a driver but two guards with assault rifles. Heather Danton, 34, of the American branch of Save the Children said the agency faces similar problems in the Koreoli district in trying to restore part of the vast canal system that irrigated farms southwest of Merca. "All the sluice gates were destroyed or looted," she said. Her agency is digging out one of the region's 16 main canals, which have silted up from lack of care. It is about 8.5 miles long and nearly four miles have been opened. Ms. Danton, from Mansfield, Mass., said the work was financed by a $5,000 U.S. government grant. But the agency is running low on money and suffers because so much equipment has been looted. And she added, "I have fears if a great amount of food is produced, it will attract looters." But looking at the cleared section of the canal makes potential troubles fade. "You see people out working in the fields, and the maize is waist high," she said. <<>> U.N. TROOPS CONTROL MOGADISHU AIRPORT By Jonathan Clayton NAIROBI, Nov 10, Reuter - Armed U.N. troops finally took control of Mogadishu international airport on Tuesday more than six weeks after first arriving in famine-hit Somalia to ensure food supplies reached starving millions. U.N. officials said a 500-strong contingent of Pakistani Blue Helmets secured the main runway, all buildings and posted guards around the perimeter after reaching a deal with the Hawadle clan which controls the lucrative airport trade. "As of now, there are no armed people -- other than U.N. troops -- within the airport," said Ian Macleod of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The deployment of the troops, some of whom first arrived in the country in mid-September with orders to protect food from looting gunmen, was delayed following threats by Mogadishu warlords who control the bombed-out capital. "This is good news...they (the troops) were beginning to get really fed up. They had a job to do and were not being allowed to do it," said a senior U.N. source. Since arriving with a mandate to secure the airport and port and escort food convoys to distribution centres, the troops have been confined to a makeshift camp at one end of the airport. But U.N. sources said there was still no agreement on deploying at the port -- crucial if a major famine relief drive is to be successful -- nor on escorting food convoys to people dying of hunger, sometimes only a few minutes' drive away. Three months after Somalia's famine hit the headlines and triggered Africa's biggest relief operation since the Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s, hundreds of women and children are still dying each day. Aid workers say the appalling security situation in a country carved up between clan gunmen is the major hurdle preventing help reaching those in need. Some two-thirds of the population of seven million are at risk. "General" Mohamed Farah Aideed, one of the country's fiercest warlords, recently warned of "unprecedented bloodshed" if U.N. troops took up position without his agreement. Aideed controls most of the south of the divided capital, but his relations with the Hawadle clan deteriorated sharply last month after its fighters barred him from entering the airport to greet Irish President Mary Robinson. The Hawadle also control a part of the port, carved up between several clans. They feared Aideed would try and take full control of both the key installations ahead of any U.N. deployment. Armed clan-based gangs, loosely controlled by rival warlords, run protection rackets throughout the ruined city. At the airport, the Hawadle charge landing fees of between $200 and $1,000 for all aircraft -- including aid flights -- and levy an airport tax on all users. Tuesday's deal in no way changed that arrangement, U.N. sources said. "The Hawadle continue to run the airport as before and make money. They just keep the gunmen outside...It's a good deal for them. Even Aideed is unlikely to try and take it now," one expert on Somalia said. REUTER JMC NJP <<>> U.N. APPEALS FOR FUNDING OF SOMALIA RELIEF PLAN ADDIS ABABA, Nov 10, Reuter - A top United Nations official urged the international community on Tuesday to speed up funding of a 100- day emergency U.N. plan to ease Somalia's famine. "Unless the world community becomes compassionate and speeds up assistance to the U.N. sponsored emergency plan of action, the sufferings in Somalia could develop into the worst catastrophe in living memory," Samule Nana-Sinkam, U.N. coordinator of the scheme, told Reuters. He said a conference in Addis Ababa, set to open on November 30, will focus on the implementation of a pledge made in Geneva last month to give up to $88 million for the plan which aims at providing food aid and expanding supplementary feeding schemes. "Unless all those concerned consider the Somalia crisis as a priority, up to 250,000 people, whose lives could have been saved, may die before the end of the year," Nana-Sinkam added. He said the action plan also provided for a mass immunisation campaign against measles and other diseases and an urgent supply of clean water and shelter materials. He said the conference would also discuss how to best ensure aid supplies are not looted by rival warlords who have almost barred food aid from reaching the people. Somalia's warlord "General" Mohamed Farah Aideed has prevented the deployment of some of the U.N. troops sent to protect the relief operation and has warned of "unprecedented bloodshed" if they take up positions without his "permission." More than 300,000 people may have died in famine that started after clan rebels ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in January 1991 and the country spiralled into chaos. An estimated 1.5 million Somalis are in danger of starvation. REUTER BDM RFS <<>> U.S. SENATORS URGE MORE U.N. TROOPS FOR SOMALIA WASHINGTON, Nov 9, Reuter - Two senior U.S. senators on Monday said more United Nations troops were needed in Somalia to protect food and other supplies sent there by other nations to avert starvation. "I believe more armed security is needed," said Senator Nancy Kassebaum, a Kansas Republican who recently visited Somalia. "I concur with my colleague," Senator Paul Simon, an Illinois Democrat, added at the news conference where the two senators were joined by actress-model Iman who was born in Somalia. Simon said he and Senator Howard Metzenbaum, an Ohio Democrat, would leave for Somalia on Wednesday to inspect the situation. Relief efforts in Somalia have been hampered by disputes among rival warlords and death threats to aid workers. The 500 Pakistani U.N. troops sent to protect the operation are virtually confined to their barracks at the Mogadishu airport. Iman showed a film she made with the British Broadcasting Corporation during a visit to her homeland showing the devastation and famine since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in January, 1991 and fighting began between factions. <<>> FAO CHIEF SLAMS RESPONSE TO CRISIS IN SOMALIA ROME, Nov 9, Reuter - The director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Monday slammed the international community for its slow response to the plight of the starving in Somalia. "For almost two years, we have kept calling for immediate action from the international community (in Somalia)," said FAO director- general Edouard Saouma. More than 4.5 million people are hungry in the war-torn African country and some two million risk starving to death. Saouma, speaking at the opening of the FAO Council, recommended an increase in food supplies kept in reserve for emergencies. He added stocks should be pre-positioned either in the countries at risk or the ports of donor countries to speed up their distribution. "We lack the human resources and necessary funds to do our work with the drive, flexibility and steadfastness that today and tomorrow's world demand," he added. The FAO director-general called for a rapid conclusion to the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations to help bring about an improvement in the prices of tropical products like coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, bananas, cotton and rice. "The prices of tropical products have spiralled down for decades, making it impossible for the producer countries to clear their heavy burden of debt and pay for imports." The alarming food situation in Africa is one of the principal items on the agenda at the FAO council which runs until November 20. <<>> ____________________________________________________________________ Posted by Bernhard Helander in Uppsala, Sweden.