U.S. Foreign Assistance to Somalia- Phoenix From the Ashes

 

N ~ LIA: U.S. FOREIGN~ ~ S I S T OASOMALIA: SOMA

PHOENIXFROMTHE~S?

Dr. Menwurtcs is associ associatepro atepro ssor ofpolitical ofpolitical sci science ence at D a v a o n College. In 1993-94 199 3-94,, he served as pecial plitic l adviser in the United Nations @ration in Somalkz The au autthor hor g r a te f lb ack acknowl nowledg edges es-i -ial al sq rt that contributed to thk researchporn the Fulbright abctoral dissertation grant program (1987-88), summerr research grmforn the Amerkan University in Cairo I 9901, and a summe re rese sear arch ch gr@j?om gr@ j?om D a v a o n Col Collleg egee ((1996). 1996).

e w topics inspii mor moree cynicism cynicism among seasoned observers of hann foreign internationalpolitics t ha ssistance o Somalia. By m e reckonings, no o k ountry save Isael has receivedd such high levels of military and receive economic aid per capita; certainly no country has less to show for it. Even before its collapse into protrac protracted ted civil civ il war and anarchy in 1990, Somalia had earned a reputaton as a graveyard of foreign aid, a land where aid prbjeds were notoriously unsuccesshl, and where high levels of forei foreign gn assistance helped to create an le, compt and repressive entirely

F

succumbed to ex exto tort rtio ionn h m omali omali mi mili liti tias as and sometimes inadvertently heled local conflicts;to c o m p t local leaders leaders,, who sy syst stema emati tica call llyy d i v e d fo fore reig ignn aid to their own coffm at the expense of their o w n populations. In short, Somalia’s history of foreign aid yields an almost exclusively negative set of lessons leamed. Yet the very depth of these th ese failures both both in Somalia and other crisis-ridden countries n the Greater Horn of Afiica’ may now be providing ground for innovative fertile groun innovative reforms in the philosophy and delive delivery ry of foreign aid. aid. Among t hose donors at the fo re h nt of new th think inking ing

state. The heavily m e

on foreign aid to Somalia is the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is attempting o operatiodize these new approaches through its Greater Horn of Afica Initiative(GHAI). Though still in planning stagqtheGHAI isconceptually.superiorto past approaches to developmen developmentt aid. It

violence violen ce of Somalia’s civil war, moreover, exposed the d e s t n t C t i v m o f yeafi of Cold -W at-inspi military aid into the Hom of Afiica Finally, the massive armed humanitarian intmention into and out of Somalia in 1992-95 dramaticallyexposed the the shom min gs of of the the entire industry of for foreig eignn aid -hm the bihteddonors,whosestrategicandpolitical inwith the needs h av e m l y i of the Somali people; to UN agencies, whose inflexible bmaucraticprocedures fiiled to respond to the S o m ali h i n e ; o the non-

‘This tern encompasses the region from Burundi Burundi and Tanzania in the south to Sudan in the north-a zone characterized by endem ic hum anitarian, political, and reh ge c crises that hav e presented the the international community with some o f the most

governmental organizations,whose programs

challenging “complex em ergencies” in the world.

124

 

MENKHAUS MENK HAUS:: . S. F O R E I G NASSISTANCE O SOMALIA: PHOENIX FROMTHE ASHES?

emphasizes conflict prevention as a means of emphasizes addressing roots causes of the region’s endemicc humanitarian crises; African endemi

comprehensive assistance aimed at preventing these complex emergencies.’ emergencies.’ In the case of Somalia, o off course, calls for

“ownership”of development prioritization; “ownership” regional approaches o problems transcending borders, as the GHAI’s name suggests; capacity-building rather t han project-driven aid; the strengtheningof strengtheningof civil society; and effective mechanisms to support transition transition h m elief to development aid. Though none of these ideas about aid is new, attempts to systematically build t heminto foreign-aid foreign-aid programs in USAlD are. Moreover, coming at a time of significant shrinkage in the foreign-aid budget, the GHAI’s prioritization of local capacitybuilding and African-led African-led initiatives, rather than

crisis prevention crisis prevention come too late. Worse, Somalia’sscurrent state of aff ai rs poses a Somalia’ fundamental challenge challenge to some some basic premises of foreign aid. One of these premises is the existence of state authority. In Somalia, USAID an and d other donors c o n h n t the d dilemma ilemma of channeling development aid where there is no sovereign state, forcing them them tto o consider the problems and and prospects of identifylngand working through alternativesou sourr cesof social and political authority.

costl costly y conventional development projects, provides provid es itit with with fiscal fiscal as well as conceptual appeal.’ The GHAI “is about doing business differently” in the region, observes one USAID official. offic ial. “This is not about more money, it’s about progmnming resources more efficiently.”’ The GHAI s already considered a potential model for U.S. foreign aid in other regions of the world and thus merits close xrutiny as it is moved h m he chalkboard into operation. It is of additional interest in that the principle principless on on which it is founded reflect reflect one of the pillars of the Clinton administration’s emerging post-Cold post-Cold War foreign policy. This pillar is the conviction tha mong the chief and global timats to American interests and stability are state collapse, civil war and protmcted protmcte d humanitarian humanitarian crises in mnes like the Greaterr Horn Greate Horn of Africa, and tha American interests are best promoted through long-term,

’Fo ’Forr recent media coverage o f this new aid philosophy, se e Howard Frenc French, h, “Donors of Foreign Aid Have Second Thoughts,” The New York Tim es (April 7, 1996), p. 5.

Foreign Aid and the Nature of the Somali

State Past researc research h on the impact of foreign aid

on leastdevelopedcountries suggests that large-scale assistance generally has a distorting effect on both both the economic economic and political finctioning of the recipient country. Economically, high high levels of aid can shah the “absorptive “absorp tivecapacity” of weak weak economies, misdirect development priorities toward towardss expensive and and inappropriate large-scale projects, and foster dependence dependenceo n external sourcesof sources of finding to meet both development and and recuning administrativecosts in the state’s budget. Politically, high levels of foreign aid in very poor states have been been associated associated with the rise of endemic political corruption, corruption, the strengthening of repressive arms of the state and the bloating of the civil service, service, since external assistance enables rulers to utilize expanded expande d employment employment in the state and the military as a critical form form of patronage patronage politics. In Somalia, however, aid has not so much distorted politics as it has transformed it. The Somali state itself is a historically artificial and

‘See

J

Brian Atwood, “Suddenly, “Suddenly, Chaos.” The

W a r h i n g t o n Post (July 3 1, 1994).

Interview with USAID official. June 1996. 125

 

MIDDLE ASTPOLICY, OL. V, No. 1, JANUARY997

unsustainable structure. First superimposed on unsustainable a statcless,predominantly pastoral socie society ty by Italian and British colonialism, he state in

econo mically vi economically viab ablle Th Thee Cold War temporarily obscured this fundamental problem. Attracted by Somalia's perceived

Somalia Som alia was enlarged subsequently sustained sustained and of dram dramatically atically by generous levels foreign aid. Its growth into the primary source of employment in Somalia in the 1970s and 1980s,g not only a bloated bureaucmcy but also

Afiica-awere strategic importance in that in the Horn of leaders geopolitical geopoliti cal advantage Somali exploi oitt- diverse dive rse range of donors don ors keen to expl provided economic assistance that may have exceeded 5 The Somali state state has never billion fiom 1960 to been remo tely sustaina ble by 1988 and mi)itaryaid mi)itaryaid

...

one of subsahdomestic sources o f revenue. estimated at 2. 4 Africa's largest billion.' In addition, armies, co&ided Somalia's endemic with extremely high levels of foreign foreig n assistance food shortages, shorta ges, and its long-term rehgee crisis from a wide w ide variety of donors during the Cold resulting h m he drought of 1974 and the War.Conv Conversely, ersely, in 1989-90, when reduced Ogaden War of 1977-78, added enormous Cold War ensions enabled western donors to flows of food relief and refbgee refbg ee assistance into f r eezefm ig n assis assista tance nceto Somalia amidst the foreign-aid lifeline. By the midmid - 1980% 100 charges of gross violations of human-rights by by percentt of Somalia's development percen developme nt budget was the Barre regime-an ethical luxury th t the extemally f i nanced ced and a disturbiig 50 percent logic of the Cold War had prevented in the of its r e c m t budget dependent depende nt on pa st- the So Somal malii state quickly collapsed and intemational loans and grants as well.' At the has yet to reappear. Even the prolonged height heig ht of Somalia's foreign-aid dependence depende nce in efforts effo rts at nation-building by by the U.N. operation 1987, one analyst calculated that total in Somalia (UNOSOM) fiom 1993 to March development assistance constituteda stunning 1995 were unable to r esusci suscitt at e a b m a l i state beset by powerful centrifugal olitical f m 6Mark Karp, The Economics ofTrusteeship n and a weak weak domestic dom estic economy that cannot Somalia (Boston: Boston University Press, I960 , generate tax reven revenues ues for for a minimali minimalist st ce n td pp. 146-169. state structure?

It may be an exaggeration to claim that he Somali state is a creation of external assistance,but it is indisputable that the state has never been remo remotely tely sustainable sustaina ble by by domestic sources of revenue. As ar back as the 1950s, observers worried that an independent Somali Som ali state would not be

detaill in Ken h i s hesis is presented in greater detai

Menkhaus and John Prcndergast, "Governance and Economic Survival in Post-Intervention Somalia" CSIS Afiica Notes (May 1999, pp. 1 12.

Estimates given here are based on figures from the U S . Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (annual handbook), aand nd crosscheck ed wit withh the CIA, The World Wor ld Factbook (1995). It should be noted that total total eco nom ic and military assistance is difficult to calculate precisely. In addition to routine problems of comparability with statistics, statistics, Somalia recei received ved a variety o f unorthod ox forms of foreign aid that did not alwa ys appea r iinn official databases. For instance, in th e late 1970s t hhee B m c regime unofficially received up to S300 million annually annual ly in cash from S audi Arabia as part of a sweetener to brcak ties with the So viet Union. crhese figures were disclosed in an interview with a World Bank official in Mogadishu, 1988.

126

 

MENKHAUS:U.S. FOREIGNASSISTANCEO SOMALIA: PHOENIX F R O M THE ASHES?

57 percent of Somalia's GNP.9 Somali Somaliaa had become beco me a ward ward of the internatio international nal aid comunity.""

fo fore reig ign n aid is h e l e d into into the the country. This unintentionallyreinforced a Mogadi Mogadishu shu bias bias in mod modem em Somali political culture, a

This level level of aid dependence transformed the institution institution of the state. Whole ministries ministries were heavily or even totally reliant on a foreign dono do norr-th thee Ministry of Agricultu Agriculture re on the Germans, the Minisby Minisby of National Planning on the Swedes, Somali National University on the Italians, Italia ns, he military on a constellation of Westem Wes tem donors. Throughout much much of the 198% Saudi Arabia supplied most of Somalia's energy needs for free as part of the weaning away of Somalia h m ts 1970s alliance with with the Soviet Union. Somali civil servants devoted most most of of their energies to project proje ct hopping'*-linking hopping'*-linking up to foreign-aid projects that wo woul uld d pay pay viable viable salarie sal aries-r s-rathe atherr t han han performing their duties duties within their ministries, where they went virtually unpaid. High levels of foreign assistance to Somalia have had a profound effect on Somali Somali ur urba ban n politica politicall culture culture as well. Since 1960, one of the most important important roles of the Somali state has been as a catchment point through through which

centralization of political life and competitio competition n in the capital, the point point at which foreign foreign aid entered the country and was allocated. And foreign aid continues to foster a cargo cult among Somali political political figures, n illusion that the reestablishment of a Somali state st ate will again be greeted with Cold War evels of international interna tional largess, to be enjoyed by whoever whoever is clever clever and ruthless enough to convince the international internat ional community community he presides presides over a structure that can pass for a state. This illusion has exacerbated the pmtracted impasse impasse over nationall reconciliation nationa reconciliation in Somalia today and has fueled the ongoing civil war, which has largely been fought over control of points of entrance of international emergency emergency relief into the country. Were there no potential foreignaid bonanza inked to the capturing of he central state, it is quite likely that factional factional conflict in Somali Somaliaa would would be far more muted. It would be an error to project this portrait of dependence on on foreign aid to the entire economy eco nomy of Somal Somalia ia Most of the rural sector-thepastoral sector-the pastoral economy of livestock herding and the smallholder agricultural production product ion in in southem, inter-riveri inter-riverine ne Soma So mali liaa-ha hass remain remained ed relatively relatively self-reli self-reliant, ant, despite the fact that this sector has been a major target of development aid since the 1960s. It is the ur urba ban n civil-servant class th t has developed an enti entire re econ economy omy an and d lifestyle lifestylem u n d the accessibility of foreign aid and the bloated Somali state t has sustained. That segment of of the economy remains the most dysfunctional and vulnerable in the aftermath of the collapse of the state.

