Title:

The lessons from Somalia. By: Kittani, Ismat, Johnstone, Ian, UN Chronicle, 02517329,
1996, Vol. 33, Issue 3
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THE LESSONS FROM SOMALIA
Section: FIRST PERSON

More than one year after the withdrawal of United Nations peace-keepers from Somalia, the
international community is still reeling from what the Secretary-General called "one of the most
challenging, arduous undertakings in the Organization's 50-year history". The United Nations'
experience there marked a turning point for its peace operations in the post-coldwar era, a brief
but extraordinarily eventful period for the Organization. Some of the lessons of that short history
have been catalogued in the Secretary-General's Supplement to An Agenda for Peace, which
sought to highlight the unforeseen or only partly foreseen difficulties that had arisen since his
path-breaking Agenda for Peace of mid-1992. Yet the full story of Somalia remains to be told
and its full implications remain to be digested. The tragedy that has befallen that sad land is not
over and, having intervened, the international community owes it to the Somali people not to
forget their plight. Nor are the Somali people the only ones suffering from the "failed state"
syndrome, with its disastrous consequences. The Somalia type of conflict is likely to plague the
international community for some time to come. To a great extent, therefore, the future of the
UN's role in the maintenance of international peace and security depends on how well the
lessons of Somalia are learned.

Before turning to those lessons, I would like to make two preliminary points, both of which have
been made before, but bear repeating. First, one of the principal functions of UNOSOM II--to
disarm the warring factions--was a task the United Nations never wanted and was never properly
equipped to perform. Recall that the Unified Task Force (UNITAF), with 37,000 troops
deployed in 40 per cent of the country, had the means and mandate to perform this critical task,
and yet chose not to do so. The Secretary-General stressed the need for disarmament in the letter
he sent to the Security Council that formed the basis for resolution 794, which authorized
UNITAF to use "all necessary means" to create a secure environment for humanitarian relief
operations. The Secretary-General expanded on his position in a letter to United States President
George Bush shortly thereafter, insisting that "any forceful action by the international
community in Somalia must have the objective of ensuring that at least the heavy weapons of the
organized factions are neutralized and brought under international control and that the irregular
forces and gangs are disarmed." And when the 14 factions agreed to disarm in January 1993 (at
least on paper), the political environment became more conducive to bold action on this front.
Nevertheless, by the time of UNITAF's departure, with the back of the famine having been
broken, the warring factions and their followers were still armed to the teeth. Because of this
continuing source of insecurity, the Security Council authorized UNOSOM II to take up the
challenge--with fewer troops more widely spread throughout the country and, as it turned out,
with the main faction leaders determined to resist.

My second preliminary observation concerns the misconception that the United Nations saw
UNOSOM II as having a mandate to rebuild Somalia by force. When UNITAF was leaving and
the mission of UNOSOM II was being designed, it was understood that its enforcement powers
would extend to the delivery of humanitarian relief and disarmament. They would not, however,
extend to nation-building. Promoting reconciliation and helping the Somali people to revive their
economy and political institutions were part of UNOSOM's mandate, but we did not have the
illusion that this could be done coercively. As I wrote to the Secretary-General in a weekly
report during my tenure as his Special Representative, delivering humanitarian assistance in a
hostile environment is difficult enough, "but to move from that to the idea of using UN armed
forces in order to achieve political reconciliation and economic viability in a completely
shattered country is mind-boggling". The United Nations knew the magnitude of the challenge
in Somalia and it knew that most of what had to be done required the cooperation and
commitment of the Somalis themselves.

THE FIRST principal lesson from the Somalia experience stems from the fact that the United
Nations was not and still is not equipped for large-scale enforcement operations, nor was it given
the resources to carry out the broad mandate UNOSOM II was assigned. Since then, the Security
Council has typically authorized single States or multinational coalitions to conduct such
operations--Operation Turquoise in Rwanda, the United States-led intervention in Haiti before
the establishment of UNMIH, and the NATO-led Implementation Force in Bosnia are the most
obvious examples. This is not to say that delegated enforcement action is inherently better than
UN operations (distinguished as they are by their universal character), but the United Nations
simply does not have the capacity to manage major military operations, nor do Member States
seem inclined to give it that capacity. There is, however, a category of conflict where something
less than full-scale enforcement is called for, but which nevertheless requires something more
than traditional peace-keeping treatment. This category of cases requires a capacity to engage in
limited military action--to protect humanitarian relief, for example--and the international
community must decide whether the United Nations should be endowed with that capability, or
whether non-UN coalitions--often able but not always willing--should be left with the task.

