US hyping Darfur genocide fears

[JoFerret]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,14658,1318643,00.html

American warnings that Darfur is heading for an apocalyptic humanitarian catastrophe have been widely exaggerated by administration officials, it is alleged by international aid workers in Sudan. Washington's desire for a regime change in Khartoum has biased their reports, it is claimed.
The government's aid agency, USAID, says that between 350,000 and a million people could die in Darfur by the end of the year. Other officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, have accused the Sudanese government of presiding over a 'genocide' that could rival those in Bosnia and Rwanda.

But the account has been comprehensively challenged by eyewitness reports from aid workers and by a new food survey of the region. The nutritional survey of Sudan's Darfur region, by the UN World Food Programme, says that although there are still high levels of malnutrition among under-fives in some areas, the crisis is being brought under control.

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[MsMagnificent]

1. Oh lookie lookie, a WOLF! n/t

[gottaB]

2. A number of problems with that report

1. The quotes from USAID are dated, but they were based on a sound understanding of the effects of malnutrition and disease. Had nothing been done, USAID projections would have proven to be true.

2. Epidemiological studies conducted by CDC, WHO and Epicentre (for msf) do not paint a rosy picture. Some aid agencies in camps for the diplaced are indeed managing to feed everybody and prevent the spread of disease. Conditions in other camps are horrible with cmrs (crude mortality rates) 10 times what is considered normal for subsaharan Africa (.5 per 10,000 people per day). That is still considerably less than the orginal USAID projections, but it is hardly "brought under control."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=876991

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=116x6687


http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/where_we_work/sudan/emergency/

[Eye and Monkey]

3. While "under control" may be overstating it, I've looked over MSF's

latest reports published to the web, from 15 Sept. The site reports pretty consistenty read that, for instance, the malnutrition crisis peaked earlier and is currently receding.
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/2004/sudan_09-15-2004.shtml

There's no doubt that "slightly under emergency level" takes a horrific toll on people. Actually, there's no words that can adequately reflect how horrific that toll is. I know, I've been in Sudan for MSF.

But do not misunderestimate the degree to which USAID under BushCo will incorrectly state, obfuscate, and worse for their own ends - I've seen that first-hand, too. As the Guardian article says - there are comparable situations just down the road, and BushCo doesn't seem nearly as strident about them.

[gottaB]

4. USAID does not dispute that wfp is feeding people

http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/sudan/darfur.html

And see the most recent reports on the right hand side, where their estimates of how many people wfp has reached is largely in agreement with wfp.

http://www.wfp.org/newsroom/briefing/index.html

So it just seems to me that the article is more about grinding axes than reporting current information. And I don't buy the argument that the agency has been totally hijacked by BushCo. The State Department finding of genocide is one that Democrats in Congress agree with. The Democratic Nominee John Kerry has taken a strong position on this issue. Prominent Democrats who have travelled to Darfur agree that it is a genocide and a crisis: Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson Jr., John Corzine, Richard Holbrooke.

It is a crisis. You can cite some camps where the cmr is below crisis level, but in other camps the cmr is significantly above crisis level, which is evident in the msf briefing you linked to, as well as the links I've provided. Here is a statement from msf in July:

Darfur Sudan disaster - "Aid effort nowhere near enough," says MSF president

....
"Hardly anyone is getting the care civilians should get in a conflict," said Dr Gillies. "And there are pockets of real disaster, where people are at grave risk of dying in large numbers.

"I am particularly concerned about the food situation", continued Dr Gillies. "For example, in one big camp around El Geneina, only 35% of the displaced people even have a card entitling them to food from the UN. And the last time they received any was at the end of May - over seven weeks ago".

Food deliveries are inadequate and uneven across Darfur. A nutritional survey of four refugee camps in May and June found severe malnutrition rates of between 4.1 and 5.5%. MSF believes that even with the recently improved deliveries from the World Food Programme, only half of the basic needs for food will be met in July. Young children, under the age of five, are particularly vulnerable. MSF is currently treating around 8,000 children for malnutrition across Darfur.

Death rates are already significantly above the 'emergency threshold'. This is not surprising as there are extreme shortages of water, food, shelter and latrines, which contribute to high levels of diarrhoea among children, a major cause of death.

http://www.msf.org/countries/page.cfm?articleid=01A8F870-2E10-453D-A34846E588A24B73

And this is what was said just this last week:

In Kalma camp near Nyala, where an estimated 66,000 people fleeing violence have sought shelter and MSF is treating 3,900 malnourished children, the survey found malnutrition and mortality rates well above emergency levels. MSF warns that without increased mobilization of aid to South Darfur, the health and nutritional situation in the region could deteriorate further.

"It is a disgrace that just minutes from Nyala international airport, up to 66,000 displaced people continue to live without adequate food or sanitation," says Vince Hoedt, coordinator of MSF's programs in South Darfur.