9Data are from from A CD A, W o r l d M i l i t a r y E x p e n d i t u r e s a n d A r m s T r a n s f i r s , cited and analyzed in Paul Henze, The H o r n of A f i i c a: a: F r o m W a r t o P e a c e (New York: t . Martin's Press, 1991). p. 125. To put this figure in context, in 1987 foreign aid as a percentage percentage of GNP in Sudan was 10.5 percent, and in Eth iopia 11.7 percent. %avid Laitin, Somalia: America's New est All y. (unpub lished paper paper,, 1979). p. 8 . II The Saudis did, however, link the free supply of petroleum to deman ds ttha hatt Som ali civil servants attend attend regular regular Arabic language c lasses, an extraordinary case of cultural imperialism which the Somalis resented. But, having pragmatically pragmatically sought membership in the Arab Arab League in I97 3 in order to facilitate access to new OPEC wealth, the Somalis had little recou rse but to accede to the request. 12 A civil servant's monthly pay pay in the mid-1 980s covered only two to three days worth of household expenses.

US. Aid during the Cold W ar Within the narrow geopolitical logic of the Col Cold d War, independent Somali Somaliaa found 127

 

MIDDLE ASTPOLICY, ASTPOLICY, OL.V , No. 1, JANUARY 1997

itself occupying strategically strategicallyvaluable real estate in in the Hom o f M c a he soft underbelly" of the Arabian Arabian Pen insula Like its

equipment and support into the Horn over tbe course of the Cold War. Somalia's legacy of international

Sudan, in iA neighbors northeast and and E thi op om ali aAfrca-Ept, wa was aabl blee to parley this strategic significance into into high levels of foreign aid. Yet throughout the Cold W ar Somalia was always a consolat consolation ion pri prize ze for for su p er p~ w en vying for influence in the much more mportant country of Ethiopia Ethiopia.. Since Somalia's emnity with Ethiopifunction of Som Somali ali irredentist claims on Ethiopia's Somali-inhabited Ogaden re gi on -p m lu de d an alli allianc ancee with with both countries, the first choice of both the East Bloc and the West in the Horn of Afiica was possessedaa much larger Ethiopia, which possessed population and land mass,M c a ' s largest army, and far greater political prestige and leadership than Somalia" Much of the international assistance which flowed into the Horn of M i c a was military, helping to transform the region into one of the most militarized zones zone s in the Third World. A heavy sham of the th e responsibility respo nsibility for this weapons flow rests wt the fonne fonnerr Soviet Union, which fiom 1%7 to 1987 provided an estimated H.2 billion in arms deliveries to its clients in Som Somalia, alia, Ethiopia and Sudan." The U.S. bansferred about $1 billion in military

since in 1960 can be assistance broken down intindependence o three distinct periods, corresponding roughly to each decade. 'I?uough most of the 197Os, Som alia e m b d a close alliance with the Soviet So viet Union; as a consequence, the United States provided virtually no aid h m 970-78. By contrast, in the 1960s and 1980% he United States played a relatively significant role as a foreign donor, but always as part of a much wider, multinational program of assistance. In neither the 1960s nor the 1980s did U.S. bilateral econom ic and and military assistance rank as he top s o u ~ c e f aid for Somalia Still, U.S. i M conomic aid to Somalia h 954 to 1987 totaled $677 million (one of the top recipie recipients nts of U.S. U.S. aid in subSaharan Africa) and U.S.military aid to Somalia in th t period reached $380 million." Moreover, Moreov er, inasmuch inasmuch as U.S. ssistance was closely coordinated with other major donors like Italy and Saudi M i a , and its policy preferences influential influential in multilateral lenders like the World Bank and Lntemational Monetary Fund, he United States had a powerful voice in shaping the philosophy and goals linked to intemational aid to Somalia Thrwghout he Cold War, merican foreign

~~

I1

Several books document the politics of Cold War competition in the Horn of Africa See Jeffrey Lefebvre, Arms f o r t h e H o r n : US. ecurity Policy i n Ethi o pi a and Somal i a, 1953-1991 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991 ; Paul Henze. The H o r n of Afi i ca: From W w o Peace (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991 ; Steven David,

Choosing Sides: Alignment and Rea Realignment lignment in the T h i r d W o r l d (Baltimore and L ondon: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1991 ; Robert Patman, The Soviet U n i o n i n the H o r n of A f i i c a (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 14 Henze, The Horn o fAfi i ca, p. 119.

aid to Somalia was defined and driven by strategic rationales, often at the expense of developmental concerns.

U S id in the 19609. The United States played a relatively subdued role in foreign ~~

~

Lefebvre, A r m s o r t h e H o r n p. 15. Presentation. Fisc al Yea Yearr '%SAID. Congressional Presentation. 1990. Annex I,Africa p. 338. 7 Peterr S Pete Schracde chracde t and Jercl Rosati, Policy Dilemmas in the Horn of Africa: Contradictions in the US.-So mal ia Relati Relationship onship.. Northeast African

St Studi udi es es 9. 3 (19 87) p. 28.

128

 

MENKHAUS: .S. FOREIGN SSISTANCEO SOMALIA: PHOENIX FROMTHE ASHES?

assistance to Somalia in the 1960s. U.S. military aid to Somalia for the entire en tire decade totaled total ed only on ly $1 million, in conbast to $47

developm ent consultants to understand Somali pastoral pastor al land land tenure undermined a ra ng e managem ent project in the southern town of

mil million pr prov oviided ded h m 1963 to 1969 by the Soviet Union." Part of this low-key

Afhad ow. The project project sparked i n t r a & n hostilities and had to be a b o r t e d due to

approach was a A s most of the assistance offered whatanembassy report described as function functi on of the th e to Somalia wa s in i n the form o f close ties between an imposition of the United st tes concessionary loan s, poorly poorly "Am erican style" style" and Ethiopia in that conceived de velopm ent project projectss range management, saddled Soma lia wit with h forei foreign gn which was era, an alliance which would have "completely debt which it could n ot service. contrary to local beenjeopardized had tie United style. 21 Statesprovided States provided U.S. assistance Somalia with significant military military aid. also contributed to a multilateral, Westem aid The United States was, however, able to program aimed at training and support for the match the Soviet Sov iet Union in development Somali national police force. Not surprisingly, the combination of Western aid to the Somali financing, financi ng, contributing 17 percent of the funding of Somalia's total development budget police and Soviet aid aid to the Som ali military military set up an internal internal security rivahy which was h m 963 to 1969. American assistance focused on infnstmctud projects like port resolved by the 1969 military coup . construCtion, highways and urba urban water predominantt aid In keeping with the predominan supplies, as well as range m anagement and philosophy of the times, other dono rs focused focused rain-fed rainfed agricultural developm ent in the interresources on largescale infnstmctural projects riverhe region." region." As pad of its effort to help as well, including roads, agmindustrial develop Somali agriculture, which was projects, and telecommunications, as well as predominantly predominan tly small-holder, subsistence social projects such as echnical schools, stadiums and theaters. theaters. The shortcomings of farming, American aid officials pressed the Somali government to adopt modem landtenure laws. They were we re believed to be a precondition for h e r s o invest in their land, but they created a least as many problems as they were to This was clear at the outset, when in 1% the failure by Am erican ~~

"Henze, T h e H o r n of Afiica p. 101. 9 Ozay Mehmet, "Effectiveness of Foreign Aid-Th Aid -Thee Cas e of Somalia, T h e J o u r n a l of M o d e r n A r i c u n S t u d iiee s 9, 1 ( 197 1 ) pp. 37-40. '6SCe Cath erin e Bestem an and Lee V. Cassanelli, le o r L a n d i n S o u t h eerr n Somalia: The eds.The S t r u g g le War B e h i n d t h e W u r (Boulder: Wcstview, 1996).

this type of assistance were predictable. First, dono rs ttended ended to tie assistance to high-prestige projects that did not always coincide with development priorities in Soma lia Second, as time passed it quickly became apparent that many of the infktructuml projects were unsustainable; Somalia was unable to finance the maintenance ofmac k, airports andagroindustries,which slowly fell into disepair.

Mahony. "The Pilot Project in Range Management Near Afmadu." USOWSomali Republic (March 1961).

21 Frank

129

 

M I DDL EAST EASTPOLICY,O L . V , No. 1, JANUARY 1997

Third, oreign assistance in the 1960s, including U.S. aid, tended to be concentrated in the south of the country, eading to a politically politically sensitive

In response, the Barre regime was quick to abandon its revolutionary socialist slogans and embrace anti-Soviet "containme "contain ment" nt" rhetoric in

regional imbalance imb alance in developm deve lopment. ent.Somalia Finally, as most of the assistance offered offer ed to Som alia

US.Aid to Somalia 197781988. In the aft aftermath ermath of the 1969 military coup that brought broug ht Mohamed Moham ed Siyad Barre to power, the Somali Som ali governm gov ernm ent forged intensive ties with the Soviet Union, em bracing "scientific socialism"" in the process. socialism pro cess. In reality, Barre understood underst ood M arxist-Leninism arxist-Leninism poorly, but appreciated the ideological ustification it provided for his consolidation of power within a single sing le vanguard vanguard party and the suppression of dissent within the Somali Som ali polity. polity. Som alia's alia's ideological ideol ogical conversion conv ersion was an attem pt to maximize Sov Soviet iet military support, supp ort, which Somalia Som alia intended intended to devote to its irredentist claims on the Ogaden region region of Ethiopia Ethiop ia Under Soviet patronage, the Som ali military military more than doubled in size from 197 1 to 1977.

an effort to gamer American A merican m ilitary ilitary aid aiWhat d against the Soviet-backed Ethiopians. ensued was a pivotal debate in the Carter administration between "regionalists," "region alists,"who who were inclined to view Somalia as a diplomatic pariah state for its irredentist war for the Ogaden, and "globalists," for whom Soviet military adventurism in the Horn of Afiica boded ill for ditente and had to be cou countered ntered by the United States. Despite the Carter administration's preference preferen ce for a regionalist approach appr oach,, events beyond the the Ho H o m -t h e fal falll of the shah of I ran ran, and the Soviet S oviet invasion invasion of Somalia' Som alia'ss stmtegic Afghanimportance as a potent potential ial component compo nent of an evolving American Rapid Deployment Force for the Persian Gul Gulf?' In the end, end , So Som m alia was somewhat reluctantly taken on by an internally divided divi ded car ter administration administration as a client, a relationship that brought a tremendous wealth wealth of foreign ai aidd to Som alia but failed to deliver the levels of m ilitary ilitary aid the Barre regime desired. U.S. U.S. m ilitary ilitary and econo ec onomic mic aid to Somalia Som alia from 1978 to 1989 formed part of a semi-coordinated,multilateral effort between the U.S. and its Western and Arab allies,

