Reviewed Work(s): UN Peacekeeping Operations in Somalia 1992-1995: A

ReviewPakistani Perspective by Yamin

Review by: Kulsoom BelalSource: Policy Perspectives , Vol. 16, No. 1 (2019), pp. 149-154
Published by: Pluto Journals

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/polipers.16.1.0149

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 Book Review
UN Peacekeeping Operations in Somalia 1992-1995: A Pakistani
Perspective (Karachi: Paramount Books, 2019).

Author: Tughral Yamin

Reviewed by: Kulsoom Belal

Given the fact that there is a nondescript peacekeeping literature on

Pakistan’s role in United Nations peacekeeping missions, Dr Tughral
Yamin’s latest book, UN Peacekeeping Operations in Pakistan in Somalia
1992-1995: A Pakistani Perspective, fills this gap in the knowledge by
bringing forth the contribution of Pakistan in Somalia from 1992-1995,
as he puts it, ‘a glamorized version of the heroics of US marines in the
streets of Mogadishu in the Hollywood film Black Hawk Down … has
presented a one-sided version of popular history.’ He laments, ‘what
little is known about the Pakistani participation in the peacekeeping
operations in Somalia is fast fading from public and personal memories
and may eventually be lost forever.’ Hence, this book not only highlights
and appreciates Pakistan’s global behavior and stance to conflicts
around the world but also makes a longitudinal qualitative study on the
incidents of UN operations in Somalia from a Pakistani perspective.

Dr Yamin, Associate Dean of Center for International Peace and

Stability (CIPS) at National University of Sciences and Technology
(NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan in his book gives details and insights of the
interviews he conducted with the military officials who had been a part
of UN operations in Somalia. making a pragmatic yet pensive analysis
of these operations in Somalia, namely United Nations Operation in
Somalia I (UNOSOM I), Unified Task Force (UNITAF) and United Nations
Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM II), showing his faith on the troops
sent by different countries, especially Pakistan, that earnestly strive to
establish peace elsewhere. Yamin addresses only moderately the
familiar dilemmas of UN peacekeeping, However, the individual chapters
of the book are comprehensive and underscore the importance of
Pakistan’s role in Somalia’s debacle.

Somalia: The Road to Debacle

There is vast literature on the debacle of Somalia describing the internal

strife in Somalia to UN resolutions culminating in the involvement of
multilateral peacekeeping force involving US largely, and also other


The author is a Researcher at the Institute of Policy Studies and teaches at the
University of Management and Technology (UMT), Sialkot, Pakistan.
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 Policy Perspectives Volume 16 Issue 1

significant countries such as Pakistan, Britain, Italy, France, etc. This

book gives a detailed account of the incidents of UN peacekeeping
operation from 1992-1995, with bold and detailed description of the
fallacies in strategies, wrong turns and shortcuts by the US and the UN.
It sheds light on different facets of Somali society, culture and history
to illuminate the readers about its geostrategic importance, sociopolitical
conditions and its inimitable complexities. Hence, the second and third
chapter of the book build an insightful view for the readers to understand
the causes of Somalian debacle.

Somalis are homogeneous people with almost all of them

professing the Islamic faith and following the Shafai’I Sunnis. However,
one may call it the legacy of Italian and British colonialism in Somalia
till 1960 which divided the society along the tribal lines. Hence, post-
Independence, one of the factors that significantly contributed to the
misery and conflict in Somalia was a highly decentralized government
and a society fractured along the lines of genealogy, a point Yamin has
discussed in detail.

Another reason for the conflict was the involvement of the

superpowers, which the author aptly describes as the battleground for
the superpowers. Post-independence, there was only a brief period
where Somalia survived a relative democracy marked by sporadic wars
with Kenya and Ethiopia for its irredentist claims, resulting often in
instability within the state. Yamin rightly describes the situation as ‘post
colonial British chicanery’ to ‘keep the region destabilized by handing
over parts of Somalia to Kenya and Ethiopia.’ This quasi-democracy fell
when Major General Muhammad Siad Barre seized power in 1969. Siad
made efforts to dismantle the clan system in Somalia and to create
alliance with the Soviet camp through his ‘scientific socialism,’ a concept
which Yamin compares with Bhutto’s Islamic socialism in Pakistan.

