Assignment: International Conflict

NOW F OR AN ORIGINAL PAPER ASSIGNMENT:Assignment: International Conflict

Somalia

The Horn of Africa is home to several of the poorest countries on earth, including Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. In the 1980s and 1990s, this region was afflicted by drought, famine, international conflict, civil wars, and all manner of violence. In the early 1990s, the most critical food shortages occurred in Somalia, where civil war and drought conspired to cause terrible human suffering. In August 1992, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) triggered a massive international relief effort when it warned that two million Somalis, of a total population of slightly more than eight million, faced starvation within six months.

Against this backdrop of violence and misery, rebels ousted Somalia’s longtime dictator, Siad Barré, in January 1991. Fighting and famine followed, leaving 300,000 people dead and millions at risk of starvation. A near-total breakdown of law and order plunged the country into anarchy and placed women and children at the mercy of armed bandits, who disrupted relief efforts by international agencies, stole food intended for starving children, and murdered relief workers.

At the end of 1992, outgoing U.S. President George H. W. Bush ordered a military intervention to safeguard relief supplies and workers. The scene was so chaotic that restoring law and order proved impossible. Long after the U.S.-led UN forces departed in March 1995 (following the brutal killing of several U.S. soldiers), Somalia remained a country without a national government. Maps showing which areas were controlled by which factions looked more like a jigsaw puzzle than a political configuration.

Somalia was one of the poorest countries in Africa in the 1990s, with a per capita GNP of less than $500 and an illiteracy rate of more than 75%. Moreover, it is underdeveloped both politically and economically. The structure of Somali society is based on kinship ties, or clans—in fact, the civil war was a clan war. If Somalia cannot find a formula for political stability, it cannot rebuild its economy. The reverse is also true: stability depends on economic and social progress.

Somalia today remains a failed state. Anarchy is a boon to thieves, and Somalia is the world’s number-one haven for pirates. In 2009, Somali pirates seized a merchant ship flying the U.S. flag and held the captain hostage, prompting President Obama to authorize the use of force. Three of the hostage takers were killed by sharpshooters and a fourth was captured and put on trial in the United States. The rescue operation succeeded: the captain’s life was saved. But who will rescue Somalia?