But in 1977, when Ethiopia was weakened by revolution, internal internal politi p olitical cal strife and multiple civil wars, providi providing ng Somalia S omalia with its o p m t y o capture he O gaden, Somalia Somalia found that its erstwhile superpower sup erpower patron patron abandoned it in in favor fa vor of a new alliance allianc e with the revolutionary Ethiopian regime. This left Somalia badly beaten by Soviet So viet and Cubanbacked Ethiopian forces in the 1977-78 Ogaden War.

particularlyy Saudi A rab ia Militarily, particularl Militarily, the United States could not afford the diplomatic fallout fallout of providing p roviding an irredentist state with offensive weaponry. So beginning in 1980, the United States provided Somalia wt a package of military aid that was defined as defensive in nature. This aid, which began at 4 5 million for the period of 1980-8 1, came to total over 5 0 0 million up to 1989, the largest U.S. security-assistance security-assi stance program ever provided p rovided to a

UMehmut, Effectiveness of Foreign Aid, pp. 4246.

for the Horn, pp. 175-205.

co ncessionary loans, loans, poorly was in the form of concessionary conceived developme develop ment nt projects saddled Somalia Som alia with foreign debt d ebt which wh ich it could not service. As early as 1968, the Somali government governm ent pro@ pro@ rescheduling resche duling and renegotiation of its debt, a harbinger of things to come.n

For more detailed discussion , see Lefebvrc. Ar ms

130

 

MENKHAUS: .S. FOREIGN SSISTANCEO S O M A L I AHOENIX : F R O M THE ASHES?

subsaham African state.

But the "defensive" "defens ive" U.S. U.S. military aid constituted constitu ted only a small portion portion o f total arms bansfers to Somalia

oblivious to the costs of anning a military whose sole enemies were its own citizens. In retrospecs ustifications for U.S.

in the 1980s. Gene Generous rous financial assistance h m audi Arabia and elsewhere enabled the Barre regime to purchase $580 million in arms between 1979 and 1983; most of the weaponry wa wass im po ported rted &om &om Italy.u N o defensive restrictions restrictions were placed on these purchases, allowing allowin g Somalia to continue to build up its offensive capacity capacity while shielding the Unit United ed State Statess h m ri riti tici cism sm that that itit was aiding that process. But the real problem in in fashioning fashionin g military aid to Somalia was not insuring that it would be limited to "legitimate defensive needs."" By the 1980 he only security needs. security threat of consequence to the Barre regime emanated From w ithin an increasingly in creasingly rebellious Somali Som ali society, so hat hat th thee ma main p m u p a t i o n of the the Somali m ilitary ilitary was re pm iv e int nter erna nall security operations. This posed a very different different type of dilemm a for military military aid donors, but one o ne which was dow nplayed until 1988, when a full-scale full-scale civil war broke out between the Somali government and a northern liberation liberation ht he Somali National Movem ent. The Barre regime's brutal treatment of o f the Isaaq clan in the north north of o f the count^^ was carried out with weaponry supplied by the United States and its allies, and by military leaders rained in the U.S. I METprogram. Many observers subsequently faulted faulted the West W est for having been

military aid to Somalia as a quid pro quo for U.S. access to the strategic airfield airfield at Berbera in northwest Som alia appear unwarranted. Charged with planning a Rapid Deploym ent Force capable of enforcing the car ter Doctrine in the Persian Gulf, U.S. U.S. officials sought access to naval and air bases throughout the Middle East and the Indian Ocean including Egypt, Kenya,, Oman and Diego Garcia Somalia's Kenya airfield at Behem, the longest runway in Africa, was viewed as an atha ctive additional facility. But even within W ashington ashingto n circles, questions were raised h u t he redundancy of the ali initiall facility, facility, especiallywith whenextre tthe he United U nited StatSom eswas initially y presented mely high hi gh " m t " request requestss by the the Barre regime." The margmal importance of the Berbera facility was demonstrated demonstrated during the Gul f War hen the deployment of over 250,000 U.S. troops to the Persian Persian Gulf Gu lf was accomplished without use of the Som alia runway. assi sist stan ance ce to Somalia American m il m y as was always part of a broader package, one which David Rawson has termed the "secuity/dev elopme nt U.S. U.S. econom ic aid, which totaled $639 mill million ion over the course of the decade, included roughly equal ratios of development assistance (earmarked through USAID' USAI D'S S Developmen Develo pmentt Fund fo r Afiica budget),, Econo mic Support budget) Supp ort Funds

24

6

Ibid.. p. 14, 241. U.S. military aid during this period included $128 million in Military Assistance Program (MAP) funds, S 1 7 5 million in Economic Support Supp ort Funds (ESF ), S60 million in Foreign Military Sales (FMS ), and S7.5 million for an lntemational M ilita ilitary ry Education and Training (IMET ) program. A n additional S200 milli million on was released in FMS ash arms agreements. 251bid., . 228.

Ibid., pp. 199-200. Misreading i t s bargaining position, Somalia initially requested 1 billion over a five year period, a package that would have included advanced military equipment. David Rawson. The Somali Stale and Foreig n Aid (Washington, D.C.: Foreign Service Institute, 1993). Rawson's study is a detailed and and valuable analysis o f U.S. nd Western foreign aid to Somalia in the 1980s.

131

 

M ID D L EAST EAST POLICY, VOL. V , NO. 1 J A N U A R Y 1997

(development assistance designed to support stmtcgic stmtc gic intem ts) and commodit comm odityy i m p o e which were channeled through he PL 480

fiuhations. In the case of rural development, USAID and fellow donors recognized the central importance of a revitalized revitalized agricultural agricultural

Peace program Food am and and the Commodity Com Collectively, y,these the se modity ImportFor P r o p progr P Collectivel Ameri Ame rica cann aaiid p r o w s orme ormedd an an impor importtant ant e normous ous international international aid presence part of an enorm in Somalia in the 1980s,a period in which Somalia received 1.1 billion from OPEC states and $3.8 billion in Western bilateral aid, as well as an estimated 2 billion through U.N. agencies, the W orld Bank and the M. U.S. bilateral aid was delivered in two distinct packages. One back centered on provision of technical assistance assistance to multidonor projects, while the other focused on economic support for policy reform. Projectrelated assistance included several agricultural extension and training progtarns; a threeyear feasibility feasibil ity study for a proposed 600- million, World Bank-hydro-electric dam on the Jubba River, rangeland-mangementand rangeland-mangementand livestock-marketing livest ock-marketingprojects; groundwater and irrigation projects; rural healthprograms; and rehgeerelated projects. But for a hand hl of exceptions, nearly all of the project-related packages were deemed outright failures failures.. One unusually candid USAID intemal assessment confirmed, U S A I D projects accomplished close to nothing if measured against theii

and pastoral sector in the Soma S omali li economy, and and correctly perceived that the underdeveloped rural sector possessed considerab considerable le potential. As a consequence, USAID provided assistance to nearl nearlyy every multido mu ltido no norr agricultural agricultural and and rangem anagem ent project project in the 1980s. Yet follow-up evaluations found that virtually none of the agricultural and and pastoral pa storal projects succeeded. These evaluations tended to focus on technica technicall and operational problem s of timing and implementation, faulting in particular particul ar the cumbersom cum bersomee nature of multim ultidonor project coordination." coordination." But there was a f r more fundamental law in these rural development projects, rooted in the predatory natm of the Somali state. In the absence of an effective and and legitimate land-tenure system, projects which increased he value of mngeland or farmland often inadvertently triggered struggles for control over that res0u~ce.f'Land-grabbing by politically empowered clans and civil sewants was rife in zones demarcated for internationally internationallyh hded irrigation irrigat ion projects, pro jects, resulting n the expropriation expropriation of tens of thousands of hectares of riverine riv erine la land nd fiom minority farming communities. commu nities. Even the the activitiesof the A ID -h de d feasi feasibil bilil ilit ityy study

original design.'m And the U S A D mission in Mogadishu was not alone on on this score. Nearly all other external donors, many of t hem projects, s, partners with USAID in m ultid ono r project experienced similar setbacks. Some specific specific examples exam ples help help to underscore the depth of these foreign-aid foreign-aid

for the propo proposed sed Badh B adh ere Dam riggered speculative land-grabbing.)' land-grabbing.)' Rangeland Rang eland improvements improve mentsalso exacerbated pastoral

28

Ibid.,, pp. 70-80. Ibid. CIA, Th Thee World Factbook 1995 p. 388. I0 Melissa Pailthorp, Development before Disaster: USAID in Soma lia 197 8-199 0 (Washington: USAID, 994), p 1.

29

lbid. See also the summary of these various audits and evaluations in Rawson. The Somal Somalii Sfafeand Sfafeand Foreign Foreig n Ai d, pp. 7 1-74. Th Thee Somali ha had d established mode m and-tenure laws in 1974 to replace customary tenure, but the system was badly abused by ci vil ser vants and and powerful political figures to lay claim to land far farmed med by sm allholders for generations. See Besteman and and Cassanelli, The Struggle or Land.

132

 

. S. FOREIGN SSISTANCEO SOMALIA: PHOENIX F ROM M E N K H A U S :.S.

conflicts over wells and pasture, as politi politically cally empowered clans such as Barre‘s Marehan clan) encroached on land land traditionally

HE

ASHES?

Another projectcentered preoccupation of donors, including USAID, was assistance to to Somalia’s large refbgee population, popu lation, victims of

controlled controll ed by other clans. By the late late 1 9 8 0 ~ , drought and warfire war fire in the 1970s. Since the refbgees were ethnic Somalis (though donor priorities and projects in the rural sector (though most of had unintentionally unintentionallyhelped helped to accelerate a Ethiopian origin) and since there appeared to historically histori cally unprecedented wave of land land be no near-term resolution to the EthiopianEthiop ianexpropriation expropriati on in southern Somalia, Som alia, a process Somali conflict, conflict, donor dono r strategy focused on a which whi ch left left many riverine agricultural goal of refbgee self-reliance. ‘Ihis led to the communities comm unities destitute. fimding of a number of refbgee resettlemen resettlementt Training projects. Programs Prog rams,, Th Thoug oughh the intended to government of Since governm ent and militar militaryy build Somali Somalia Proposed these official offi cialss were diverting much of th e strengthen scheme sche mes, s, it was refugee aid, the regime had a strong publiesector ambivalent about actually capacity, fared interest in in o verestimating the refugee nobetter. One

population a nd threatened aid officials population wh o challenged their their num bers.

