Somalia: 'Operation Restore Hope'

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Periodical article

Title:	Somalia: 'Operation Restore Hope'
Author:	Baynham, Simon
Year:	1993
Periodical:	Africa Insight
Volume:	23
Issue:	1
Pages:	17-23
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Somalia
Subjects:	civil wars military intervention UN international relations Politics and Government Women's Issues Military, Defense and Arms
Abstract:	This paper examines the background to the 1992 USA/UN intervention in Somalia. The article explores, first, the events leading to the deposition of President Siyad Barre in January 1991. Second, it focuses on the factors that led to the August 1992 decision of the UN Security Council to authorize a food airlift which, in turn, paved the way for the deployment of over 35,000 troops to the stricken State of war-torn Somalia. More specifically, the paper examines what lay behind the chronic 32-month conflict which climaxed in a rebel encirclement of the capital, Mogadishu, and the virtual destruction of the city's infrastructure and communications in late 1990/early 1991. For as Somalia shuffled off the last remnants of Siyad's political stranglehold, new depths of intercommunal animosity were breached as the country descended into an unchartered abyss of violence, pestilence and famine. 'Operation Restore Hope' was the international community's response to the Somali tragedy. Notes, ref.