Here I sit in my hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on the last day of a three-day weekend celebrating the King’s birthday. There have been fireworks every night that children, sitting in a line on a busy street curb, gape at with wonder on their faces. The faces of Cambodians were far different yesterday, as I traveled by taxi to the Phnom Tamao Zoological Garden and Wildlife Rescue Center, about 25 miles (40 kms.) outside of Phnom Penh. The drive showed me every side of Phnom Penh. There were building cranes, cement trucks and workers at numerous construction sites, adding to the boom that certainly has gone on since I last was here 14 years ago. There were plenty of smaller economic activity, pagodas and farms along the way.

But the sight that really got to me was on the dusty road that leads to the zoo. Lining both sides of it, maybe 40 or 50 feet apart, were dirt-poor Cambodians, most of them elderly, sitting on the ground. They looked as though thyey had lived a thousand lives, all of them difficult. As we passed by in our car, they either would rise with their arms outstretched and hands cupped, or sit on the ground begging. The people lined the road like shade trees, except of course, there were no shade trees, so they would sit in the sun or get a large palm frond and turn it into a tiny awning. They were coated in the dust of the road from passing cars and motorbikes. They stayed there, through the heat of the afternoon, as hundreds of Cambodians, many as poor as the beggars, looked in delight at the tigers, elephants, lions, bears, monkeys and other animals in the park.

I’ve seen a lot of poverty in a lot of places around the world, but this road and the Cambodians who lined it, got to me more than anything else. My driver said that when he goes on that road, he gets a stack of the Cambodian currency, the riel, and gives each person a small donation. He also said the numbers of beggars on that road was increasing. If you are wondering, I did not ask the driver to stop. It was too overwhelming, and I generally do not like to encourage begging. Instead, I donate money to good, local NGOs that help the vulnerable, particularly children. I don’t know, though. I might break that rule if I ever go down Heartbreak Road again.

My friend, Melissa Fitzgerald, is a longtime northern Uganda activist who has used her acting skills (she was a regular on West Wing) to produce a film on children in northern Uganda. Here’s information on the documentary, the times, and how to get tickets. Show up for it. Show up for the kids of northern Uganda.

The Philadelphia Premiere of STAGING HOPE

 

 

Tuesday November 1st  at 7:30pm at the Ritz East   

125 South Second Street Philadelphia, PA  19106  

 

For ticket information please call (267) 239-2941  

 

To purchase tickets online please go to the Philadelphia Film Festival’s website: 

http://filmadelphia.slated.com/2011/films/staginghope_bilyoelin_filmadelphia2011#screenings ;

  

Opening remarks by Mayor Michael A. Nutter 

Brief Q &A with filmmakers Melissa Fitzgerald and Katy Fox and reception immediately following the film 

  

 

Please join us for the Philadelphia premiere of Staging Hope. Staging Hope tells the riveting story of a cross-cultural 

collaboration between a group of American actors and 14 Ugandan teenagers (many former abducted child soldiers) 

as they work together on a theater program in war-torn northern Uganda 

 

Produced by: Melissa Fitzgerald and Katy Fox 

Executive Produced by: CIndy Landon John Prendergast and Martin Sheen 

Directed by: Bil Yoelin 

 

There will be a second screening of Staging Hope on Wednesday November 2nd at 7:35pm at the Ritz East 

                                                               

Sponsored by PECO

 

This just in from CNN, that President Obama will send 100 U.S. troops “to help hunt down the leaders of the notoriously violent Lord’s Resistance Army.” That includes the top guy, Kony. This is good news — only if they find Kony and the others and, once and for all, disassemble this small but hideous militia that seems to have no goals other than to rip apart childhood in that part of the world by kidnapping children and forcing the boys to become soldiers and the girls to be sex slaves. The international community has long needed a focused, concerted effort to catch these guys and free the remaining young victims in their grasp. This group has had an outrageous endurance that was bolstered by all sorts of factors, including political intrigue, pandering and self-enrichment, and the world giving these kids a lesser human value. I mean, really, if God forbid there were a gang kidnapping American children en masse, every imaginable resource would have been tapped to get those thugs and end the victimization of kids. Can you tell I’m breathless about the potential of this development? Congratulations, incidentally, to advocates like Michael Poffenberger, cofounder and executive director of the nonprofit group, Resolve, which has been working endlessly on keeping the LRA’s atrocties squarely in front of the public and Washington policymakers. Let’s hope their efforts result in the end of the LRA and the imprisonment and trial of Kony and his cronies. Here’s the CNN news alert.