&ncluded that &ncluded ewer than a third of the Somalis sent to study stud y in the Unite U nitedd States returned to Som Somalia, alia, leading the author autho r to wonder “whether, after spending over 2 1 million, . . the country is better off. The statisticsshow that An s spending money to produce what may be a net brain drain rather

closing down refilgee camps, which generated considerable levels of ongoing international international assistance. Since govemm ent and and military officials were diverting much of the refbgee aid, the regime had had a strong interest iinn overestimating overestim ating the refugee population and threatened aid officials who challenged their numbers.% Th Thee camps,

tha thann a brain brain gain to the country.’”’ A 1989 World Bank report reached a similar conclusion: after tens of millions m illions of dollars do llars were spent putting putting thousands of Somalis Som alis through training programs, the quality qu ality of public-sector public-sect or managem man agement ent had actually deteriorated in the mid to late 1980s.”

moreover, became important sources of recruitment for the Somali military military in its battle against northern Somali insurgency movements. This bansformed bansforme d refbgee assistance into logistical suppo support rt for an an army arm y accused of atrocities against its own people, and placed donors in a politically po litically untenable untenab le

34

Jeffrey Jeff rey Franks, “Brain “Brain Drain or Brai Brainn Gai n? A Review of USAID Participant Training in Somalia” (for USAIDISomalia, September 1986), p. 5 . ”World Bank, Somalia: Policy Framework Paper (1989-1991). (19891991).”” (April 1989), p. 1 I quoted in

36Docurnented n U.S. Genera Generall Accounting Office Office (GAO) study F a m i n e i n A f i i c a : I m p r o v i n g Em ergenry Food RelieJProgram s (Washington: GAO, March 1986); it concluded th at Somali military diversion o f refugee food aid w as the worst

Rawson, The S o m a lili S t aatt e a n d F o r e i g n A i d p. 54.

in the history of U.S. food aid programs.

report

ID

133

 

V OL. V, No. 1, JANUARY 1997 MIDDLE ASTPOLICY,VOL.

position. Distuhing position. Distu hingly, ly, a combination combination ofU.S. of U.S. strategic needs and UNHCR i n s t i t ~ t i ~ ~ l imperatives--and imperatives --and a fear of criticism for

1980 and 1986, after a decade of Stagnafi~n,’~ and the World Bank’s WorkiDewlopmenf Report 1988 lis listed ted Somalia Som alia first in Africa in

allowed refbgee aid “aband “abandoning” oning” refbgeesto continue to f low until 1990. The most important development goals set Somalia, alia, however, by the donor community in Som were policy reforms, not projects. ?hroughout the 1 9 8 b Westem donors, led by USAID, he IMF and the World Bank, ought to link and fiscal policy assistance o econom ic and reform: libe li be ra lid on , privati privatizati zation on and and financial stabilization. Superficially, Supe rficially, this conditional conditiona l assistance appeared to enjo enjoyy some som e successes in the 1980s. Under pressure h m he World W orld Bank and he United States, the Bane regime agreed in 1981 to liberalize agricultural agricu ltural policies by lift lifting ing price price conm co nm ls on staple crops. Donors hoped that thisand other b m a r k e t reforms in the ector would provide h e n reater incentives to expand crop cro p production and reduce Somalia’s chronic food deficits. Likewise, the MF was able to press the Somali government to accept stabilization schemes and ‘‘Shuctural adjustment” reforms,which included incl uded moving the th e value of the Somali shilling closer to real market value, privatizing some state-contmlled state-contmlled industries and reducing government spending. But these proved to be

increased grain production produc tion between 1980 and 86, with an average annual increase of 7.9 No t surprisingly, donors celebrated percent Not this “dramatic” improvement in production as clear evidence of the success of conditionality and b m a r k e t reforms, and ofthe of the failure of price controls, which, they contended, had so depressed incentives that m any farmers in the ef forts and work 1970shad 1970s had “reduced their efforts volume to a level which simply sim ply guaranteed subsis subs isten tence. ce.’“‘ ’“‘ One On e consultan con sultant’s t’s repott produced for USAID went so far as o claim th t agricultural refom had enabled Somalia to become more than self-s self-suffic ufficient ient in maize and sorghum, had driven agricultural wages above the salaries of government civil servants, and exodusof cityhad triggered a reverse Nfal Nfalexodus ofcitydwellers returning to the farms, though none of these contentions was remotely close to the betw ween price buth.” The causal link bet liberalization and increased incre ased agricultd output in Somalia, so ntuiti ntuitively vely obvious obv ious to the donor community, comm unity, quickly became conventional conven tional

ephemeral victories, leading to f r less substantive and enduring policy reform and outcomes t han donors desired. In the case ofagricultural of agricultural liberalization, policies changed but wtcomes did not. Detxpbvely, he-market reforms pushed by Westem donors did appear to trigger impressive growth rates in Somali agricultural output as early as 1982. By 1987, the Somali Minisby of Agricultm reportedthat total grain production had more han doubled between

wisdom.

reality, y, however, agricultural ag ricultural output did In realit not increase in the 1980s nearly as

”SDR, Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Planning and Statistics, Yearbook of Agriculfural Stafisrics 198tV87, prepared in cooperation with GTZ Mogadishu: State Printin Printingg Agency, 1987). ’ h o m a s LaBahn LaBahn.. ““The The Devel Developme opment nt of the Cultivated Areas of the Sha belle Rive r and the Relationship between Sm allholders and the State,” in Somalia: Agriculture and t h e W i n h of Change, ed. by Peter Con = and Thomas LaBahn (Saarbmcken: epi Vcrlag. 1986). p. 137. ’%ax Goldensohn, Don Harrison and and John Smith. “Donor Influenc e and Rural Prosperity: The Impact of Policy Reform on Economic Growth and Equity Equity in the Agricultur Agricultural al Sector in Som alia ” (US AID : March 1987). pp.2-3. 134

 

MENKHAUS: .S. FOREIGN SSISTANCEO SOMALIA: PHOENIX FROMTHE ASHE S?

dramatically as dono donors rs and analysts believed. The statistics, it turned out, were flawed but went unchallenged because they appeared to

to an alarming 84 percent during 1980-84.‘’

confirm donors’ belief systems about policy

Somalia increased increased nearly nearly twofold fiom 1982 to 1986-87. 198687.““ Somalia’s food crisis continued to womenn through the 1980s despite Western wome policy reforms. The donors’ donors’ collective misreading of the impact of price liberalization liberalization is both instructive instructi ve and an d puzzling. On one level, it highlights the obvious: accurate assessments assessmentsoo f the impact of reform must be m t e d in astute political as well as economic analysis. In the case of Somalia, the donor community’s misreading stemmed not fr from om an econom ic e m ut fiom political misjudgment. The mistake was not in assuming that price liberalization serves as an incentive for producers, produ cers, but rather in assuming that price controls had had been enforced by a sufficiently authoritative authoritati ve state so as to afFect productivity. What is less clear is whether the donors’ polit pol itica icall m isread ing were born of ignorance or cognitive blinders. b linders. On the one hand, many donors and their their con sultantswere alarmingly far-removed fromd a y - t d y e c on on om om iicc an an d social life in Somalia Studies Studies and reports were produced from air-conditioned offices in Mogadishu, drawing on market surveys and official data collected by Somali So mali

World Bank’s own study, food imports in the period 1970-79 constituted less than 33 percent of Som alia’stotal food consum ption, but rose

“ c o u n t e m” nyone

Likewise, Likew ise, World World Food Programme (WFP) records indicate that total food aid deliveries to

ref reform orm and liberalization. liberalization. Donors and outside consultants had m istakenly assumed that the socialist Somali state of the 1970s possessed the capacity to capture surplus grai grainn production and enforce en force price controls, controls, when in fact the “soff’and Somali state proved quite “soff’ and relatively easy for farmers, merchants and even the state’s own civil servants to evade. evad e. As a result, price controls in in the 197Os, inste d of suppressing suppres sing production, had mer merely ely heled a vibrant parallel parallel grain grain market The result was that the state marketing board’s statistical data on grain produ production ction in in the 1970s was attificially low, low, while wh ile the dramatic “increase” in grain production in the early 1980s actually represented the statistical rpappearance of gmin sales formerly hidden fiom official view view ratherthan a significant upsurge in domestic grain production.” Ultimately, the the inaccuracy of grain production figures in in the th e 1980s and of contentions that Somalia was approaching selfsufficiency suffici ency in in m aize and sorghum due to price liberaliz liber alizatio ation, n, were exposed ex posed by dramatic drama tic increases in in Som ali food imports and food aid fiom the 1970s to late 1980s. According to the

possessing a passing

familiarity with daily life in familiarity in Som alia knew of the vibrant black market within wh ich many ma ny or or most economic transactions took place and would have known to factor that into assessmentsof the impact of go vernmen t price price

40

For further detail see Kenneth Menkhaus, “Rural Transformation and the Roots of Underdevelopment in Somalia’s Lower Jubba Valley” (University of South Carolina Ph.D. dissertation, dissertation, 1 989). pp. 390International Labor Organization, Jobs and 404; and International Skills Prog Program ram for Africa (JASPA), Generaring Employment and Incomes in Somalia (Addis Ababa: JASPA. March 1988). pp. 17-22.

41

Y . Hossein Farzin, Food Import Dependence in Somalia: Magnitude. Magnitude. Causes, and Policy Options (Washington: World Bank Discussion Paper no. 23. 1988), p. 14. “WFP, “Total Food Aid Deliveries to Somalia, 1982-1 987.” (Mogadishu, Jan Janua uary ry 10. 1988) (mimeo).

135

 

MIDDLE ASTPOLICY, OL. V, No. 1, JANUARY 1997 AST

controls.‘’ But that level of familiarity with

themselves were short-lived, short-lived, casualties of what Rawson calls “the studied studied am bivalence of Siyad [Barrel’s zigzag tactics.’” Faced with

capital.” On the other hand, ample evidence eviden ce exists exists suggesting h t donors were well-aware of the “sohess” of the Somali state and its vibrant parallel economy. In the 198Os, for instance, U S N D and the World Bank were so S omali government’s concerned over the Somali inability to tax its citizens (and hence increase state revenues) that they provided technical revenuee assistance designed to enhance he revenu collection system (to no avail).“ Donor eports periodicallyy noted the existence of the patallel periodicall market mark et in in Somalia, Som alia, but rarely conneded it to their macrwnalysis of the economy.Y And it was the major donors that monitored rapidly rising food imports and food aid into Somalia in the 1980s. Westem donors’ efforts to promote fiscal reform and stabilization faced quite a different problem, namely, that policy reforms reform s

donor insistence on stabilization stabiliz ation and austerity auste rity m e a s w hat threatened to undermine the entire patronage system on which the Somali state was bcsed, the Barre regime resorted to delaying, agreeing, eneging and renegotiating, renegotiating, a strategy designed to give donors hope h t the regime was approaching stabilization schemes schem es in good faith, but never enough to actually see the reforms refo rms through. Four imes over the course of the 1980s the Somali government entered into stand-by programs with the tMF; each ime, the government failed to meet rf o r m targets. Twice over the c o m e of the Som ali government government signed on onto to 1980s the Somali broad sbuctwal-djustment p”grams with the World Bank. In each case, it reneged on hose accords as wellu Why, then, did donors continue to return to the negotiating table in the hope that this time, wou ld carry through on the Somali government would its promises? One view, voiced by David R a w n , attributes this to a combination of factors: the cunning tactics of “baii and switch” on the part of the Barre regime; the optimism” mism” of the donor d onor comm unity, “baseless opti which, he contends, never filly understood that the B m egime’s agenda was divergent ffom their own; b m c inertia within aid agencies, where c reets were staked on largescale development projects th t officials were understandably loath to suspend; and a ‘ ‘ p p t f i i dynamic within the donor community.** Another view focuses community. foc uses more exclusivelyy oonn the strategic exclusivel stra tegic imperatives impe ratives that drove the delivery of aid to Somalia Pailthorp

Som alia could Somalia could not be assumed within the insular world world of intemational aid donors dono rs iinn the intemationalaid

”

Numerous published studies studies existed on Somalia’s vibrant parallel market; see for instance Norman Miller, “The Other Somalia,” Horn ofAfrica 5, 3 (1982), pp. 3-19; and Boston U niversity, African Studies Center, Somalia: A Social and Institutional Press, s, 1983), pp. ProJle (Boston: Boston U niversity Pres

5-6. Two biting critiques o f international international donors in Somalia can be found in Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty (London: Macmillin. 1989), and Michael Maren, The Road to Hell: The Ravaging E flects of Foreign Aid and Infernational Charity (New York: Free Press, 1996). 45 Pailthorp, Development before Disaster, p. 64; Rawson, Th Thee Somali State and F oreign Aid, p. 46. 4b Se e for instance. IMF, “Somalia: Recent Economic Developments, I98 1” (mimeo. July 10, 198 I p. 7; and John Holtzman. “Ma ize Supply and in Som alia: A Historical Overview Price Situation in and Analysis o f Recent Changes” (SDR Ministry Ministry of Agriculture. Working Paper no. 5 , May 1987). pp. 8-9, IS.

