Wary German Troops Take Leave of Somalia : Africa: Nation’s first foray abroad in half a century succeeded. But vice admiral expects skeptical reception.

From the pier of the gritty port here, Vice Adm. Hans-Rudolf Bohmer watched with pride just after dawn Wednesday as 200 of Germany’s first combat soldiers to be deployed abroad since World War II marched aboard the German navy ship Niemburg, bound for home.

But, as he stood in combat helmet and flak vest in this still-lawless land, the commander of the German Naval Fleet was circumspect at the end of a mission, controversial and historic. If, indeed, this was a victory for the German military after half a century of international isolation, it was, he conceded, a bittersweet one.

True, in the unprecedented U.N. operation to pacify and rebuild this ruined, well-armed nation, an effort that has claimed the lives of 67 peacekeepers from nine nations in 15 months--dozens of them brutally slaughtered by a single Somali clan--the worst the Germans suffered in their eight months here was rat bites.

And Bohmer concluded in a ship-side interview that the success of Germany’s limited mission in Somalia is likely to positively influence the debate in Bonn over lifting constitutional provisions that restricted the powerful German military to a noncombat role in Somalia.

“But I don’t think that they will be welcomed like heroes,” the admiral concluded, as all but a handful of the last German soldiers to leave Somalia prepared to sail into the sunrise.

The German public “realizes that this was participation in a military operation with a good aim but that not very much was achieved. The skepticism is there about the future of Somalia.”

At the U.N. compound here that the Germans, Americans and others are leaving behind this month, that skepticism was mixed heavily with concern on Wednesday.

As Germany pulled out its soldiers--in keeping with moves by other Western nations, which took their cue from President Clinton’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Somalia before the month’s end--senior U.N. military sources confirmed that a dozen of the 28 nations that were expected to remain in a less-ambitious U.N. peacekeeping operation here now plan to withdraw too.

Even as U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali is urgently appealing for more peacekeepers in the Balkans and elsewhere, U.N. officers in Somalia indicated that four nations--Pakistan, India, Egypt and Zimbabwe--will supply about half of the force here. It also could drop far below the 22,000 troop level that the United Nations had hoped for after most of the Western forces are gone by April 1.

“It’s not a very comfortable feeling,” said Brig. Gen. Saulat Abbas, commander of the 5,500-member Pakistani contingent--the largest single force that will remain after the Americans and Europeans depart. “Every soldier who leaves, it is not very good for us. I’m just hopeful that things will not deteriorate that badly.”

But already the West’s exit from Somalia has been met with a sharp increase in banditry, armed attacks and firefights on Mogadishu’s streets.

Meantime, the U.N. Security Council has reduced not only the size of the Somali operation but its mandate as well. Remaining troops have shifted from peacemaking to peacekeeping, and, ever since, armed Somali gangs have been roaming freely in increasing number, sometimes taunting U.N. soldiers who are under new orders to use force only in self-defense.

Amid the deepening chaos, none of the departing forces are taking chances.

The Italians, who are scheduled to pull the last of their 1,500 troops out of their embassy stronghold in north Mogadishu today, mobilized eight armored personnel carriers armed with heavy weapons as escorts. They plan to move out to Mogadishu’s airport in force just after sunrise.

But none of the departing forces have been as cautious as the Germans. They designed their Wednesday departure to be swifter and safer than even the United States’ high-security naval withdrawal from this land.

None of the 200 departing German army troops were on the pier for more than a few minutes; they left at an hour before most Somalis are awake. The two German ships, which ferried soldiers to flights home from the Kenyan port city of Mombassa, remained in Mogadishu harbor for less than 20 minutes each. And, as during American departures, small tanks, armored cars and sharpshooters flanked the German vessels during boarding.

Reflecting the deep sensitivities back home toward the least casualty here, Bohmer said halfway through the German withdrawal that “w are grateful that nothing happened.”

But as the last soldiers boarded, the commander of the German contingent--which numbered 1,300 at its peak--exulted.

“It’s a good feeling because it’s only a short time now to report that the mission is completed,” said army Col. Holger Kammerhoff, who after an eight-month tour here will soon be back at his usual post as commander of Germany’s 23rd Mountain Brigade. “But it was well done. It was a good job. We did it without casualties, and this is important for the debate back home.”

The only casualty during the Germans’ tour of duty in the northern town of Belet Huen--a largely peaceful spot, deliberately selected for deployment of the only U.N. contingent that was constitutionally barred from combat operations--was a young Somali.

He was shot by German sentries on Jan. 21 after he and another Somali cut through fences around the German camp. The two had refused to heed warning shots. Military lawyers said the shooting was justified.

Still, the incident fueled brief yet intense criticism back home of Germany’s expanding role in U.N. military operations abroad.

In their time in Belet Huen, the Germans built 11 schools. They dug seven deep wells. They put up a clinic, trained doctors and nurses and treated 8,000 patients through a mobile ambulance service. They constructed three dams--one 500 yards long--that changed the direction of a river so it will irrigate 12,000 desert acres.

But since the Germans left Belet Huen, 40 Somalis have died from cholera in a nationwide outbreak of the disease. The elders in Belet Huen had rejected the Germans’ offer to rebuild their sewer system. With the rainy season just days away--a time when the town is routinely submerged--most of the Germans fear that the cholera outbreak will soon become an epidemic in Belet Huen.

Meantime, lawlessness has spread there since the Germans left. Grenades thrown into the compound of a Los Angeles-based relief organization, the International Medical Corps, forced the evacuation of all foreign aid workers last week.

Several U.N. officials said they fear that the town may be on the brink of renewed clan warfare.

“Before we came, there was fighting. After we left, there is fighting,” said German Lt. Col. Harald Rettelbach, the contingent’s chief press officer. “The things we built, I hope they will remain. But it is like big waves threatening a house on shore. We can break the waves at sea, but we cannot stop the high water that will come ashore.”

With such reality in mind, the admiral paused and reflected when asked whether an exercise that, for Germany, was as political as it was military was more of a success for his country than for any of the others that have participated in the U.N. operation.

“We will not say that for Germany this has been a success and for the others it was not,” Bohmer replied. “We are an integral part of the whole action. In the end, I think everyone is sad that it is still such an unstable place.”