ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the consequences of the UN's response to events in Mogadishu in late 1991, which led the UN ten months later to invoke the enforcement provision of the UN Charter. It begins with the interactions between Aideed and Mahdi after Siad Barre's overthrow and up to the time of the UN response to the crisis in Mogadishu. This relationship had not been monitored by the UN secretariat and therefore was not included in its assessment and plan of action. The secretary-general's urgent request for a higher level of UN military intervention, which inevitably weakened Sahnoun's negotiating position with Aideed, followed reports of a serious famine in the interriverine agricultural areas. Aideed argued that a Somali police force equivalent to the size of a security personnel force in Mogadishu and eventually in Kismayu would be a rational replacement for foreign troops on their departure.
