Briefing from ROAPE Volume 26 Number 79
New Hope for Somalia? Building Block Approach

Somalis may be forgiven if they have become wary of foreign help in putting their shattered country back together. Since the absurd colonial dismemberment of the Somali nation between five sovereign states, external involvement in Somalia has ranged from the mediocre to the disastrous. The anaemic preparations by the British and Italian governments for Somali independence and statehood, the enthusiastic support of both cold war blocs in the training and armament of the small country's security services and armed forces, and the United Nation's ruinous attempts at nation-building are notable benchmarks in a long history of foreign meddlers - some of them sinister, some benign, others simply incompetent - but all of them ultimately unsuccessful.