Background on Christian Bauman and The Ice Beneath You
Christian Bauman was born in Easton, Pa., on June 15, 1970. After graduation from high school, he held a number of jobs; he also married and became a father. He began writing folk songs, inspired by Woody Guthrie, and writing stories.
Bauman was a member of the U.S. Army Watercraft Field, and served in Somalia (1992-1993) and Haiti (1994).
Until 1999, Bauman spent a good deal of time on the road as a musician, opening for performers such as Pete Seeger, John Gorka, Jack Hardy, and Cheryl Wheeler.
He began writing full-time in 1999, when his second daughter was born. The Ice Beneath You is his first novel. He also has a CD out, Roaddogs, Assassins & The Queen Of Ohio.
In an interview with Mark Schofield, for Fiction Forum in November 2002, Bauman said of his life, “Without fail, every time I have imagined something in my life, it hasn�t gone that way. So I�ve stopped planning. The less I think, the better work I do. I didn�t go to college, I got sent overseas with a rifle twice, I survived any number of bad, dangerous, or mind-numbing jobs before and after the army. Now I have a family I love and a house to call my own and that�s pretty much enough to get me out of bed in the morning.”
He is currently working on another novel.
Somalia
Bauman served in Somalia in 1992-93. At the time, U. S. forces had been sent there to help stabilize the country during a civil war, and to help the U. N. distribute humanitarian aid.
During the 1970s, the Cold War was still going on. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union craved control of the Middle East, with its oil resources. If either could have obtained control of the region, it could have cut its enemy off from the flow of oil and destroyed it. Without oil, neither country could have survived for long. Somalia was an important asset to the United States from this point of view. Somali dictator Siad Barre (also spelled “Siyad” in some publications) was backed by the United States. The U.S. sent hundreds of millions of dollars in arms to Somalia (about $50 million a year, for 15 years) in return for the use of its military bases, which could be used to support American intervention in the Middle East.
But although this policy was advantageous for the U.S., it was a disaster for Somalia. Barre’s regime became increasingly authoritarian and Barre used the arms and money the U.S. sent him to enrich himself and massacre his own people. Eventually, in 1988, civil war erupted. In an effort to reestablish control, Barre increased the repression.
At the time, Somalia was populated by various clans. Most of them opposed Barre. To keep them from uniting against him, Barre began playing the different clans off against each other, destroying any unity the country might have achieved and eliminating any chance for peace. He was overthrown by one of the most powerful of these clans, the Hawiya, in January 1991.
In the wake of the collapse of the central government, clan warfare broke out. Barre had pitted the clans against each other, and now they fought each other for control of various parts of the country, with individual warlords emerging whose concern was power and wealth. The continual fighting, combined with a drought, laid waste to the country. Over 300,000 Somalis died of starvation, most of them children. Almost 2 million people were displaced. Some of them fled to bordering countries, where they lived in squalid refugee camps. Most stayed in Somalia and wandered the country searching for food and shelter, vulnerable to starvation, illness and attack.
A new president was installed by the Hawiya clan: Cali Mahdi. But the other clans refused to accept his authority, and even within his own clan there was dissent. Armed warlords within the Hawiya clan refused to accept any authority but their own, and by the end of 1992, they controlled bands of well-armed men who roamed the city and countryside (especially in the southern part of the country) in Land Rovers (called “technicals”), raping, plundering, extorting, and killing.
One of Mahdi’s most powerful opponents was Maxamad Faarax Aideed (also spelled “Adid”). In February 1992, the United Nations worked out a cease-fire between Aideed and Mahdi and sent a small, lightly armed force (500 Pakistani soldiers) to enforce it. The cease-fire did not last, and order could not be reestablished by 500 soldiers.
Outgoing President George H. W. Bush agreed to send 28,000 U.S. troops as part of a U.N. security force (UNITAF) whose mission was to ensure that humanitarian aid–food and medical supplies–not be stolen by the warlords, but instead get to the people who needed them, and to restore order to Somalia. UNITAF had a total of 38,000 troops from 21 nations, including the 28,000 U.S. soldiers. Bush called the mission “Restore Hope,” and insisted that it was merely a humanitarian mission to save civilian lives; he promised it would be over in a few months.
In early 1993, the U.N. (with the help of new President Bill Clinton) crafted a new mission: UNOSOM II, which was mandated to replace UNITAF. It was a more ambitious mission, whose goal was to disarm the clans and rebuild Somali institutions. But it was weakly administered, and Aideed took advantage of that to ambush and kill 24 Pakistani soldiers in June 1993. In response, the U.N. authorized U.S. Rangers to apprehend Aideed. The operation (freely fictionalized in the movie Black Hawk Down) was a disaster; 18 Americans were killed and 75 were wounded, and Aideed was not captured.
This was enough for Clinton, who had been having doubts about the mission already; he announced the gradual withdrawal of American forces, to be completed by March 1994. The U.N. pulled out its remaining forces a year later.
The U.N/U.S. mission in Somalia had some success in distributing humanitarian aid, and it did stabilize some parts of the country. But it failed to establish a central government. In addition, traditional clans were splintered. Now, fighting is frequent between factions of clans. The infrastructure of Somalia is still in ruins. According to the U.N., average life expectancy in Somalia is 41-43 years. More than 25% of the children under 5 die each year. Adult literacy rates are 14-17%. Southern Somalia still has severe food shortages.
Following the breakdown of national government, most regions have reverted to Islamic (Shari’a) law.
In 2000, the Somalia National Peace Conference was held, after months of preparation. Each clan chose its own representatives; in addition, a cross-clan delegation of women attended. The Mogadishu warlords and a number of other clans boycotted the conference.
An interim Transitional National Government selected a 245-member Parliament, with representatives from each clan. That Parliament elected a President, Abdiqasim Salad Hassan, and a prime minister, ALI Khalifa Galaydh. However, several regions of the country do not recognize the authority of the new government and have set up their own administrations. The political situation is still unstable, especially in the south, where there is fighting between rival warlords. About 30 factions still vie for control of the country.
Some U.S. and U.N. analysts are concerned that the lack of order in Somalia, and the anti-U.S. sentiment there, have created a fertile ground for terrorism. Some in the Bush Administration see evidence that Al-Qaeda has established networks and cells there.
If you want more complete information on Somalia, you can consult the following Internet sources:
- Global Edge Country Insights on Somalia. This is a short report which gives the current situation and a bit of historical background; very interesting.
- Somalia Watch. This article is dated Oct. 16, 2000, but it gives a pretty vivid view of what the new government of Somalia is up against.
- Somalia: Intervention in Internal Conflict. This report does a very complete job of explaining the complicated internal politics of Somalia and describing the role the U.S. played in the counrty from the 1970s through the 1990s.
- Somalia: A Situation Analysis. This report from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) details the current situation in Somalia and its recent political developments. It’s short and easy to understand.
- The Long and Hidden History of the U.S. in Somalia is an analysis of the U.S. role in Somalia and its consequences. It is critical of U.S. decisions, but does a good job of detailing the background of the conflict and explaining why the current situation is so dangerous to American interests.
- Military Operations Other Than War focuses more closely on the miltary aspect of the U.S. involvement in Somalia, and explains in clear detail how the operations worked (and why they sometimes didn’t work).