Aid groups support U.S. effort in Somalia

Christian Century, Nov 3, 1993

U.S. religious and relief groups, which a year ago cautiously supported "military humanitarian intervention" to stave off mass starvation in Somalia, say the U.S. and the United Nations must stay the course. At the same time, however, these groups are calling for less reliance on the military aspects of the intervention and more emphasis on seeking a peaceful solution to the fighting between UN and U.S. troops and the clan faction led by Mohammed Farah Aidid.

President Clinton has set a March deadline for an end to the participation of U.S. troops in the humanitarian effort. On October 18 the UN announced that it was ending one of the operations that has sparked the violence-the effort to arrest Aidid, who heads a faction of one of the dans concentrated in Somalia's capital city of Mogadishu. Meanwhile, some voices on Capitol Hill have called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, and some protest demonstrations have been mounted around the country urging an immediate U.S. pullout.

But most relief agencies contend that the humanitarian operation has generally succeeded in its mission and should be maintained. "Last December the U.S. and the UN intervened in Somalia with a humanitarian mandate and saved tens of thousands of lives," representatives of Bread for the World, the Christian antihunger lobbying group, declared recently, adding that "although pockets of malnutrition and hunger continue to exist, mass starvation has since abated."

InterAction, the umbrella group of some 150 U.S. nonprofit organizations involved in international humanitarian and relief work, reported that "much has been accomplished" since the first U.S. troops landed in Mogadishu and that "relief efforts are phasing down." Said InterAction president Julia Taft: "We emphasize that events outside Mogadishu are encouraging. In the rest of the country the humanitarian work of nongovernmental organizations and the UN has had considerable impact."

But there was virtual unanimity among the groups that any immediate withdrawal of U.S. and UN forces would put the relief efforts at risk. "Withdrawal now, by U.S. and other forces, could lead to a return to anarchy and starvation," warned Bread for the World, which went on to say, "It is essential that the U.S. not retreat from its moral responsibility to the Somali people." And World Vision, the evangelical relief agency that operates a number of on-the-ground feeding and other programs in Somalia, also said the UN peacekeeping effort should not be abandoned but, like other groups, called for abandoning attempts to arrest Aidid.