|
Somalia Relations with the United States
Prior to the Ogaden War, Somalia had been allied with the
Soviet Union, and its relations with the United States were
strained. Largely because the Soviet Union sided with Ethiopia in
the Ogaden War, a United States-Somali rapprochement began in
1977 and culminated in a military access agreement in 1980 that
permitted the United States to use naval ports and airfields at
Berbera, Chisimayu, and Mogadishu, in exchange for military and
economic aid. The United States subsequently refurbished
facilities originally developed by the Soviet Union at the Gulf
of Aden port of Berbera. The United States Rapid Deployment Force
used Berbera as a base for its Operation Bright Star exercises in
1981, and American military advisers were permanently stationed
there one year later. Somali military units participated in
Operation Bright Star joint maneuvers in 1985. The base at
Berbera was used in the fall of 1990 during the deployment of
personnel and supplies to Saudi Arabia in preparation for the
Persian Gulf War.
Controversy over the Siad Barre government's human rights policies clouded
the future of United States military cooperation with Somalia. Siad Barre's
policy of repression in the north aroused criticism of his regime in the United
States Congress, where the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives
held extensive hearings during July 1988 on human rights abuses in Somalia.
In 1989, under congressional pressure, the administration of President George
Bush terminated military aid to Somalia, although it continued to provide food
assistance and to operate a small International Military Education and Training
program (see Foreign
Military Assistance , ch. 5). In 1990 Washington revealed that Mogadishu
had been in default on loan repayments for more than a year. Therefore, under
the terms of the Brooke Amendment, this meant that Somalia was ineligible to
receive any further United States aid. During the height of the fighting in
Mogadishu in January 1991, the United States closed its embassy and evacuated
all its personnel from the country. The embassy was ransacked by mobs in the
final days of the Siad Barre regime. The United States recognized the provisional
government shortly after its establishment. Since the outbreak of the civil
war, the United States has consistently urged all parties to come together to
resolve their dispute by peaceful means. The United States government has supported
the territorial unity of Somalia and as of May 1992 has refused to recognize
the independence of northern Somalia proclaimed by the SNM.
|
