Quelling Aidid Tests U.N. Plan for Somali Peace

Only three months ago, while Mohammed Farah Aidid was solemnly negotiating Somalia’s future in neighboring Ethiopia, his thugs back home were trying to extort $450,000 from two relief agencies with threats that “blood would flow.”

Officials from one of those agencies, CARE, a U.S.-based organization, were worried that the threat would force them to close down here. They appealed for help to American diplomats, who met privately with Aidid to iron out what they thought was a simple misunderstanding.

It was no misunderstanding, Aidid insisted. His people had a contract, signed before the world sent troops to end Somalia’s famine-producing violent anarchy--and Aidid’s racketeering. And the relief agencies had better pay up.

The American envoy, Robert Gosende, eventually forced Aidid to back down. But the extortion attempt, though kept quiet at the time, marked the beginning of the end of Aidid’s brief honeymoon with American and U.N. diplomats.

Now, Aidid is on the run and the United Nations’ special envoy to Somalia has ordered his arrest. U.N. forces destroyed Aidid’s headquarters Thursday, trucked away documents from his files, killed an unknown number of his gunmen, blasted two of his major weapon arsenals and arrested more than 40 of his supporters.

The controversial attempt to emasculate Aidid has become an important test of the U.N. operation here, which is the first that authorizes soldiers to “enforce” rather than simply keep peace in a foreign land.

It also has brought a new element of risk to the U.N. effort, raising the possibility that a Somali fugitive could undermine the entire process. If Aidid is not captured, will he launch a guerrilla offensive against the United Nations? And, if he is caught, will he then become a martyr, spawning a bloody uprising against the U.N. presence?

Retired U.S. Navy Adm. Jonathan Howe, a former member of President George Bush’s National Security Council who now heads U.N. operations here, sees the battle against Aidid’s militia as a critical test of the new “peace enforcement” plan.

“People here still perceive the U.N. as very weak,” Howe said in an interview Saturday. “We all predicted that we would be tested, and I think the force we’ve demonstrated in response has been clear and forceful. It should be a lesson to anyone else who doesn’t want to cooperate.”

The first test of U.N. will came in May, when Belgian troops battled a warlord’s militia in the port city of Kismayu. But the most serious test occurred June 5, after days of anti-U.N. and anti-U.S. rhetoric emanating from Aidid’s radio station.

Aidid’s forces, in three separate, well-planned attacks on U.N. forces that day, killed 23 Pakistani soldiers. A 24th Pakistani died last week of his wounds. The Pakistanis, caught by surprise during a routine arms cache search and at two feeding centers, were slain by automatic-weapon fire. Some were reportedly mutilated with knives, wielded by men hiding among Somali women and children.

U.N. officials who listened to radio calls that day remember hearing Pakistani commanders expressing reluctance to open fire on their attackers because women and children were present.

Then, last Sunday, Pakistani troops, who have frequently been accused by Somalis of running roughshod over civilians, opened fire on demonstrators in downtown Mogadishu, killing at least 14. U.N. officials say their investigation indicates the soldiers came under fire from snipers stationed behind the crowd. And the United Nations, as well as some witnesses, contend that some civilians were killed by Aidid’s snipers as part of a propaganda effort to increase the death toll.

In a harshly worded statement Saturday, the U.S. liaison office in Somalia said suggestions that Pakistani soldiers had retaliated against an unarmed crowd were part of “a campaign of lies and innuendo as well as theater pieces, for which Aidid is famous.”

“Aidid uses lies, exaggerations and disinformation to mask his own systematic acts of brutality against U.N. peacemakers and cynical manipulation of his own people,” the American statement said.

“If this is what they will do to troops,” U.S. envoy Gosende said in an interview Saturday, “what will they do to relief operations? They won’t hesitate to knock them out.”

Many relief agencies, though, worry that the United Nations has picked a fight it cannot win. And they worry that Aidid’s followers might retaliate by taking relief workers hostage.

“Aidid is a formidable character, and he’s got a lot of following,” said Mike McDonagh of Irish Concern. “He’s a tough cookie. No doubt about it. But Somalia is a tough country. I think they should invite him back into the fold.”

“They’ve emasculated him militarily,” McDonagh added. “And now they’re going to make a martyr out of him. He’s going to become a Robin Hood.”

But Gosende disagrees. “I don’t think detaining him will make him a hero,” said Gosende, an American Foreign Service information officer and former teacher at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.

“People are holding their breath, hoping this guy will be caught. Somalis know what he did. And if a Somali court finds him guilty of murder, the people will not rise up.”

On the streets of Mogadishu, many Somalis said they wouldn’t be sorry to see Aidid vanish from the political scene. “All Somalis are soldiers. We’ve had to be,” said Adan Hassan Ali, 21. “But I don’t like that man.”

Adm. Howe insists that Aidid, if he is caught, “will get a fair and impartial trial.” But the process is likely to be messy. Somalia has no laws or full-fledged judicial system.

Aidid, who is in his mid-50s, has been the most troublesome of Somalia’s warlords, most of whom have agreed to surrender their arms to U.N. forces and participate in negotiations leading to a new political system in the country.

Those who know Aidid well say he is a hard-working military man with less than keen political senses. As the general who ran the hated dictator Mohamed Siad Barre out of the country in early 1991, Aidid believes he is entitled to be president of Somalia. But, in unseating Siad Barre, Aidid’s forces also made many enemies by ravaging the countryside, looting from farmers and triggering the debilitating famine that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

Aidid has participated in several rounds of political negotiations since the U.S. troops arrived last December, but analysts say he decided to launch military maneuvers against the U.N. force when it became clear that the 18,000 foreign troops remaining here would be an obstacle to his assumption of power.

Just how much support Aidid has is difficult to gauge. Before U.N. troops destroyed his headquarters, the warlord controlled a large part of southern Mogadishu.

Aidid’s ragtag young militia has been cast into disarray by the battles with U.N. forces in the past week, which have killed six U.N. soldiers and dozens of Aidid’s followers. In recent days, his supporters have managed some small rallies in Mogadishu and a larger one Saturday with thousands of people.

U.N. and American officials believe that the firepower used against Aidid has crippled his support base. And even if he manages to elude capture for weeks, the damage has been done, they say.

In traditional Somali society, people who commit murder are considered a shame to their clan. And retribution is expected. U.N. political analysts are hoping that detaining Aidid will be seen by ordinary Somalis as simple retribution for the slaying of Pakistani soldiers.

Howe’s decision to order Aidid’s arrest was made after weeks of debate inside the United Nations. And the admiral says he is prepared for the consequences.

“I recognize we could have a ‘Where’s Elvis?’ situation,” Howe said, “where he keeps popping up on CNN and saying, ‘You can’t catch me.’ But I feel he should be detained and out of the way.”