44

1

Rawson, The Somal Somalii State an d Foreign Aid, p.

I IS. “Ibid., pp. 39-45 ‘?bid.. pp. I 1 S-I 18.

136

 

MENKHAUS: .S. FOR EIGN SSISTANCEO SOMALIA: P H O E N I X F R O M T H E ASHES?

forces that lived lived on throughout the 1980s. Western donors in the 1980s deplored the political repression and and notorious human-rights

concludes that “despite blatant corruption, human-rights abuses and inconsistent mper mp erat atio ion n in policy reform, donors continue continued d to support a

government fmanced almost exclusively exclus ively by sources in order to uphold foreign-policy agendas.’m ~ nther words,

success

or

abuses but, for

Western donors i n the 1980s deplored the political remession and notorious m

hum an-rights an-rights abuses but, for strategic reasons, kept largely silent.

& lu re m d n developmental irrelevant, since the terms was ultimately irrelevant, primary purpose of Cold War economic assistance was strategic.

T h e End of the Cold War and the Fmving of Foreign Aid, 1987-90

shrewdly playing playing Cold After decades of shrewdly maxim ite War competitors off one another to maximite its access o foreign aid, it is ironic that Somalia became one of the first targets of post-coid “political cal conditionalitf’ of aicc-the War “politi lmkageof U.S. assistanceto improvements n human-rights an and d political liberalization. Somalia was a relatively easy test case. Once Somalia’s Somalia ’s perceived strategic value was deflated by the waning of the Cold War, the sole trump Bam regime was deprived of its soletrump ‘Ihere was relatively little at stake for donon in post-cold War Somalia, a fsct which gave them them far greater leverage to link aid to hm-rights. Human-rights Humanrightsviolationsand political repression had been a hallmark of Somali politics since the 1%9 coup that h g h t strongman strongm an Siyad Barre into power. In the 197% East Bloc patrons of Somalia assisted in the development of fearsome internal security card

strategic reasons, kept largely silent. But in May 1988, a fill-scale fill-sc ale civil war erupted in northern Somalia,

government forces, forces, which were increasingly manned through forced Conscription, against he Somali National Movement, Movemen t, representing representing a liberati tio on h n t of the northem Isaaq clan. The Barre regime’s response to the W ’ s ttacks was brutal, includingthe leveling of the city o off Hargeisa and the strafing of civilian refugees fleeing for safety over the Ethiopian border. Casual Casualties ties targeted so were so high, and unarmed civilians targeted systematically as part of the regime’s tactic of repnsal and tenor, that some international observers termed termed the war a campaign of genocide against the Isaaq.” ‘Ihe war in northern Somalia, documented by by a highly critical General Acounting 0 3ce (GAO) investigation mandated by Congress, energized congressional calls to k e z e aid to Somalia until human-rights improved?’ improved?’ Congres Congress, s, which had never exhibited great enthusiasm for ”The most caref carefully ully ddocumented ocumented acco unts include Synthesis sis of Robert Gersony, Why Somalis Flee: Synthe

Accounts o Con/ Accounts Con/lict lict f ip eri enc e in Northern S Somali omali Re Refuge fugees. es. Displace Displacedd Persons, and Ot hers (Bureau for Refugee Programs,U.S. Department of State, August 1989), and Amnesty International, S o m a l i a : A L o n g - T er er m H u m a n - r iigg h t s C r i s i s (New York:

Amnesty International, September 1988). %.S. General Accounting Office, S o m a l i a :

Observations Observa tions Regarding the Northern Conflict and

?ailthorp,

Develop ment Befo Before re Dis aster, p. 1.

Resulting Conditions (May 4, 1989).

137

 

MI DDLE ASTPOLICY,OL. OL.V V , No. 1, J ANUARY 1997

the strategic rationales rationales behind U.S.foreign aid to Somalia,had alteady suspended ESP funding to Soma S omalia lia in in 1987. Key figures like

The Famine and US. Emergency Aid, 1991-

Rep. Howard Wolpe @MI) led a chorus of criticism of US criticism U S . policy in Som Somalia, alia, blaming blaming the United States S tates for propping up “the incredibly repressive, con upt regime of of Siad Bane.”” By the summ er of 1988, the United State Statess had already h z e n shipme shipments nts of lethal lethal weapons to Somalia Som alia on the advice ad vice of the U.S. ambassador, over the objections objec tions of the Pentagon.” Still, the Bush administration hoped to unheze the ESF h d s o Somalia, arguing for a policy of constructive constructi ve engagement to assist in a pe cehl transfer of pow er. But additional massacres and worsening civil war in Somalia in 1989 Congress ress would n d appropriate i nsured th t Cong funds to a regime with such a proven track record of repression. By 1989, USAID and other donors began to wind down or suspend projects. Amid worsening violence, the U.S. embassy in Mogadishu, a newly completed, $50 million complex com plex replete with thnx swimming pools, a golf course, and a M o f 430 (the largest n subFsahm Afiica , reduced &to fewerr than 100. Diplomats fewe Diplomats continued to emphasize emp hasize the the need for national reconciliation and respect for human-rights, but by 1989 nearly all international inte rnational donors had suspended foreign aid to the country. Without

in 199 1 and 1992 quickly provoked provoked famine conditions in the southern half of the country, where a large ur urba ban n population was trapped in a war over Mogadishu, rural farming communities comm unities were subjected to endemic banditry and assaults by by roving militias, and the entire econom y collapsed amidst such extensive looting looting that even copper telephone lines and sewage sew age pipes were wer e stripped and sold sold for scrap metal. By late 1991, relief agencies wamed of an impending impen ding famine of massive proportions.. But the complete proportions com plete breakdown breakdown of governmental authority and social structures, combined wt overwhelming refirgee flows, warrlordism and wa and ext extor orttio iona nate teb a n d i w constellationof crises that came to be known as a “complex “complex emerge em ergencf’ ncf’-pres -presented ented ai aidd donors donors withh unprecedented dilemm wit dilemmas. as. There is near universal consensus that international humanitarian organizations failed to meet the challenges the Somali crisis posed in 1931-92. This “failure of the collective collec tive response” proved very costly. co stly.”” One problem was that key players in the aid commun com munity ity were virtual v irtually ly absent fiom Somalia h r n January 1991 (when the last set of intemational diploma diplomats ts and aid workers w orkers were

international internat ional support supp ort and finding, the B m regime quickly collapsed in the face of multiple liberat liberation ion h n t s and a popular uprising uprising in Mogadishu.

evacuated) until mid-1992, when intensive mediaa coverage of th amine triggered a tidal medi wave of new relief agencies, agencie s, food airlifts airli fts and and U.N. activity. Throughout all of 1991 and half of 1992, only the Intemational Committee of the Red Cross (ICR C) and a small sm all corps of non-governmental organizations NGOs)

”Quoted in Terry Atlas, “Cold War Rivals Sowed Tribune (Dcc. Seeds of Somalia Tragedy,” Chi cago Tribune 13, 1992), sec. 4, . I . 54 Sfate and Fo rei gn Aid, p. Rawson, The Somal i Sfate 111.

92

Somalia’s fall into heavily armed anarchy

5

Jeffrey Clark, “Debacle in Som Somalia: alia: Failure Failure of the Collcctive Response,” pp. 205-3 9, in Enforcing Restrainf: Collec tive Inter Restrainf: Intervention vention in Internal Conflicts. ed. by Lori F. Damrosch (New York:

Council on Foreign Relations, 19 93). 93) .

138

 

MENKHAUS: .S.FOREIGN SSISTANCEO SOMALIA: PHOENIX F R O M THE ASHES?

operated in the country,providi providing ng emergency

of the worsening famine, stinging public: criticism by by U.N. U.N. Secreta Secretary-Gene ry-General ralBoutros Boutros-Ghali who called attention to the

citing security concerns, mandates (most U.N. agencies do not work in active war zones) and agencies politidegal complications(U.N. complications (U.N. agencies work through a host government, which was absent in Somalia).” U.N. diplomatic inaction was in no small m a w ueto ue to the indifference indifferenceof the Security Council, Counci l, which, preoccupied by more important crises in I raq and Bosnia, was reluctant to address he Somali crisis. It was, moreover, the U.S. delegation that blocked attempts to place Somalia on the Security Council’s agenda and watered down a January order to 1992 Security Council resolution in keep U.N. U.N. diplomatic involvement in in Somalia Somalia minimal?’ minimal ?’ Top advisers in the Bush administration, including Secretaryof State James Baker and Undersecretary of State for InternationalOrganhtion John Bolton, opposed any resoluti resolutions ons which which might potentially expand U.N. peacekeeping obligations at a time time when its budget was in ar rears?’ rears?’ It was only in the summer of 1992 that a combination combination of political pressures, including sudden and intensive intensive media coverage

“naked double standard” between Western largess in the Bosnia crisis and inaction in Somalia) Somali a) and pwing, biparti bipartisan san congressional demands for action in Som Somali aliaB* aB*ll ll comi coming ng in the midst of a presidential presidentialelection campaig cam paign-wh n-which ich mobilized mobilized the Bush administration to become much more engaged in Somaliam Untill that time, however, Unti however, U.S. government governm entmonitoring monitoring of Somalia was limited to a single State Department political and a single officer of the Office of officer,and Foreign Disaster Assistance OFDA), both

food relief and medical care ’Ihe United Nations and its agencies were were generally inert,

stationed in Nairobi Nairobi, , Kenya Keny a Like other that governments, the Unit United ed States concluded Somalia was too dangerous to reopen its embassy and was reluctant to give the OFDA officer security clearance to bavel even for brief periods in the country. Still, OFDA was able to channel over $21 million in emergency assistance in 1991 through the ICRC, CARE an and d other NGOs working in in Som S omal alia ia6’ 6’ Monitoring Monitor ingthe effmtive delivery of that aid to starving populations, however, was next to impossible, an increasingly worrisome worrisome problem as reports grew that much or even most food aid was being diverted by militias. militias. Within the U.S. government, agencies were split over the Somali famine. Those closest to the crisis, like the OFDA, the State

’ h i s atter issue led to a sc andalous situation in

which the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) failed to use $68 million budgeted for Somalia for nine months because it could not secure the signature of a Somali governmen t. Ibid., p. 220. ”Jane Perlez, “Somalia Self-Destructs, and tthe he World Looks On,” The New York Times (December 29, 1991). p. I ; for a stinging and detailed indictment of UN inaction in Somalia, see Clark, “Debacle in Somalia” 5 Refugee Policy Policy Grou p, Hope Restored? H u m a n i t a r i a n A i d i n S o m a l i aa,, 1990- I994 (Washingtonn DC: Refugee Poli (Washingto Policy cy G roup, November 1994), p. 20. This is the most extensive reconstruction reconstruct ion of decisions involved in humanitarian action in Somalia, rich with interviews with top

59Anexcellent 59Anexcel lent chronic chronicle le of cong ressional action on Somalia is recorded in Refugee Policy Group, H o p e Restored? Annex €3-2. %e Ken Menkhau s with Lou Ortmayer. Key De Decisions cisions in the Somali a IIntervent ntervent ion. Pew Case Studies in International Affairs, no. 464 (Washington DC: eorgetown University, Institut Institutee for the Study of Diplomacy, 1995), pp. 2-3. 6’Jan W estcott, estcott, The Som alia Saga: A Personal Account, 1990-1993 (Washington DC: Refugee

officials.

