From the Radio Free Michigan archives ftp://141.209.3.26/pub/patriot If you have any other files you'd like to contribute, e-mail them to bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu. ------------------------------------------------ Somalia, UN, RKBA & Libertarianism, John R. Donahue From: jrdonahu@COLBY.EDU (John R. Donahue) I promised this list stories about my experiences in Mogadishu Somalia. Each time I've written it became too long and wordy. Although I think I have interesting stories, who really has time to wade through it all for the pertinent firearms and libertarian specifics. Therefore this is a truncated version and if this generates discussion or debate I will elaborate. I spent 8 days in Mogadishu, Somalia installing a network to support relief operations for the U.N. I was warned before I went that the U.N. is staffed by "Jaguar Liberals" and that is the sense I came away with after observing the U.N. employees myself. I lived very well. The compound I slept in, my home, was two blocks away from the work compound, UNOSOM,(United Nations Operations Somalia) My home was a mansion, and for my $10/day I received 3 great meals, a bed, 24 hour guards, with maid and laundry service. The furnishings were exquisite much better than I own or can ever hope to own. The domestic help was Somali. I do not know what they were paid but I felt they were treated poorly by the U.N. personnel who ran the compound. The cook was new to the house because the woman manager was horribly fussy. She fired and hired a new cook every week. She wanted the food prepared exactly the way she wanted it, and served to proper western standards of etiquite. I was always uncomfortable when she joined us for dinner because she spent more time in the kitchen chewing out the cook and servers than she did eating. I felt like a colonialist because when I came home from work I got my cold shower, had a martini on the patio overlooking the city and then looked forward to a meal of fish, lamb, vegetables, breads, wine and dessert. (At every meal ...) The Somali employees except for the cook went with the house. They were relatives of the woman owner who lives in Washington, D.C. and charges the U.N. $5000 a month rent. They lived in the garage and under the carport out back. They had families who were not allowed in the compound. The families were supposed to stay outside and they were always there when we went in and out of the gate. I did observe the guards letting the families into the compound at night after we all were thought to be asleep. My home had about 9-12 "westerners" living in it, including 3 U.S. military, two officers and a corporal guard/driver. On the last night I was there we had a party, a weekly event. All the residents were there and other U.N. employees who lived in another compound nicer than mine. We had wontons, shish khabab (?sp), fish, lobster and wine that cost $350/bottle. It was a great party but I could not stop thinking about the Somali's who were living in the street on the other side of the wall. Employees of the U.N. make good money. A woman who worked with a member of my group for the state department went to work for the U.N. and tripled her salary on top of having housing, food, medical and transportation paid. (That's our tax money at work ...) At UNOSOM the story was the same, except there were more Somali workers. There were drivers and guards to take you anywhere you wanted to go. I could have hopped a plane and gone anywhere in the country. Every morning the U.N. cars were washed and waxed. Maybe it was make work for the Somali's. The U.N. does want to pump money into the economy and it is better to work for something than to have it handed to you. But it was an attitude on the U.N.'s part that I found objectionable and hard to put into words. I am a commoner and I think the Somali's were made to feel like commoners also. As if the U.N. was saying, you screwed up your country and we had to come here and fix it for you. As I was leaving the U.N. was instituting wage and rent controls. Somali's were changing jobs and working for the highest bidder. Owners of compounds were evicting the workers of one relief agency because another was willing to pay more rent. All this change hurt the relief effort so the U.N. was doing its best to put a stop to it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GUNS, GUNS and more GUNS !!!!!!!!!! Somalia is awash in firearms. Along with all kinds of great military hardware there were many personal firearms. At UNOSOM was CMOC, the Civilian Military Operations Center. The 3 residents at my home worked in that office. I hung around that office and with them as much as possible. One of their functions was to track confiscated firearms. There was always a pile of AK-47's sitting in the corner ... It is my opinion that the Military is not out to disarm the Somali people. They do want weapons off the street but they do not care what you have as long as it is not out in the open and a potential threat to U.S. soldiers. I quote the Colonel. "It would be impossible to confiscate all the weapons. We can never get all the guns. I would not want to because they need them to protect themselves." When the troops first arrived there was no ban on any weapons. But they wanted them off the streets. The first weapons to go were the technical vehicles. So they printed up little leaflets just like in Desert Storm stating that "NEXT WEEK" technical vehicles are banned. If you are caught with one it will be taken away from you. Some were stupid enough to not take the hint and had their vehicles confiscated. Most, probably 90% are stored in garages or hidden out in the desert somewhere. The military does not care as long as they are off the streets. Slowly they added