The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

ian assistance effort, and implementing an immediate ceasefire among
the warring groups. Such resolutions also provided for the deployment
of UN observers to monitor the ceasefire in Mogadishu. However, nei -
ther could the ceasefire be monitored, nor could the assistance effort
be protected from the heavily armed militia groups. That same year,
another resolution was passed, calling for the deployment of thousands
of armed troops to protect and facilitate the distribution of a large-scale
humanitarian intervention effort in Somalia. This coincided with the US
presidential election in which President George Bush Sr. was running
for re-election against Bill Clinton; he supported the deployment of American
troops in Somalia to facilitate the distribution of the much-needed
humanitarian aid. Other countries such as Italy, France, Germany and
my adopted country Canada also sent troop contingents.
In November 1992, these multinational troops entered Somalia, enabling
the international aid agencies to return and re-establish their life saving
activities. Their presence also discouraged the warlords and armed militias
from looting the humanitarian assistance, and enabled aid agencies
to distribute humanitarian aid packages to dying people in various locations
in Somalia. In addition, both the USA and the UN attempted to facilitate
political reconciliations amongst the warring groups in Somalia.
However, these attempts failed because the warlords were not willing
to reconcile and stop the violence. The UN peacekeepers, including the
US troops, thereupon attempted to forcibly disarm the warlords and their
armed militias, particularly Mohamed Ali Farrah Aydid, leading to ten -
sions between the two. In June 1993, one of the warlords and an armed
militia group belonging to Aydid, killed twenty-four Pakistani peacekeepers
when they attempted to seize weapons from the Mogadishu radio
station controlled by Aydid and his militia. The tension then worsened,
resulting in the killing of nineteen US marines and hundreds of Somalis.
The dead body of one of the marines was dragged by an angry mob
through the streets of Mogadishu. In response, the US government placed
a reward of $25,000 on Aydid’s head; in 1994, he was killed by a stray
bullet. In March 1994, the United States pulled its troops out of Somalia,
and other countries followed suit. The withdrawal of international peacekeepers
from Somalia meant that Somalia and its people lost a golden
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