The failure of policy that led to a military failure



The failure of policy that led to a military failure

Introduction and Background

Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, was reduced to rubble and depopulated by violent intraclan fighting in the early 1990s after the fall of the government of Siad Barre. The shelling and gun battles destroyed 600-year-old Islamic secular buildings and mosques as well as the city's modern infrastructure. It remains one of the most dangerous cities in the world, torn by violence that erupts between political and military factions.

Unlike most east African coastal towns that had to contend with the Portuguese in the early fifteenth century, the city-state of Mogadishu remained under its own sultans until the middle of the nineteenth century, when it came under the suzerainty of the al-Busaid sultans of Oman, who ruled Muscat and Zanzibar. The city remained under the sultan of Zanzibar's control until, under heavy British pressure, the sultan leased (and later sold) Mogadishu to the Italians in 1897.

The Italians made Mogadishu (Mogadiscio) the capital of Italian Somaliland, a territory that covered most of the southern part of what is present-day Somalia. After World War II, the United Nations entrusted Italian territory in the Horn of Africa to the British, and British trusteeship of the city lasted until independence in 1960.

Discussion

Mogadishu is the largest city and major port of independent Somalia, and it grew rapidly. In 1965 the population was 141,000; by 1974, it was over 250,000. Some estimates place the population in 2004 as high as 1.2 million, and 20 to 25 percent of that figure is believed to be made up of formerly rural people who have been displaced from their homes by the chronic violence afflicting the nation. Many of Somalia's exports, mostly fruits and animal hides, were exported through Mogadishu, and the city supported meat, fish, and milk processing; soft-drink bottling; textile and cosmetics production; and cotton ginning. Trade and industry, however, was seriously disrupted by the ongoing violence.

The city became a battleground in the late 1980s when Siad Barre tried to flush rebels out of Mogadishu by shelling the city for four weeks toward the end of his embattled rule. More than 50,000 people were killed and as much as 75 percent of the city was left in ruins. When Barre fled the country after his regime collapsed in 1991, the city was left with no central authority and dwindling food supplies when fighting broke out between remaining rival factions. Clan leader Mohammed Farah Aidid launched a three-month attack in November 1991 in an attempt to root out supporters of his rival, Ali Mahdi Mohammed, from parts of Mogadishu. The colossal destruction left burned-out buildings and dead bodies scattered throughout the city; 14,000 people were killed, nearly twice as many were injured, and 400,000 people fled to the countryside or abroad. American troops and a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force attempted to bring order to Mogadishu, but to no avail. The rebuilding of the city looked like a daunting task ...