By Silvia Spring

Newsweek International

June 11, 2007 issue - The last thing you’d probably expect to see a Malawian drought victim do is whip out her ATM card and pull cash out of a machine. But that’s exactly how some aid recipients in this beleaguered African nation now receive their monthly entitlements. As part of a relief experiment, the British government is handing out £750,000 of aid in the form of cash rather than food. Instead of standing in line for hours waiting for a sack of rice, Malawians simply swipe a card in one of several special mobile ATM machines located in pick-up trucks, then use the local currency to buy food, medicines, fertilizer or even pay for housing or school fees for their children. “Often, people affected by disasters are the ones who know best what they need,” says Chris Leather, an adviser for Oxfam, the nonprofit group carrying out the program.

It’s a novel development idea that’s catching on around the world. Until recently, most of the world’s relief aid came in the form of material goods like food, water, blankets, medicines or building materials, delivered by international staff that parachute into disaster areas, or local NGOs funded by rich donors. But in recent years, as the nonprofit world has increasingly come under fire for inefficiency, mismanagement and even corruption, there has been a push for new strategies. Cash aid, which has been delivered to about 100,000 aid recipients in countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Ethiopia via pilot programs, is one of them.

The idea behind cash aid is to cut the cost of aid delivery, reduce opportunities for corruption and theft of goods, and empower aid recipients by giving them more control over their own well-being. So far, cash-aid programs represent only about 10 percent of the $3.2 billion yearly international food-aid spending. But experts expect the figures to rise sharply this year, as the U.S. government (the world’s single largest aid donor) has thrown its support behind the strategy, following an April report showing that 65 percent of the country’s $2 billion food-aid budget is eaten up by red tape and logistical costs.

Cash aid, which is typically delivered via ATMs with special biometric scanners or in local banks, offers several key advantages. First, cash programs cost about half as much to run as traditional emergency-aid programs—that’s a huge savings considering the multi-millions of dollars spent on food relief delivery each year. Second, cash is more discreetly doled out, a big advantage in war-torn areas where humanitarian workers don’t want to attract attention (aid distribution can turn violent: a British humanitarian taskforce saw its first attempt to hand out food and water in Basra in 2003 end in gunfire). Unlike food aid, cash won’t create unfair competition for local farmers. Development experts say it also helps to foster dignity among victims of war or disaster, giving them choices as well as introducing them to formal banking systems that they might access in the future.

 

 

Lately it has also pressured Fidelity Investments and Berkshire Hathaway to divest holdings in PetroChina, a large Chinese petroleum and natural gas company involved in Sudan’s oil industry.

Save Darfur was created in 2005 by two groups concerned about genocide in the African country—the American Jewish World Service and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Today, the coalition is comprised of more than 180 groups, including the National Association of Evangelicals and the American Society for Muslim Advancement.

The coalition has a staff of 30 with expertise in policy and public relations. Its budget was about $15 million in the most recent fiscal year. Its funds come from individuals, Fortune 500 companies that match gifts from their employees and from foundations, such as the Oak Foundation and the Public Welfare Foundation.

In addition to its ads, the coalition provides updates about Darfur to 700,000 people across the country and routinely asks them to call or write to Bush and Congress.

Save Darfur will not say exactly how much it has spent on its ads, which this week have attempted to shame China, host of the 2008 Olympics, into easing its support for Sudan. But a coalition spokeswoman said the amount is in the millions of dollars.

‘A tremendous impact’

Foreign policy experts in Congress credit the coalition with laying the groundwork for Bush’s new policy. “Save Darfur’s efforts to pressure the administration and Congress and keep the issue alive have had a tremendous impact,” said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Bush administration spokesmen said the president’s sanctions decision was based on advisers’ first-hand knowledge of the region’s deteriorating situation. But they also acknowledged that groups such as Save Darfur were instrumental in making the issue a priority.

“These advocacy organizations play a good role in keeping American citizens informed of some issues that aren’t always on the nightly news,” said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House national security council. “The administration listens and speaks regularly to Save Darfur and other groups.”

Bush’s top diplomat dealing with Sudan praised the coalition’s ability to shine a light on the problem. “The Save Darfur Coalition has kept this issue in the news media and before the public and has focused the issue in a way that hasn’t happened in foreign relations maybe since the South Africa anti-apartheid movement,” said Andrew S. Natsios, Bush’s special envoy for Sudan.

The coalition does have some critics. De Waal, a program director at the Social Science Research Council, said the group should emphasize peace negotiations rather than intervention.

