Humanitarian Intervention in Somalia, 1992-93

What is Humanitarian Intervention?

Origins of the Somali Crisis

The UN strategy of peace-enforcement

Marginalisation of the UN

Advent of the ‘Somali Syndrome’

What is Humanitarian Intervention?

Humanitarian intervention is an activity undertaken by a state(s), a group within a state, or an international organisation which interferes coercively in the domestic affairs of another state in order to realise some humanitarian objective within a limited period of time.

Origins of Somali Crisis

The roots of Somalia's disintegration were local and international in character:

1. Persistence of clan loyalties in the country.
2. Cold War rivalry made Somalia a heavily armed state.
3. Failure of Preventive Diplomacy

4. Limitations of traditional UN peacekeeping.

The UN strategy of Peace Enforcement

UN Security Resolution 794 authorised the US-led United Task Force(UNITAF) to use “all necessary means to establish...a secure environment for humanitarian relief operations”, but the US and the UN disagreed over the interpretation of the mandate. In June 1993, UNOSOM 11, UNITAF's successor mission, became embroiled in hostilities with General Aideed's faction. This confrontation effectively ended the UN's experiment in peace-enforcement.

Marginalisation of the UN: Some Lessons

The return to traditional peacekeeping was codified in a revised UN Security Council mandate for UNOSOM 11 on 4 February 1994. Unable to advance the goal of national reconciliation, the UN Security Council authorised the withdrawal of UNOSOM 11 in March 1995

Lessons of the Somali experience:

The UN operation contained four basic flaws:

1. The UN was too dependent on the vagaries of member governments.
2. There was a basic mismatch the UN's desire for a political quick fix and the long term support necessary for reconstructing shattered Somalia.
3. The UN made a colossal organisational error in centralising the operation is south Mogadishu.
4. The lack of cultural sensitivity amongst UN staff undermined the implementation of the intervention.

The Advent of the Somali Syndrome

After the Somali failure, the Clinton administration passed Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) in May 1994. This directive said the US would only participate in future UN peacekeeping operations if they were in Washington’s national interest. Thereafter, for much of the 1990s, there was a preoccupation in Washington with not crossing “the Mogadishu line” and allowing “mission creep”, a situation where peacekeeping operations slide into peace enforcement actions.