"The people in Kalma camp are completely dependent on food distributions that are irregular and insufficient. More people fleeing ongoing violence in the region continue to arrive.

"Despite the presence of aid organizations in the camp, the international community and the government of Sudan have not been able to meet the basic needs".

http://www.msf.org/countries/page.cfm?articleid=0079B9ED-7B3C-4290-99E50138C5668A3F

One implication of the "pockets of real disaster" is that some aid workers will have firsthand knowledge of real disaster, whereas other aid workers will not, and they may believe or report that based on their experience the situation as a whole is below the crisis threshold. It is not. That fact is made clear by the WHO study as well.

Now, you may comment that recent report from Epicentre is a retrospective mortality survey. Surely things have improved since June. Not enough, according to the WHO's Dr. Nabarro. It is not good enough for Vince Hoedt, and at the time the deaths were occuring it wasn't good enough for the msf's Dr. Gillies.

[Eye and Monkey]

5. "You can cite some camps" - it seems you're being disingenuous.

Perhaps you should re-read my post. And perhaps you should follow the link and read the reports from the MSF sites in the field. If you need some help defining terms used in the humanitarian community, I'll be happy to flesh some of that out for you, but you can probably find that yourself.

It seems that you are less than familiar with USAID.

Let me be very clear - I am completely aware of how bad the crisis is in Darfur. I am also aware of the "uses" of such crises.

[gottaB]

6. Would you rather I said "one can cite some camps"--wtf?

I stand by my statements and the links provided.

I won't presume that you either ignorant or lying. Nor will I say that you have an axe to grind with USAID--but you speak for yourself.

Since you have offered your expertise, perhaps you would like to explain these passages from the Epicentre report:

At all study sites, the crude mortality rate for the entire recall period was much greater than the benchmark of 1, indicating an emergency (or "very serious") situation, and three to ten times the expected rate in non-emergency sub-Saharan populations (0.5). In Niertiti, crude mortality rates were similar among internnaly displaced people and residents (1.5 for both). If all disappeared people were assumed to have died, crude mortality rates increased to 2.7 (95% CI 1.7-4.2) in Zalingei and 4.2 (95% CI 3.3-5.3) in Murnei.

Crude mortality rates everywhere were extremely high in the "village and flight" period. Violence-specific mortality rates accounted for most mortality during this period.

In the "camp" period, crude mortality decreased five-fold to eight-fold, but remained greater than the emergency benchmark. Here, medical causes of death were dominant, but violence still accounted for 6.7% of deaths in Zalingei, 21.4% in Murnei, 14.3% in Niertiti, and 9.6% in El Geneina. All these killings were ascribed to Janjaweed militia surrounding the camps. When violence was excluded as a cause of death, mortality rates due to non-violent causes in the camp and during the "village and flight" period, respectively, were 1.0 (95% CI 0.3-3.1) and 1.2 (0.8-1.7) in Zalingei, 0.6 (0.4-1.2) and 1.0 (0.7-1.3) in Murnei, and 2.3 (1.1-4.9) and 1.1 (0.9-1.3) in Niertiti. In-camp mortality was far higher in El Geneina than the other sites, where 50 of 104 (48.1%) non-violent deaths were children younger than 5 years.

see http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol364/iss9441/full/llan.364.9441.early_online_publication.30908.1

And when I look at table 2, it says that the cmr (including violent and non-violent deaths) during the "camp" period is over 1.0 in Zalingei, Murnei, Niertiti and El Geneina. El Geneina's was 5.6, and it is the largest camp surveyed. That looks like a pocket of real disaster to me.

Or, if you don't want to share you expertise, perhaps we can agree to use logic and reason.

You seem to be arguing that the latest report from msf shows that morbidity and mortality are decreasing. CMR's for several camps were indeed below the crisis level. It may well be the case that msf (and wfp et al.) are bringing the situation under control. That would be welcome news, and when I see it confirmed and sustained, and when the violence abates and the number of displaced remains steady, I will embrace it, and accept that the aid agencies have addressed the crisis and brought it under control. I will say for the moment that msf and others are successfully managing the crisis in many camps, for which they should be commended, and they may well be on the road to bringing it under control overall. Fair enough?

If that's the premise, then the conclusion that USAID is overhyping the crisis does not follow. Their current reports are consistent with wfp reports. Their past dire predictions have not come to pass. Nor would it seem that the direst worries expressed by msf have come to pass. It was a really bad situation that could have become worse, but international aid agencies responded and, in the end, the situation has improved. The essential difference here is not between USAID and other agencies, as far as reporting mortality and morbidity goes. Rather, the essential difference is that time has elapsed and the crisis has begun to be addressed.

[Eye and Monkey]

9. Are you familiar with the actual roles of the entities that you mention?

That may be part of your problem in understanding the situation.

