In this issue: RUKIYA OMAR FIRED! FEARS OF AID WORKERS SAFETY IF GUNMEN GO ON RAMPAGE@ MORE BOMBASTIC STATEMENTS FROM UN HQ ____________________________________________________________________ S O M A L I A N E W S U P D A T E ____________________________________________________________________ No 41 December 7, 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. ____________________________________________________________________ RUKIYA OMAR FIRED! Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved. Washington, Dec 4 (IPS) -- The prominent U.S. human rights umbrella body, Human Rights Watch, fired the executive director of Africa Watch this week over differences regarding the deployment of U.S. troops to Somalia to help get food to starving civilians there. Human Rights Watch Deputy Director, Kenneth Roth, told the 'Washington Post' friday that Rukiya Omar, a Somali native and Africa Watch founder, had been dismissed "for insubordination and failure to abide by our internal procedures on establishing a policy". Omar, a frequent guest on public affairs television programmes, has strongly opposed the U.S. deployment since president George Bush's offer to send the troops was first leaked to the press late last month. She has argued that deployment of such a massive force is likely to disrupt hopeful peacemaking efforts by traditional somali clan and community leaders and international relief groups which have been working closely with them. Tuesday, however, the New York-based Human Rights Watch, the umbrella organisation for regionally based Watch groups such as Africa Watch, issued a formal statement in which it "welcome(d)" Bush's offer. At the same time, it ordered Omar, "not to keep speaking" against the deployment, according to the post's account of Roth's remarks. "She refused and said she was Africa Watch's expert on Somalia." Roth's office told IPS friday he was not available to comment on the story. Contacted by IPS at her London home friday, Omar confirmed that she had been told not to speak out against the deployment. in subsequent media interviews, she told IPS, she had not identified herself in any way with Africa or Human Rights Watch but had been fired wednesday. her deputy, Alex De Waal, resigned in protest shortly after. Omar said the incident "highlights the limitations of Western human rights organisations, which normally deal with issues such as arrest and detention and other problems of elite groups, have no way of knowing how to respond to these kinds of problems." "They have a tendency to bypass local structures. they are much more comfortable dealing with a few prominent elite individuals than making the effort to understand how the large proportion of the poor, especially in rural areas, work and operate," she told IPS. "Ask Ken Roth what his understanding is of Somali clan structure. I find it extraordinary that human rights watch, sitting in New York and Washington, is making statements about the future of somalia without talking with one single Somali." Omar stressed the she had never opposed the use of force by u.n. troops in securing relief supplies for the estimated two million somalis considered in danger of starving. But she said the implementation of the decision to send in a 3,500-man U.N. force in Apr. 1992, was preferable to the massive U.S. intervention sanctioned by the U.N. security council thursday night. The original deployment "was very well prepared on the ground by the former special representative of U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Mohammed Sahnoun," who was himself fired from his post by Boutros-Ghali for criticising U.N. relief efforts. "He was working with everyone, with Somali society, as part of a larger effort of political negotiation and reconciliation." Omar said the U.S. deployment has been pushed by "U.S. relief organisations which have either virtually no involvement in Somalia or, as in the case of Care, have refused to consult Somalis or use local structures". "In Care's case, that's why they have suffered such a high degree of looting," she added, adding that other relief groups, such as Save The Children-UK, Catholic Relief Services, and the International Red Cross, which have used local structures, have suffered relatively small losses to looters and militias. Omar also predicted the deployment, which bush formally announced friday, "will be a disaster. it will smash local initiatives for political reconciliation and legitimise the warlords -- the very men whose policies have created this catastrophe." She also warned that it could "escalate the violence and couldforce some relief organisations to leave the country." "The deployment will do nothing to address the medium or long-term political problems somalia must solve at the same time that,once the U.S. withdraws, there will be a massive power vacuum,"she told IPS. She also charged that the attitude of Human Rights Watchtowards the U.S. deployment may well be coloured by its identityas a U.S. organisation. "if this had been African or Europeantroops," she said, the