Somalia:  The Missed Opportunities, by Mohamed Sahnoun

This short book (80 pages, including a lengthy appendix containing the UN resolutions about the Somali crisis, which takes up about a quarter of the book), is a grim and technical description of how Somalia fell apart and what the UN and non-governmental organizations tried to do to resolve the problem.  Anyone wishing to examine the breakup of Somalia in the context of Cold War politics ought to read this book, for its omissions as well as its statements.

The book is organized well and written with a passionate but highly articulate form of English well-familiar to those who are literate in the patois of diplomacy and international relations.  The preface introduces the author as having personal experience as the UN Special Representative in Somalia in 1992, a particularly unenviable position, even with prior and extensive experience in the OAU, or the Organization for African Unity (now the African Union, or AU).  The introduction than follows with a recognition that UN involvement in a problem follows a significant humanitarian disaster, a prelude to what follows.

In the first chapter, M. Sahnoun identified three missed opportunities for preventative diplomacy:  the destruction of Somaliland’s infrastructure as a result of their uprising against Said Barre, the rise of Somalia’s moderate political leadership to agree to a manifesto seeking peace and harmony, and the fall of Siad Barre’s government in the face of nationwide rebellions.

All of these opportunities were missed, and after hundreds of thousands of people had died, the second chapter examines the UN role in humanitarian assistance.  This is a short chapter, because at this time (early 1992), the UN didn’t do much, and the aid provided was mostly from non-governmental charity organizations based in the West.  The UN comes off rather poorly as a whole in this work, extremely incompetent at even the simplest aspects of a humanitarian mission, as becomes increasingly clear the more one reads.

The third chapter deals with the (failed) UN Operation in Somalia, and its many bungles.  Included in the lengthy list of problems is the following blunders:  many of the UN staff refused to actually face the situation on the ground in Somalia, preferring the safety and comfort of neighboring nations, aid was concentrated in Mogadishu, giving too much leverage to local warlords (like M. Aideed) and not providing enough help to neglected regions like Somaliland and Puntland, food aid often prompted looting by being in processed form (sugar, oil, flour) rather than in raw form (wheat), and some member nations (like Russia) violated international resolutions in order to provide weapons to their favored factions, prompting renewed violence.  This chapter concludes with a transcript of the author’s resignation over the refusal of the UN to heed his advice and help avoid further catastrophe.

The fourth chapter, fairly brief, discusses the issue of intervention versus sovereignty and examines the reasons which justify UN involvement–ranging from a collapse of civil government to genocide to a government declaring war against its own people.  Somalia met several of the criteria listed for intervention, as is unsurprising.  The final chapter concludes with a call for a stronger UN that has a stronger system of preventative action and a maverick leadership that is able to move beyond Cold War ideological barriers and the current threats that exist to UN credibility.  Two appendices, one an obsolete list of factions (the book was written in 1994), and the other which provides empty words of the UN resolutions on Somalia, close the thoroughly researched book.

There are two conclusions I took from this book.  The first was that the attitude of the author helps explain why Somaliland has taken so long to find international recognition, as the author shows no awareness of a specific Somaliland identity and confuses it with Isaaq clan politics, not acknowledging the different colonial history of Somaliland and Somalia at all and using various euphemisms (including the “Northwest”) to describe Somaliland rather than accepting its sovereignty as a nation.  Additionally, the book makes the UN and certain nations (like Russia) look very bad.  No one reading this book is likely to consider the UN an effective international institution, as its behavior in the 1990’s amply demonstrates (failure in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Chechnya, and the Karabagh as a start).  The blatant favoritism of the international community to some approaches and factions over others is manifested plainly for all who will see.  The book, despite its flaws and obvious bias for Puntland, is still a worthwhile book to read, though, for understanding the perspective of the UN and African Union towards the Horn of Africa at the very least.