Author’s Note (April 2025)

This article was originally written in 2006 as part of an academic study exploring the complexities of United Nations peacekeeping missions, with a specific focus on UNOSOM-II in Somalia. While the geopolitical context and dynamics in Somalia have evolved significantly in the years since, the core themes addressed—such as the challenges of peace enforcement, institutional fragility, and the limitations of international intervention—remain highly relevant in current global discussions on conflict resolution and humanitarian engagement.

The text has been preserved in its original structure, with only minimal editorial adjustments for clarity and readability. It is presented here both as a historical analysis and as a reflection on the enduring dilemmas of international peace operations in fragile and conflict-affected settings.

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In 1992, constant civil war and drought in Somalia had combined to produce a catastrophic famine killing an estimated 300,000 people (Patman, 1997: 509). This human tragedy of the situation has been published and broadcasted extensively; however what little known were the consequences of Siad Barre’s ouster which led to the collapse of all the institutions including federal and regional governments, courts, and the police force. The Security Council mission to Somali faction leaders (27 October 1994) described the situation as having presented “a vacuum of civil authority and governmental structure. Having no single group with legitimate claim to power due to the power vacuum inviting several factions caused Somalia to collapse into Hobbesian anarchy.

The civil war in Somalia managed to attract international community’s attention into the region. Both the Soviets and the Americans had strategic interests in the country since 1969 making Somalia the one of the major client of the Russia and later the United States in supplying weapons. The need for strong international community after the end of Cold War encouraged the major powers to intervene in Somalia with new generation peacekeeping resulting in three missions, two of them being under the UN command: UNOSOM-I, UNITAF, and finally UNOSOM-II.

This essay aims to describe and analyze the UN missions in Somalia in particular UNOSOM-II looking at its structure, successes, failures, difficulties and finally conclude with the lessons drawn from this mission. In order to reach a conclusion regarding the effectiveness of UNOSOM-II mission in Somalia, it is empirical to begin this essay with descriptive analysis of the history of the conflict, UNOSOM-I and UNITAF. Due to the page limit, this essay will not be an in-depth analysis but rather an overview of the dynamics in Somalia leading to as well as during UNOSOM-II.

2. Descriptive Analysis – Background Information

2.1. Brief History of Somalia and the Conflict in 1991

Until the nineteenth century, Somalia was a land of indeterminate borders and largely nomadic pastoralists who gazed camels and cattle from the Indian Ocean coast. Somalis share a single ethnic background, a single language, and a single religion (Sunni-Muslim) but they are divided by clan, sub-clan, and family. Lacking central authority, Somali social and political relations were based on kinship, mediated by an unwritten social code, heer, and the precepts of Islam. With colonialism, central administration and commercialization reached the country. Over several decades, the old sociopolitical system eroded, without replacement. With the independence, the British and Italian Somaliland were pasted together and declared as one state. For almost a decade after the independence, Somalia struggled to implement parliamentary democracy and this combined with poor economic performance resulted in a bloodless coup by Siad Barre (Durch, 1996: 313).

The military leaders, led by General Siad Barre and organized as the Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC), at first received a peaceful welcome. They were seen as heroes who had left the barracks to save the nation. In 1970, Barre adopted a form of state-led socialism as the regime’s official ideology, accompanied by policies aimed at suppressing clan and tribal affiliations in favor of a unified national identity. However, Barre built his power by manipulating clans and implementing classic tactics of divide and rule. The war with Ethiopia in 1977 further revealed Siad Barre’s weaknesses and hollow authority. The Ethiopian military supported by Soviets and Cuban troops defeated Barre’s forces. This defeat removed all the pan-Somali nationalism as a legitimating ideology for Siad Barre’s regime (Lyons, 1995: 15). In October, 1990, the opposition groups in Somalia agreed on the common objective of defeating Siad Barre. The assault in lawless Mogadishu by the opposing factions caused Barre to flee the country. On February 1, Mohammed Ali Mahdi declared himself the interim president without consulting any other opposition parties.