President Barack Obama is sending about 100 U.S. troops to central Africa to help hunt down the leaders of the notoriously violent Lord’s Resistance Army.

“I have authorized a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield,” Obama said in letter to the House Speaker John Boehner and Daniel Inouye, president pro tempore of the Senate. Obama was making a reference to the head of the guerrilla group.

“I believe that deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa.”

U.S. military personnel will advise regional forces working to target Kony and other senior leaders. The president said the troops will not engage Lord’s Resistance Army forces “unless necessary for self-de fense.”

Obama said the United States has backed regional military efforts since 2008 to go after the group, but these efforts have been unsuccessful.

Obama notes that the Lord’s Resistance Army “has murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women, and children in central Africa” and “continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security.

IRIN has an excellent analysis on whether child soldiers should be prosectued for their actions. The most compelling reason why they shouldn’t be? Because their actions flow from having been victimized and forced into their roles. Here’s the beginning of the IRIN report and read it in full here.

 
Analysis: Should child soldiers be prosecuted for their crimes?

JOHANNESBURG, 6 October 2011 (IRIN) - International human rights law meanders between the vague and the hazy when it comes to its stance on the age of criminal responsibility and what, if any, punishments should be imposed on child soldiers guilty of war crimes.

The godfather of human rights laws, the Geneva Conventions, oblige all member states to act on grave breaches of human rights, but does not stipulate the age of criminal responsibility.

Robert Young, deputy permanent observer and legal adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) based in New York, told IRIN international humanitarian law (IHL) remains “silent” on the age of responsibility for perpetrators of grave human rights abuses, such as wilful killing, torture and inhumane treatment.

The good folks at IRIN have published this chronology of Somalia’s political history leading up to the famine. It’s a terrific explainer of what has kept the Horn of African nation in such turmoil all these years. It covers some of the who, though mainly those within Somalia who have tormeted their fellow citizens. Left out are most of the outside forces, including U.S. policy toward Somlia in the mid 2000s, that ditched the possibility of working with the the Union of Islamic Courts (not every group with the word Islamic in it is an arm of al-Qaeda) and instead backing forces in Somalia that ousted the UIC and ended the only period of some stability that ordinary Somalis had felt in years. Since the UIC was ousted, Somalia has remained mired in misery. I know foreign affairs is a tricky series of decisionmaking based on partly known factors and uncertain consequences, but you’ve got to wonder if Somalia might not be in far better shape today, even to handle a drought, if the Bush administration had tried to work with the Islamic Courts group rather than instantly make them enemies. Anyhow, here’s IRIN’s timeline.

SOMALIA: Countdown to calamity

 

NAIROBI, 25 August 2011 (IRIN) - Somalia has had no functioning government since January 1991, when former President Siyad Barre was ousted.

 

 Since then, fighting between warlords, government forces and various alliances of Islamist insurgents has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Somalis and displaced hundreds of thousands more.

 

 In the north, the former British protectorate of Somaliland declared its independence from the rest of Somalia in May 1991, and in 1998 the northeastern region of Puntland declared itself an autonomous state. Both regions have remained largely peaceful, although Puntland has in recent years suffered from heightened insecurity.

 

 One of the boldest attempts to turn a new page in Somalia was the US Restore Hope intervention in 1992, which was mandated by the UN to protect the delivery of humanitarian assistance amid a major food crisis.

