thanks, j
> From: James Heartfield <Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:39:33 +0100
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: More Somalia
>
> 'The women and children were combatants ... there are no sidelines ...
> everyone on the ground at that point was a combatant as far as we were
> concerned. ' UN spokesman Major David Stockwell explains why helicopter
> gunships had to kill 100 Somali civilians in Mogadishu
>
> 'UN troops were a little more trigger-happy than they should have been
> during Operation Restore Hope.' Michael Harper, UN envoy to Somalia.
>
> In Somalia, the figures given for people killed by the UN and US
> 'peacekeeping' forces are invariably underestimates. For example,
> Somalis said that 73 people had died and 200 had been wounded on 12 July
> in a UN rocket and cannon assault on a compound reportedly housing a
> command centre used by General Aideed's supporters. According to the
> International Red Cross, the number killed was 57. This is quite a
> discrepancy, but the UN claimed that there were, at most, only 15 deaths
> caused by the raid, and 15 wounded.
>
> Aside from putting forward very low casualty figures of their own, UN
> and US government officials have tried other tricks. They have used
> vague terms like 'dozens' when discussing Somali lives lost in
> confrontations with the UN; emphasised instead the number of UN deaths
> (83 by the end of 1993); asserted that General Aideed was responsible
> for 350 000 deaths due to famine, civil war and disease. But on 8
> December 1993, US envoy to Somalia Robert Oakley acknowledged that
> Somali casualties - deaths and woundings combined - were between 6000
> and 10 000.
>
> 3 October 1992, when America suffred its biggest 'defeat' at the hands
> of Somali militiamen (who succeeded in downing two Helicopters) 18
> American troops were dead. At least 500 Somalis died. (Black Hawk Down,
> Mark Bowden, Atlantic Monthly Press)
>
>
> --
> James Heartfield