Policy Group, November 1994). pp. 14,22.

I39

 

MIDDLE ASTPOLICY, VOL. V,

O. 1, JANUARY 1997

Department's East Afiica ofice and the Human-rights Bureau, ang the a l m , fought to maximize emergency emerg ency assistance assistance to Somalia,

of food, Operation Provide Relief." ?he military airlift was intended to be a strictly temporary measure to cope with immediate

and press ed U.N.. agencies to take m ore active rolespressed n Somalia Somalia. The director of OFDA,

famine conditions until until a planned U.N. security force of 3,500 p a k e e p e rs co couuld ttak akee control Andrew Natsios, N atsios, testified to the House Select of the airport and seaport. Politically, itit was wa s Comm ittee ittee on attractive as an option Hunger in Januaq that promised to 1992 hat the Somali deliver media images Politically, it wa s a ttractive as famine was "the of U.S. militruy planes greatest humanitarian an option that promised to off-loading famine famine emerge em ergency ncy in in the deliver m edia images of U.S. relief while world'" worl d'" and Publicly Pub licly military planes off-loading off-loading engende eng endering ring little rris iskk riticized U.N. to U.S. troops and no amin e relief wh ile inaction, inacti on, unaware unaw are that long-term h e u.s. delegation to engen dering little risk risk to U.S. m i m e n & , twas the United Nations troops and long-term also politically as trying to to keep kee p significant signific ant in in that tha t it no commitments. U.N. involvement in injected a military Som ali limited. limited. component into Later, an OFDA O FDA official official admitted that we humanitarian efforts, a rising bend in the were going off in one direction and didn't aftermath of Operation Provide Comfort Co mfort in realize that the pol politica call f o b were going in northern I raq raq. The irli irlift ft did did enjoy s ome om e another.'" But even among am ong the "political su succ cces esss- independent independ ent estim es timate atess held that folks" in the States Depariment there were some 40,000 li lives ves were saved fiomAugust to divisions. divisi ons. The Bureau o f fiican Affairs was December 1992 thanks to additional add itional food aid stymied when it tried to make Som alia a top provided by the airlift airlift.".' .".' But problems arose as priority of Secretary of State Baker, and well. First, he proposed U.N. security force Assistant Secretary of State Herman Cohen's faced innumerable innum erable political political problems and efforts to make OFDA hlly operational inside logistical logist ical delays, forcing forcin g the U.S. planners to Somalia Som alia were blocked by Bolton and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, who opposed allocating resources resourcesto to an area deemed marginal to U.S. intern. Media, congressional, congress ional, and public pressure to "do something" finally olted the Bush administration adm inistration into into action in in August Aug ust 1992, producing the high-visibility emerge em ergency ncy airlift

Clark. "Debacle in Somalia," p, 2 12. 61Bill Garvelink, quoted in Refugee Policy Group, Hope Restored? p. 7. Mlbid., p. 20

extend the airlift. Second, the food dropped off by the airlift was supposed to be distributed and monitored by the ICRC nd several N G0 s- U. S. mi millitary ary authorities were to have no role on the grounMut t hose agencies lacked the manpower to oversee such sizable shipments of food aid dropped off at scattered sites in southem Soma lia In the own of Bardhere, the airlifted a irlifted food attracted competing militias riggering episodes of fighting and looting that left target populations

140

 

M E N K H A U S :. S . FOREIGN SSISTANCE SSISTANCEO SOMALIA: PHOENIX FROMTHE ASHES?

worse off than before.@And before.@And finally, media coverage covera ge of the famine was not sated by the airlift, airlif t, but but remained rem ained intense, inte nse, and often critical,

financial stake in security tather than looting. However, since most of the diverted div erted food aid in m arkets in in Ethiopia and Kenya, Keny a, the was sold in

right through through the election. ele ction. Meanwh Mea nwhil ile, e, the the hd am en ta l obsta obstacl clee to the relief effort remained security. Estimates Estimate s of the level of food relief diverted by militias va rie d-s om e agencie agenciess claime claimedd less than half, others contended up to 80 percen t-but it was clearly too m uch. “It is appalling that there was food at the Mogadishu port but it cannot reach starving star ving people a few k ilometen away because of insecurity,” argued OFD A D irector Jam es 1992.“People Kunder in July 1992. “People are dying in the thousands daily because aid workers cannot move relief food. The world has a

policy did did not have h ave the an anticipated ticipated impact on local prices, nor did it bre break ak the econom y of extortion and bandib ba ndib y which had had developed around international international relief deliveries.” Mean Me anwh whiile, repor eportts h m OFD A’s “Disaster Assistance Response Respo nse Team” rought back bleak ble ak news to Washington. In Baidoa, the center of the famine, an estimated 75 percent of the children under five had already died, while over a million million more Soma lis remained at imm ediate risk of starvation.’OAnd, despite a Herculean Hercu lean international internationa l relief effort, effort, includin includingg a U.S. contribution of food and refbgee aid

responsibility end that.”167 Militiathe leaders understood unders tood andtocynically exploited fact that relief agencies agencie s had had institutional institutional imperatives to get food to starving populations and would tolerate virtually any level of o f looting, extortion and even the deaths death s of international international staff to that end.’ Until m e intervention was considered, OFDA and EU officials tried to cope with worsening problems of extottion and looting, much of it orchestrate orchestratedd by militia-backed merchants in in Mogadishu, by introducing a monetization scheme sche me in which som e highvalue food commodities commo dities were sold to merchants while low-value low -value food aid aid continued con tinued to be be brought in as emerg emergency ency relief. This, it was hoped, would both drive down the value of food aid, which had become the m ajor item item over which militias fought and enriched themselves, and would give the merchants me rchants a

9 5 million in fiscal year totaling 1992,” humanitarian relief remained relief crippled by militias diverting and blocking b locking aid con voys. Even the port in Mogadishu was sh ut down by fighting. By November 1992, calls for a more forcefbl humanitarian intervention interv ention into Somalia were receiving favorable hearings h m res esiident dent Bus Bush aand nd his cabinet. Some hoped to use Somalia as a “doable” “doa ble” test case to strengthen U.N. peace enforcem ent in in the postCold-War era for eminently pragm atic reasons. reasons. “The more effective effectiv e an international international peacekeeping peacek eeping capacity capacity becomes, the more conflicts can be prevented or contained , and the fewer reasons here will be for Americans to fight abroad,” testified Under-Secretar Under-Secretaryy o f

