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Chapter 3

State Collapse in Somalia and the Emergence of Security Council Humanitarian Intervention

When Somalia made it onto the United Nations Security Council agenda in January 1992, the council members were newly optimistic about their ability to react promptly and effectively in concert with one another to threats to international peace and security. Just the year before, the council had reversed Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait and stopped the Iraqi regime from violating the human rights of its population. As a result, the meaning of state sovereignty, the relationship between human rights norms and international security, and beliefs about the legitimate purpose of military force were evolving. In 1992, however, the post–Cold War order that council members collectively desired and expected was challenged by mounting threats to international peace and security originating from conflicts raging within states rather than between them. Indeed, eleven of the sixteen situations on the 1992 Security Council agenda were characterized as intrastate conflicts. This represents nearly 70 percent of the situations on the 1992 Security Council agenda compared to only 27 percent at the start of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis in 1990.¹ The Security Council was being called on to create the political conditions necessary to end conflict and no longer to simply observe and monitor peace agreements after conflicts had ended. In another example of this changed context, the Security Council recommended the admission of more new states as members of the United Nations between 1990 and 1992 than in the previous fifteen years; and nearly three-quarters were the result of the breakup of states.² This represented the greatest spike in UN membership since the period of decolonization in the 1960s. In short, the UNSC faced a changing international context characterized by civil wars, gross human rights violations, and mass death, which demanded new and innovative responses at the very moment it had started to fulfill its original purpose—to maintain international peace between states.

The crisis in Somalia had to compete for Security Council attention with other internal crises on the council’s agenda, including Angola, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, El Salvador, Liberia, Rwanda, and South Africa. In the competition for attention, some Security Council members and many African states complained that Somalia received scant attention and disproportionately fewer UN resources than the crisis in Bosnia. Indeed, the council met more than one hundred times to discuss the situation in Bosnia compared to less than twenty to discuss Somalia between 1992 and 1995. Nonetheless, humanitarian intervention happened in Somalia more than two years before the serious use of military force to defend Bosnian Muslims occurred in Bosnia. For reasons explained in this chapter, Security Council members decided that a robust military response to the Somalia crisis would demonstrate the international community’s resolve to respond to new post–Cold War security threats. The decision to authorize the use of military force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter was different from preceding UNSC justifications for the use of force, resulted in the enhanced legitimacy of human rights norms, and led to the emergence of a new Security Council practice—humanitarian intervention.³ The case of Somalia marked an important advance in the emerging idea that the international community in general, and the Security Council in particular, had a responsibility to respond to humanitarian crises caused by conflict in order to end human suffering. At the same time, it raised questions about the UN’s ability to do so effectively, with serious implications for subsequent cases.

Humanitarian intervention became possible because Security Council members were united around a causal story about the cause and character of the conflict and because Somalia was essentially deemed a failed state. The absence of a legitimate sovereign authority eliminated potential tensions between protecting humanitarian values including human rights, intervening militarily into a domestic humanitarian crisis, and protecting state sovereignty. Initially, members were divided between an inadvertent story about civil war and a complex story that also included armed banditry, gang violence, and interclan fighting. The Chapter VII authorization in December 1992 coincided with the complex story, in large part because of the absence of a legitimate state structure, the Security Council was forced to choose between responding to the humanitarian crisis or letting it continue unabated. The latter seemed like an impossible and unnecessary choice fresh off the victory in Iraq. Nonetheless, once military forces were on the ground and the UN became the target of hostilities, the causal story held by the council changed to an intentional story in June 1993. The use of enforcement action broadened and became more aggressive with the adoption of an intentional story in which specific clan factions were identified as perpetrators of gross human rights violations leveled against both Somali civilians and UN personnel.

During formal meetings, Security Council members debated whether or not its actions in Somalia should constitute a precedent for future council action. The council was divided between members who specifically sought to use the Somalia case to set new standards of response for the council and to serve as a warning to perpetrators in other places and those who emphasized that the conditions in Somalia were sui generis, warranting an exceptional and non-precedent-setting Security Council response. As later chapters illustrate, the Security Council response in Somalia did become a precedent, often cited by members in meetings on other conflicts. Yet it was exactly because the characteristics of the Somalia crisis were sufficiently different from other internal conflicts, namely that it lacked a legitimate government, that the UNSC was able to undertake early forcible military action there in defense of humanitarian principles when it was not prepared to elsewhere in the early 1990s.

