THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 27, 1994 TAG: 9408270191
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
The Clinton administration is withdrawing the last 80 American diplomats and Marines from Somalia, but is not planning to abandon the African country where rival clans are still bitterly divided.
``They've saved hundreds of thousands of lives,'' Michael McCurry, the State Department spokesman, said Friday of the ambitious humanitarian effort being scaled down and soon to be run from Kenya, across the border.
``They just haven't made sufficient progress toward reconciliation,'' he said of the tribal leaders whose differences persist after famine has largely subsided.
The several hundred U.S. citizens in Somalia, mostly to assist relief operations, also were warned that the U.S. diplomatic office in Mogadishu would be closed by Sept. 15. ``There will be no U.S. entity to offer consular services to American citizens,'' the State Department said in a new travel advisory.
The 22 American diplomats and 58 Marines will depart by mid-September, but American diplomats will make periodic visits to Somalia from Nairobi, Kenya. A $35 million annual aid program, including $12 million in food shipments, will be maintained. ``We have every intention of staying involved,'' said a State Department official, who also acknowledged some differences of opinion within the administration about the one-time huge mercy mission to Somalia.
The State Department was known to have favored keeping at least a symbolic presence in Mogadishu to keep other countries interested in the African country, but the Pentagon was anxious about the security situation.
The Bush administration initially sent U.S. troops to Somalia in December 1992 to carry out a humanitarian aid effort amid threats of starvation and political anarchy. The Clinton administration expanded the initiative to conduct an unsuccessful hunt for Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, suspected of arranging the slaying of Pakistani and American peacekeepers in 1993. At a peak, 26,000 American soldiers were in Somalia. Clinton last October set March '94 as a deadline for getting all U.S. soldiers out.
KEYWORDS: SOMALIA
by CNB