 

 The following is a chronology of events leading up to the current conflict and subsequent famine in parts of southern-central Somalia.

 

 26 June 1960: The former British Somaliland Protectorate gains independence;

 

 1 July 1960: The former Italian colony of Somalia becomes independent. The former British (northwest) and Italian (south) colonies unite;

 

 15 October 1969: Democratically elected President Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke is assassinated by one of his bodyguards;

 

 21 October 1969: The army under Major-General Muhammad Siyad Barre overthrows the civilian government after parliament hits deadlock trying to choose a new president. The army suspends the constitution, bans all 86 political parties, and promises to end corruption. Barre heads the 25-member Supreme Revolutionary Council, comprising army and police officers;

 

 21 October 1970: The army junta declares Somalia a socialist country and adopts “Scientific Socialism”. This signals a shift towards Soviet backing, and security organs and intelligence networks are given greater powers;

 

 21 October 1972: A written script for the Somali language is established. A modified Roman alphabet is adopted as the official orthography for the Somali language;

 

 1974: One of the worst famines, known as Dabadeer (long tailed), hits northern and central Somalia, with thousands dying. The Barre government relocates tens of thousands of pastoralists to southern Somalia. The country joins the Arab League;

 

 July 1977: A low-level war of attrition between Somali-backed insurgents and the Ethiopian army becomes an all-out battle when Somalia declares war on Ethiopia. It goes down in history as the fiercest Cold War battle on the continent, played out in the Ethiopian Somali region;

 

 13 November 1977: Somalia expels about 6,000 Russian, Cuban and other Soviet allies after the Soviet Union switched sides and allied itself with Ethiopia;

 

 March 1978: The Somali government announces the withdrawal of its forces;

 

 8 April 1978: After the defeat of the Somali army, a group of army officers tries to topple the Barre regime. The attempted coup is crushed and Barre tightens his grip. He begins a process of putting power into the hands of his relatives and sub-clan, the Darod Marehan. He also empowers the related Dulbahante and Ogadeni sub-clans;

 

 May 1988: The Somali National Movement (SNM) mounts an offensive in the north, as a result of the regime’s brutal post-Ethiopian war policies. Barre responds by bombing the area. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are displaced and many killed. It is the first real challenge to Barre’s rule, and the beginning of the proliferation of armed opposition to the regime;

 

 May 1990: A manifesto is published in Mogadishu, the capital, calling for an all-inclusive national reconciliation convention to avert protracted civil war. It is signed by 144 people, including politicians, religious leaders, professionals and business people, representing all Somali clans;

 

 December 1990: Armed uprising erupts in Mogadishu;

 

 27 January 1991: Barre flees Mogadishu. Forces loyal to the Hawiye-based United Somali Congress (USC) capture the city;

 

 28 January 1991: The Manifesto Group of USC appoints an hotelier, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, as president. The military wing of USC, led by General Mohamed Farah Aydid, rejects the appointment;

 

 18 May 1991: The former British Protectorate of Somaliland declares unilateral independence from the rest of Somalia in the town of Birao;

 

 July 1991: A conference is held in Djibouti at which Ali Mahdi is chosen as interim president but Aydid and his wing of the USC reject the appointment;

 

 17 November 1991: Full-scale fighting starts between two factions of the USC;

 

 3 March 1992: A ceasefire comes into effect between the warring factions in Mogadishu;

 

 1992: Fighting erupts in the northeast between the Islamist Al-Ittihad group and militia loyal to the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), led by Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad;

 

 April 1992: The UN Operation in Somalia, UNOSOM I, begins;

 

 December 1992: The Unified International Task Force (UNITAF) forces under American leadership land in Mogadishu, in Operation Restore Hope;

 

 February 1993: A three-month conference in Borama seeks a new leader for the self-declared state of Somaliland. Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal, a former prime minister of Somalia, is elected in May 1993;

 

 March 1993: The next serious attempt at peace talks. An Ethiopian initiative evolves into a joint UN-Ethiopian-sponsored reconciliation conference in Addis Ababa;

