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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Somalia
Index
Prior to the Ogaden War, Somalia had been allied with the
Soviet Union, and its relations with the United States were
strained. Largely because the Soviet Union sided with Ethiopia in
the Ogaden War, a United States-Somali rapprochement began in
1977 and culminated in a military access agreement in 1980 that
permitted the United States to use naval ports and airfields at
Berbera, Chisimayu, and Mogadishu, in exchange for military and
economic aid. The United States subsequently refurbished
facilities originally developed by the Soviet Union at the Gulf
of Aden port of Berbera. The United States Rapid Deployment Force
used Berbera as a base for its Operation Bright Star exercises in
1981, and American military advisers were permanently stationed
there one year later. Somali military units participated in
Operation Bright Star joint maneuvers in 1985. The base at
Berbera was used in the fall of 1990 during the deployment of
personnel and supplies to Saudi Arabia in preparation for the
Persian Gulf War.
Controversy over the Siad Barre government's human rights
policies clouded the future of United States military cooperation
with Somalia. Siad Barre's policy of repression in the north
aroused criticism of his regime in the United States Congress,
where the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of
Representatives held extensive hearings during July 1988 on human
rights abuses in Somalia. In 1989, under congressional pressure,
the administration of President George Bush terminated military
aid to Somalia, although it continued to provide food assistance
and to operate a small International Military Education and
Training program
(see Foreign Military Assistance
, ch. 5). In
1990 Washington revealed that Mogadishu had been in default on
loan repayments for more than a year. Therefore, under the terms
of the Brooke Amendment, this meant that Somalia was ineligible
to receive any further United States aid. During the height of
the fighting in Mogadishu in January 1991, the United States
closed its embassy and evacuated all its personnel from the
country. The embassy was ransacked by mobs in the final days of
the Siad Barre regime. The United States recognized the
provisional government shortly after its establishment. Since the
outbreak of the civil war, the United States has consistently
urged all parties to come together to resolve their dispute by
peaceful means. The United States government has supported the
territorial unity of Somalia and as of May 1992 has refused to
recognize the independence of northern Somalia proclaimed by the
SNM.
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