But Meles was not so optimistic about getting the prisoners released. The UN at that point held eighty-plus prisoners from Aideed's side on an island off the southern coast. An unconditional release of Durant and Shantali would be difficult without some sort of exchange for the UN-held prisoners.
As for other issues that concerned us: 1. He thought another conference was a good idea; and he was willing to support it in Addis Ababa. 2. It was his view that an independent tribunal was the best way to deal with the Aideed problem. 3. Most tellingly, he made it clear that UNOSOM was not working well; and the fighting had strengthened Aideed among his followers.
On the tenth of October, we left Addis for Mogadishu.
BECAUSE THE direct route was risky from the airport to the former U.S. Embassy--now the UNOSOM compound--our helo took a circuitous path. As we approached the embassy, we could see improvements UNOSOM had put in after we left. Comfortable trailers had replaced our tents; and I learned later that "real food" had replaced our MREs. On the face of it, UNOSOM personnel were living a lot easier than we did. However, landing gave us a shock. We found a force under heavy siege. All the troops were dug in or protected by stacks of sandbags. All the new trailers were sandbagged into bunkered positions. Virtually nothing was moving outside the gates.
Oakley and I gave each other a sharp look.
After a series of initial briefs by the U.S. Liaison Office, we met with Generals Bir and Montgomery, who provided a good sense of the military situation. It was clear that the environment on the ground was extremely tense; a fragile and uneasy cessation of fighting was holding, but only by a thread.
It was equally clear that they were not glad to see us. In their view, UNITAF's "failures" had made it impossible for UNOSOM to succeed; and they took every possible opportunity to pin responsibility on UNITAF for anything that had gone wrong. So it did not sit well that we had come back to attempt a fix.
Our presence did not sit well with Admiral Howe, either, we learned when we met him. As far as he was concerned, our mission was going to be neither helpful nor productive; nor would he yield any of the concessions we thought would smooth negotiations. "UNOSOM II's strategy must remain as it has been," he explained, "to isolate, marginalize, and minimalize Aideed, check the intimidation and domination of the other faction leaders, and encourage democratic processes among the ordinary people." He continued to refuse to declare a cease-fire, as Aideed had done. In his view, Aideed's cease-fire was nothing but PR--psyops. (Howe did agree, however, to "suspend offensive operations" . . . a cease-fire under another title. We could live with that.)
Howe's strategy may have been high-minded; and yet it was also a recipe for war. The factions could only be dealt with through a political process that directly involved them. Their power had to be gradually reduced through cooperative agreements to disarm, followed by organization of a transitional government acceptable to all. A process that replaced the rule of the gun might follow . . . or so we hoped and prayed.
The UN was moving too fast. They had underestimated the warlords' power, and had challenged it too soon.
WE COULD not at that point set up a meeting with Aideed himself; he was too unacceptable to UNOSOM. So Aideed's representatives met us at Oakley's old USLO compound. Since the Marines protecting the U.S. mission in Mogadishu were not part of UNOSOM, Aideed's party agreed to let them act as our security. His people treated everyone from UNOSOM like plague-bearers.
The drive through the city was Stalingrad again. The police were absent from the streets, the market stalls had vanished, the buildings more blasted than ever. Everything accomplished after we came nearly a year before had been lost.
Aideed's men arrived at the compound in a state of high distress. The war had taken a toll on their accustomed arrogance.
Oakley let them vent awhile, then laid out the issues, concentrating on our two key demands. "Your cease-fire and UNOSOM's cessation of offensive operations are a good start," he told them. "They provide the environment we need in order to proceed. The next step must be to restart engagement and dialogue. But," he cautioned, "nothing can move forward without an unconditional release of the prisoners." When, as expected, they bristled at this, Oakley remained adamant. He knew they wanted an exchange of prisoners, but there'd be no negotiations for the captives.
"At least agree to the release of the UN's prisoners after we hand over the captured soldiers," they implored.
"That's impossible," Oakley said. "We can't proceed on anything until there's an unconditional release."
After two emotion-packed hours, the Somalis agreed to take the issue back to Aideed and then get back to us.