 

 4 May 1993: UNITAF hands over to UNOSOM II;

 

 5 June 1993: 23 Pakistani peacekeepers are killed by Aydid loyalists;

 

 12 July 1993: American helicopter gunships kill more than 50 unarmed Somalis in a private house in Mogadishu, increasing local hostility to the international intervention forces;

 

 3 October 1993: American-led forces looking for Aydid’s senior aides are involved in a shoot-out, which leaves 18 Americans and hundreds of Somalis dead. The body of a dead American is dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, and caught on camera, sparking an international outcry;

 

 August 1996: Aydid dies of gunshot wounds sustained in operations against his former lieutenant, Osman Ali Atto. His son, a former American marine, Hussein Mohamed Aydid, is chosen by the clan to replace his father;

 

 November 1996: Ethiopian government-sponsored reconciliation conference brings most of the factions together but is boycotted by Aydid’s son;

 

 November 1997: Faction leaders meet in Cairo, with limited success, leaving Somalia without a national leader and Mogadishu still divided and insecure;

 

 2 May 2000: On the initiative of the President of Djibouti, the Somali National Peace Conference brings together more than 2,000 participants in Arta, Djibouti. It is the first conference where the warlords do not have control of the agenda;

 

 26 August 2000: A 245-strong Transitional National Assembly (TNA), based on clan representation, elects Abdiqasim Salad Hassan as the new president of Somalia. He forms the Transitional National Government (TNG);

 

 27 August 2000: Hassan is sworn in during an inauguration ceremony attended by the heads of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen, and the host country Djibouti, along with representatives from the UN, EU, Arab League, African Union, France, Italy, Kuwait and Libya;

 

 April 2001: The Somali Restoration and Reconciliation Council (SRRC), a group of southern factions opposed to the interim government, is formed in Ethiopia and announces its intention to form a rival national government within six months;

 

 November-December 2001: Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi brings together the TNG and some members of the SRRC and other faction leaders who sign the Nakuru agreement to end conflict;

 

 November 2001: In the aftermath of 9/11, the US freezes the funds of the main remittance bank - and the largest employer - Barakat, for suspected links with Al-Qaeda;

 

 May 2002: Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, president of the self-declared republic of Somaliland, dies in a South African hospital and is replaced by his vice-president, Dahir Riyale Kahin;

 

 October 2002: Another reconciliation meeting, sponsored by the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), opens in the Kenyan town of Eldoret;

 

 22 August 2004: Almost two years later, a 275-member transitional parliament is inaugurated;

 

 15 September 2004: Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, a businessman, is elected Assembly speaker;

 

 10 October 2004: Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, 71, is elected interim president of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) by the interim parliament;

 

 14 October 2004: Ahmed is sworn in at a ceremony attended by several African heads of state in Nairobi;

 

 3 November 2004: Ahmed appoints Ali Mohamed Gedi as prime minister;

 

 13 January 2005: Parliament approves Gedi’s reconstituted, 90-member cabinet;

 

 6 February 2005: The speaker, leading some 60 legislators, returns to Mogadishu and is welcomed by cheering crowds;

 

 9 February 2005: Gedi announces plans to start relocating from Nairobi to Mogadishu on 21 February;

 

 24 February 2005: Ahmed and Gedi begin a week-long tour of Somalia - the first time they have stepped on Somali soil since Ahmed’s election in October 2004;

 

 29 April 2005: Gedi flies to Mogadishu to meet MPs and ministers who insist the transitional government should be based in Mogadishu, and not Baidoa or Jowhar as proposed by the TFG;

 

 18 February 2006: A group of Mogadishu-based warlords, led by Mohamed Qanyare, form the Alliance for Peace and the Fight Against International Terrorism and confront the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), a coalition of armed judicial units formed by various Hawiye sub-clans; several days of bloody clashes ensue;

 

 19-22 February 2006: Thousands flee Mogadishu, particularly the northern and southern suburbs;

