Word: somali
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...with the Iraqi Kurds in the spring of 1991, it was only after the media steadily bombarded Western sensibilities with images of starving Somali children that the U.S. and other governments stopped dithering and began to act. Says Brian Urquhart, a former Under Secretary-General of the U.N.: "Apparently we have to wait until TV and the press drive the world to take police action in these places...
Colonialism came to Somalia in the late 19th century, when Britain took the northern third and Italy the south. Once the borders were set, many of the nomads suddenly found themselves citizens of neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia. What little political organization the Somalis had collapsed, and the Europeans replaced it with Western centralized governments that brought the nomads their first schools, police and courts. But the colonialists also gave the Somalis a common threat to rally against. The nationalist Somali Youth League gained strength by stressing clan unity and encouraging territorial reunification...
...mission is a striking departure for both the U.N. and the U.S. It is a peace-enforcing, not peacekeeping, operation (there is no peace to keep), mounted without invitation from a host government (there is no Somali government). Nor does the U.S. have any economic or strategic stake. On TV last Friday, Bush stressed that the U.S. interest is "humanitarian," a matter of superpower noblesse oblige. Some 1.5 million Somalis may starve to death, he said, because armed gangs have been stealing relief supplies, and "only the U.S. has the global reach" to cope with the crisis. Washington had earlier...
...DISCOURAGINGLY REPETITIOUS REPORTS OF armed Somali warlords siphoning as much as 80% of the humanitarian relief supplies finally got to George Bush. The outgoing U.S. President proposed to U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali that American military forces be dispatched to ensure that the food and medicine reach the starving population. Two thousand U.S. Marines aboard amphibious ships in the Indian Ocean are available for the job, and % Pentagon sources say an additional 15,000 or more would be ready, provided that the U.N. Security Council approves the initiative this week. Somali strongman General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, who has hamstrung...
...Somalian famine is unquestionably the most horrendous situation in the world right now. Already, hundreds of thousands of Somalis have died from starvation and disease and several million more are at risk, while adequate food and supplies sit unused in ports on the Somali coast...