The Somalia intervention, its successes and failures, helped to delineate the conditions under which the emerging practice of humanitarian intervention would and would not become possible in future conflicts. The most prominent of these factors include the importance of widespread agreement among council members on the causal story, and after Somalia around an intentional story and the degree to which new ideas about humanitarian intervention brought human rights norms into conflict with highly internalized norms of state sovereignty. The sequencing of Security Council decisions is also important with regard to humanitarian intervention. In the early stages of norm emergence, the factors required to trigger the application of a new norm against prevailing path-dependent behavior may be more numerous and significant than the conditions that are necessary when the norm has become more developed. As Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink write, “new norms never enter a normative vacuum but instead emerge in a highly contested normative space where they must compete with other norms and perceptions of interest.”⁴ When norm entrepreneurs seek to promote a new norm, they must do so within the standards of appropriateness already created by existing norms, even when those standards are exactly the behavior that is being contested.⁵ In Somalia, humanitarian intervention was possible because of Security Council unity and because the exercise of human rights norms and the emerging practice of humanitarian intervention did not significantly challenge existing sovereignty norms.

The Humanitarian Crisis in Somalia

The people of Somalia share the same ethnicity, language, religion, and culture but are distinguished by clan affiliation—that is, by their lineage and family custom. Clan and subclan loyalties are important to Somali identity and politics and have fostered a culture of decentralization.⁶ Their manipulation by power-seeking leaders has been a source of political and social instability since Somali independence in 1960. Initially, Major General Mohammed Siad Barre, who seized power in a 1969 coup, sought to erode the clan system and replace it with a form of “scientific socialism,” but he ultimately relied on clan loyalty to maintain his personal power.⁷ Three clans of the Darod clan-family—his own, his mother’s, and his son-in-law’s—largely controlled the Somali state, which exacerbated interclan tensions. Barre’s military support for Ogadeni revolutionary forces inside neighboring Ethiopia in 1977 and their crushing defeat caused an upsurge in interclan tensions as Ogadeni refugees crossed into Somalia and occupied Isaq pastoral lands.⁸ Barre survived a coup attempt the following year and tightened his grip on power but opposition to his rule continued to grow among disaffected clans, including the organized Isaq and Hawiye.⁹ Barre stayed in power by using divide-and-rule tactics internally and by externally supporting insurgent groups fighting in neighboring Ethiopia. In January 1991 the twenty-one-year dictatorship of Barre ended when he was forced from office by a Hawiye rebel group, the United Somali Congress (USC). By the time Barre was removed from power, the entire country was awash in small arms. Barre had maintained his rule by manipulating clan loyalties and fostering rivalries among them, then arming them to fight one another. He had outlawed opposition parties, suppressed civil society, and destroyed all independent institutions.¹⁰ Thus his removal created a political vacuum in which competing rebel groups and their factions vied for political control throughout the country. After 1991, Somalia was a state without a legitimate sovereign authority. The USC, which had removed Barre and controlled the capital city Mogadishu, splintered into two rival factions, one headed by Ali Mahdi Mohamed, a wealthy Somali businessman who declared himself the interim president of Somalia, and the second headed by General Mohamed Farah Aideed, the main military commander of the USC and Mahdi’s competitor for political power. By mid-November, full-scale war between the two factions of the USC erupted in Mogadishu, primarily over which group would control the presidency and the territory that included Mogadishu. The conflict between them resulted in an estimated fourteen thousand deaths and thirty thousand wounded in Mogadishu alone.¹¹

The factional fighting in Mogadishu was replicated throughout the country—scorched earth tactics, looting, and violent attacks against members of rival clans, including the rape of women and the killing of the elderly and children. Civilians were at risk of death from two primary sources: the hostilities and the food scarcity that resulted from a combination of years of fighting, the destruction of farmland, and drought. In March 1992, Africa Watch and Physicians for Human Rights issued a report that described the character of the conflict and its human cost:

Mogadishu has become a place of unpredictable death, with no one in authority and no one capable of enforcing a social commitment to order. Everyone appears armed. Whoever draws first carries the day, since there is no civil authority to punish someone who robs or kills. Many people are short-tempered, stressed by hunger and fear and many men—and boys—are consuming too much qat (a widely used mild stimulant that comes as a chewable green leaf) which is more powerful when eaten on a hungry stomach. In this climate of marginally contained chaos, the ICRC and NGO community working in Mogadishu are stretched to the limits of their own endurance and institutional integrity.¹²