Save Darfur’s members do not agree. “We’ve been very effective in educating a large number of people and mobilizing a significant constituency concerned about the genocide that is willing to take targeted action to get our government to change their policy,” said Ruth W. Messinger, executive director of the American Jewish World Service.

In January 2006, the coalition launched the Million Voices for Darfur campaign to deliver 1 million hand-written and electronic postcards to Bush and Congress demanding that they take stronger measures to end violence. By June, the coalition held an event in the Capitol with then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) who together signed the millionth postcard.

That spring, the coalition organized “Save Darfur: Rally to End Genocide” on the Mall that it says was attended by nearly 50,000 people. It was accompanied by more than 20 events around the country that together received extensive TV coverage, with more than 800 stories broadcast in the United States and Canada, according to the coalition.

In September, activists staged 57 events in 41 countries on six continents—from London to Kigali, Rwanda—which the coalition dubbed the Global Day for Darfur.

More events and advertising campaigns are planned. “There is no dancing in the end zone until the genocide has ended,” said M. Allyn Brooks-LaSure, a Save Darfur spokesman.

© 2007 The Washington Post Company

September 22, 2004, 04:05 PM

President Bush’s speech before the UN

By Terry Bohannon

Tuesday, President Bush spoke before the United Nations. His speech was comprehensive, and stunningly brilliant. He started his speech by shifting from human rights to AIDS, from human trafficking to cloning. After shifting between those topics, he focused on freedom and the war on terror.

After clearly defining the brutal killings in Dufar, Sudan as genocide, President Bush cut to the core of the problem. The source of terrorism and genocide in Sudan and also the Middle East is the lack of freedom.

His words bring an explanation to how women can be treated as chattel Middle East, and how human trafficking (slavery) can still run rampant in Sudan and other countries. This idea makes foreign diplomats very uncomfortable: when the strength of freedom is realized, they might have to commit to change in their own countries or neighboring countries they’d rather leave alone.

President Bush said:

President Bush strongly suggests that freedom is found in democracy, America is a democratic republic (as Tocqueville analyzed). Yet in wisdom, President Bush does not seek to force a cookie-cutter type ‘democracy’ around the world, since “democracies, by definition, take on the unique character of the peoples that create them.”

Yet this suggestion raises the hairs on the back of those diplomats like Kofi Annan who said that “the necessary fight against terrorism is allowed to encroach unnecessarily on civil liberties,” as the AP reported.

The cry of freedom can be heard in Iraq and Afghanistan; it is a cry that cracks the foundations of dictators and breaks down the will of rebels. The insurgents hear this cry, indeed: they would rather see Iraq as an Islamic State than a free nation, as President Bush suggested in his speech. He said:

This sums up the ultimate goals for the war on terror: to bring freedom to those without it and to confront the terrorist and foreign fighters where they are, so we don’t fight them at home.

President Bush’s speech deserves media attention. The broad agenda he gave shows the heart of what is truly compassionate conservatism.

The speech clearly demonstrates what kind of leader our President is. He is not afraid to tell the truth even in the face of diplomatic complaints. President Bush is a natural leader who is not afraid to set long-term goals that will be brought to completion after he’s term-limited. He seeks to bring freedom to the Middle East and he even seeks cures to diseases like AIDS with his 15 billion push for research. Both are momentual goals. The world would be better served when they’re met.

Great leaders take risks and have long-term goals. They set goals such as the fall of the Iron Curtain and the fall of Islamic terrorism. Ronald Reagan saw one of his long-term goals brought to completion, President Bush may not see his.

Whether or not President Bush is and will be a great leader is a question for future historians to debate. However, if you have the time, please read President Bush’s speech before the UN in its entirety, it can be found here.

25 Comments Leave a Comment Forward to a Friend

Issues: Foreign Policy

This week Karyn and I will see two faces of genocide...ongoing genocide in Darfur and genocide 13 years ago in Rwanda. 

In July of 2005, just before the Senate’s August recess, I took a resolution to the Senate floor to proclaim the atrocities in Darfur to be “genocide.”  The state Department was not particularly eager for us to do so at the time, but that soon changed; the resolution passed overwhelmingly.  In a few days I will be in Rwanda, where the Clinton administration failed to label ethnic cleansing of a million to be genocide until too late, so I was not about to let that happen as a leader in the Senate.

