Last of U.N. Mission Quits Somalia

Guns trained to the rear, U.S. Marines backed out of Somalia and into the sea Thursday with the remnants of a multinational force that fed starving thousands but failed to conquer chaos.

The Marines escorted the final U.N. forces from Mogadishu’s shores, a quiet end to a two-year intervention that began with a televised invasion and ultimately cost $2 billion and the lives of more than 100 peacekeepers.

The last peacekeepers were hurried to warships offshore. The move of 1,500 U.S. and 350 Italian marines from a small beach cove back to their ships ended at 12:59 a.m. today.

“U.S. and Italian marines completed the extraction of United Nations forces and their equipment from Somalia,” Defense Secretary William J. Perry said in a statement Thursday in Washington. “I want to thank the U.S. forces and their commanders for a job well done.”

A Pentagon official said the withdrawal had been completed ahead of schedule and that no U.S. ships or aircraft will remain in the area. “Our plan is to withdraw our force as soon as possible,” the official said.

U.S. Marines landed Monday to protect the evacuation of 2,500 Pakistani and Bangladeshi peacekeepers, the last in a multinational force that once totaled 38,000 troops from 21 countries.

The withdrawal was delayed several hours when a ferry chartered to pick up the Pakistanis was rammed by a tugboat, damaging its cargo doors. As the doors were being repaired, port officials found their only gangplank was missing, apparently looted.

“Just give us ropes and we’ll climb aboard,” one Pakistani officer said. A makeshift gangplank was jury-rigged from shipping containers, and the ferry left after a three-hour delay.

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U.S. Marines shot at least two Somali militiamen who fired at Americans from a pickup truck Thursday.

The Horn of Africa nation has lacked a government since former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. In the years since, despite numerous mediation attempts by the United Nations, Somali factions have been unable to bridge their differences and unite under one government.

Despite its failure to solve Somalia’s political problems, the multinational intervention did end the widespread starvation that, together with war and disease, killed 350,000 Somalis in 1992.

But it came with a cost. More than 100 peacekeepers and 42 U.S. troops died, and the operation drained $1.66 billion from U.N. coffers. It ended without removing Somalia’s main obstacle to peace--its intransigent warlords.

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Tops among them was Mohammed Farah Aidid, who once carried a $25,000 U.N. price on his head and subverted peacekeepers’ efforts more than any other Somali.

Aidid was blamed for a militia ambush that killed 24 Pakistani peacekeepers on June 5, 1993, and ignited a low-level street war with U.N. forces. In October of that year, a clash with Aidid’s militia left 18 U.S. soldiers dead and cemented American distaste for the intervention.

The last straw came when the body of a U.S. soldier was dragged through the streets of the capital, prompting President Clinton to order a U.S. withdrawal by March, 1994.

When the Americans came back this week, their old enemy, Aidid, was there.

After Pakistani peacekeepers withdrew from the airport Wednesday, hundreds of looters had barely an hour before Aidid’s militia roared in on stripped trucks mounted with weapons to claim the facility as their prize.

Rifle shots rang out as militiamen shooed away looters. Nervous U.S. and Italian soldiers watching from nearby dunes fired warning shots to keep Somalis from trying to breach the razor wire between them.

Aidid’s booty grab preempted an attempt by Somali businessmen and elders to form a multi-factional committee to operate both the airport and seaport after the U.N. departure.

U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said international efforts to bring peace and humanitarian aid to Somalia will continue. “The U.N. will not abandon Somalia,” he said.

He added, though, that the feasibility of aid would depend on the cooperation of Somali leaders.

It’s not known if much humanitarian relief or commercial traffic will return any time soon to Mogadishu, although the Red Cross is still providing emergency aid to three of the capital’s hospitals.

Most relief groups have withdrawn international staff from Mogadishu to reassess security. Somali staffers have kept relief programs running in Mogadishu, and international staff are still operating in 14 other regions.

Emergency stocks of food and medicine have been stored in Somalia, and U.N. officials say Somalia had strong harvests the last two years, precluding an immediate return to widespread hunger.

Nine U.N. agencies and 38 private aid groups are still planning to run operations in health care, education and agriculture, but not in Mogadishu.