ABSTRACT
On the evening of 16 March 1993, 16-year-old Shidane Arone was spotted sneaking into the Canadian compound near Belet Huen in south central Somalia. The Canadian force stationed there – a reinforced battalion or “battle group” in Canadian military nomenclature – was organized around the Canadian Airborne Regiment. It was in Belet Huen as part of UNITAF, the Unified Task Force sanctioned by the UN Security Council as a Chapter 7 mission, to keep the peace in Somalia and thus allow food and other relief to be distributed. Shidane Arone’s apparent purpose in sneaking into the compound was to steal something – just about anything of value – to sell on the local black market. He was caught and incarcerated. By the next morning he was dead, slowly and methodically beaten to death by two paratroopers. Although a dozen other paratroopers became aware of the beating during the course of the night, no one intervened.
