Word: oakleys
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...envoy to Somalia Robert B. Oakley's declaration that the U.S. had fulfilled its goals in Somalia and was now ready to leave is a welcome beginning to what we hope will be our post-Cold War foreign policy. The announcement was followed by a promise this Thursday by UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali that as of May 1, the Americans will no longer be running the show in Somalia. U.S. forces will be replaced by a bonafide UN force, of which American troops will comprise no more than a quarter...
...according to U.S. envoy Robert Oakley, "This country has lived off the dole for as long as I can remember. In the future, the Somalis will have to work harder at earning it rather than getting...
...warlords' struggle for power that must be settled before peace can return to Somalia. Robert Oakley, the U.S. special envoy, believes Ali Mahdi and Aidid may actually turn out to be irrelevant to an eventual political solution. "Right now they are factors in the political landscape," he says. "But the Somalis don't like domination by a single political party. When people aren't fighting, they don't need military alliances." A former Somali journalist puts the issue in blunter terms: "The U.S. has to deal with these people to stabilize the environment in the short term. But when peace...
...warlords, who might eventually rule? Oakley believes that elders of Somalia's numberless clans and subclans as well as religious leaders should be brought into the process. As evidence that this can be done, he points to Baidoa, in the center of the famine belt and a town that had been under Aidid's thumb. U.S. officials have organized town meetings attended by as many as 300 clan elders, representatives of women's groups and Islamic mullahs. Over the objections of Aidid's representatives, leaders at the meetings agreed to remove technicals from the town and set up subcommittees...
Nonetheless, a campaign to disarm Somalis could create hostility. "If we were obliged to go on a house-to-house search -- which we wouldn't do anyway," said Oakley, "the Somalis would see it as rank colonialism." Still some Somali leaders discount a major backlash because, they say, the people are sick and tired of the violence...