Humanitarian, Recent 40 years

                                             30 MAY-3 JUNE 1997

                                   OPERATION “NOBLE OBELISK”

The Clinton administration’s National Security Strategy emphasized “selective engagement” in world affairs where US interests were at stake.  And by the mid-1990s, US armed forces had executed a dizzying succession of peacekeeping, non-combatant evacuations (NEOs), and operations in support of threatened governments or factions.  In 1997 alone, January saw Operation “Provide Comfort” protecting the Kurds of northern Iraq transformed to Operation “Northern Watch,” a second “no-fly” zone over Saddam Hussein’s territory.  The 26^th Marine Expeditionary Unit-Special Operations Capable (MEU-SOC) spent most of March 1997 evacuating personnel from violence in Albania in Operation “Silver Wake.”  They quickly redeployed in March-June 1997 for Operation “Guardian Retrieval,” an effort to recover threatened relief workers from overcrowded refugee camps in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) to which oppressed Hutu’s from Rwanda had fled.  Meanwhile, in April 1997 tensions in Sierra Leone prompted the landing of the 13-man US Army Special Operations Detachment Alpha of the 3^rd Special Operations Group A to train and support troops of that nation’s elected democratic government.  But on 25 May, rebels toppled Sierra Leone’s leadership and brought US troops under fire.  Detachment Alpha fought their way past two roadblocks to Freetown, where they secured the compounds of the American embassy and cleared a landing zone for the anticipated evacuation.

Conditions in Freetown deteriorated rapidly.  Marauding rebels roamed the streets exacting vengeance on those they considered their enemies.  Twenty-two nations called on the Clinton administration for assistance in evacuating their citizens from Sierra Leone.  The White House responded with Operation “Noble Obelisk.”  By chance the 22^nd MEU-SOC embarked on USS KEARSARGE (LHD-3) had been standing off Zaire since 2 May in the event that the civil war there threatened the capital of Kinshasa.  KEARSARGE was quickly diverted north, and despite the rebel’s threat to challenge overflight of Sierra Leone’s airspace, the first of her CH-53 Super Stallions landed at Freetown 29 May.  Marines set up a perimeter and began convoying Americans and third-country nationals to the LZ.  The following day the NEO began. 

Over the five days from 30 May to 3 June, 451 American citizens and over 2000 foreign nationals from 40 countries were evacuated from the turmoil in Freetown.  Most were staged to Conakry, Guinea, from whence they were repatriated.  Despite the size of this evacuation, there were no casualties.  The 22^nd Marine Expeditionary Unit received the Meritorious Unit Citation for their actions in “Noble Obelisk.” 

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  6 JUN 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

“Operation Noble Obelisk.”  AT:  www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ops/noble_obleisk.htm, 7 May 2006.

“Operation Noble Obelisk.”  AT:  www.specialoperations.com/ operations/noble_obelisk/default.htm, 7 May 2006.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 299.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The American military found themselves involved in a plethora of operations along the coast of Africa and Southwest Asia during the 1990s.  The actions encouraged Republicans in Congress to criticize the Clinton National Security Strategy of “selective engagement” as hardly that at all.