2.2 UNOSOM – I

As lawlessness and violence escalated in Somalia, a massive human catastrophe emerged and forced international attention to Somalia. The Security Council in January 1992 imposed an arms embargo against Somalia by invoking Chapter VII of the UN charter due to a found threat to international peace based on Somalia’s internal conditions. After one year of Siad Barre’s fall, the UN decided to take more significant steps towards reconciliation. Ali Mahdi, Mohammed Aideed and other factional leaders signed a cease-fire in New York in February 1992. The cease-fire of March 1992, provided more space for humanitarian assistance in the country and finally in April 24 1992, the Security Council established UNOSOM-I under Resolution 751 which provided 500 men security force and 50 monitors. (www.un.org, 1994: Date accessed: 12 March 2006). The mandate was solely providing zones of peace for food-relief and monitoring the cease-fire. However the delays in enforcement and the weakness of the force on ground only allowed for more room to escalate the conflict and weaken the civilian leadership. If the forces were stronger and the mandate was larger initially, the leaders may have been accepted the negotiated settlement of 1992 that they could no longer accept in 1993.

The delays of action had several reasons. As the situation in Somalia deteriorated through 1992, the UN was simultaneously engaged in implementing peace operations elsewhere of unprecedented size and scope. Nearly 20,000 military and civilian personnel were in Cambodia for the peace accords, another 12,000 were deployed to separate Serbs from Croats and genocidal conflict in Bosnia was drawing increased attention. In June 1992, the secretary general issued his report “An Agenda for Peace”, which called for strengthening the UN’s ability to intervene. Finally as a response to this report, with the American leadership, the Security Council voted unanimously to authorize UN member states to use “all necessary means” to establish a secure environment for humanitarian relief in Somalia (Durch, 1996: 318).

2.3 UNITAF- Unified Task Force

Following the American government’s offer to provide the forces to lead an international intervention in Somalia, Washington recognized that a quick diplomatic and political structure had to be established. Robert Oakley, a former ambassador to Somalia was appointed as his special convoy. Oakley arrived to Somalia before the troops and had started a series of successful negotiations providing a safe sphere for the deployment of the troops. Both Ali Mahdi and Aideed welcomed UNITAF, though for different reasons. Ali Mahdi welcomed a counterweight to Aideed, and Aideed welcomed and alternative to his perceived nemesis, the UN (Durch, 1996: 320).

Although the Security Council Resolution 797 legitimized Operation Restore Hope extending the mandate of the operation, the objectives of the American government remained limited to opening supply routes and get the food moving. Boutros-Ghali, however, was totally opposed to this limited mandate. The UN had neither the command and the structure nor the control structure to execute the Chapter-VII peace enforcement operation. As Durch suggests, lower-income countries often contributed troops to benefit from the UN’s standardized reimbursement system, while higher-income states participated primarily for reputational or symbolic reasons. (Durch, 1996: 321). Boutros-Ghali insisted that, in order to reduce the UN’s risk, a disarmament operation was crucial.

Oakley’s successful diplomatic initiatives made it very easy for the troops to be deployed all the way to the interiors of the country. However, UNITAF began to require the heavy weapons to be moved out of the city of Mogadishu. The US forces also started to be more engaged in assisting the establishment of police, prisons and judiciary. However starting from January 1993, the situation was no longer as peaceful for UNITAF. The armed confrontation between Jess and Morgan over the Kismoyo region, which resulted in Morgan’s forces attack on Jess’s weapons compound. UNITAF considered this a violation of Addis cease-fire agreement and attacked Morgan’s forces in return. One month later, Morgan infiltrated fighters into Kismoyo, attacked Jess, who fled town. British Broadcasting (BBC) in Somali language claimed that Morgan had taken the town, implicitly with UNITAF consent. This inflammatory comment harmed UNITAF’s neutral reputation (Hirsch and Oakley, 1995: 76-77).

Throughout the mission, Oakley deliberately and consciously sought to tilt the balance away from the militia leaders to the civilian groups. He referred this strategy as “plucking the bird”. According to Oakley, if you take one feather at a time this bird doesn’t think there is anything terrible going on, then one day he finds he can’t fly. This comment, once again thanks to BBC, was broadcasted to the country in Somali language, making it a lot more difficult for a respected diplomat like Oakley to mediate (Lyons, 1995: 47).

With growing tensions, the United States started to seek possible ways of transition to a UN led force as quickly as possible. There were tow inter-related causes for such decision. The first one was the overall cost of the mission almost mounted up to $1bn and secondly it was almost time for the American forces in Somalia to rotate with the forces in the US. This operation was risky, logistically complicated and most importantly extremely expensive. Finally the US decided to pull her forces out of the country.