Siad Barre was not meant to be a Soviet Union’s favorite for long
when Emperor Haile Selassie fell in neighboring Ethiopia and its new
government of Lt. Col. Mengistu-Mariam embraced Marxism. The turmoil
in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia following the shifting internal power
gave impetus to Siad Barre to seize it in 1972. However, what ensued
was a superpower swap in the horn of Africa. Instead of supporting Siad
Barre, the Soviet Union switched sides with Ethiopia and Washington
which had been backing the Ethiopians supported Siad Barre. However,
all this drama came to an end when the Cold War ended in 1989 and
around the same time Siad Barre fled the country in 1991. What
remained of the US support to Siad to crush Mengistu and Soviet’s
support to Mengistu to humiliate Siad was domestic discontent and
dysfunctional government in both countries, guerilla war, abandoned

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 Book Review

arsenals prompting and fueling a civil war. Yamin describes the situation
in Somalia by drawing its parallel with Pakistan as, ‘after the end of the
Cold War, Somalia like Pakistan became a geo-strategic discard. The
global great game was over and the pawns on the international
chessboard had no more utility.’ In Somalia, an estimated 500,000 had
died of starvation and another 5 million were on the verge of dying
because of food shortage. Moreover, there were more than a million
people who were homeless or internally displaced. The author here
reminds that many Somalis also fled to Pakistan, where there is still a
small town in its capital Islamabad called the little Somalia.

The Civil War Erupts

The Ogaden disaster, along with Siad Barre’s discriminatory regime,

would unbridle an insurgency against him and by 1989-90, Somali
Armed Forces were fighting a weak battle on three fronts against the
opposition groups formed by different clans of Somalia. On the north-
east were Somali Salvation Domestic Font (SDF), on the north-west
were Somali National Movement and on the South were United Somali
Congress (USC). As predictable, Siad Barre’s base of power eventually
eroded and the country fell into the hands of clans provoking a violent
uprising.

While in the north the Isaaq clans formed an independent

Somaliland Republic, unrecognized internationally, the rivalry for power
erupted between within the USC dividing it into power contenders, Ali
Mahdi leading Somali Salvation Alliance (SSA) and Muhammad Farah
Aidid leading Somali National Alliance (SNA). Both factions looted and
plundered the country making locals flee from the country causing the
greatest humanitarian emergency in the world. While the author
explicates that the ‘most lucrative target was food aid being sent by the
international donors,’ it makes the reader question why Somalia was not
able to garner the attention of the UN when it was plunging into a civil
war and why the relief goods were sent to the country which became
the currency for warlords.

UN Peacekeeping and US Strategies

Dr Yamin details a scrupulous and vivid account of the day to day

peacekeeping operations in Somalia which at times also becomes
repetitive with some long-winding unpalatable details, written more in a
journalistic style. It is also felt that Yamin reserves his own views on the
UN and the success and failures of its peacekeeping. For example, Yamin
has three separate chapters forming a detailed account of peacekeeping
operations. However, he abstemiously discusses the inherent flaws in

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 Policy Perspectives Volume 16 Issue 1

the structure and policies of the UN which contributed to the

inadequacies of peacekeeping operations in Somalia. For instance,
Yamin states in the literature review that ‘after the end of the Cold War,
there was a marked increase in UN peacekeeping missions.’ However,
he does not state that the end of the Cold War actually ‘freed’ the UN to
become more assertive and that it had been paralyzed by the US-Soviet
rivalry which limited its intervention to places not vetoed by any of the
permanent members of the Security Council.

Another point that the readers would want to know is writer’s

standpoint on the profile and role of Boutros Boutros Ghali, the UN
Secretary General from 1991-1996. History is ambivalent about Ghali,
calling him a fiend, who tried to recklessly push his Agenda of Peace –
a policy which advocated the use of UN military force for peacekeeping
through disarmament, demobilization and reintegration—in Somalia
without much support from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
or the countries he sent the peacekeeping force to. At the same time,
he is remembered as a secretary general who presided over the three
largest UN operations in history, albeit this made UN a symbol of
mismanagement. Ghali also encountered many snares from Washington
for his efforts in Somalia which tried to limit his role by introducing
United Task Force that was supposed to report to Washington directly
initially. At one occasion Madeleine Albright, the chief US diplomat at the
UN bluntly told Ghali that US is shifting its course in Somalia after the
loss of American soldiers in Black Hawk Down incident. When the
relations between the two turned sour, the Clinton Administration even
tried to block his reelection as Secretary General.

Another aspect that requires more attention is the inherent

problems in the structure of UN peacekeeping missions. The author’s
vivid account of the operations in four years involving the UN, the US
and Pakistan shows that Somalia was a guinea pig for UN peacekeeping.
In the second half of the book, Yamin details how the UN operations in
Somalia were a picture of haphazard planning replete with mistakes and
lost opportunities. For e.g. the vague strategy by the UN and the US
which invaded Somalia without making an exit strategy and the unclear
purpose of the mission. Moreover, there were other problems such as
‘blue helmets’ are rarely able to strike fear in their enemy. They may
earn the goodwill of the locals but when it comes to using force for
peacekeeping, it often results in a severe backlash that brings more
harm than good. The foundational issue is that the peacekeeping force
is deployed for rehabilitation, not annihilation which is easier than the
latter. Moreover, military coordination, training in a new land, besides
the lingual challenge, makes peacekeeping operation a challenge within
itself. These issues may not be strongly pronounced by the author but

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 Book Review

his careful details of the operations, coordination, management and

outcomes make the reader read between the lines conveniently.

