Mogadishu ( PP Editorial) — The revelation that a coterie of landowners, local authorities and members of security forces have forced Internally Displaced Persons in Somalia to pay up some of the money and food they had received as aid rekindles memories of the 1992 man-made famine.
In 1992 the UN Somalia representative Mohamed Sahnoun was downplaying the impact of the man-made famine by making a speech at Tirbuunka. Sahnoun was promoting the political programme of Somali warlords to a point of misinforming the UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali about the situation in Southern Somalia. Sahnoun had to resign in October 1992 after Boutrus shared with him evidence that the Algerian envoy had not told the United Nation the gravity and causes of the famine in Somalia.
On December 4 1992 the outgoing US President George H. Bush delivered a speech to explain the rationale for the US-led humanitarian intervention. “I want to talk to you today about the tragedy in Somalia, and about a mission that eases suffering and saves lives. The scope of suffering is hard to imagine. Already over a quarter million people, as many as people living in Buffalo New York have died in the Somali famine. One and a half million could starve to death… truck convoys from Somalia’s ports were blocked” said President Bush, who made it clear that Somali warlords and their militias caused the famine.
Thirty-one years after the historic humanitarian intervention, Somalia is in the headlines again for reasons reminiscent of the 1992 aid diversion and the subsequent famine. The belated United Nations investigation into aid diversion in Somalia reflects failure to learn from mistakes on the part of the United Nations Operation in Somalia. Somalia in 2023 is different from Somalia of 1993 when the concept of failed state and ungoverned spaces were not in vogue and before the Horn of Africa had become a base of transnational terrorism and avaricious politicians who gain from weak institutions and elite bargain.
In the absence of a national political reconciliation to make the political field level, the risk to IDPS will increase because they are accommodated in camps located in areas controlled by powerful clan militias and associated administrations. There are no protection mechanisms for IDPs. This political power asymmetry is rooted in the 4.5 discriminatory, power sharing system. The United Nations should disclose administrations and persons responsible for forcing IDPs to shell out some of the money they received as aid from donor countries. Disclosure will pave the way for efforts to put in place protection mechanisms for IDPs. This is one way the United Nations can demonstrate that it is keen to learn from its mistakes.
© Puntland Post, 2023
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