The World Food Program described the situation in Somalia as “an unparalleled disaster” and estimated that half of the population of the south central region had died by mid-1992.¹³ In July of that year, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali warned, based on figures provided by the UN high commissioner for refugees, that one million Somali children were at immediate risk of starving to death.¹⁴ The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimated that 95 percent of Somalia’s population suffered from malnutrition and almost 70 percent suffered from severe malnutrition and disease.¹⁵ Although international humanitarian relief organizations were on the ground working to alleviate the hunger, warlords restricted their movement and armed gangs regularly looted food and relief supplies intended for Somali civilians. Violence interfered with the distribution of humanitarian aid—by December 1992 it was estimated the half of all Somali children under the age of five had already died.¹⁶

Security Council Involvement in Somalia, 1992–1995

The character of the Security Council response to Somalia can be described as having three distinct phases: the use of nonmilitary enforcement measures (January–November 1992), forcible military humanitarian intervention (December 1992–January 1994), and reversal of enforcement measures and UN withdrawal (February 1994–March 1995). The first phase began in January 1992 when the Security Council passed Resolution 733 establishing an arms embargo. Then in April 1992, Resolution 751 established the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM)—a traditional peacekeeping operation with primarily humanitarian ends. The Security Council response changed from a traditional peacekeeping mandate to a forcible military intervention in December 1992 when Resolution 794 established the U.S.-led United Task Force (UNITAF). UNITAF was authorized to use “all necessary means” to establish a secure environment for humanitarian relief operations. Resolution 814 transferred authority back to the UN in March 1993, and also expanded the size of the force and the scope of mandate denoted by the revised name of the UN mission, UNOSOM II. The use of forcible measures continued under UNOSOM II with an emphasis on the coercive disarmament of Somali factions. The third phase of UN involvement was characterized by a dramatic reversal in policy when in February 1994 the Security Council revised the UNOSOM II mandate, reducing its military functions and transitioning back to a more traditional peacekeeping operation. In March 1995 UN forces completely withdrew from Somalia, despite the persistence of war.

Three causal stories emerged during Security Council deliberations, but they did not coincide neatly with the three phases of council action in Somalia. The inadvertent story described an internecine civil war in which all parties to the conflict were causing harm to civilians. The complex story identified multiple clans, characterized by fragmenting interclan rivalries, warlords, armed thugs, and criminal gangs, as responsible for inflicting terror on the civilian population. The intentional story characterized the violence as deliberate and planned—naming perpetrators including the Somali National Assembly (SNA), General Aideed, and the United Somali Congress who were deliberately inflicting violence on UN peacekeeping personnel and the civilian population of Mogadishu. Initially, Security Council members were split between those who articulated an inadvertent story about civil war in which all parties were called upon to cease hostilities and a complex story about fighting between multiple factions accompanied by vigilantism and armed banditry. Despite this division, the language of early Security Council resolutions articulated the inadvertent story. By December 1992, however, the complex story dominated the Security Council until June 1993 when the intentional story emerged to compete with it. The use of military force by UN troops qualitatively changed as the intentional story gained traction in the Security Council, evolving from the forcible but largely neutral protection of humanitarian aid to the highly punitive and aggressive use of military force against specific parties to the conflict. Regardless of the story, all the resolutions passed by the UNSC expressed concern with the unfolding humanitarian tragedy and characterized its own action (both military and nonmilitary) as a humanitarian response. Security Council members devoted significantly more time debating the appropriate humanitarian response to the crisis in Somalia than to understanding its underlying cause and character—its causal story.

Non-Military Enforcement Measures and Contestation Between Inadvertent and Complex Stories

In January 1992, the Security Council passed Resolution 733, which urged “all parties” to the conflict to cease hostilities and agree to a cease-fire and imposed an arms embargo against Somalia. The resolution was passed in absence of formal deliberation but the text reflected an inadvertent story and the moral equivalence between parties that this implied. In March, only three members articulated the inadvertent story (Morocco, Nigeria, and the United States); they described the conflict as “fratricidal” and mutually destructive to the parties that were described as unwilling to create the conditions necessary for the delivery of humanitarian relief to their own peoples.¹⁷ In contrast, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali and five members of the Security Council (Belgium, Japan, Hungary, India, and Zimbabwe) described the conflict as tragic and complex. The remaining council members declined to comment publicly on the cause and character of the conflict but joined the others in expressing concern about the plight of suffering civilians and linking the humanitarian crisis to international security. Security Council members pressed for an active UN presence in Somalia despite the failure of the Somali parties to abide by a cease-fire and in the absence of formal consent. The four reasons articulated in March 1992 were the magnitude of the humanitarian tragedy, the implications of continued fighting and famine for neighboring states, the unconventional nature of the conflict, and an appeal for equity in UN dealings with Africa in comparison to other regions.¹⁸