~

~~

~~~~~

9

~

For a detailed explanation of the monetization project, see Andrew S . Nat sios , “Humanitaria “Humanitarian n Relief Interventions in Somalia: T h e Economic Economicss of Chaos,” International Peacekeeping. vol3, no. 1 (Spring 1996 . pp. 68-91. 7%enkhaus, Key Decisions, p. 6 . 1 Refugee Policy Group, Hope Restored? Annex C-

Menkhaus, Key Decisions, pp. 5-6. Quoted in Ibid., p. 2. 6n For crit critical ical commentaries on N G O acquiescence to extortion. see Marguer Marguerite ite Michaels, “Lem on Aid: How Relief to Somalia Went W rong,” The New Republic (April 19, 1993), p. 16; and Maren, The Road to Hell. 67

I

141

 

MIDD LE ASTPOLICY, OL. V, No. 1 J A N U A R Y997

Defense Frank Wisner.R Wisner.R As durin duringg the Cold War, omalia would once onc e again attract the attention attenti on and a nd mums of a superpow su perpower, er, not on its own terns but as part

continued U.S. umanitarian and development aid aid to Somalia, the U.S.-led intervention possessed several features worth highlighting.

R estore H op op e w as explicitly First, -on identified by Washington as a short-term sh ort-term and “purely humanitarian” huma nitarian” mission. Reflecting the Operation Restore Hope and UNOSOM, American preoccupation with avoiding 193-1994 casualties,UMTAF operations were highly The Bush adm administration’s inistration’s decision in late risk-averse. Forces were tasked with w ith securing November 1992 to humanitarian relief to approve a massive starving populations, populations, But ending the famine and humanitarian leavin gthe probl problematic ematic intervention intervent ion into issuesof end ing the crisis whic which h demobilization and Somalia, ed by 30’000 provoked the famine wer e disarmament national U.S. room. marked a mi1-n; post-Cold two epar ate issues. reconciliation, nationinterests.

of broader strategic strategic

international

relations w ar and

transforned the nature of the relief mission m ission int intoo Som alia The details of both the decision

to intervene and various interpretationsof interpretationsof what

subsequ ently went w rong in the ill-fated subsequently ill-fated intervention are more t han adequately treated in other accounts.” From the standpoint of 2

Testimony, Hearing on International Peacekeeping and Enforcement, Senate Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee o n Coalition Defense and Reinforcing Forces, Forces, 103rd Congress, 1s t sess., 14 July 1993. 71 There are now hundreds of articles, books, and commissioned commissi oned s tudies of UNOSOM nd Operation Restore Hope. A m o n g he most carefully documented and/o r significant accounts include include:: Refugee Policy Group, Hope Restored?; Clark, Decisions;; “Debacle in Somalia;” Somalia;” Menkhaus, Key Decisions John Bolton, “Wrong Turn in Somalia,” Foreign Affairs vol. 73, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb. 1994), pp. 56-66; John Drysdale Drysdale,, Whatever Happened to Somalia? (London:Haan Associates, 1994); John Prenderga Prendergast, st, The Gun Talks Louder th an the Voice : Somalia’s Continuing Cycles of Violence (Washington: Center of Concern, 1994); and Walter Clark e and Jeffrey Jeffrey Herbst, “Somalia and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention,” Foreign Affairs vol. 75, no. 2 (March-April 1996), pp. 70-85.

building developmand enteconomic to it itss successoT, the U.N. peration in Somalia (UNOSOM). With its mission so narrowly defined, -on R e sto re Hope ould not but be an unqualified success. The military’s military’s ability to secure airports, seaports, and protectrelief reli ef convoys and feeding centers enabled an unintenupted flow of food aid to reach famine victims. Within weeks, he interventi intervention on effectively broke the back of the amine and suspended, ifif not eliminated, the econom eco nom y of extorti extor tion on to which aid agencies ag encies had sucum bed. U.S. mergency relief flowed nto Somalia A total of $174 million was spent in 1993, mostly in the fonn of o f USDA Food for Peace, as well as OFDA p t s o NGOs and U.N. gencies, and refugee assistance.” Collectively U.S. aid constituted 65 percent of the total food aid Somalia Som alia received received in 1993, a generous aand nd substantial contribution. But ending the famine and and ending he crisis which provoked the Fdmine were two separate issues. Long-term, sustainable sustainable efforts 14 Refugee

1.

142

Policy Group, Hope Restored? Annex C-

 

MENKHAUS: .S. FOREIGN SSISTANCEO SOMALIA: PHOENIX FROM H E ASHES?

to help rebuild the society and promote promo te

budgetary process distinguishes between betwe en emergency relief relief (for which there is ample finding and surplus foodstuffs) and

Because he OFDA’s mandate wa s limited limited to short-term emerg emergencies, encies, it tended to share the

development (for which firnding is scarce), creating enormous bansition bansition problems in postemergency settings.” ‘Ih ‘Ihee USA ID t eam amthus thus found foun d itself working with with very limited limited fin ds to help UNOSOM promote both political and econom ic reconstruction. reconstruction. In 1993 and 1994, USAID focus focused ed especially on the reestablishment reestabli shment of a poli police ce and judicial system,which was deemed necessary to provide Somalis a sense of security and an environment in which the econom y could prosper. However, USAID facsd the Same

resources and m anpower devoted to em ergency

of problem as other development aid:providers namely, thepostemergency prolonge prolongedd absence of a recognized recognized and authoritative government to which police and judg es would be accoun table and through w hich broader developmen develo pmentt policies ccould ould be rationalized and articulated. articulat ed. The very ve ry “statelessness” “statelessness” of Som alia posed a firndamental challenge challeng e to donors, and presaged presa ged donor do nor troubles in other comp lex emergencies. UNOSOM and dono r agencies hoped that he establishment of a Somali Transitional National Council Co uncil would serve as the “repositoryof So mali soverei sovereignty” gnty” to resolve this dilemma, but but endle e ndless ss setbacks in Somali national reconciliation conferences made this impossible.’RDonors we were re left with the unenviable task o f w i n g to determine who,

reconciliation, public order and development reconciliation, were needed for real success in Somalia military’s “quick response” m entality, which focusedd more on imm ediate goals t han on focuse sustainability. sustainabili ty. This approach was at odds with the USAID team’s, which was more attuned to long-term long-t erm developm dev elopm ent and local capacity building.” A t the field level, itit was not difficult for individual aid officials hr n OFDA and USAID to reconcile short and longer longer-te -term rm objectives, both of o f which had obv ious merit merit.. Still, it highlighted one of the intervention’s flaws, the yawning gap between the massive relief (as well as military outlays) and the extremely scarce findin g available available for for the much more comp lex task of long-term recovery.’6 USAID in 1993 199 3 contributed contribu ted $29.4 million to a variety of developm ent schemes, including mi ni ning ng for the the Somali police police force and judicial system, demining, and rehabilitation itat ion of water, inigation, and health healthcare care systems but had to rely on ad hoc measures by OFDA to redefine b d i n g to assist these programs.” Like other major donors, the U S .

75

Refugee Policy Policy Gr oup, Human itarian Aid in Somalia: The Role of the Ofice of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OF DA). 199 0- I994 (Washington, D.C.: Refugee Policy Group, November 1994). p. 4. 6 UNOSOM had to endure a sto storm rm of criticism when i t was revealed that for every ten dollars spent on the intervention, nine was earmarked for maintaining and paying the U.N. peacekeeping forces and civilian staff, only one in ten dollars was available for Somali reconstruction reconstruction and development. n”Re fugee Policy Group, Humanitarian Aid in Somalio. Figures are drawn from a U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs situation report, November

Compounding this budgetary problem still further was that most of the implementing agencie s (the NGOs) through through which AID and OFD A fun ds were dispersed were defined either as relie relieff age ncies or as development agencies and were not structured to cope with transitions transitions from reli relief ef to de velopm ent. 79 For analysis of Somali national reconciliation. see Ken Menkhaus, “International “International P eacebu ilding and the Dynamics of Local and National Reconciliation in Somalia,” International Peacekeeping, vol3, no. 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 42-67.

3. 1993.

143

 

ASTPOLICY, POLICY, OL.V, OL.V, No. 1, JANUARY 1997 MIDDLE AST

in the contentious arena of stateless Somali politics, constituted authoritative local leadership hrwgh which development

the reconstruction reconstruction of the entire country. When developmentaid appeared only in much more modest amounts, Som Somalis alis suspected that U.N.

programs could proceed. Militia leaders, factional politicians, elders, intellectuals, merchants and clerics all laid claim to authority, in reality, few possessed it The scrambleby scramble by Somalis to emerge as recognized local leaders through which aid agencies worked was not only an attempt to use foreigners to legitimize heir claims on authority; auth ority; it was also an effort to conml the lucrative flow of foreign aid. aid. As n the past, foreign aid during the intervention had a corrosive corrosi ve and distomng d istomng effkct on Somali politics and economic econo mic activity. Employment Employ ment and conbacts with with the U.N. U.N. aagenc gencies ies and intemationalNGOsbecamepnzed commodities, comm odities, monopolized monop olized by factional mafias.’lhegiganticUNOSOMpresencein Mogadishu genemted an estimated 11,OOO localjobs,which helped Somali households in the short-term but created yet another instance instance of unsusta unsustainable inable dependence dependence on i n t e m a t ~ ~ l aid. And attempts by international donors to fund small projects through “local NGOS,” as part of a strategy of capacity-building, inadvertently m p t e d he collcepf as Somali factions and entrepreneurs cfe ted do= of bogus ocal “self-help” groups (all with impressive English names and stationery ) th t

and aid officials were diverting div erting h d s nto their own pockets. As he U.S.-led U.S.-led UNITAF mission transitioned to UNOSOM in May 1993, divisions surfsced within the U.S. U.S. government governm ent over the level level of developmen d evelopmentt aid aid the United States should commit to Somali reconshuction. Manyy in USAID, State, nd the NSC aw the Man need to insure the success of the U.N. mission in order to strengthen U.N. capacity in peace enforcement, and sought sou ght to maximize U.S. support for U.N. U.N. reconcilia rec onciliation tion and development developme nt initiati initiatives. ves. But ollce armed

corneredintemationalgmntsand misappropriated f unds and commodities. Somalis were quick to comprehend and exploit

the latest approaches of the donor community in order to access their foreign aid. Donor cynicism toward Somalia, already a legacy of had experiences h m he 198Os, deepened with every new case of f i aud and d o n . omali cynicism toward foreign aid deepened as well; local expecMionsof a foreign-aid bonanza were huge and unrealistic, as many Somalis Som alis expededthehtemamdcommunitytofhd

orces

hostilities erupted between and Genenil Aideed’s Som UNOSOM Somali ali National Alliance in June 1993, leading to the highly publicized publici zed deaths death s of 17 U.S. rmy R angers th t October,congress congressional ional support for aid to Somalia withered, Political figures and pundits fell over themselves to express outrage at the “ungratehl” Somalis, and the Clinton adminisbation announced the complete withdrawal of all U.S. ilitary personnel by March 1994. A small staff of U.S. diplomats and USAID USA ID officials stayed on until the closure of UNOSOM in March 1995 and oversaw continued aid to police and judicial programs. But the fiasco n Mogadishu had badly damaged U.N. U.N. credibility credib ility and U.S. opes of building up U.N U.N.. capaciti cap acities es for peace enforcement; enforcemen t; the prevailing sentim se ntiment ent in Washington was simply to let the U.N. mission quietly wind down, lace blame for the failure of the mission on the United Nations, and a nd leave leave Somalia alone. For some critics of the intewention, “leavi “leaving ng So malia alone” was the best prescription for the countxy’s recovery.”‘ 0

Michael Maren, “Leave Somalia Now“ The New

York Times, July 6, 994, p . A l 9 .

144

 

.S. FOREIGNSSISTANCE O SOMALIA: P H O E N I X FROM H E ASHES? MENKHAUS:.S.

The Greater Horn of Africa Initiative Outt of this bleak set of negative Ou experiences with with foreign aid to Somalia, as

emerged what became Out of these discussions emerged

well as simi simila larr fhtrat fh trations ions in prolonged humanitarian humanit arian and and political crises crises in Ethiopia, Rwanda Rwan da and Sudan, officia officials ls in in USAID ave begun exploring alternative alternative approaches to development assistance in the Greater Horn of Aiiica. The fust attempt to articu articulate late a new development philosophy occur red in the midst of a region-wide region-wide drought in 1994, when the director of USAID, Brian Atwood, was briefed on the region’s core problems: the predominanceof man-made rather than natural disasters, disast ers, which which suggested the need for a conflictearly-waming conflict early-waming system to complement

presidential preside ntial initiative enjoying the active interest and support of Presid President ent Clinton, the GHAI has receive received d priority inter-agency attention in in its formulation. As of early 1997, the GHAI has yet to move fiomchalkboard to the field, and opetationalizing the new approach it embodies will be extxmefy difficult difficu lt Conceptually Conceptually,, however,, the GHAI s a considerableadvance however over conventional, project-oriented aid philosophies. Among its most significant strengths are the following: 1) Promotion of regional capacity-building.

systems already in place; famine early-warning the regional nature of the emergencies, especially especia lly rehgee rehge e flows, which which defied state boundaries and rendered state-cmtered aid strategies irrelevant; difficutties difficutties associated with the “relief-todevelopmentcontinuum’’ “relief-todevelopmentcontinuum’’ in postemergency settings; and the pressing need to enhance regional regional capacity and Afiican “ownership”of solutions solutions to the region’s problems.” A powerful powerful argument argument put forward by advocates of a new approach to the region was the grim fact that the Greater Horn of Afiica had become, over the come of the past 20 years,the site of the world’s most intractable, endemic and expensive expensive humanitarian crises, a cauklron of human misery that 4 billion of international aid between 1985 and 1992 had done little to resolve. International aid, it was argued, m e d to dress the wounds of regional disasten but wass doing little wa little to addres addresss their root causes.”

aim ‘The be toboth GHAI’s strengthen theprimary processes bywill which governments and civil society in the Greater Horn prevent or address conflicts and improve impro ve food secun-ty themsel themselves. ves. At the th e governmental level, this has led the GHAI o encourage the revitalization of a regional organization, IGADD Inter-Govemmental Authority Authori ty on Drought and and Development) Devel opment) which governments in the Horn hope will serve as a central forum through which to regional problems. At At the the level of civil adsociety, the GHAI eeks o strengthen the role of local local NGOs in development aid. 2) Cris Crisis is prev preven enti tion on.. A t w d has emphasized that one of the primary aims of the Clinton administtation is “to help societies build the capacity to deal with the social, economic and political forcesthatthreaten to tear them a p t ’ - Within the U.S. overnment, the GHAI has catalyLed an inter-agency process

