Sir, – In dismissing calls for the intervention of UN peacekeepers in Somalia (Editorial, July 29th), you make an appeal for informed debate.
I agree, of course, that such debate is needed, with only one proviso: discussions are all very well, as long as we bear in mind that while these are taking place, people are dying of starvation.
Time is of the essence, four million people are trapped inside Somalia, unable to leave and unable to be reached, because of threats to aid workers from warring factions. Warlords have said they would rather the people starved than accept Western food aid.
The United Nations has talked of dropping supplies from the air into the worst-affected areas, but even if enough supplies could be parachuted into terrorist-controlled regions to influence a tragedy on this scale, which is extremely doubtful, they would in all likelihood be seized by the armed groups.
The head of the UN’s World Food Programme, Josette Sheeran, acknowledged only a few days ago that her agency simply has no hope of reaching in excess of two million starving human beings.
There are also suggestions that Western agencies may be able to use locally based groups to distribute aid. Again, this is fanciful. Do we imagine for a minute that every faction will stand by and allow such distributions to happen?
The most obvious solution is for UN peacekeepers to enter Somalia, and create safe corridors that would allow the aid agencies to mount a meaningful relief operation. Yet, for some reason, this seems to be the only option that the UN, and others, are not giving serious consideration to.
Why is that?
It isn’t as though similar operations haven’t been mounted in the past. For instance, almost immediately after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, US military personnel moved to secure corridors so that aid agencies could work in safety, protected from the attentions of criminal gangs and escaped convicts.
The UN doesn’t normally have any compunction about intervening in countries on behalf of populations. On the contrary, these are most often the reasons it does enter a country.
The UN currently has peacekeepers deployed in 16 different locations on four continents, among them Irish troops serving in Lebanon.
Goal does not pretend that it necessarily has the definitive solution, but we do have experience of numerous tragedies, such as those of Cambodia, Rwanda, Democratic Republic Congo and the Ethiopia famine of 1984/86, and of what happens when the international community does not send in peacekeepers to keep warring factions apart.
The absolute absurdity would be to stand aside from Somalia, debating theoretical points around sensitivities, while millions of people remain under immediate threat from starvation and militias.
I would be delighted to hear a rational alternative to UN peacekeepers. – Yours, etc,