Your comments on my Darfur column
By Nicholas Kristof
My Sunday column is about the aid workers being expelled from Darfur. Surprisingly, the United Nations reacted with rather more vigor than the Obama administration, especially at first. Ban Ki-moon issued a tough statement and has been busy calling up leaders in the region to try to get this reversed, and the heads of WFP and other agencies made strong statements as well. In contrast, the initial State Department comment was pathetic, although it was strengthened to a condemnation on Friday. Obama, Biden, Clinton were all tough on Darfur when they were in the Senate and when they were running for office, so let’s hope they aren’t backing down now that they are in office.
Let me also try to clarify something. There are still many aid workers who have not been expelled (World Vision is one of the biggest groups that remains in place), and of course they will try to pick up the slack. But they won’t be able to, except at the margins, for a couple of reasons. First they have their own missions, and everybody is understaffed. Second, Sudan security officials have closed the offices and confiscated the equipment of the expelled NGO’s, and you can’t do a food distribution if you don’t have lists of people who are supposed to get aid; a communications technician for a group that remains can’t shift to treating children with diarrhea, particularly if the clinic and medications have been confiscated. In some areas, the camp managers were expelled, so there is no longer anyone who even knows what is needed. Third, there is a wide variation in the regional impact of the expelled NGO’s. For example, almost all the aid groups in West Darfur were expelled, but a World Vision staff member in South Darfur can’t do anything to save lives in West Darfur. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Recognized Sudan's ambassador to the European Union and of the documents that confirm the involvement of organizations that have been recently in Trha irregularities and blatant interference in the internal affairs of the country to the President of the Human Rights and the Director-General of the Foreign Policy of the European Parliament as well as the EU special envoy to Sudan, both individually and by the handing over of these documents Hamdi Osman, Vice Prophet Hassabu Sudan's ambassador to the EU has included many of the documents on the irregularities of the organizations which were exceeding the mandate of these organizations and provide information to the International Criminal Court, and sent letters to the views of Western and U.S. to keep pressure on Khartoum and the Internet media campaigns to collect signatures to be sent to U.S. President directly to the invitation of international forces to bring the place of African Union forces.
Post a Comment