While all this was going on, a helo passed overhead spreading psyops leaflets calling for Aideed's arrest. Aideed's men went ballistic. The leaflets almost derailed the talks. Thanks a lot!
I had earlier checked to make sure no operations would be run during this very sensitive time, but the leaflet drop fell through the cracks. Amazingly, the military operations on the ground were going on with little or no coordination. All the various UNOSOM commands were, as they say in Washington, stovepiped. Everything lined up top to bottom, but nothing connected side to side.
Fortunately, we got things calmed down, and the Somalis left pacified.
Later, when I jumped on the psychological operations officer, he turned out to be totally in the dark about what he should have been doing--and, far more tellingly, who was responsible for it. Under UNITAF command, he'd had a clear line of authority; but now no one coordinated with him, and he had no one to go to for approval.
The following day, he actually tried to get me to approve his leaflets; but I had to tell him I had no authority for that; he had to connect to UNOSOM.
OVER THE next days, several conversations confirmed what I already knew--Somalia was a mess, and it didn't have to be.
That evening, I talked with Colonel Kevin Kennedy and some others I knew from the NGOs. (During UNITAF, Kennedy had run our Civil-Military Operations Center. Now retired, he had returned to Somalia to work for UN relief agencies.) Their very outspoken take on the current situation was not encouraging: "UNOSOM creates problems; it doesn't solve them," they told me. "Their leadership is either culpably blind to what actually goes on in the streets of Mogadishu, or they're lying: Most mornings, the relief workers get a briefing from UNOSOM--just like the briefings that used to go on in Moscow back in Soviet times. They're laughable . . . except that everything here is too terrible for laughter. They invariably report quiet--no military operations the night before--while we all know that special operations missions went out; we all heard shooting; and we all see the Somali casualties in the hospitals.
"Meanwhile," they explained, "each stovepiped command has its own intelligence (if you can call it that). Mistakes have proliferated. It's no surprise that UNOSOM forces searching for Aideed or his henchmen have attacked innocent civilian compounds. But they've even hit UN facilities by mistake."
Sleep didn't come easy that night. The terrible cost of the war was beginning to sink in. Since the June 5 flare-up that precipitated the four months of war, 83 UNOSOM troops had been killed in action (26 of these Americans) and 302 wounded (170 Americans). But thousands of Somalis had lost their lives. I thought it was a gross exaggeration when Aideed's people informed us that they had lost 10,000 killed--two-thirds of them women and children--but reports of relief workers at Somali hospitals and our own intelligence sources later confirmed that these numbers were not that far off. I simply could not believe the level of slaughter since the fighting began.
Each side had a different version of the June 5 clash:
The monthlong period after UNITAF turned over operations to UNOSOM saw a constant worsening of the never-friendly relationship between the UN and Aideed. Differences over the role of the factions in the political process (the UN wanted to marginalize them), Aideed's radio station (the UN wanted to shut down its inflammatory broadcasts), the police and judiciary (the UN was no
t convinced Somalis could run either), and participation in political conferences (the idea, again, was to marginalize certain factions by inviting only UN-approved delegates) had created a tense and hostile environment that the slightest spark might set off. That spark came on June 5.
By early June, rumors were everywhere (the rumors were accurate) that UNOSOM intended to shut down Aideed's radio station, Radio Mogadishu-- located, as it happened, on the site of one of the AWSSs. UNOSOM, meanwhile, had a policy of no-notice, or short-notice, inspections of the AWSSs. Late in the day on the fourth of June, a Friday, the Moslem holy day, a bad moment to make demands, two UNOSOM officers appeared at Aideed's headquarters to deliver notification that an inspection would take place the next morning. As luck would have it, the responsible officer was away, and the subordinate who took the message was not cooperative. "An inspection on such short notice is impossible," he told them. "We need more time to prepare for it."
The UNOSOM officers stood firm. "The inspecting force will arrive at the AWSS in the morning."
The Aideed lieutenant grew more belligerent. "If they come, it will be war," he replied.
