SOMALIA HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION 1992-1993 by G. P. ...

664 G. P. Valladares
During discussion, over this resolution many states made reference to the
unique case of the situation in Somalia: anarchy, devastation, general starvation,
and so on. And, although it counted on some international elements as the result of
threats to the personnel of UNOSOM and the flow of refugees to neighbouring
countries, there was nothing that could be compared with the threats to
international peace and security made to neighbouring states, as it was the case in
Irak and Liberia.
In this resolution the "Humanitarian" aspect was mentioned eighteen times;
this broke a record.
Operative Paragraph 10 uses the same language as the one used in
Resolution 768, when the Security Council authorized military actions against Irak,
basically because, so as to attain the objective for the sake of which they were
authorized to make use of any means they considered necessary, they were much
more limited in Resolution 794 than in Resolution 678.
On the other hand. this fostered that the use of force would not be used on a
big scale.
There are two problems which were not solved in the Operation "Restore
Hope". As regards:
a) There was no coherent policy of disarmament.
b) The way in which Somalia should have been administered.
At the beginning the Secretary-General had declared that effort were also
needed to create the necessary political conditions for Somalia to solve its political
and economic problems.
Finally, Roberts concludes that we are dealing with case of Humanitarian
Intervention undoubtedly (*)
We can conclude that Somalia has revealed serious failures in the United
Nations workings, but, at the same time, we must admit that there had never been a
possibility to put into use the mechanisms stated in the Charter until now.
Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that it is just a question of time.
Then, we must appeal to the profitable use of patience and assume that the
New World Order will force all of us to learn from the probable mistakes we will
make at each new operation that will arise in the years to come, and, especially, in
cases of Humanitarian Intervention.