Pakistan’s Heroism in Somalia

Being the liaison of ‘the unit 7 Frontier Force (FF) Regiment which was
the first battalion in the world to land on Mogadishu,’ Yamin makes a
poignant account of the challenges and issues of Pakistan Brigade. There
were 500 men selected from all ranks and an advanced party of 90 men
was sent earlier. Yamin writes that the Pakistani Battalion (PAKBATT)
which came to be known as 7 FF in Somalia faced a lot of ‘operational
ambiguity.’ He continues to state that, ‘they weren’t sure of how to deal
with the crowd that was rowdy and impatient to get its share of food.’
Yamin tells that the unit used to remain awake all night vigilant of
random mortar fire.

The area of operation of UNOSOM was divided into four sectors

and Pakistan was assigned the central sector which was the hotbed of
the conflict, located in Southern Mogadishu which was the stronghold of
Farrah Aidid, a Somali warlord and the leader of the United Somali
Congress militia. The UNOSOM was largely welcomed by different
parties of Somalia except latter’s section and the situation was
increasingly getting tense in Somalia due to the resistance of Aidid’s
forces. By 1993, the strength of Pakistani Brigade rose to 5000 which
eventually grew to 7000 after the June 5t, 1993 when 23 Pakistanis were
killed. Pakistani contingent not only provided protection to humanitarian
convoys and distributed food but also had medical camps set up which
treated almost 100,000 Somalis.

Yamin unravels in his account the heroism and sacrifice of

Pakistani Brigade. On June 4 1993, the UN had ordered inspection of the
Authorized Weapons Storage Site (AWSS) belonging to both Aidid and
Ali Mahdi located at a radio station. Aidid and his aide warned that the
inspection of weapon sites will escalate to a war. Also, as Yamin recounts
that the guard at the inspection site informed the team that there were
no arms. But the US soldiers accompanying the Pakistani soldiers
insisted on reconnaissance of the site and broke the locks. Soon the
situation erupted into a conflict where reportedly a civilian was shot. The
news spread like fire and sporadic clashes broke throughout the city
between Aidid’s forces and the peacekeeping force. The brunt of the
Somali anger was borne by a Pakistani convoy that was caught in a
carefully prepared three sided ambush on June 5.

UNOSOM II which was the last mission in Somalia finishes at the

valiant commitment of Pakistani Brigade to peacekeeping. After the sad

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 Policy Perspectives Volume 16 Issue 1

incident on June 5, 1993 the Americans raided the house of Qeybdiid

Abdi also known as Atto, the right hand man of Aidid on July 12. The
raid was not only futile but actually turned the Somalians hostile against
the blue helmets. The Americans opened aerial bombardment at Atto’s
house, the outcome of which was that Atto wasn’t present there but
there were 54 innocent dead and 161 injured. To make the matter
worse, the Jonathan Howe, the SRSG announced $1 million bounty for
Atto. On October 3, the US special operation planned to apprehend two
not-so-significant leaders of SNA under Aidid. The course of action
turned upside down two black hawks which were flying low and were
roped by Aidid men and 90 US soldiers got stranded in the dark alley
under the ongoing indiscriminate aerial firing. Here Yamin unravels a
fact largely forgotten by history and media that it was Pakistani novice
soldiers who put their lives on stake and rescued the column of US
soldiers.

Pakistan’s Contribution in Somalia in Archives

In 1999, the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed a panel

on United Nations peace operations tasked with preparing a detailed
report assessing the shortcomings and failures of the UN in Rawanda
and Srebrenica. The report is now famously known as Brahimi Report
after Lakhdar Brahimi, the Chair of the panel. There has been only one
such report where the UN has conducted an in-depth and insightful study
on its failure. Yamin’s book, with its detailed account and analysis on
the US, the UN and Pakistan’s role in UNOSOM can be considered as a
major contribution towards such reports. It also helps in building insight
into the UN peacekeeping operations and the multidimensional debates
related to it.

The struggle and heroism of Pakistani peacekeeping troops in

Somalia must not be forgotten by Pakistan and the world. Yamin’s work
must be commended for adding a significant chapter in the annals of
history recording the contribution of Pakistan in Somalia amidst an
elusive and nonconsensual path to peace and also for highlighting to the
world that Pakistan is a peace-loving country.

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