Mahony Urges U.N. Deployment Force

Warning that Somalia is not alone among the unstable, poverty-stricken nations of the Third World, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony called Monday for the United Nations to create a rapid deployment force capable of responding quickly to both humanitarian and security crises.

Mahony, who returned to Los Angeles on Sunday from a four-day tour of famine-ravaged Somalia, said the world’s delayed response contributed to transforming a fertile country into a desolate land where hundreds of thousands of children have been orphaned because their parents fled or were murdered.

So grotesque are the effects of malnutrition and starvation, he said, that even if children and parents were reunited, some would be unable to recognize each other.

“There is a need for this kind of intervention earlier,” the Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles said at a news conference at St. Vibiana’s Cathedral. “They are going to have to be more aggressive, more pro-active and be there much earlier.”

A U.N. rapid deployment force, Mahony said, could be fielded using troops and materiel from 10 nations on a rotating basis. Until then, he said, the United States is the only nation capable of mounting such an effort.

Asked if he felt a “conflict” as a bishop in advocating the use of military force, he replied: “Sure, obviously there is. However, it just seems to me that somehow we’ve got to be able to respond to these situations before they unravel to the extent this one has unraveled. The (Somali) civil war went on for two years with huge loss of life, thousands and thousands of people killed, hundreds of thousands displaced. . . . That’s a reality that’s got to be dealt with.”

Further, “the problem with Somalia is (that) it isn’t just Somalia,” Mahony said. “Liberia (where a bloody civil war rages) is not far behind. In terms of having no civil government, there are three or four other countries that are very close to the same problem Liberia has.”

Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called last June for a 40,000-member U.N. rapid deployment force. Such a force is permitted under the U.N. Charter but has never been established, largely because of animosity between the United States and the former Soviet Union.

Also, the Pentagon has always opposed placing American troops under U.N. command.

As relief efforts continue, Mahony cautioned, the world community will have to carry off a delicate balancing act to prevent Somalia from becoming a “welfare state” or slipping back into anarchy.