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72 Foreign Aff. 109 (1992-1993)
Debacle in Somalia

handle is hein.journals/fora72 and id is 123 raw text is: DEBACLE IN SOMALIA Jeffrey Clark Famine: A Collective International Failure HE DRAMA of large-scale military intervention and the media's fixation on looters and warlords now threaten to obscure the fact that, prior to late 1992, the international response to Somalia's long agony was indeed abject failure. Inadequate and halffhearted multilateral measures contributed significantly to the very circumstances of anarchy, violence and starvation now being addressed-by necessity-by 31,000 U.S. Marines and combined internation- al military forces. Operation Restore Hope is likely to prevent marauding bandits from stealing relief supplies and to be viewed, in the near term at least, as a successful demonstration of the American commitment to humanitarian principles-at accept- able risk and cost. But worst of all the intervention exposes the acute dangers inherent in the collective failure to restructure international humanitarian assistance policies and multilateral relief and political organizations to meet the realities of the post-Cold War world. Neither the operational responses of U.N. relief agencies nor the conflict-mediation efforts of U.N. diplomats were under- taken with visible professionalism. Various U.N. officials and others exaggerated security concerns early in the Somali crisis in order to excuse their own scant presence and deeply flawed performance, factors which in turn contributed to real levels of violence by mid-1992. Until shamed into action by U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the Security Council's early response to indicators of Somalia's approaching tragedy was virtual inertia, and Washington's own initial stance was strangely passive when contrasted with the sudden and forceful U.S. measures taken by year's end. Jeffrey Clark, consultant on development and humanitarian assistance issues, is affiliated with the United States Committee for Refugees. He pre- viously directed an African food security program at the Carter Presidential Center and served as a senior professional staff member for the House Select Committee on Hunger.

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