“Interview with USAID officials. March 1996. 2 USAID, “Breaking the Cycle of D espair: President Clinton’s Initiative Initiative on the Horn of Africa Building a Foundation for Food Security and Crisis Preven tion in in th e Greater Horn of Afri Africa: ca: A Concept

Discussion papers and other information on the Greater Horn of Africa can be accessed via USAID’s web site.

Paper Pap er ffor or Discussion,” (Novem ber 1994), p. I

”Atwood, “Suddenly, Chaos.”

the Greater Horn of Afiican Initiative (GHAI). As one of Atwood’s top priorities and as a

145

 

MIDDL E ASTPOLICY, OL. V,N o . I JANUARY 1997

bringing together members of of tthe he State Department, USAID, DIA IA and other agencie agen ciess for periodi periodicc meeti meetings ngs under under the rubric rubric

collaborative relationship with with them. Rather than seeking to impose structures and p m s e s on the regiowan approach which

of a “Repotting, “Repotting, Analysis, Analysis, Decision-maki Decision-making ng failed in SomaliaSoma lia--th -thee GHAI will sewe as an and Response”(RADAR) eamThis has “enabler,” “enabler,” supporting supportingstructures and and pwxd pw xdur ures es improved informationinformation-sharin sharing g mong agencies deemed most appropriate by the regional and betwee between n embassies embassies on emerging regional authorities themselves. Because not all of the crises and conflicts. states in the region In the region, the are equally Past humanitarian humanitarian emerg encies enthusiasticabout a GHAI has also in th e region ha ve offered little little regionalapproachto helped to set up nternet llnkages aid and diplomacy assistance for sustainable, longbetween regional (Ethiopia, Eritrea govern gov ernmen ments ts in h e term reconstruction. Of special and U g h re Greater Horn, enabling enabli ng them them to

importan ce in in this regard is a n effort to promote food security

better share as well. in the region. information A significant step in establishingcrisis management mechanisms in the region when governments in in the occurred this spring, when IGADD met and agreed to include conflict prevention in its charter. This will enable IGADD o formulate its own approaches o measures, which the conflict-preventionmeasures, conflict-prevention international interna tionalcommunitycan assist as requested. 3 ) A regiona regionall approach approach to development aid. As the name of the initiative suggests, the GHAI assumes that crises in the Greater Horn transcend national borders and can only be ad addr dressed essed in a regional h e w o & . Though aid will continue to be allocated bilaterally, the GHAI will encourageefforts to seek Value added” on bilateral projects through regional coordination and and facilitate regional regional efforts effor tsto to enhance food security.Again, security. Again, revitalitation of IGADD will be central to this objective. 4) African “ownership” of the development process. ‘The GHAI is committed to proceeding along lines prioritized prioritized by governments in in the the Greater Horn in a

strong supportersof the approach, while Kenya Sudan or andreluctant more are

suspicious), adherenceto the principle of African owners ownership hip means that the GHAI will be slow to evolve. 5 ) Emphasis on on the continuum between relief and development. Where disast disasters ers have erupted, the GHAI s intended to help overcomee insitutitional overcom insitutitionalbaniers ban iers to reduce transition problems between emergency relief relief and development. Past humanitarian emergencies in the region have mobilized vast resources for relief but but have offered little assistance for sustainable, long-term reconstruction. Ofspecial importance n this regard is an effort to promote food security in the region. Significantly,this general approach to foreign aid is shared by most regional governments in the Horn of Africa, and increasingly by other major donors. The coordinatingbody for emergency assistance from European Community states (ECHO),or instance, has ernbraced the approach and coordinates policy policy wi with th USAID n the region. And the U.N. Development Programme has 146

 

MENKHAUS: .S. FOREIGN SSISTANCEO SOM ALIA : PHOENIX F R O M THE ASHES?

launched a $25-billion development program for Afiica that cent centers ers on “capacity-building.’”’ This broad consensus among the main donors

prioritization, w hich begs a hndarnental prioritization, political question in the Horn of Afiica: which Africans are to own the process, governm ents

and states in the th e region is critical in preventing the initiative fiom being perceived as an exclusively exclusive ly American agenda. For all of its appeal, however, the GHAI and the ideas itit embodies face n u m m u s and potentially debilitating challenges. First, one of its central objectives, o bjectives, conflict conflict prevention, is an inherently elusive goal. Fostering regional regional integmtion inte gmtion via IGA DD may help h elp reduce interstate conflict in the long run, but most of the conflicts provoking humanitarian crises in the region are nfru-state in nature, which IGA DD is much less equipped to address. second,

or ci civi vill so ci ev Put another way, is the political crisis in the Greater Horn due to parasitic and oppressiv e state authority, to be remedied by decentralization decentralization and the channeling of assistance assistance away fiom cenbal governments to grass-mots organizations?Or conversely, are pmb pmbacted acted political and humanitarian crises in the region a function of the collapse of effective governance, to be remedied by the strengthening strengthenin gof state author iw A compelling case can be made for both arguments. A case can also be made for the simultaneousstrengthening simultaneous strengtheningof of both state

as regional forum IGADD serving asis problematic he engine engin e of thea initiative. For one thing, it does not include several of the southern-tier mem bers of the Greater Horn of Aliica, including Rwanda and Burundi. The GHAI s thus o f questionable relevance relevance to two of the most pressing political and humanitarian crises in in the region. Somalia, meanwhile, remains unrepresented in in IGADD IGAD D as it lacks the essential prerequisite, prerequisite, a recognized recognized government In addition, a key member of IGADD , Sudan, is virtually at war w ith neighbors Uganda, Eritrea and Ethiopia. IGADD can either serve as a regional development agency or as a coalition against Sudan, but not both.u Still, observersconcur that there are no institutional institutional alternatives alternatives to IGA DD however however imperfecf it is all we’ve go gott in the region. A third challeng challengee relates to the GHAI’s principle of “African ownership” of aid

as and societalprocesses. organization organization reinforcing But inmutually the context of disputed authority, civil wa warr and scarce resources in the Greater Horn, ontrol over relief and development is viewed by local protagonists in starkly zero-sum terms. States in the region are distrustf distrustfid id of both international and local NGOs, of rhet rhetoric oric embracing the strengtheningof strengthening of civil society socie ty and of any circumvention circumv ention of sovereign states’ control over relief and developm ent aid within their bordersu On paper, the GHAI ppears to embrace bothh a top do wn and bottom-up bot bottom-up approach in in the region. On the one hand, USAID claims to be committed to working to strengthen civil society. As Brian Atwood notes:

We c nnot prevent failed states with a top down approach. No amount of international resources or organizational capacity can Serve as a substitute for building stable, pluralist societies New partnerships and new tools are

84

French, “Donors of Foreign Aid Have Second Thoughts.” 15 Indeed, Indee d, some observers suspect suspect that U.S. enthusiasm to revitalize IGADD is animated in part by a strategic desire to strengthen strengthen regional

For a fresh look at the limits of sovere ignty in zones of crisis, see Francis Francis Deng et al ., Sovereignty as Respomibiliw: Conflict Management in Africa

containment of Sudan’s radical Islamism.

(Washington: Brookings, 1996).

16

147

 

MIDDLE ASTPOLICY, AST POLICY, OL.V , No. 1, JANUARY 1997

needed to strengthen he indigenous capacity of people to manage and resolve conflict within their own societies.”

colloboration within colloboration within the G HA l has been almost entirely between donors don ors and states. At the insistence of regional states, international and

f i s dvocac dvocacyy of a grass-roots approach to capacity-building capacity-bui lding coincides with with the views of most international NGOs, hich for years have con duits of emergency eme rgency aid in in the served as vital conduits Greater Horn and which possess considerable political clout. Their The ir distrust of central state authority is the result resu lt of years of experien experience ce in which states have often been the primary source of conflict, corruption and humanitarian hum anitarian crises. In one GHAI workshop in October 1995, for instance, a top NGO representative went so far as o conclude that the government of Sudan constituted an “enemy state” in humanitarian terms. In the field, NGOs have sometim es challenged the principle principle of state sovereignty,refusing to recognize real or alleged state s tate authority.“ authority.“ In Som Somalia, alia, where no state exists, USAID has resolved the sovereignty sovereign ty issue by by funneling aid through international NGOs to local communities, essentially sub-contracting sub-contracting a thorny diplomatic issue to actors or whom the issue is less problematic. But Somalia Som alia is is the exception rather t han han the rule. Elsewhere Elsew here in the Horn, U.S. diplomacy has tilted strongly towards

local NGOs have been given m arginal roles to to play in the GHAI, a fact which w hich has not sat well with NGO officials; indeed, representatives of internationalNGOs international NGOs omplain that they were not brought into planning discussions discussio ns of the GHAI until a year after its genesis. But as long as regi regional onal governments governm ents continue to distrust developmentrhetoric that embmxs empowerment empow erment of civic society, seeing such agendas as med meddling dling in M u nternal affairs and potentially eroding heir own often shaky authority, it is unlikely that the GHAI will be able to effectivel effectivelyy implement im plement a two track policy of capacity-building at both state and local levels. level s. Meanwhile, the dilemm a for USAID s that misjudgments over the channe channeling ling of ai aidd can easily lead to accusations ither of strengthening a centml state’s capacity for repression or a local polity’s capacity for secession.” The final and most potent threat to the success of the GHAI s budgetary. Though the GHAI s not premised on large allocationsof allocations of foreign aid, adequate donor resources are still essential.. The decline essential dec line of Cold War strategic interests in the region, which has freed USAID to pursue pursue more sustainable and and thoughtful

accommodating entral governments and their

initiatives there, has simultaneously simultaneo usly eliminated the rationale rationa le that justified aid in the first place. Ironically, aid resources for he region may dry u p at the very moment when a promising philosophy phil osophy of assistance a ssistance is being developed. This is precisely the constraint co nstraint faced by USAID in Somalia, where a paucity paucity of fimding has dramatically reduced both the capacity and influence of A merican assistance

demands for “ownership” of development priorities and allocation.This has meant th a7

t

Atwood, “Suddenly, Chaos.” A few NGOs have long ignored the th e authority of the government of Sudan n their work in southern Sudan. In Rwanda, 39 NGOs were expelled for refusing to register with and pay customs taxes to the new RPF government in 1994; in Somalia, General Aideed so ught unsuccessfully to use internationalNGOs international NGOs o shore up his claim of sovereign control over Somalia by kidnapping aid workers in the town of Baidoa on the grounds tha thatt they had not obtained visas from his “government.”

86

19John 19Jo hn Prend Prenderga ergast, st, F r o n t - L i n e D i p l o m a c y : Humanitarian Aid and Conflict Prevention in Afiica

(Boulder: Lynne Rienner Pub., 1996 .

148

 

MENKHAUS:..S. S. FOREIGNASSISTANCEO SOMALIA: PHOENIX FROM

HE

ASHES?

programs. The vacuum vacuum created by the shrunken USAID m ission ission has been been filled by a robust European Com mission, which which now dom inates donor dono r policies and and priorities p riorities in the Somalia Aid Aid Coordination Body (SACB), a consortium of donors, don ors, U.N. agencies, agen cies, and N O S peratin g in Somalia For instance, U.S. U .S. contributions o food monetizat mon etization ion pmgrams, pmgram s, a critical instrument instrumen t in the shaping shap ing of rehabilitati rehabili tation on priorities in Somalia, was dominant h r n 1992 to 1994, but by 1996 had dropped to only 4 million, compared to $48 million fiom fiom the European Union. Indeed, the total USAID budget bud get proposal for Somalia Soma lia for fiscal year 1998, including the categori categories es o f development assistance, emergency emergenc y feeding,

For Somalis, Som alis, the real external power broker has become the European Commission, which, armed with with a large budget and an extensive teamof European technical advisers and consultants,constitutes a virtual surrogate government based in Nairobi, Kenya" Givenn these constaints, there is, som e Give critics predict, a real possibility that the GHAl will remain an attractive set of principles p rinciples that will prove difficult to operationalize n the turbulent Greater Horn. On the other othe r hand, past approaches have so clearly failed the region that no justification can be made for continued continued business as usual. Without ambitious am bitious and creative departures h m ast practices, and withou wit houtt rea reaso sona nabl blee level levelss of h d i n g from

food-for-work, monetization monetization and disasterassistance funds, comes to a mere $15.4 assistance million, and it is likely that request will not be hlly funded. A s a result, U.S. aid aid officials have had had a much harder time shaping donor policy in the SAC B, and American Am erican influence influence over political as well as economic developmen develop ments ts in the country have been marginalized."

donors, the region will again be consigned to another generation generation of endem end emic ic crises, and the United Unit ed States will will continue to spend hundreds of m illions illions of dollars on reactive humanitarian huma nitarian assistance to preventable crises.

90

Figures based on discussions with UN, EC. and USAID officials in Nairobi, Kenya, August 1996.

1

As o f August 1996, the EC Somalia Un it incl included uded one special envoy, three delegates, ten technical advisers, and 25-40 short-term consultants; collectively they prioritize, overse e, and evaluate all EC-funded aid aid projects iin n Somalia, which currently totals about $6 0 million. While this figure i s expected to drop significantly in the coming two years, it at least te temporarily mporarily giv es the EC special envoy and his team team imperial authority over the weak and fragment fragmented ed Som ali societ y.

149