Mogadishu protesters lay siege to UN

THE UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, cut short his three-hour visit to Somalia yesterday after 500 people shouting Allahu Akbar (God is most great) laid siege to the UN headquarters in Mogadishu for four hours and pelted it with stones.

The protest forced Mr Boutros-Ghali to cancel a planned press conference at the United Nations Operations in Somalia (Unosom) building and to fly straight to the airport by helicopter for his return trip to Addis Ababa, capital of neighbouring Ethiopia. Mr Boutros-Ghali is scheduled to chair a UN-organised meeting of up to 14 Somali factions, including the main warlords, Ali Mahdi Mohamed and General Mohamed Farah Aideed, in Addis Ababa today and tomorrow to work out a format for a national peace conference.

In brief remarks at the airport, Mr Boutros-Ghali dismissed the protests as unimportant and said he was confident 1993 would bring national reconciliation to Somalia.

A day before Mr Boutros-Ghali's visit, vehicles drove around the capital with young men, mainly supporters of Gen Aideed, using loudspeakers to denounce the Secretary-General. Leaflets attacking him were also distributed.

The US-led military intervention, known as Operation Restore Hope, has inflamed xenophobia among many Somalis, symbolised by the public stripping and beating to near-death of an 18-year-old woman, Layla Hassan, after she accepted sweets from French soldiers and smiled at them. She was later accused of spending the night with the troops. The pro-Islamic fundamentalist Somali daily newsletter Qaran reported that the main warlord in the southern port town of Kismayu, Col Ahmed Omar Jess, had ordered that any Somali woman seen entering or leaving foreign military barracks should be shot on sight.

Protesters at Unosom headquarters distributed a written statement saying: 'We regard President Bush as the saviour of the Somali nation' and accusing Mr Boutros-Ghali of turning the United Nations 'into a new colonial power by imposing troops on any country in turmoil'.

Some demonstrators tore down a UN flag at the main gate and hoisted a Somali one. At least one UN van had its back window shattered by a rock when a convoy of UN vehicles ran the gauntlet of the demonstrators to enter the compound.

The United Nations is almost universally disliked in Somalia, and in Mogadishu in particular, for a variety of reasons. Shortly after the former president, Mohamed Siad Barre, was ousted in January 1991, the United Nations closed down its operations in Somalia, returning only last year.

The ousting last October of the former special representative to Somalia, the Algerian diplomat Mohamed Sahnoun, also hurt the United Nations' reputation. Mr Sahnoun had sharply criticised the UN's performance in Somalia, reportedly sparking the ire of James Jonah, his precedessor as the senior UN official in Mogadishu, as well as the UN Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef) and the World Food Programme. Mr Sahnoun, who favoured diplomatic contacts over massive military intervention, was far more active than his successor, Ismat Kittani, who has been severely criticised by Somalis and international aid agencies for spending too much time in the Unosom compound.

Gen Aideed, who nominally controls the southern 80 per cent of Mogadishu, was angered when the United Nations sought to end the clashes at the international airport in mid-November by ignoring him and negotiating directly with the militia of another subclan, the Hawadle.

A significant reason for hatred of Mr Boutros-Ghali centres on his nationality. Egypt is widely blamed for having backed President Barre and his Darod clan. Somalis also believe that Egypt has long had imperial designs on their country, including a plan to settle Egyptian farmers here.

(Photograph omitted)