I was to go back into Sudan the next week to visit rebel (SPLA) leader (and friend) Dr. John Garang (which I did, joining him and his wife Rebecca at their home called New Site in southeastern Sudan).  I was waiting for the Sudanese government in Khartoum to grant me a visa (On all my previous trips I just entered the south directly on medical mission airplanes without a visa from the Government of Sudan.).  They denied me the visa (by delaying consideration of it), I’m sure because of my action on the Senate floor and my numerous statements that “genocide” was being perpetuated by the GOS.  So instead I went to Chad, just adjacent the Darfur border and visited several refugee camps there.  And then on into Southern Sudan.

I mention all this because on this current trip, I am making my very first journey to Khartoum in the north, requesting a meeting with President Bashir to explain why the US calls the atrocities genocide and to encourage peace in Darfur.   I got the visa and approval to spend time in Darfur, but was denied the meeting with Bashir.  Franklin Graham, who has been outspoken in condemning Darfur activities, held the meeting with Bashir—sans Frist.  In the meeting he received permission to operate Samaritans Purse in the north.

I had other meetings in Khartoum and most of the spin was that Darfur is simply not a very big deal in the large scheme of things.  The government party line is to diminish the atrocities there, to  blame everyone except the government, and to adamantly criticize the national media for “overstating” and “exaggerating” the human suffering, numbers of deaths, and numbers displaced from their homes.  All UN-gathered statistics are said to be overblown.

A 500-mile flight southwest in the DC-3 took us to Nyala, Darfur (the capital of South Darfur) where we met with the Deputy Wali (or governor) of South Darfur.  The meeting was cordial but I was dumbfounded by what I was hearing from this government official.  I share with you a few of his statements just to give you a feel of the denial that is so obvious to the international community and independent observers.

He said about a million people in Darfur have been affected by the conflict; the UN tells us it is 4 million.  His estimate of internally displaced people is 450,000; the actual figure is 2 million.

We were told the “humanitarian situation is stable,” although we had just been told by the UN that several weeks ago 18 humanitarian workers in Nyala had been arrested, some beaten and one sexually assaulted and that overall the humanitarian efforts because of insecurity are on the “brink of crisis” (more on this tomorrow).

The killing today is due to “tribal disputes,” the Wali said.  Adding that “we do not want the UN peacekeepers to come in.” If the UN comes in, “we will see increased suffering of my people.  Our tribes have a lot of arms and if the UN comes in these arms will be directed against the UN.  The UN will complicate matters.” All this, when we know the 7,000 African Union troops simply are not and can not adequately accomplish the task; we were told that again and again by refugees and  by humanitarian workers at Otash camp today.

The international media is “making great exaggeration” of the conflict in Darfur and there is “over-reporting” of IDPs and attacks,” he said.  It is “media imagination.”

Well, you can see he was carrying the party line ... consistent with what you hear in Khartoum.  This is a far cry from what the reality is, according to what the NGOs, the international community, the UN, and people on the ground in the camps tell us.

My message back to the Wali was: 

1.      Continue to implement the Darfur Peace Agreement and encourage further engagement with the rebels who have not signed it;
2.      Allow the UN to come in as peacekeepers; and
3.      The killing must stop.



As I mentioned in 2005 I visited a series of refugee camps in Chad, strung along the border with Darfur.  The camps had from 10,000 to 20,000 people.  The stories told us by the women were the same we heard this year in Otash Camp, located 6 km northwest of Nyala.  In Nyala the largest ethnic groups are Zaghawa and Misseriya Jebel.   The camp is large, dusty, hot, and crowded with a population of over 35,000.

We visited the just constructed medical facility staffed by the NGO Humedica. (See pictures) It consisted of newly, thatched walls, but a sturdy concrete floor, and sheet metal ceiling.  I met with the newly arrived German woman physician who described in great detail the new outbreak of acute jaundice (she believes hepatitis E) that is running rampant throughout the camp.  I learned that 84% of cases are concentrated in the new arrival section of Otash Camp, but she believes that it is spreading to more established sectors.  This requires a public health response and representatives from the water and sanitation coordination committee told me that they have responded with intensified chlorination, promotion of basic hygiene, and expanded construction of household latrines.  (Clean water and sanitation ... that’s where globally the biggest impact in public health can be felt.  We need to better coordinate our assistance in this area around the world.)  Most of the childhood illnesses and failure to thrive are secondary to diarrheal diseases associated with poor sanitation.