UNITAF successfully performed the assigned tasks in excellent manner. The US professionalism proved its strength with its adaptability to a difficult situation in an unfamiliar environment. However, if UNITAF were to stay longer assuming UNOSOM -II’s mandate and responsibilities, it could have given the same casualties and face similar difficulties. UNITAF’s success was a product of many factors such as successful diplomacy by Oakley, military professionalism and also the limited nature of the mandate.

3. UNOSOM-II

3.1 Transition to UNOSOM-II

On March 1993, the Secretary General submitted to the Security Council a report containing his recommendations for effecting the transition from UNITAF to UNOSOM-II. He indicated that since the adoption of resolution 794, UNITAF had deployed 37,000 troops in southern and central Somalia, covering approximately 40% of the country’s territory. UNITAF had positive impact on the security situation in Somalia and the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance. However, despite the improvements, a secure environment had net yet been established in Somalia. He concluded that, if the transition occurs on Security Council’s request, UNOSOM-II should be endowed with enforcement powers under Chapter-VII of the UN charter. He advocated a stronger disarmament mission with complete reconciliation assistance. (www.un.org, 1994: Date accessed: 12 March 2006).

3.2. Mandates and Implementation

On 26 March, the Security Council acting under the Chapter VII of the UN charter adopted resolution 814, by which it decided to expand the size and the mandate of UNOSOM in accordance with the Secretary General’s recommendations. This new mandate explicitly included disarmament, the establishment of a police force, and national reconciliation. The resolution authorized actions to “to assist the people of Somalia to promote and advance political reconciliation through broad participation by all sectors of Somali society, and the re-establishment of national and regional institutions and civil administration in the entire country (Lyons, 1995: 53).

Resolution 814 was an ambitious document that applied to the entire country, including the northern part. The disarmament plan was developed was primarily developed by UNITAF and called for the Somalis to carry their heavy weapons to designated sites and surrender their personal weapons. Weapons of those who refuse to cooperate by a specific deadline would be confiscated or destroyed by the UN.

During April however, Mogadishu was relatively peaceful due to the signing of Addis Ababa peace accords. The warlords expressed themselves as freedom fighters, and although the agreement was signed by only the militia leaders, it was seen as a good opportunity for the civilian leadership to take part in new established state institutions to reduce the power of militias. At this point, UNOSOM was facing larger dilemmas about reconciliation regarding the involvement of civilian leadership as well as turning the militias into statesmen. Supporting civil leadership against the warlords as well as treating those warlords as respected statesmen gave mixed signals to Somali people; regardless, Somalia remained calm for almost a month.

Taking advantage of the peaceful environment, UNOSOM was also determined to achieve re-establishing Somalia’s institutions. By 1993, 38 district councils were formed; however some council members complained that UNOSOM provided little support to make the local administrations viable. Aideed’s Somalia National Alliance faction accused UNOSOM of meddling in the internal affairs of the Somali people and rejected the district and regional councils altogether.  

The period between March and June 1993 represented the best chance for the international intervention to take place and act on political reconciliation and re-establishment of institutions. The Addis Ababa accords were rather unsettled; however they represented the most complete political action taken by the UN. The lack of strategy by the UN can be seen in diplomats’ decisions. To fundamentally different strategies were applied, on one hand, the militiamen were strengthened by these accords, making “the criminals” important decision-makers, on the other hand, UN advocated, non-militia-men to participate in district and regional councils (Lyons, 1995: 57).

3.3 June 5: Attack on Pakistani Peacekeepers, Resolution 837

The peaceful environment after the Addis Ababa accords did not last too long. In order to signal his discomfort with the UN and her reconciliation methods, Aideed ambushed Pakistani troops and set off a politically disastrous military reaction. Pakistani troops were conducting a regular inspection in an SNA arms depot which shared a compound with Aideed’s radio station. US immediately issued a warning that; gunmen aligned with Aideed had threatened to murder Americans. (Lyons, 1995: 57)

The Security Council strongly condemned the “unprovoked armed attacks” and adopted resolution 837 which authorized the UN member states “all necessary measures against all those responsible” immediately. Several attacks had been launched by US-UN armed forces and the commander even placed a public price on Aideed’s head by totally contradicting the on-going strategy. It was a long change from accommodating Aideed, treating him as a major player in the international conferences into demonizing and putting a price for his head. (Lyons, 1995: 58).