SECOND, enforcement action should not take place concurrently with peace-keeping
operations. As the Secretary-General noted in the Supplement to An Agenda for Peace, peace-
keeping and peace enforcement flow from entirely different premises and it is dangerous to mix
the two. The situation becomes even more complicated when the two operations are conducted
by two different organizations, with different priorities, reporting lines and political masters.
Peace enforcement, however, may be followed by peace-keeping operations under the command
and control of the United Nations. In these cases, the handover from the non-UN force to UN
peace-keepers should be subject to careful coordination and consultation. And the transition
should not take place until the mandate established by the Security Council has been met and the
parties to the conflict consent to the UN presence: UN peace-keepers cannot be expected to take
over an incomplete enforcement action. In Haiti, perhaps having learned the lesson of Somalia,
UNMIH did not deploy until all concerned were confident that the United States-led intervention
had achieved its goals and the environment was secure enough for a Chapter VI operation to
pursue its mandate.

THIRD, the coordination of political, humanitarian, developmental and military activities is

critical. Somalia cried out for an integrated approach, which at times was sorely lacking. As
Special Representative, I instituted regular meetings with the heads of all UN agencies in the
field and with humanitarian non-governmental organizations. Although coordination remained
far from ideal, it was important to establish that we were all reading from the same page and
working towards the same goal. The Secretary-General has since instituted a policy that his
Special Representatives are responsible for overall coordination of all members of the UN family
in a mission area--a policy that has proven its worth in Rwanda, Haiti and elsewhere. Taking the
logic a step further, it is now sometimes suggested that the Special Representative of the
Secretary-General should be provided with a discretionary fund, to be used as an inducement for
the parties to cooperate and as a mechanism for connecting peacemaking and peace-keeping
goals with the more long-term challenges of peace-building.

FOURTH, the United Nations cannot substitute for the political will of the protagonists--not by
the use of force, not by the provision of humanitarian assistance and not by the deployment of
peace-keepers. It can and must, however, develop political strategies commensurate with the task
at hand. In the case of "failed States", persuading faction leaders to end the fighting and lay
down their arms is just the beginning. Peacemaking may require the building of institutions, and
the rehabilitation of political and economic infrastructure. In Somalia, UNOSOM II helped with
the revival of local, district and regional governmental councils, and strived to re-establish
politically neutral police, judicial and penal institutions. Though these measures cannot create
political will, which they clearly did not do in Somalia, they can help establish conditions within
which moderate elements can maneuver and seek ways of settling disputes peacefully, which in
turn can provide the foundation for a lasting peace. Sitting around a table to negotiate is only one
part of the process of national reconciliation.

The setbacks suffered in Somalia should not cloud our view of the successes achieved there. The
famine was broken and untold human suffering was alleviated. But because the factions
themselves were unwilling to commit to peace, there was little more the international community
could do. The United Nations, however, has not given up on Somalia. A political office
continues to function out of Nairobi, and it will return to Mogadishu as conditions permit. UN
agencies also continue to operate, providing relief and development assistance when and where
they can. As the Secretary-General has suggested, the fact that there is no government in
Somalia does not mean the United Nations cannot provide assistance to the people of that
country--perhaps the most important lesson of all.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Under-Secretary-General Ismat Kittani

~~~~~~~~

By Ismat Kittani with Ian Johnstone

Under-Secretary-General Ismat Adviser to Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, has had a
long and extensive career at the United Nations. A former UnderSecretary for Foreign Affairs of
Iraq, he was elected President of the General Assembly in 1981, becoming the first person to
hold that post who had been both a United Nations delegate and a member of the Secretariat.
After serving as Iraq's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York and
Geneva, Mr. Kittani was Secretary of the Economic and Social Council, Executive Assistant to
the Secretary-General with the rank of Assistant Secretary-General, Chief of Specialized
Agencies of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and Under-Secretary-General for
Peace-keeping Operations. He served as the Secretary-General's Special Representative to
Somalia from 1992 to 1993.