 

 February 2006: TFG parliament meets on Somali soil for the first time - in the northwestern town of Baidoa;

 

 March-May 2006: Hundreds killed and many more injured in Mogadishu during fierce fighting between the UIC and warlords. It is the worst violence in almost a decade;

 

 June 2006: Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is named UIC chairman;

 

 July 2006: The UIC defeats warlords, who flee from Mogadishu, and quickly moves to other parts of south-central Somalia and assumes de facto control of state administration;

 

 August 2006: Mogadishu airport re-opens for the first time since 1995. UIC also re-opens Mogadishu port;

 

 July-December 2006: A semblance of peace and stability returns to Mogadishu for the first time in over 15 years;

 

 December 2006: Ethiopian troops oust the UIC from Mogadishu and much of the south, capturing Mogadishu on 28 December. The TFG president, Ahmed, and his government enter Mogadishu for the first time since 2004;

 

 March 2007: The UIC and others opposed to the Ethiopian presence regroup and launch attacks on Ethiopian and government positions. First African Union (AMISOM) peacekeeping troops (Ugandans and Burundians) arrive in Mogadishu;

 

 April 2007: The fighting intensifies, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee Mogadishu - the biggest exodus the city has seen in 15 years. Hundreds are reported killed after several days of fierce clashes;

 

 September 2007: UIC remnants and other opposition groups meet in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, to form a new alliance to fight the Ethiopians. The Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS), led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, is formed;

 

 October 2007: Gedi resigns, after falling out with the president;

 

 November 2007: Ahmed appoints Nur Hassan Hussein, also known as Nur Adde, as the new prime minister and immediately embarks on a process of reconciliation with the opposition. The number of Somali refugees hits one million, with nearly 200,000 fleeing Mogadishu in two weeks, according to the UN, while hundreds of thousands flee the fighting between insurgents and government forces backed by Ethiopian troops. Aid agencies warn of a humanitarian crisis;

 

 April 2008: US air strike kills Aden Hashi Ayro, a leader of the Islamist Al-Shabab insurgent group, in its fight against Al-Qaeda;

 

 June 2008: Government signs a three-month ceasefire with opposition ARS to halt fighting in Mogadishu. Part of the deal envisages Ethiopian troops leaving Somalia within 120 days, but the ceasefire is rejected by the ARS faction led by Aweys, who vows to continue fighting until all foreign forces, including AMISOM, leave Somalia;

 

 September 2008: As piracy off the Somalia coast increases, Somali pirates hijack a Ukrainian ship carrying large amounts of weapons, including 33 tanks, which creates concern and forces the international community to deploy naval ships in Somali waters;

 

 

 October 2008: A wave of what appears to be coordinated suicide bombings across Somaliland and Puntland kills at least 27 people. Al-Shabab claims responsibility;

 

 December 2008: President Yusuf tries to sack the prime minister over his attempts to draw the opposition into the government. Parliament declares the dismissal unconstitutional and passes a vote of confidence in him. Yusuf resigns and Speaker Sheikh Aden Madobe becomes acting president;

 

 January 2009: Last Ethiopian troops complete their withdrawal. Al-Shabab militias take control of the southwestern town of Baidoa, the former seat of the TFG, and capture senior government officials but later release them unharmed. ARS faction led by Sheikh Ahmed reaches power-sharing deal with TFG in Djibouti. However, the deal is rejected by another faction led by Aweys. A new expanded parliament of 550, including 275 MPs from the opposition ARS, is inaugurated in Djibouti. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is elected by parliament to replace Yusuf and the transitional period is extended for two more years;

 

 13 February 2009: Ahmed appoints Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, son of a former president, as prime minister;

 

 February 2009: Ahmed returns to Mogadishu to a warm welcome;

 

 May 2009: Al-Shabab and Hisbul-Islam launch a major attack on the government and quickly gain the upper hand as they attempt to overthrow the government;

 