Disconnected from UNOSOM, the American forces launched several attack on targets in Mogadishu and alienated much of the population. While the US was bombarding Somalia, the UN, helplessly, was trying to encourage regional reconciliation. Lack of strategy, order, coordination were soon to be very costly for Americans in Somalia.

3.4 Attacks on American Soldiers and Withdrawal

The nature of mandate took a different shape after the attack on the Pakistani forces. Re-conciliation ended – manhunt began. In a brutal operation in July, American helicopters destroyed a building which was one of Aideed’s headquarters, killing several Somalis. As the casualties grew, the domestic pressures grew some groups calling for packing and going home and others calling for capturing Aideed and assisting the Somalis with reconciliation. While these debates were going on in the US, the commanders in Somalia received news regarding the location of Aideed and his top lieutenants. Relying on this information US soldiers entered the Olympic Hotel unknowing of the consequences. The American soldiers were surrounded killing 18 Americans, wounded 84 and capturing of 1 helicopter pilot. In the end, Washington began preparations for a safe withdrawal from Somalia (Lyons, 1995: 60).

Ambassador Oakley was send once again in an attempt to create a safer environment for the US troops to withdraw from Somalia with little political damage. The Somali factions met once again under the absence of Aideed and reached to agreement in any effort to reconcile. Despite the failure of these talks, the western powers withdrew their forces in 1994, leaving only, Indian, Pakistani, Malaysian and Egyptian soldiers behind, who no longer left their bases. UNOSOM-II was abandoned. The failure raised questions about whether the Somalis would be more successful in reconciling without foreign involvement (Lyons, 1995: 60).

4. Assessment of UNOSOM – II

The intervention carried out by the United States and the United Nations in Somalia had many facets. The unprecedented and largely successful humanitarian operation that prevented hundreds of thousands of Somalis from dying  and the tragic military campaign that failed to capture Aideed have received deserved attention. From the beginning the actions of the international community had significant effect on political reconciliation. These actions sometimes had positive effect sometimes negative. Section 4 of this essay will look at the difficulties, failures and the lessons learned from the UN operation in Somalia.

4.1 New Generation Peacekeeping & Failures of UNOSOM

Somalia represented the second case of new generation peacekeeping after the Operation Provide Comfort in Iraq in April 1991. These operations were relatively new to the international system and both countries were almost a testing zone for the various attempts to provide peacekeeping. Somalia was a strong determinant for the future of these peace-enforcement operations. Inexperience as well as the internal dynamics of Somalia caused several difficulties to the UN and these factors caused the UN to fail from time to time during their stay in Somalia.

One of the major problems of the UN in Somalia was lack of consistent goals and strategies. In a few cases the UN acted against its goals making contradictionary decisions.  One of these contradictions was Ambassador Robert Oakley’s negotiations and agreements. These negotiations were held with the military factions and had the clear unintended result of strengthening these groups relative to other potential political forces. As an initial step to facilitate deployment such cease-fire agreements are needed, but they should be considered in the context of a longer term effort to encourage new political institutions. The violence, banditry, inevitably weakened the civilian leadership. The January 1993 accords talks sponsored by the UN in Addis Ababa had the more explicit political strategy of achieving political reconciliation focusing on the militias. Ambiguously, however, the UN encouraged the participation of civilian leaders including women in regional districts. These two strategies, instead of complementing eachother have undercut eachother and prevented a successful reconciliation. Strengthening militias as well as establishing village and regional councils were seen as a threat to military factions in Somalia. (Lyons, 1995: 62)

The political strategy of UNOSOM and UNITAF was internally contradictory since the decision-makers didn’t know how to treat the militias (either as criminals or political actors). “Those who intervene inn places like Somalia must decide in advance whether they are going to accept and work with the local powers, that be even though those people may be the ones who are responsible for the trouble that triggered intervention. The decision is the key.” (Conference Report, 1994: 9).

4.3 Lessons Learned

Years after the withdrawal of the UN from Somalia, the international community is still reeling from what Boutros-Ghali called “one of the most challenging, arduous, undertakings in the Organization’s 50 year history”. The UN’s experience in Somalia marked a turning point for its peace operations after the Cold-War. The Somali people are not the only ones suffering from the syndrome of a failed state with its disastrous consequences. The Somalia type of conflict is likely to emerge again. To a great extent, the future of the UN’s role in peacekeeping depends on how well the lessons from Somalia are learned (Kittani, 1996: 1).

