European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 5, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse Beyond guns an what makes by Vince Crawley Stalf writer viewing Somalia from inside the fortified Gates of . Compounds in South Mogadishu is like trying to View America from behind police barricades in South Central los Angeles. In a tiny grass hut Village far outside the town of Bairoa and even farther from of Mogadishu Muslim Farmers gathered last month in their parched Fields on the Edge of a Region once known As the breadbasket of Northeast Africa. Even in the Best of times Somalia depends As much on the uncertainties of Indian Ocean monsoons As it does on the Goodwill of the United nations. People from the West can bring seeds and tools and Medicine to Somalia one Farmer said stoically but Only Allah can bring rain. As if to prove that this violent ungoverned land is not completely Godforsaken torrential rainstorms followed within Days flooding roads and Fields. This is a country of extremes. Somalia one year after the . Marines stormed the beaches of Mogadishu is at a Crossroads in its unhappy history. The famine has been declared Over. Photographs of starving children with sunken Eye sockets Are no longer the country a chief Export. In fact livestock sales a mainly camels and goats to saudi Arabia a were s27 million for the first half of this year comparable to sales figures before the civil War. But other nations restless and wary after a year of trying to Send food and order to a Lawless country Are growing impatient. And even those somalis who have warred with the United nations say their country needs More time to rebuild before it can make its own Way. A Somalia is the name of a country a people and a Way of life. A roughly translated the word Means a Friendship by drinking camels milk a said Kent Elliott a former army Green Beret turned humanitarian worker who has shared Camel milk with somali holy men. It is a gesture of respect and dignity among the nomadic herdsmen who make up As much As three quarters of the population. A somalis would never say they Are africans Quot said a worker with care teaches Medicine to Village women near Bairoa Somalia. Ss9 Van Cal Craw toy Ann Morris an australian nurse who has spent More than two years in the country. Quot they would say they Are _. Out in the Bush where somalis live in Rural grass huts and broken houses of War wrecked towns old men called elders sit beside their radios each night at 9 . And listen to the news of the world on the bbl shortwave service. Afterwards they gather their villagers a actually extended families a a and repeat what they heard on the news. Then they Tell stories of their clan so that children can recite their history of 25 generations. The evening ritual is concluded by the retelling of proverbs that define and codify the Laws of the stun. Beware the male Goat that sucks his own breast says one such proverb. By tradition these people come from the euphrates Valley now Iraq the Cradle of civilization and the Birthplace of the biblical somalis entered Africa by Way of the Sinai. They Trace their beginnings to two Brothers named Samall and Saab who were members of the arabic tribe of Moham Mcd the founder of islam scholars say it is More Likely that arabic Mer. Chants converted the natives to islam while trading along Somalia a red sea and Indian Ocean ports. The truth May never be known. Unlike the do can dents of most euphrates people somalis did t put their language in writing until the second half of this Century. The written language based on the Western alphabet was not formally adopted until the 1970s. Even now the culture is passed by word of Mouth by proverbs and the Complex stories of the elders. It is these nomadic ciders and their extraordinary ability to memorize their unwritten history who define what remains of the battered somali civilization. Following a Century of British and italian colonialism Somalia spent nine years As an unsteady democracy before military revolutionaries led by Gen. Siad Barre took Over of oct. 21, 1969, another revolution began in 1988 As somalis from the North in eluding a Man named Mohamed Farrah aided attempted to overthrow the Barre dictatorship. Aided had been jailed for years under the Barre regime before fleeing to Ethiopia. After three years of sporadic fighting ethnic cleansing and scorched Earth warfare Barre was overthrown in january 1991. For another two years 1 continued on Page 6 continued from Page 4 i. To the Middle East when they deployed for the Gulf War. His assignments took him to Dhahran and Riyadh saudi Arabia Bahrain and Kuwait City. He later helped open a refugee Camp in Safwan Iraq. On this night Elliott wore a to shirt shorts and flip flops As he spoke about humanitarian work and affairs in Somalia. He says that when he came to Somalia in 1992, he thought the country was like any other african nation. Now he views Somalia in a totally different Light. The country is far More diversified than he realized. The diversity stems from the fact that Somalia s forebears migrated to East Africa from Mesopotamia what is now Iraq. The clan Structure that forms the basis for somali culture has been ripped apart by the civil War Elliott says. He believes More should be done to disarm soldiers who fought in the civil War and returned to their villages to find the fabric of their clan to ased society frayed and tattered. Once herders and Farmers a have seen the City a Elliott says a a it a very difficult to get them Back to the those who do return Are armed and accustomed to settling matters at gunpoint. That has made a humanitarians role More delicate As he tries to help somalis through this transitional period. The Carrot that humanitarians tangle is the Promise of steady Progress in return for Protection. Elliott says his staff is prepared. A if this thing were to it fall apart we would be the besi persons to corrects the situation Elliott says. A fall four of us Are very committed to Somalia. We be Here if we a we know we have done a very Good Job up to this Poirot a Elliott adds. A the people Are healthy smiling and laughing Quot Exner Loo tries to laugh about her current state which struck at a most Inopportune time her ,35th birthday. Its the second time Exner has contracted malaria a a disease transmitted by the bile of mosquitoes causing periodic attacks of chills and fever. The first time was when she worked with the peace corps in the West african nation of niger. Exner remembers As a fifth grader being enthralled by tales of a missionary who came to her childhood Home in Philadelphia it the request of an older brother. The brother ended up going to the air Force Academy. The missionary got her a hooked on the third Exner jokes aloud about whether her human Tarj an work is the result of the a Catholic guilt stuff that was ingrained in her. Exner then addresses what she believes is the real reason people gravitate to humanitarian work. White Exner refers to her four month old position with care As a the hardest Job in be Ever had in my life a she nonetheless finds the work personally rewarding. That s something that can t be masked she says. What also can to be masked is the daunting Job still facing humanitarian organizations in Somalia. Morris says the key is to help somalis without imposing Western ways. Quot somali people Are very Tough a Morris says. A they did no to sit around for 2,0tx years waiting for us to come december 5, 1993 sunday Page 5