 June 2009: Nearly 170,000 displaced from Mogadishu and, according to local human rights groups, hundreds of civilians killed and injured since the clashes began on 7 May;

 

 3 December 2009: A suspected suicide bomber kills 23 people, including three ministers in the TFG, parents, students, professors and journalists at a graduation ceremony. Al-Shabab denies responsibility;

 

 January 2010: The UN World Food Programme (WFP) withdraws from areas under the control of Al-Shabab, most of southern and central Somalia, after threats from the group;

 

 September 2010: Sharmarke resigns after coming under pressure to quit. Ahmed appoints Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “Farmajo” to replace him, the fourth PM of the TFG;

 

 April 2011: Aid agencies sound alarm about serious humanitarian situation amid reports of rising levels of malnutrition in parts of southern and central Somalia;

 

 June 2011: Farmajo resigns as part of a deal, signed on 9 June in Kampala, Uganda, between Ahmed and the speaker Sharif Hassan, extending the mandates of the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFI) for a year until August 2012. He is replaced by Abdiwali Mohamed Ali;

 

 July 2011: The UN declares famine in some parts of southern Somalia, with agencies warning that millions face starvation;

 

 August 2011: The UN warns famine has spread to more areas in southern Somalia and that it is likely to continue into 2012. Thousands of cases of cholera/acute watery diarrhoea reported in Mogadishu amid warnings that the caseload may increase to 100,000 countrywide.

This from IRIN:

 

IRIN, the UN humanitarian news and analysis service, has a report this morning that gives some context to the emergency playing out in Somalia. Here are the first paragraphs of the story, but it’s well worth reading the entire report to get a deeper understanding of what Somalis are facing. Really, has there ever been a people who have suffered more in recent times than the civilians of Somalia? With so much said in the West about civil war and militants there, it’s too easy to think there are no ordinary, innocent civilians who have the same aspirations that any of us — mothers and fathers, children and the elderly – have anywhere in the world, including in the United States. To let such thinking and stereotyping prevail is to dehumanize Somalis and that is a dangerous exercise with very real consequences of indifference and neglect, to be sure. Here’s the IRIN story.

 MOGADISHU, 26 July 2011 (IRIN) - Amid reports of rising child deaths due to malnourishment, Somalia’s opposition Al-Shabab group has granted several aid organizations access to some of the south-central areas under its control, including Lower Shabelle, one of two regions the UN recently declared to be famine-stricken.

Since 24 July, officials of an international NGO, Kuwait Direct Aid, as well as those from the International Red Cross and the International Red Crescent, have distributed food in Lower Shabelle.

This hugely important story from IRIN looks at how children are faring in the drought-propelled humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa. Too often, children get overlooked in these under-publicized emergencies. Cheers for humanitarian organizations, such as Unicef and Save the Children, and media outlets such as IRIN ( the Integrated Regional Information Networks from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) for putting a spotlight on these situations.    

EASTERN AFRICA: Half a million children “at risk”

 

NAIROBI, 18 July 2011 (IRIN) - At least 500,000 malnourished children in the Horn of Africa’s drought-affected areas risk death if immediate help does not reach them, Anthony Lake, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) executive director, has said.

 

 These are the children suffering from severe acute malnutrition, whose clinical signs include swelling in the feet, legs or face caused by an extreme shortage of protein.

 

 “This crisis is likely to deepen over the coming six months or so,” Lake told a news conference in Nairobi on 17 July at the end of a visit to the northwestern Turkana region and Dadaab - home to thousands of Somali refugees - in the northeast.

 

 Lake said: “I talked to a mother who was feeding her child pounded palm nuts, with no nutritional value, moistened in her mouth as the local wells have become saline.”

 

 Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rates of 37 percent have been recorded in Turkana [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92997 ]. Malnutrition is described as severe acute or global acute. A GAM value of more than 10 percent generally signifies an emergency [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93128 ].

 

 Across the Horn of Africa, at least 10.7 million people in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia need urgent humanitarian aid due to the drought, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) [ http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/reliefweb_pdf/node-426149.pdf ].