difference within the organisations wouldnot have been so intense." FEARS OF AID WORKERS SAFETY IF GUNMEN GO ON RAMPAGE MOGADISHU, Dec 6, Reuter - The commander of U.N. military forces already on the ground in Somalia says he fears for the safety of civilian aid workers if gunmen go on the rampage before U.S. Marines sweep into the capital Mogadishu. "My worry isn't for my soldiers but all the civilian aid workers in town. If they (the gunmen) start shooting we are in a dicey situation," Brigadier-General Imtiaz Shaheen told Reuters on Saturday. Top U.N. officers have said the 500-strong force of Pakistani "blue helmets" deployed in the city since September would be overstretched if called on to organise an evacuation of Mogadishu where relief aid is at the mercy of ruthless gunmen. Shaheen said the mercy work of some 400 relief workers in the anarchic city would be frozen during the deployment of the 1,800 marines, the vanguard of a U.S.-led force estimated at more than 30,000 troops. U.S. defence officials said the operation to help starving Somalis could start early next week following Thursday's Security Council resolution approving the force. Many aid agencies believe the marines will come ashore on Tuesday. The task force troops are authorised to use force if necessary to protect themselves and to ensure aid gets to the million Somalis dying of starvation. In a city where local warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed estimates there are over two million guns, that could spell trouble between U.S. troops and gunmen reluctant to hand over their weapons. "I don't see these 'technicals' (heavily-armed battle-wagons) driving around the streets...They will have to go," Shaheen said. A dozen countries have offered to contribute to the U.S.-led task force -- Operation Provide Hope. A thousand people a day are starving to death in Somalia where famine has killed an estimated 300,000 since clan militias ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in January 1991, and then turned their guns on each other. On Friday, gangsters in the famine-stricken inland town of Baidoa, the securing of which will be of the marines' first tasks, robbed the offices of the U.S. agency CARE on Friday after a shootout with guards. Other firefights involving guards of foreign relief agencies were reported on Saturday and the handful of aid groups in the town are scaling down staff ahead of the expected U.S. deployment there next week. Relief sources said the Dutch branch of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) had reduced staff from 13 to three in Baidoa, where the daily death rate has dropped from 400 to less than 40 during the past two months. MORE BOMBASTIC STATEMENTS FROM UN HQ Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. ATLANTA (AP) -- U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said Saturday he was optimistic U.S. forces could restore order quickly in Somalia and allow the United Nations to begin to negotiate a political truce. But he acknowledged he didn't know how long it would take to stabilize the war-torn east African nation. "It depends on the situation on the ground," he said. Speaking after a two-day conference on global development at the Carter Center, Boutros-Ghali said he was confident that gangs blamed for looting famine relief food will quickly lose power once the U.N. forces start distributing food in Somalia. "When we will be able to distribute the food, the groups will disappear," he said. The U.N. will then broker aggressive peace negotiations with the warring Somali clans, Boutros-Ghali said. Then, he said, "We will need massive assistance in reconstruction, in creating a police force, in resettling refugees." The secretary-general said a small peace-keeping force eventually will replace the U.S. troops and the smaller number of troops from other nations being sent on the mission of mercy. Former President Carter, who co-chaired the conference with Boutros-Ghali, chided the news media for ignoring the issue of long- term international economic development, the topic of the conference. How the world responds to future tragedies partly depends on how the media cover Somalia, Carter said. Public response would be weak, he said, "if your total focus is on the efficacy of the American Marines and the soldier's wife and how she's hurt over Christmas." "My hope is that the American people will see Somalia is a tragedy for which we all are responsible and which we could have prevented," he said. At an earlier news conference Saturday, Boutros-Ghali declared the Somali aid project a new chapter in U.N. history because it is a collective operation to provide purely humanitarian assistance. He also called on all countries to help end Somalia's strife by curtailing the flow of weapons to African nations. "There are no gun factories in Somalia and Somalia did not buy these guns. They were given to Somalia by outside interests," he said. ____________________________________________________________________ Posted by Bernhard Helander in Uppsala, Sweden.