Early the next morning, the inspectors arrived at the AWSS, accompanied by a force of Pakistani soldiers. Moments later, they were confronted by an angry mob. When the soldiers tried to enter the radio station, a scuffle broke out, and a Somali was shot and killed. Word of the fighting quickly spread, and angry mobs sprang up elsewhere in town. One of these swarmed a feeding station guarded by Pakistani troops, and a number of Pakistanis were killed or captured. Another large mob engaged the Pakistani force returning from the inspection site, and more soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured. At the end of the day, twenty-four Pakistanis were dead, fifty-seven were wounded, and six were missing.
At this point, the truth gets murky. Tempers flared. Reason got tossed aside. The big question: Did the mobs rise up spontaneously? Or, as UNOSOM claimed, did Aideed's people plan the ambushes? Aideed's faction--and most other Somalis--claimed that the attacks were spontaneous responses to a real threat to the radio station that was compounded by the killing of the Somali. (It's very possible that the mobs had been urged on by Aideed's leaders, though without advance planning.)
Aideed didn't help matters the next day when in a radio address he praised the people who had risen up to fight the foreigners (further provocation and an admission of guilt in the eyes of UNOSOM). Yet, at the same time, he offered a surprisingly reasonable proposal for an impartial inquiry into the causes of the confrontation, followed, hopefully, by a peaceful resolution.
UNOSOM II would have none of that: Aideed and his lieutenants must be brought to justice; and Admiral Howe placed the $25,000 reward on Aideed's head.
A series of battles followed. UNOSOM conducted air strikes; the Aideed forces executed ambushes. The fighting escalated until the U.S. sent in special operations forces to capture Aideed and his chief lieutenants. They conducted several operations, with mixed results, until the tragedy of October 3 brought Bob Oakley back to Somalia.
MEANWHILE, Oakley and I kept in close touch with Ambassadors Lissane and Menharios, the Ethiopian and Eritrean liaisons who were our contacts with Aideed. We waited anxiously for word about the prisoners.
Word finally came that Aideed had agreed to release them. However, he would only release them directly to us, not to UNOSOM.
This was not a good idea.
Since Oakley knew a release to us would create further problems with UNOSOM, he worked out an arrangement to have the prisoners turned over to the Red Cross. To emphasize our noninvolvement and to minimize our media presence, he had us pull back to the airport. As soon as word came that the prisoners were released, we'd leave Somalia for a few days and return after the news flurry had calmed down. The moment that Durant and Shantali were released, we boarded our C-20 and headed for Asmara, Eritrea, Addis Ababa, and Cairo, for meetings with President Isaias of Eritrea, President Meles, and the Egyptian Foreign Minister. (The Egyptians had troops in Somalia; the refueling stop in Cairo was a good opportunity to connect to senior Egyptians.)
We returned to Washington on the sixteenth of October. Next day at the White House, we briefed the National Security Adviser, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the ambassador to the UN, among others. Later, at the Pentagon, we briefed the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvilli. Though Oakley presented both a superb description of the situation and a clear plan for our best possible way through the Somalia mess, I had a foreboding that the Washington leadership was looking to disengage from Somalia and write the country off. Despite my misgivings, we were given the go-ahead to pursue Oakley's plans.
A few days later, we were off again to Somalia.
After another stop in Addis to see President Meles, we flew on to Mogadishu, arriving on the first of November for a planned visit of four days. Our primary purpose in Somalia was to put in place a revised plan we had worked up since our last visit. It called for reestablishing the Security Committee; reestablishing a viable police force; getting the cease-fire and disarmament agreements back in place; getting the factions back to the process of forming a transitional government; involving in the process other nations and political organizations in the region; scheduling another conference in Addis; establishing agreed-upon sectors and security zones in Mogadishu to prevent confrontations; and several other proposals designed to put the humanitarian, political, and security situations on track.
During an intense four days of negotiating, we met with the UNOSOM leadership, the other faction leaders, and various Somali groups seeking agreement on our proposals; and we successfully persuaded everyone involved to accept a renewal of our original mission.
