MOGADISHU, Somalia β It was anything but a warm welcome Tuesday afternoon at the Bakara arms bazaar, a dusty road in the heart of Mogadishu lined with rickety wooden stands that offer every known weapon from single bullets to antiaircraft guns. Within seconds of their nods, guns started blazing, at first in the air in an unmistakable warning.
You want only to take our guns. Get out of here! Marine landing. But, in a nation where the gun has been the only national law for almost two years, the warning fire in the vast arms bazaar, which has fed this nation bullets at the expense of its food, was a clear indication of the depth of the culture of violence facing the American forces.
They will give their guns to the Marines, I think. They will say only to give them some money. Everyone is afraid to die. So, naturally, the gun becomes the only law. That fear clearly had not diminished in the capital on the eve of the Marine landing that most Somalis, like David, were preparing to welcome with open arms and hearts.
If anything, that fear grew a bit amid the uncertainty of the coming of a new armed force and the great potential for misunderstanding. Indeed, international relief officials in the capital issued instructions to their more than expatriate aid workers to remain within their residential compounds for at least 48 hours and to dismiss the thousands of hired gunmen who have attempted to protect them and their humanitarian projects against the insurmountable odds of looting by better-armed gangs.
But McLeod added that such a task will be difficult, if not impossible. Disarmament, he said, clearly remains at the heart of any successful military mission in Somalia. On the eve of the U. Still, if any serious move is made to neutralize the deeply fractious and overwhelmingly armed gangs, its result will be as uncertain as the confrontation at the Bakara arms bazaar. Umer Ali Hassan was a case in point. The government fell, and now I work for the nation. Aidid then broke with warlord Ali Mahdi Mohamed, the leader of a rival sub-clan.
