Dokument #1215661
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Autor)
The escalation of the civil conflict in
northern Somalia since May 1988 has been of serious concern to the
international community. To this end, the U.S. government, which
has been the main arms supplier to Somalia in return for access to
port and air facilities there, has commissioned two fact-finding
missions during 1989. One of these missions, the U.S. General
Accounting Office, reported that "The Somali army reportedly
responded to the SNM attacks in May 1988 with extreme force,
inflicting heavy civilian casualties and damage to Hargeisa and
Burao. As a result, 350,000 Issaqs fled to Ethiopia, and others
fled to neighbouring countries and other parts of Somalia". [ U.S.
General Accounting Office, Somalia: Observations Regarding the
Northern Conflict and Resulting Conditions (Washington, 4 May
1989), p. 2.] A 65-page report prepared in August 1989 for the U.S.
Department of State's Bureau for Refugee Programs accused the
Somali Armed Forces of "a widespread, systematic and extreme
violent assault on the unarmed civilian Issaq population of
northern Somali" and of rounding-up and murdering, "mainly by
having their throats cut", at least 500 Issaq men in Berbera alone.
The report also includes new evidence of the Somali government's
forcible conscription of Ethiopian refugees from UNHCR camps, "in
violation of the conditions which govern their
internationally-protected status, and notwithstanding vigorous
protests by the UNHCR". [ Robert Gersony, Why Somalis Flee
(Washington, August 1989), pp. 60-61.]
Because of the Somali government's human
rights abuses in general and the widespread atrocities during its
anti-SNM drive in particular, the U.S. government has reportedly
suspended $21.5 million in economic aid and $2.5 million in
military assistance, according to The Washington Post. [
David Ottaway, "5,000 Somalis Reported Killed by Army", The
Washington Post, 10 September 1989.] Britain and Italy have
also either curtailed or completely suspended the provision of
arms. [ Richard Greenfield, "Somalia Slides into Chaos", New
African, November 1989, p. 10.]
Several international human rights groups
have repeatedly accused the Siad Barre government of massive
summary executions and arbitrary detention without trial of members
of the Issaq clan, from which the SNM is said to draw most of its
support. One such report by Amnesty International, Imprisonment
of Members of the Issaq Clan Since Mid-1988, is attached
herewith. For other similar reports, please refer to: U.S.
Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
for 1988 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1989); Human
Rights Watch and Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Critique:
Review of the Department of State's Country reports on Human Rights
Practices for 1988 (New York, July 1989); and Keesing's
Record of World Events 1988, Vol. 34 (London: Longman Group UK
Ltd., 1988).