Beach Boys in Somalia

The last UN peacekeepers pulled out of Mogadishu in 1995 -- and within hours, the two thousand strong force of US and Italian combat troops sent in to protect the withdrawal operation also shipped out. A small group of reporters, including myself, was in one of the last waves of US amphibious vessels to leave the beach in the oceanside Somali capital. I filed this report looking back at the UN’s two-year mission in Somalia --- relevant today as plans evolve to put a new batch of peacekeepers there.

A Somali woman who once worked for the United Nations in Mogadishu now fears the worst. With the last peacekeeping contingent gone, she believes Somalia will again fall prey to the terror of bad men with guns. She says she and her family will have to escape -- in her words, just as the United Nations is doing.

The world community became deeply involved in Somalia in late 1992, as famine and civil war ravaged the country and images of death triggered action by a multi-national coalition.

It was initially a humanitarian mission, with US and other troops dispatched solely to safeguard the delivery of relief supplies.

Later, though, the UN operation shifted focus -- and tried to bring Somalia its first government since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre fled in 1991.

But the task of promoting reconciliation among rival clan and faction leaders, each with their own ambitions, proved to be a fruitless one, especially after UN troops appeared to take sides -- engaging in bloody street clashes with militia loyal to one faction chief, Mohamed Farah Aideed. Even when various cooperation agreements were hammered out in painstaking negotiations, none were honored or implemented.


Ultimately, a frustrated UN security council decided to terminate the effort and ordered peacekeeping forces out of the country.

What went wrong? Daniel Simpson is (was in 1995) the US special envoy to Somalia.

“The world may have bitten off more than it could chew in terms of trying to bring the Somalis to a government."

He says the United Nations tried many approaches in a bid to promote peace but to no avail.

"None of them worked very well or some of them worked partly but we never really quite got there because the Somalis themselves lacked the will to form a government."

Ambassador Simpson says the world now understands Somalia better than it did before its intervention -- maybe well enough to realize that only Somalis themselves can decide their own fate.

"People who look at the Somali situation now with even a small amount of optimism operate from the premise that it may be that now that the foreigners are actually leaving Somalia, the Somalis themselves may be able to get together, close the door, inside the family and say, okay, now it's time to wrap it up and make a government."

But there is little optimism in Somalia at the moment -- and some observers fear the country may be in line for yet another convulsive outburst of violence despite the apparent war-weariness of many Somalis.

And that could mean Somalia will go back to square one, back to the anarchic way things were in 1992 before the United Nations intervened. The only difference this time is that no one outside of Somalia is likely to care enough to try to come to its assistance once again.

As the final 1995 pullout of peacekeepers was under way, there were charges by some Somali militia commanders that US marines protecting the UN withdrawal from Mogadishu unnecessarily opened fire on Somali gunmen, killing and wounding several of them without justification. I was with the American forces on the sand dunes overlooking Mogadishu airport during one shooting incident. And in that one, the Marines appeared to act with great deliberation before firing.

“Break break. This is two-four. Be advised we are in control of this. We have eyes on target over... “

The young Somali man wearing a brightly colored shirt and carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, or RPG, was walking about Mogadishu airfield in plain sight of the Marines. Having taken three RPG shots over their position on a sand dune the previous night, the Marines were watching him very carefully.

The man was no more than 250 meters away -- one of a group of about a dozen or so armed Somalis who had been going in and out of what was apparently a makeshift weapons storage bunker. The Marines wanted the man with the r-p-g to go away, far away, out of range of the nearby beach where US navy landing craft were putting ashore.

A US military psychological operations loudspeaker vehicle with a Somali speaking translator was first summoned to issue a verbal warning.

The translator explained what he said.

“I was telling him -- the guy who is armed with RPG -- get out of that bunker. get out of that bunker. We told him that we not accept this kind of guns. They are danger to us and we will take him out (kill) if he won't get out of there.”

But the gunman would not listen. He continued to move about. The loudspeaker warnings were repeated.

Suddenly shots ring out -- lots of them. They were warning shots in the air and they were followed by another Somali language warning.

“I was telling him you see what happened so if you ever try it again we have deadly weapon.”

This was followed by a five-minute warning.

(Radio) "Give 'em about five minutes to get out of there.
(Commander) Roger, do you want me to give the bunker a countdown every minute on the minute for five mikes. Break. And then return fire on the bunker?
(Radio) That's affirmative. Go ahead and give them a five minute count starting now and tell them they can leave at this point. Give them a countdown, and then at the five minute point if they have not left, give them one more warning and we'll fire a couple more warning shots not directed at the individuals.”
(Commander) Roger oh-six.”

Several armed men left the bunker during the five minute window, carrying heavy weapons. But some went back. And others merely moved to a nearby hangar. The threat remained.

Gunshots rang out.

The threat was removed. Later at least two bodies were seen being dragged away.


After the withdrawal operation was completed, Marine Lt. Gen. Anthony Zinni, the commander of the force that landed at Mogadishu, said the Somali deaths were his one main regret.

“If I had one thing I would have liked to have been able to say now is that there wasn't one Somali life lost. But unfortunately there were incidents where we had to act and they were few, they were rare.”

General Zinni said he believed his forces, most of them young men, acted with great restraint -- often with even more restraint than he would have showed given the tense moments on the beach.

The withdrawal of UN peacekeeping troops from Somalia was protected by a US Marine contingent that landed at Mogadishu for 73-hours during the withdrawal operation. I was among a small group of reporters who stayed with the Marines until they too withdrew and in this report looked back at those final moments -- on the sand and at sea.

At the end, it was almost idyllic…for a while. The last dozen or so reporters, photographers and cameramen on Mogadishu’s beach with the last 200 or so US Marines were sitting on the sand, gazing up at the sky. Not only were there stars to enjoy but a spectacular light show as well. The Marines were firing off bright illumination flares.

On at least two occasions after nightfall, though, red streaks of tracer bullets also shot out across the sky.

Some of the gunfire was heading out from Marine positions toward positions where armed Somali militia were located; but some was heading back toward the Marines and the press group, which took shelter in the center of a circle of armored vehicles.

It was in the midst of one of those firefights that the press departed -- on the last US Navy hovercraft to come ashore. This futuristic-looking machine, one that would not seem out of place in a science-fiction movie, is officially known as an LCAC, which stands for landing craft air cushioned.

It roared onto the beach in a huge plume of water and sand, deafening all within earshot.

We were rushed aboard and seated in a kind of shipping container with seats -- seats coated in sand from previous passengers and dripping with sea water from tiny leaks around the ventilation hatches. It was hot and stuffy and the sand and water proved to be an abrasive mix for any exposed flesh as the LCAC rumbled and bounced over the waves. But so what? It would only be a 20 minute ride to the USS Belleau Wood, the amphibious assault ship standing by at sea off the Somali coast to recover the LCAC.

Twenty minutes later, we did reach a ship -- but it was not the Belleau Wood. This was not the express train, it was the local and this stop was simply one to pick up more passengers.

The Belleau Wood, we were later told, was just two thousand meters away. But we did not get there for another five hours -- five long hours during which the LCAC roared around the ocean in circles, five long hours in which I became convinced the only rational explanation for this tortuous experience was that we had all died. One reporter became sick but was kindly told by a Marine colonel that it was okay, she could throw up on him.

The reason for our misery was that the Belleau Wood was otherwise occupied, too occupied to take us in -- and for good reason. The last marines to leave Mogadishu beach left after us in amphibious assault vehicles (AAV), a kind of ocean-going armored car -- and several of these ended up having a difficult time of it in the heaving seas. One of the AAV's, as they are called, nearly swamped. It was the one carrying the commander of the ground force, Marine Lt. Gen. Anthony Zinni. Hours later, in the officers' wardroom on the Belleau Wood, he spoke to us about what happened.

“I was rescued at sea this morning so for all of you who were unhappy about being in an LCAC, I was adrift in an AAV for over two hours with about 18 other sick Marines and we came through the hatch to jump from the AAV in high winds and swelling seas over to a small boat and eventually transferred to another boat so about six o clock this morning I washed up in the wet well here (Belleau Wood) literally and waded ashore like MacArthur and ended the operation on a high note, I guess.”

But in recognition of the hardships we had put up with, not just that night at sea but also during the even longer and hotter fly-plagued days on Mogadishu beach, General Zinni made all of us in the press group honorary Marines. He gave us each a special coin with the Marine Corps emblem to prove it, too. I just hope it does not obligate me to taking any more hovercraft rides.