Unlike in Iraq, members of the Security Council were more concerned with the humanitarian tragedy unfolding within the borders of Somalia than its implications for neighboring states, and public comments emphasized the human suffering of the Somali people. For example, the United States described the situation as “a tragedy of heartbreaking magnitude” with Belgium, Zimbabwe, and Ecuador similarly noting its “tragic” character.¹⁹ Belgium described the increasing numbers of dead, injured, and displaced persons: “All the information emanating from Somalia coincides on one point: the humanitarian situation there is a tragic one. The number of dead, injured and displaced persons continues to increase, and famine is taking firm hold.”²⁰ Its ambassador warned that the complex political and military situation was impeding the provision of humanitarian relief and that widespread famine was impending, necessitating an international response.²¹ Hungary noted its concern over “the magnitude of the human suffering brought about by the conflict” and asserted that “the continuation of this tragic and alarming situation constitutes a threat to international peace and security.”²² The Kenyan representative, speaking on behalf of the African group, called attention to “the vicious coexistence of war and famine in Somalia.”²³ It is clear from statements like these that the humanitarian tragedy had captured the attention of council members. Yet members likewise were concerned with the potential regional impact of the conflict. Nigeria noted that refugees from Somalia have “consequential implications for neighboring states,” while France, Australia, India, and Zimbabwe argued that both the ongoing violence and its impact on civilians threatened peace and stability in the entire region.²⁴ Despite this expressed concern about regional impact, however, Resolution 746 defined the continuation of the internal humanitarian crisis in Somalia as a threat to international peace and security, rather than its cross-border effects. “Deeply disturbed by the magnitude of the human suffering caused by the conflict and concerned that the continuation of the situation in Somalia constitutes a threat to international peace and security,” the resolution proclaimed.²⁵ This same humanitarian language was repeated in Resolution 751, which established UNOSOM on 24 April 1992. The Security Council made no formal references to interstate dimensions of the conflict, transborder refugee flows, or the risk of regional spillover in either Resolution 746 or 751. Instead, nontraditional conceptions of security—that international security is affected by the violation of human rights—shaped initial UNSC reaction to the conflict. Only later did Resolutions 767 and 775, of July and August 1992 respectively, acknowledge that the provision of humanitarian assistance in Somalia was important to council efforts to restore international peace and security in the region.

Security Council engagement in Somalia was also motivated by the unconventional nature of the conflict. Council members argued that the simultaneous tragedy of fighting and famine in the absence of legitimate government authority demanded “new and innovative methods” of response.²⁶ Several members described the combined military and humanitarian tragedy as unconventional. Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali, in both his report to the council and in a statement to the media, argued, “Somalia presented a special challenge, as an extraordinarily complex, tragic situation that had so far eluded conventional solutions.”²⁷ It was the unique, nonstate character of Somalia that made the use of military force possible since the need for consent was eliminated and humanitarian intervention would not challenge state sovereignty.

Forcible Military Humanitarian Intervention and Shifting Causal Stories

The second phase of UN involvement in Somalia marked another historic shift in Security Council action with regard to intrastate conflicts. When the council passed Resolution 794 in December 1992 and Resolution 814 in March 1993 (Table 3.1), it authorized the use of “all necessary means” to create the conditions necessary to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid and to foster political reconciliation. The authorization of the use of force under Chapter VII marked an important step in the emergence of the practice of humanitarian intervention. For the first time in its history, the UNSC authorized armed intervention for a strictly humanitarian cause.²⁸ Unlike Resolution 688, which authorized UN protection for Iraqi Kurds and Shi’a because of the transborder impact of Iraq’s human-rights-violating behavior, Resolution 794 defined the internal humanitarian crisis itself as a threat to international peace and security.²⁹ This Security Council innovation became possible due to a high degree of unity around a causal story and because the use of coercive force in this case posed little threat to established and highly internalized norms of state sovereignty.