Before images of starving refugees began to appear on their television screens in 1992, most Americans had never heard of Somalia - a small, arid country in the Horn of Africa. Although it installed a parliamentary democracy after gaining independence from Italy and Great Britain in 1960, Somalia was ruled from 1969 to 1991 by a corrupt dictator named Siad Barre, who seized power in a military coup. By the summer of 1992, the nation had become a failed state embroiled in a bitter civil war. With no police, no banking system, no functioning schools or hospitals, and no government, Somalia descended into chaos. Thousands of Somalis were dying everyday from starvation, sickness, and violence that some were calling genocide.