We toured an impressive women’s center which served the entire camp.  Women were trained in health practices, weaving, and reading and writing. One is struck by the dedication of staff from the participating NGOS.  Throughout the camp humanitarian services are provided by

        *       World Food Program (over 70% of funding from the US today)
        *       Action Contre la Faim
        *       CARE International
        *       Cooperative Housing Foundation
        *       International Rescue Committee
        *       World Vision, and
        *       Humedica

Karyn met with the women separately in a dimly lit hut discussing around a long wooded table the women’s perspective of their experiences and living conditions.  She retold the stories to me that centered on the fear of the janjaweed, the insecurity of having no work.  The women gather the firewood every day, their fear of being raped outside the camps mentioned again and again.  They told her they got the firewood because the risk of being raped for them, was less than of their husbands being killed. 

The janjaweed are the armed militia groups in Darfur that are aligned with the government.  They are responsible for widespread attacks on civilians, killings, abductions and burning of villages.  They are comprised of fighters of Arab background mainly from the originally nomadic Baggara people.  They are a principal actor in the Darfur conflict, formed by the government in response to attacks on government installations by the SPLA and JEM (Justice and Equality Movement).  They are pursuing a systematic policy of ethnic cleansing throughout Darfur, burning down non-Arab villages and driving out their inhabitants.  Thus ... genocide.

We are told the stories of attacks by the janjaweed with absolute destruction of villages, burned entirely to the ground.  The story is repeated again and again and it is the same story that I heard a year and a half ago from the refugees.  A family in a remote village would be awakened by a gunship flying overhead, with firing on the village.  Janjaweed militia would come storming in by camel or on foot.  Men would be shot, women raped.  As many as possible would flee, sometimes alone, sometimes with babies in arms.  The village would be burned to the ground. Literally everything burned to ashes. 

The satellite photos that you may have seen show the destruction in cold but objective terms.  Over the past four years, scores and scores of villages prominent on photos from 4 years ago are missing, solid dark images representing villages replaced by little smudges which show only residue today.  With 200,000 dead and 2 million people homeless.  With families destroyed.

President Bashir says he believes that allowing UN peacekeepers in will lead to his being ousted.  He believes that the US wants to overthrow him with a regime change, and the way they will accomplish is to have the UN peacekeepers come in ... and possibly indict him for genocide-related activity.  What he doesn’t realize is the US is committed to peace, and in large part due to the aid and influence of the Bush administration a 25 year civil war in his country has been ended. Yes, Darfur atrocities have emerged, but the north-south civil war is ended.  And that if Bashir would address Darfur with, rather than denial, a goal of peace, then all of Sudan would prosper with its rich resources, especially oil, and its potential to attract global investment realized.  In talking personally with other Africa presidents, they tell me that have told him this repeatedly, but he doesn’t believe them.  He should.  We must get him to realize it.

Tomorrow I will share what the humanitarian workers are telling me.  We have got a problem ... a big problem.

Written by Bill Frist, M.D.

Darfur deserves more outrage, action

There is a disturbing difference between the global responses to two conflicts, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof noted. Israel’s monthlong bombardment of Lebanon has killed hundreds and could lead to 20,000 international peacekeepers. But “three years ago,” he wrote, “Sudan began a genocide against African tribes in its Darfur region. That war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, and it is now spreading. There is talk of U.N. peacekeepers someday, but none are anywhere in sight. The moral of the story? Never, ever be born to a tribe that is victim to genocide in Africa.”
  As for the Arab world, Kristof wrote, “I sympathize with their horror at what is happening in Lebanon, but I wish they were just as outraged when Muslims slaughter Muslims in Darfur.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman

·         Bush orders Darfur sanctions after grassroots pressure

• Guardian, Wednesday May 30 2007
• Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington

George Bush yesterday bowed before America's most successful experiment in grassroots organisation - the coalition of Hollywood, religious groups and student activists on Darfur - and ordered economic sanctions against Sudan. The sanctions announcement and a pledge by Mr Bush to press for further action from the UN was timed to pre-empt next week's G8 summit meeting which is (...)

(...) grassroots organisation - the coalition of Hollywood, religious groups and student activists on Darfur - and ordered economic sanctions against Sudan. The sanctions announcement and a (...)

·         Blair backs Darfur aid appeal

• Guardian Unlimited, Friday May 25 2007
• Hélène Mulholland

Tony Blair today called for an end to violence in the Darfur region of Sudan and neighbouring Chad as he urged Britons to donate money to an appeal fund for victims. In a video message posted on YouTube, Mr Blair said the situation was "very very serious indeed". "I hope people can be as generous as possible and support the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Darfur and (...)

Tony Blair today called for an end to violence in the Darfur region of Sudan and neighbouring Chad as he urged Britons to (...)

