Speech #970018440

Mr. Speaker. Senate Joint Resolution 61 is meant to increase the awareness of the plight of our 4 million refugees on the continent of Africa. As a cosponsor of this resolution. I am pleased to share with my colleagues an article that vividly describes the conditions of the refugees in Somalia. [From the Philadelphia Tribune. Apr. 3. 1981] Two MILLION REFUGES STARVING IN AFRIcA (By Joseph C. Kennedy) "Somalia is a disaster zone. Every fourth person in the country is a refugee. The strain on the economy. the water. the grass. the trees. is destroying the country." Those were the words of a Somali woman working with an international organization in Mogadishu. Since the United States began negotiating to establish naval and air bases at the port of Berbera on the Indian Ocean as a response to the Soviet buildup in the Persian Gulf. Americans are beginning to hear more about Somalia. Few Americans are aware. JSE 6485 however. that there are more refugees in Somalia than in any other single place in the worldmore than the boat people of Cambodia and Vietnam. Somalia. located on the northeast coastal and other limited areas. agriculture. and livestock grazing is possible but twothirds of the Texassized country is rocky. semiarid. without surface water. The same drought which ravaged the Sahel from 196975. struck Somalia. uprooting hundreds of thousands. Over the- past year. rainfall has- been meager. once again. drought and starvation may exist. To this harsh land. refugees are streaming in at the rate of 3.000 per day. fleeing from the fighting in the Ogadena vast grassland. with widely spaced wells and watering holes. ceded to Ethiopia by the British in 1954. contested by Somalia. (Since the 16th century. Christian Amharas. and Somali and Oromo Muslims have struggled for this area. Twice in recent times. 1964 and 1977. there has been fullscale war.) Since 1978. Ethiopia has totally dominated the struggle. Today there are nearly two million refugees in Somalia. At least 700.000 have moved in with relatives. drifted into the towns and in general absorbed themselves into the Somali society of 3 million. Over 1.3 million are in the camps. The refugees in the camps are mainly nomadic pastoralists. Few are skilled. Sixtyone percent are children. 30 percent are women.