The perils of foreign intervention

EDITORIAL

Last week’s scandal in which it was revealed that the UN’s Moroccan peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast were involved in, as Reuters put it, “widespread sexual abuse”, is yet one more reminder of some of the negative consequences of foreign military intervention. It is also another blow to the already battered reputation of UN peacekeepers. The fact that the culprits were Moroccans shows that they have not changed since the bad old days of Operation Restore Hope when Moroccan troops were known for running some of the most active prostitution rings in Somalia.

It isn’t just the Moroccans who have not changed. The international community has not changed either, since it is still claiming that foreign troops are good for Somalia, despite much evidence to the contrary.

Sometimes the evidence comes from the UN itself. IRIN, a UN news and analysis service wrote on July 10, 2007: “ HIV prevalence in Somalia, now at 0.9 percent, is verging on being a generalised epidemic, but little is known about the factors that are driving it.”

Although IRIN opined that it does not know what is causing the alleged upsurge in the level of AIDS in Somalia, it would not be utterly baseless to raise the question if it has something to do with the presence, in Somalia, of a large number of troops from countries (Ethiopia and Uganda) with some of the highest levels of AIDS in the world.

In that same report, IRIN stated that the International Organisation for Migration ( IOM) is going to undertake a “'hot-spot mapping’ exercise” for AIDS in Somalia next month. Perhaps the results of their study can provide a definite answer to what’s behind the jump in the level of AIDS in Somalia.

Source: Somaliland Times

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