other weapons to the list all with the same week of warning. I saw the hassle the CMOC soldiers went through every day dealing with confiscated weapons. People were always coming in pleading for their guns back but they could not have them. The military strongly sympathised but they were following their orders. As I watched locals arguing with the CMOC officers and how hard the officers worked to be fair and placate the Somali's I just pictured what it would be like for the soldiers doing the same thing in the U.S. They as a group were very pro-RKBA and I imagine their attitude with enforcing similar laws in the U.S. would be pure frustration and demoralizing. I was not aware of it until I went, but the relief agencies carry firearms also. I could not believe that the workers from CARE, Catholic Relief Services and all the rest are running around Somalia with AK-47's. But they are. Every U.N. vehicle you see on TV has a driver and a guard with a weapon. The military did not discrimnate when they confiscated weapons. They took them from the relief agencies also. It got so bad that they were shutting down the relief operations. CARE could not do its work without self defense. So CMOC started a permit system (Yeah that's bad but ...). I was there when this system was started and they were returning the guns to relief agencies but not to Somali civilians. I wish I could show the pictures I have of me holding an AK-47 and kneeling in front of the pile of weapons before they were returned. THe vast majority were AK's. THere were a few M-16's stamped U.S. Gov't Property - Not for Sale. And about a 5-6 handguns. The guns ranged from top of the line Soviet made to obvious home grown. Some even had baby blue plasitc stocks ... The oddest thing was they all had the front sight and barrel sawed off. According to the gunnery Sgt. in charge, they do that because it stops the barrel from riding up into the air when fired automatically. || -------------------------------------------------------- | Normal Barrel | -------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------\ \ Doctored Barrel \------ | -------------------------------------------------------- I took a tour with the CMOC officers of the city. It was my only chance to see more than a two block area. It was like being in prison because we could not freely move around. I was ready to hop into the Hum-Vee unprotected but the Col. found a helmet and flak jacket for me to wear. Here it was 100 degrees + and these soldiers are running around with, full uniform, helmet and flak jacket with about an inch of insulation. It was a great tour even drove through the Khat market. I did not try any but others who had said it was not much ... They have no intention of banning Khat, it is too much a part of the society. (Our guards recevied a fresh shipment every afternoon.) In driving around we all held small clubs and constantly watched the crowds. Someone was always trying to get close enough to steal something. Both officers I was with had had their glasses ripped off their faces. One managed to chase his thief down and paid $5 to get them back. There were no incidents when I drove with them, but the next day they received sniper fire. Someone just took a couple of pot-shots at them and disappeared into the crowd. One of the nicest/worst impressions I got while touring was the same event. As we cruised through the streets little children would shout and run after us yelling "America, America". It was just like we see in WWII movies in Europe. However, I did not see anyone older than 8 shout to us in greeting. If anything the older citizens just stared or gave us the finger. I realised what we are asking our troops to do over there with one incident that happened to the corporal living at my house. While waiting in his humvee, outside a compound, a truck with a loud speaker and about 8 Somali's pulled up. They were broadcasting propaganda against the U.N. and foreign troops. When they saw the corporal all by himself, they started motioning with knives across their necks. The Cpl. thought they were going to kill him. So he calmly, got out of the humvee, while chambering a round in his M-16. As he did this he realised that for the first time in his life the gun was jammed and there was no way he could unjam it without their knowing it. So he stood there for 10 minutes wearing his best poker face and stared them down ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overall it was a great experience. It was far less dangerous than I imagined. I only heard about a dozen shots the whole time I was there. The overall impression I have is that the Somali people are happy to have the U.S. troops there. We have credibility with them. They are not happy with the U.N. because of their colonialist tendencies. I almost forgot to mention two things about Nairobi, Kenya. I stayed there two nights while waiting for a flight out. 1) Just about every store has private security guards usually two or three hanging around out front. I initially thought there were tons of cops on the street but they all had different uniforms. The real police are not particularly helpful and moderately corrupt ... 2) There is very little street crime in the city. Two weeks before I arrived a man robbed someone in front of my hotel. The victim yelled to the crowd and pointed to the thief as he ran. The crowd chased the man down and kicked him to death ... The police showed up 20 minutes later and threw the body into the trunk. ------------------------------------------------ (This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the Radio Free Michigan archives by the archive maintainer. All files are ZIP archives for fast download. E-mail bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu)