Charity president says aid groups are misleading the public on Somalia

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

The head of an international medical charity has called on aid agencies to stop presenting a misleading picture of the famine in Somalia and admit that helping the worst-affected people is almost impossible.

The international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Dr Unni Karunakara, returned from Somalia last week and said that, even though there was chronic malnutrition and drought across east Africa, hardly any agencies were able to work inside war-torn Somalia, where the picture was "profoundly distressing". He condemned other organisations and the media for "glossing over" the reality in order to convince people that simply giving money for food was the answer.

According to Karunakara, agencies have been able to provide medical and nutritional care for tens of thousands in camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, which have been receiving huge numbers of refugees from Somalia. But trying to access those in the "epicentre" of the disaster has been slow and difficult. "We may have to live with the reality that we may never be able to reach the communities most in need of help," he said.

Karunakara said that the use of phrases such as "famine in the Horn of Africa" or "worst drought in 60 years" obscured the "man-made" factors that had created the crisis and wrongly implied that the solution was simply to find the money to ship enough food to the region.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/sep/03/charity-aid-groups-misleading-somalia

[LAGC]

1. It's shit like this that makes me weary of donating to ANY foreign "relief" charity.

Practically all of my charitable donations go to domestic groups like the ACLU and scientific research organizations.

I know that's rather selfish of me, but many of these foreign charities don't have proven track-records where the money really goes to where they say its going, and often times it just seems like they are trying to put a band-aid on a gaping wound by claiming to feed a starving child for a day, when the greater problem of over-population and lack of access to contraceptives is completely ignored.

Don't get me wrong, I really feel for all those starving kids in Africa, but what are we doing to actually prevent the CAUSES of their suffering, not just trying to treat the symptoms?

[izquierdista]

2. Nada, zip, zilch

There are lots of things that could prevent the causes: planting mangroves like they are doing in Eritrea (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0jshwUWPBQ); planting desert legumes in overgrazed areas; develop solar energy projects; grow algae and other plants suited to the climate.

But what that takes is a central government that can plan and carry out the projects. Absent any exploitable natural resource (gold or oil), there is just no money there, so the locals are left on their own. They have to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, and the quickest way to do that is to hijack a passing cargo ship.

[Duppers]

8. Doctors Without Borders is the most reputable of charities

I make a monthly donation to them, along with animal rescue groups & Hopkins research.

[EFerrari]

10. Our foreign policy would have to change and that's not going to happen.

And the spokesman from MSF is referring directly to the phrases used by the State Department in the last couple of days when they patted themselves on the back for helping Somolia. I read it in their twitter feed.

[Shining Jack]

12. You are damn right. +1 n/t

[EFerrari]

13. I follow the State Department on Twitter and their feed is surreal

most of the time.

[jcamp27]

3. Famine is not caused by there not being enough food

Famine is not caused by there not being enough food. It is caused by some people not having enough food. The reasons some people don't have enough food can be numerous.The drought contributes to the problem, but African Famines are largely man made disasters. Until there are functioning governments and distribution networks all the food in the world cannot help these people. It will sit on a dock and rot.

[BanzaiBonnie]

4. And it has always been thusly

It's about power and control. Those who control the food SUPPLY chain, hold the power.

[dogmoma56]

5. like using starvation as Genocide to get rid of those 'Other' tribes.?, where the oil is

[WhiteTara]

17. And if we dismantle our "functioning" government

I wonder how long it will take to get us to the Somalians misery?

Welcome to DU BTW :hi:

[jmowreader]

6. Sam Kinison's "Ethiopia Solution" is the only thing that's gonna fix Somalia

The only thing I can think of that would fix Somalia is to go in there and move all the reasonably law-abiding citizens to a different country, and leave Somalia to the pirates and warlords. Then, when they starve, kill each other off or the Russians decide killing Somali pirates would be the perfect way to dispose of all the obsolete antiship missiles they can't figure out anything else to do with, the law-abiding citizens can move back and set up a government.

[BiggJawn]

7. You mean things aren't so good in that Libertarian paradise?

The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is unable to fix things? Why, I thought all the Invisible Hand needed to work its magic was absolutely no government intervention or regulation.

[boppers]

9. They have a lot of government regulation. At gunpoint.

A warlord with guns, enforcing rules, is a de facto government entity...

Which is why, in a Libertarian paradise, all people are equally armed, and are not allowed to band together in ways that create imbalances of personal power.

Now, what entity could *enforce* such rules, without a government, is left up to... well... talk to a big "L" Libertarian and you'll get a lot of different answers.

Myself, as I self-describe as a socialist libertarian... I think that the problem in such societies is that freedom of speech is being controlled by freedom of weapons.

[EFerrari]

11. Famine Devastates Somalia in the Shadow of US Domination

by Michelle Chen
August 11, 2011

The famine in Somalia is a human tragedy on an unimaginable scale. But the loss of life depicted in the news reports masks other losses: there is the loss of shame—by the warring factions whose violent appetites continue to ravage the country from within; and there’s the loss of perspective by the geopolitical forces that have cynically stoked civil war under the banner of “fighting terror”; and there’s the loss of hope among the ordinary people caught in the crossfire.

The United Nations’ declaration of famine in Somalia highlighted a desperate need for international assistance, but also exposed how aid money fits into Washington’s political arsenal.

Early on, various international aid agencies waffled over the logistics of serving areas controlled by the militant group al-Shabaab. Not only was there fear that militias could disrupt or endanger the aid missions; under a much-maligned State Department policy, the US government could potentially prosecute groups that engaged with Shabaab for providing “material benefit” to terrorists. Last week the State Department eased its restrictions under mounting public pressure. But according to the Huffington Post, many NGOs are still confused and fearful of getting ensanred in the counter-terrorism dragnet.

While al-Shabaab has posed a real threat in some areas, the more fundamental barriers to effective assistance are not the creation of any insurgent group. For years, U.S. domination of the region has fueled unrest as well as cynicism toward international intervention.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/14-4

[Divernan]

14. "Loss of shame...geopolitical perspective"? sounds like US govt./corporations

[EFerrari]

18. Yep and thrown into stark relief by the Wikileaks revelations.

I'm surprised no one has killed Assange yet. He better have good security.

[klook]

15. "...agencies have been able to provide medical and nutritional care for tens of thousands

in camps in Kenya and Ethiopia."

That part gets missed in the rush to interpret this story as "We should close up our wallets until Somalia is free of warlords and pirates."

These donations are saving the lives of Somali refugees. Many of the desperate people inside Somalia are beyond help, but that's no reason to put this crisis on "Ignore."

[Bluenorthwest]

16. I think the man is saying we need to pay the right kind of

attention, that what is needed is far more profound and expensive than our individual pledges can address.
Sending a few bucks is the way affluent people put a crisis on ignore.