 

 In Somalia, thousands are fleeing the country or heading to the capital, Mogadishu. An estimated 3,200 Somali refugees are crossing into Kenya and Ethiopia daily.

 

 Desperation

 

 Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children UK, said: “Over the past few days, I’ve seen first-hand the enormous suffering the drought is causing in the Daadab refugee camp and across northern Kenya. Families I’ve met are absolutely desperate for food and water, and we know that the situation in Somalia is even worse.”

 

 Humanitarian actors have welcomed a recent statement by the Islamist opposition group in Somalia, Al-Shabab, allowing humanitarian access to south-central regions. Lake said this “will help us to ramp up support”.

 

 On 13 July, UNICEF airlifted emergency nutrition and water supplies to Baidoa, southern Somalia, the first time in more than two years, Lake said.

 

 In Mogadishu, doctors with the African Union peacekeeping Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) are helping to tackle a measles outbreak at a camp for the drought-displaced. Some 9,300 people, who fled their homes in the central and southern regions, arrived in Mogadishu in June, according to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.

 

 Lt-Col Kaamurari Katwekyeire, head of AMISOM’s Civil-Military Cooperation, said: “The need is great and we can only make small emergency interventions. We hope that humanitarian organizations will take advantage of the improved security situation to come to the aid of the Somali people.”

 

 In Kenya, communities neighbouring the refugee camps are complaining about the attention given to the Somali refugees when they are not faring any better [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93223 ].

 

 Lake said: “They [the drought-affected] are suffering what is a perfect storm due to the drought, rising food prices, shortages of the food pipeline… these people live on the edge in any case. This is not just a question about lives being threatened but a way of life being threatened.”

 

 The drought has hit pastoral communities in the arid and semi-arid parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia the hardest [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93142 ].

 

 On 17 July, the UK’s international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, pledged £52.25 million (US$84 million) in emergency aid for at least one million people in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia.

 

 The aid is in addition to previous support for 1.36 million people in Ethiopia, announced on 3 July. The Ethiopian government launched an appeal on 11 July saying at least 4.56 million drought-affected people needed help.

 

 The new UK funds are for programmes to prevent and treat malnutrition and improve care for refugees in the Daadab and Dolo Ado camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, respectively.

 

 Mitchell called for more international engagement in the Horn of Africa crisis, saying there was a need to prevent a disaster turning into a catastrophe.

 

 “It is a horrible thing in our world today that a baby should die due to a lack of food,” he said.

 

 

This report online: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93257

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.irinnews.org/

 

 

This report from Refugees International advocates for such an important point — that a U.S. transition strategy for its involvement in Afghanistan must include a plan for people who have been displaced in all the fighting. The mainstream media has done a fairly lousy job of examing the humanitarian issues that have bubbled and blown up in both Iraq and Afghanistan. NGOs are the ones to raise them, as Refugees International does in this report. Here is its overview to whet your curiosity.

Overview
As the conflict in Afghanistan enters its fourth decade, Afghan civilians continue to pay the price. Violence has been increasing in intensity and spreading to previously peaceful areas. The gains made in improving health and education are increasingly fragile due to insecurity, corruption, and the politicization of aid. While the international community has acknowledged that the problems in Afghanistan will not be solved by military means alone, the U.S. strategy continues to focus on security objectives and fails to address the needs of the most vulnerable Afghans.

I repost here a great story from those fine folks at IRIN on why Save the Children had such a hard time getting contributions for those affected by political violence in Cote d’Ivoire, while tens of millions of dollars was raised for Japanese earthquake and tsunami victims. Here it is. Visit the IRIN website for more information on humanitarian affairs.

IRIN
humanitarian news and analysis
a service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

AID POLICY: Blame game influences charitable giving

BANGKOK, 19 May 2011 (IRIN) - Why has Save the Children’s US$40 million global appeal for conflict-affected Côte d’Ivoire only brought in $225,000, when its campaign for those affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan raised $25 million, exceeding the $20 million target? It could be that individual donors are placing blame, new research says.

