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Aydiid opens up to outside world as UN reports "visible" starvation
August 7, 1996
New Somali warlord Hussein Aydiid, a former US marine, is taking a conciliatory line towards the outside world as the United Nations reports "very visible" starvation in this anarchic Horn of Africa nation.
But the fine print of Aydiid's stance means that relief and development agencies are unlikely to resume major operations any time soon in the territory he controls, aid workers said Wednesday.
Hussein's father, General Mohamed Farah Aydiid, who was wounded in a Mogadishu battle on July 25 and died August 1, accused the European Union of aiding his rivals, thus helping their war effort.
That line was repeated in an interview Saturday by Jama Mohamed Ghalib, the hard-line "foreign minister" in the unrecognised government General Aydiid set up last June. But the young Aydiid, who is only 33, said Tuesday that he would "open up doors" to the EU.
He also took pains to praise the position of the United States, where he lived for 16 years, despite his father's humbling of US troops in 1993.
Hussein Aydiid arrived with the marines that year as part of a US intervention force and was appointed to carry out liaison with his father, but was sent back to the United States as General Aydiid's supporters dragged the bodies of slain US troops through the streets of the capital.
The US force made a humiliating withdrawal in March of 1994 and UN troops -- equally humbled -- departed a year later.
The "foreign minister" spoke of US President Bill Clinton's "hatred" for General Aydiid, but the young Aydiid told reporters Tuesday the US attitude was "nothing towards me."
The Pentagon said Tuesday that Aydiid is still a member of the marines but he has failed to show up for drills since September 1995.
To the Somali people, the United States had been "very good always, except during the intervention," Aydiid said, adding that he believed that stance had now been "corrected." Many of his supporters remain violently anti-American, however, making his territory unsafe for westerners.
The Aydiid faction has a long-running feud with Sigurd Illing, the Nairobi-based EU special envoy to Somalia, who is also chairman of the inter-agency Somalia Aid Coordination Body.
They blame him for that body's policy that development aid is earmarked for regions that are at peace and have functioning administrations, which effectively excludes virtually all territory under the Aydiid faction's control, and General Aydiid declared Illing persona non grata last June.
The EU, which announced a two-year 60 million dollar grant in June, is the main supplier of development aid to this largely arid nation, devastated by clan wars since the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 after a bloody civil war.
Most expatriate relief personnel have pulled out because of the insecurity, leaving their operations to be run by local staff, or abandoning them altogether.
The UN children's agency UNICEF said in a report at the start of this month that "starvation is very visible" in all displaced persons' camps for thousands of Somalis fleeing the usually fertile Juba River valley, where crops have failed twice as a result of flooding, "particularly among older children, adults and parents."
Few Somali children receive regular schooling, and the infrastructure of the country has collapsed.
Doctors, except for a few from the international agency Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), work without electricity or proper equipment or drugs, and diseases such as cholera are endemic. Hussein Aydiid said Tuesday that "we will provide the necessary security for agencies so long as they remain professional and stick to their affairs."
At one point he said: "We are willing to give full cooperation to UN and international aid agencies -- there are no conditions set for that," but conditions did appear later in the interview with AFP and one other agency.
Aydiid, under coaching from his foreign minister, said aid agency personnel who landed in "enemy territory" such as north Mogadishu would continue to be refused permission to cross over to territory he controls.
The Aydiid faction demands that relief personnel land at the dangerous airports it controls and that they obtain "visas," thus implicitly recognising the "government" set up by General Aydiid.
The relief agencies refuse to do this.