·         Not on our watch - how Hollywood made America care abour Darfur

• Guardian, Saturday May 19 2007
• Dan Glaister in Los Angeles

The scene will be familiar at Tuesday's Cannes film festival party for Ocean's 13. There will be a red carpet; there will be crowds of fans behind metal barriers; there will be a line of limousines and burly security guards. And there will be photographers shouting out the familiar names of the cosseted and famous: George! Brad! Matt! Don! Don? The Don in question is not (...)

(...) his time to bringing the world's attention to another African tragedy: Darfur. Partly as a result of his efforts it has become one (...)

·         My mind may be in Darfur, but my heart is in the Algarve

• Guardian, Saturday May 19 2007
• Anne Karpf

For a meeting about a coming school trip, the timing could hardly have been worse. Five days after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and we were being regaled with details of the perilous activities to be enjoyed by our 11-year-olds on their week away. Of course, we're grown-ups and we know that the one has nothing to do with the other. But many of us are edgy. I wasn't (...)

(...) developments, hugs their kids tighter than usual. My mind may be in Darfur, Gaza or Waitrose, but my heart is in the Algarve. As (...)

·         China defends Darfur stance against Olympic warning

• Guardian Unlimited, Thursday May 10 2007
• Jonathan Watts in Beijing

China defended its support for Sudan today amid threats of an Olympic backlash unless Beijing makes greater use of its influence to stop the slaughter in Darfur. In a sign that it may be yielding to a growing chorus of international pressure, however, the Chinese foreign ministry announced the appointment of a new special representative to Africa and confirmed plans to (...)

(...) Beijing makes greater use of its influence to stop the slaughter in Darfur. In a sign that it may be yielding to a growing (...)

·         Hague court issues first Darfur war crimes warrants

• Guardian, Thursday May 3 2007
• Xan Rice in Nairobi

The international criminal court announced yesterday that it had issued arrest warrants for a Janjaweed militia leader and a Sudanese government minister suspected of involvement in murder, torture and rape in Darfur. However, Khartoum said it had no intention of handing over the men - Ali Muhammad al Abd-al-Rahman, known as Ali Kushayb, and Ahmad Muhammad Harun, the state (...)

(...) Sudanese government minister suspected of involvement in murder, torture and rape in Darfur. However, Khartoum said it had no intention of handing over the (...)

·         ICC issues Darfur arrest warrants

• Guardian Unlimited, Wednesday May 2 2007
• Xan Rice in Nairobi

The International Criminal Court announced today that it had issued arrest warrants for a Janjaweed militia leader and a Sudanese government minister suspected of murder, torture and rape in Darfur, though Khartoum said it had no intention of handing over the men. Ali Muhammad al-Abd al-Rahman, also known as "Ali Kushayb" and Ahmad Muhammad Harun, the state minister for (...)

(...) and a Sudanese government minister suspected of murder, torture and rape in Darfur, though Khartoum said it had no intention of handing over the (...)

·         Hourglass protests to highlight Darfur war

• Observer, Sunday April 29 2007

Hugh Grant and actress Thandie Newton will join other stars including George Clooney, Elton John and Mick Jagger in a call for action to end the bloodshed in Darfur. Their public statement comes on the fourth anniversary of the conflict, which is estimated to have killed more than 200,000 people. The actors and musicians, who also include Bob Geldof, US actor Don Cheadle, (...)

(...) Mick Jagger in a call for action to end the bloodshed in Darfur. Their public statement comes on the fourth anniversary of the conflict, (...)

·         Darfur woes bleed into Chad

• Guardian Unlimited, Friday April 20 2007
• Julian Borger and agencies

Tagalo Hassan had no idea that the horrific violence of Darfur had spread like a stain across the border into Chad and had been creeping towards his village for months. Being three years old, he could not have understood what was happening when the shooting started before dawn, or when a bullet shattered his right leg and cut a groove in his left. The attack was carried out (...)

Tagalo Hassan had no idea that the horrific violence of Darfur had spread like a stain across the border into Chad and (...)

·         Darfur refugees allowed to stay in UK

• Guardian Unlimited, Wednesday April 4 2007
• Press Association

The removal of Darfuri asylum seekers from the UK for relocation in Sudanese refugee or squatter camps was brought to an abrupt halt by the court of appeal today. Three judges said that the oppressive conditions in the camps near Sudan's capital, Khartoum, plus the lack of resources for economic survival and the total alteration in a refugee's life were powerful factors (...)