Sticking points remained--chiefly, the question of the UN-held prisoners and the question of Aideed's war crimes guilt.
Aideed had accused UNOSOM of abusing the prisoners they were holding on the island; and wanted their release. In fact, there were some health problems among the prisoners (who now included Osman Atto, my contact from the UNITAF days, who had been snatched up in a Special Operations roundup). Eventually Aideed got his wish, and they were released.
Since the question of Aideed's personal guilt was still far from being settled, we decided to continue our policy of keeping distant from him. For the time being, we dealt only with his lieutenants.
WHEN WE LEFT, we made the regular round of African stops (adding Kampala, Uganda), returned briefly to Washington, and were back in Somalia by mid-November--this time, for direct talks with Aideed. A new Security Council resolution (Resolution 885), accepting Aideed's party as legitimate, had eased tensions with Aideed and greatly lessened the danger of continued violence. It was time to bring him into the process and persuade him to sign on to Oakley's program.
Aideed (still UNOSOM's most wanted man) was hiding out in the labyrinths of Mogadishu. Getting to him was not going to be easy.
On the day of the meeting, our armored SUV was escorted by Marines to the old UN headquarters, where we were to be turned over to Aideed's security. As we were waiting for Aideed's gunmen to appear, a large, excited, and very curious crowd gathered around us. Though they made our Marine security nervous, they didn't actually threaten us.
We soon had other things to think about, when Aideed's hard-looking, heavily armed fighters came speeding into the intersection, hanging from technicals. Their leader was the largest Somali I'd ever seen, at least six and a half feet tall with bulging muscles. A man of very few words, he directed us to pull our vehicle between the technicals; and we raced off at high speed through a maze of back alleys and side streets. It was like a movie: Keeping up with the speeding technicals required blasting through intersections, countless near misses, and breathtaking two-wheel turns.
We suddenly found ourselves rushing into a large plaza, heading straight toward a screaming multitude of Somalis.
"What do you think?" Bob Oakley asked.
"Ambassador," I said, "they're either
going to kiss us or eat us."
As we got closer, we realized they were actually cheering us. The gathering in the plaza had obviously been staged by Aideed.
Eventually, we turned into a compound and came to a stop in front of Aideed's temporary headquarters, where his chief lieutenants and a broadly smiling Aideed were standing ready to greet us. A bank of cameras off to the side videoed every move. As we stepped out of the SUV, the giant, taciturn security goon came up and put together what for him must have been a major speech. "No more shooting," he said, with evident emotion, grabbing me by the hand. "No more. Too many people will die." He had clearly had his fill of fighting.
"We'll all do our best," I answered, as the hugely grinning Aideed wrapped his arms around me like a long-lost relative and then ushered us down the ranks of his officials for their greetings. I hoped the cameramen didn't catch all that. Taking photo ops with Aideed would not make us popular back home (where the media had followed UNOSOM's lead in demonizing him).
Inside the headquarters, we followed Aideed into a large conference room. His party's banners were hanging on the walls; pens and stationery with his logo were neatly placed at each seat. After an exchange of small talk, we got down to business with a group of people who were surprisingly somber. I'd expected them to be upbeat at the very least; and I wouldn't have thought twice if they'd been gloating. They'd been hit hard, but had hit the U.S. and UN even harder; and now we were again treating them like leaders with a legitimate place in the political process. And yet they did not rejoice in their triumph; they were subdued and solemn. They recognized the terrible tragedy we had all suffered. It was clear that the loss of ten thousand Somali lives during the past four months was weighing heavily on all of them.
Aideed maintained the serious tone--though without altering his long-held positions: The release of the UN-held prisoners was still a pressing concern, and so were the big questions about his own status and UNOSOM's unceasing accusations against him. He made it abundantly clear that UNOSOM and the Secretary-General were as evil in his eyes as he was in theirs (though he pointed out that he did not oppose the UN itself). He welcomed the U.S. back into the peace process, and would further welcome an independent commission to look into the causes of war--headed by former President Jimmy Carter and with members who were not appointed by the UN Secretary-General.
Battle Ready (2004) Page 32