The first lesson that should be learned from Somalia is that; peace enforcement and peacekeeping shall not occur concurrently. Boutros-Ghali has noted in his agenda for peace that peacekeeping and peace-enforcement flow from entirely different premises and it is dangerous to mix the two. Peace-keeping operations may however follow peace-enforcement operations. This transition requires excellent coordination and peacekeepers should not take over until it is clear that peace-enforcement operation had reached its goal and there is a secure environment for the peacekeepers to be deployed. Lack of cooperation and coordination could severely affect the nature of peacekeeping in the countries. It is likely that, in Haiti, from the lessons learned in Somalia, peacekeepers did not enter the country until the peace-enforcement operation was complete and it was secure enough for deployment.

The second lesson that can be drawn from the UN operation in Somalia is that the United Nations cannot substitute for the political will of the conflicting faction in the country. Forcefully providing assistance is going to affect the nature of the conflict adversely. When a state fails,

It is only one step to ask for disarmament but political reconciliation with the will of the parties is crucial. Political institutions can not be re-established by having conferences in five star hotels unless all the conflicting parties agree with their own will.

The last and the most important lesson from Somalia stems from the UN’s weakness in its ability to undertake a large peace-enforcement mission. Since Somalia, it is clearly observed that the UN has no other option than assigning single countries to major peace operations such as the United States in Haiti and NATO in Bosnia. The UN simply do not have the necessary funding, sources, manpower, equipment, weaponry for any kind of large-scale peace enforcement operation. Therefore the UN must be more careful in undertaking operations that is clearly not in his capability. As it is in the case of Somalia, the UN is likely to fail when the mandate is over-stretched and over-ambitious.

One solution to this problem would be to have a standard and permanent United Nations Emergency Task Force which is more dynamic, mobile and ready to intervene before it is too late. If the UN intervened in Somalia right after the fall of Siad Barre, the peacekeepers could have filled up the gap in the power vacuum before the militias gained power. In order to achieve this, a group of experts and monitors are required to report any potential political catastrophe and human tragedy to the Security Council.

Regardless, the most important lesson from this operation is to be able to carry humanitarian relief under any and every condition regardless of the nature of the state because human life is more important then any political interest or institution.

5. Conclusion

The failures in history always manage to overshadow the successes. The UN operation in Somalia is seen as a major failure in UN’s history. The Somali story is a tragedy for both the people in the region and the international community in general. The two conflicting leaders, Ali Mahdi and Mohammed Aideed pursued their own selfish agenda without recognizing the fact that they occupied the same land and achieving their goal required their cooperation. The Somalis were not capable of breaking the vicious cycle of violence. Neither did the international community have the power to rebuild a state without the conflicting factions’ consent (Lyons,1995: 69).

The UN in Somalia as well as the American forces who led the UNITAF mission did their best to establish a peaceful environment in the lands that are far away from their home with good intentions. Regardless of UN’s failures, the mission in Somalia was doomed to collapse and neither the US nor the UN can be considered solely responsible for the atrocities committed in Somalia. The only responsible actors for violence and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people were Ali Mahdi and Mohammed Aideed. The US made a mistake by not cooperating with the UN headquarters, the UN made a mistake by undertaking a massive operation when clearly it has no capability, Boutros-Ghali made the mistake of pushing for more military action threatening the lives of peacekeepers without foreseeing the possible responses from the militias. In this tragedy even BBC can be held responsible for publicizing Oakley plucking the bird plan to the Somalis. The bottom-line of all this is that UN failed in an impossible mission of turning Somalia into a better place to live.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Conference Report. 1994. The United Nations, Peacekeeping, and US policy in the post Cold-War World. Queenstown: Aspin Institute.

 Lyons, T., 1995. Somalia: State Collapse, Multilateral Intervention, and Strategies for Political Construction. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution.

Durch, W., 1996. “Introduction to Anarchy: Humanitarian Intervention and State Building in Somalia in UN Peacekeeping, American Politics and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s. New York: St. Martins Press.

Putman, R., 1997. Disarming Somalia: The Contrasting Fortunes of United States and Australian Peacekeepers during UN Intervention. African Affairs, 96(385): 509-533.

Hirsch, J., Oakley, R., 1995. Somalia and Operation Restore Hope: Reflections on Peacemaking and Peacekeeping. Washington D.C.: US Institute of Peace Press.

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