Traditionally, the decisions of individuals responding to emergency appeals have been linked to variables such as media coverage and geographical preferences, but the perceived cause of a disaster can also influence giving patterns, according to Hanna Zagefka, a researcher with the department of psychology at Royal Holloway University of London.

People are quick to assume and accuse and, thus less likely to favour man-made crises, she told IRIN.

The study suggested that a famine perceived to be caused by drought would lead people to donate more than one caused by the misuse of land or government corruption. At the same time, a tsunami or other natural disaster would likely attract stronger levels of assistance than a crisis such as Darfur, which typically would be understood as man-made.

“The irony is that the recovery from natural disasters is much faster than from man-made disasters, so the biggest resources are going to the least needy situations,” said Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it (2007), and a professor at Oxford University’s Centre for the Study of African Economics. “The people who do the suffering in man-made disasters are not the people who caused them.”

Zagefka’s research paper, published online before publication in the European Journal of Social Psychology, attributed the findings to a deeply rooted tendency for people to want to think suffering happens for a reason. “Potential donors are motivated to blame the victims when given the slightest chance in order to defend their belief of the world as just,” the study stated. In other research this has been labelled the “just world hypothesis”.

“One of the things that motivates us is the warm glow we get when helping someone,” said Paul Slovic, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and president of the Division Research Group, a non-profit organization investigating human judgement. “You feel good if you help someone, but it is likely you don’t feel good if you feel you helped someone who is to blame.”

Even children affected by conflict are not immune
Furthermore, such factors in donor behaviour even extend to including children in the blame. “You would think children obviously wouldn’t be blamed for conflict, but we are not looking at objective biases,” Zagefka said.

Stark contrast

The disparity does not surprise Dawn Nunn, senior director of Save the Children’s resource development services. She has witnessed the philanthropic penchant for natural disasters for 16 years.

“This giving pattern is difficult to deal with when we know the needs of children in conflict are so great,” Nunn said.

Though children in conflict need education, food, shelter and emotional support just as much, if not more so, than children in the middle of a flood, for example, funds almost never reflect this reality, experts say.

“We are not dealing with a wholly rational process here. We are dealing with people’s instinctive reactions,” said Brendan Paddy, a spokesman for the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) [ www.dec.org.uk ], which groups the largest organizations in the UK to raise private donations. He said it was hardest to raise funds for humanitarian responses to conflict.

NGOs described a hierarchy of donor preference within natural disasters as well, with sudden-onset disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes raising much more money than slow-onset disasters, such as drought.

Shaping perceptions

Fundraising in an emergency is about capturing people’s attention with some drama, making a connection with the donor and keeping it, experts say.

In terms of forming such connections and perceptions, media coverage, geography and familiarity play a crucial role in determining who gets the biggest slice, said regional director of the World Food Programme in Bangkok, Kenro Oshidari.

“A connection is important. People assist when they have a common understanding of what others are going through. And if the media does not pick it up, then it becomes a sort of silent emergency,” Oshidari said.

But Zagefka’s paper calls into question the typical portrayal of people in need. She found private citizens are happier to give to those who are not only perceived to be free of blame, but also who appear to be proactive in their plight.

“Maybe it is counter-intuitive, but it is an interesting point, especially when you look at how often victims are portrayed as passive, presumably in an attempt to display their neediness. It is a fine line,” she said.

According to the UN’s Financial Tracking Service (FTS), of the $6.2 billion contributed to natural disasters in 2010, about $1.6 billion was categorized as private donations, with the earthquake in Haiti and the floods in Pakistan attracting the most donations.

Conversely, of the $7.4 billion contributed to conflict situations, about $64 million came from private donors, with crises in Sudan and DRC receiving the most aid.

Finally, $4.5 million of reported donations from private individuals and organizations in FTS was not earmarked for a country or cause.

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[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]