To be clear, I have no bone to pick with any of the entities involved. It is beneficial to recognize the differences - missions, perspectives, influences, agendas & potential agendas, and operational methods - of the different entities.

I use the word "entities" intentionally, instead of your word of "agencies" - there are dramatic differences between ngos (such as MSF), government agencies (such as USAID), and UN agencies (such as WFP).

You are welcome to stand by whatever you wish. You are also welcome to presume anything you wish about me or about my comments.

Nonetheless, I don't think that your presumptions negate the naivete of an expectation that USAID is not highly influenced, if not driven, by the current administration's agenda - no matter who comprises the current administration. To extend the comment, I would say that same is true of USAID's counterparts from other nations.

And that's my main point in these posts.

[gottaB]

10. Our disagreement is not a problem of my understanding

I am not trying to misrepresent USAID's mission, and I am not suggesting that Nastios is not partisan. On this issue, however, there is broad bipartisan agreement. I disagree with the notion that USAID statements on Darfur are highly influenced or driven by a neocon agenda. I believe that they are influenced by the Bush adminsitration's agenda. However, the Bush administration's agenda on Sudan does not appear to be dramatically different from the Democratic agenda.

Let's talk about the claims being made in the Guardian story, and whether the use of language by the various "entities" is dramatically different. Has Nastios or USAID characterized the situation in Darfur as "apocalyptic"? In fact, Nastios did at one point use the word apocalyptic:

QUESTION: (Inaudible) in Geneva used the phrase "ethnic cleansing" to describe some of the things that are going on there. My question is, do you have specific evidence to back up this claim, such as photography, spy satellites, things like that, evidence that points to that?

ADMINISTRATOR NATSIOS: The United Nations has issued a report in which they have clearly said that ethnic cleansing is going on. Mukesh Kapila's report uses very apocalyptic language to describe what was happening. Secretary General Kofi Annan himself, on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, described the ethnic cleansing campaign in his statement.

So it is not just the United States saying it. The European Union has issued a statement on this and the evidence is this: The United Nations reports that all the villages -- 400 villages have been burned to the ground; the irrigation systems in those villages are being blown up so people will not be able to return to their villages to grow crops. And we know that the pattern is ethnically based. There are villages that are in fine condition, no problem at all, but if there are four village -- Massaleet village or Zagawa village, which are the three tribes that make up the revolt; in particular, they lead it -- their villages are burned to the ground. There are other tribes next door that are not involved in the combat and so their -- the villages are untouched. So there is a clear pattern of ethnic cleansing going on.

http://www.usaid.gov/press/speeches/2004/sp040427.html

(USAID has also described Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistence Army (LRA) as motivated by "apocalyptic spiritualism." Even though the LRA problem is related to Sudan policy, I think that's beside the point here.)

I can't find on the USAID website any other characterization by Nastios of the situation in Darfur as "apocalyptic." So we have this one case of Nastios saying that Mukesh Kapila described the situation using apocalyptic language, and Nastios then using that characterization to support his argument that there was a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" going on. The report Natsios referred to was probably the one titled "A Briefing Paper on the Darfur Crisis: Ethnic Cleansing," which I haven't seen. Knowing the kinds of things Kapila was saying to the press in March, 2004, I am not surprised that somebody would describe that report as using apocalyptic language.

A word that many entities have agreed upon is "catastrophic" (the Government of Sudan being a notable exception). "Crisis" too has been widely used. I think it's foolish to fault USAID for using the terms "crisis" and "catastrophe" when so many other entities have used the same language. As for whether the crisis is being brought under control, see the argument presented in my previous post. One can point to Kalingei, for example, and the claim that for the past three months the cmr has been below the crisis level. I don't doubt that msf has brought down the mortality rate in that camp, but I don't think that's representative based on data from WHO (buried in the links above, see Survey concludes deaths in Darfur exceed the emergency threshold). So I don't support the conclusion (not your view, but an inference that could be easily drawn) that there is no longer a crisis. I worry that even if the wfp meets its target of getting food to 1.2 million people for September, the displaced population in Darfur has grown to 1.45 million, and there are about 200,000 refugees in Chad. That suggests to me that high rates of malnutrition will continue to be a problem.

Finally we come to the elephant in the room: the word "genocide." No doubt evidence from USAID influenced Congress and the Secretary of State in making their determinations. But high rates of death in and of themsleves are not sufficient to make such a determination. Well, there's the matter of satellite imagery which USAID released. We all know how deceptive that kind of evidence can be, but in this case there is agreement between the USAID and Amnesty International on the interpretation of satellite images. Therefore I think it's likely that USAID has reported what it knows without undue embellishment or hype.

[Eye and Monkey]

11. "...USAID statements on Darfur are highly influenced or driven..."

You wrote - "I disagree with the notion that USAID statements on Darfur are highly influenced or driven by a neocon agenda. Etc..."

Well, I hardly think that USAID will be issuing statements that announce a neocon agenda for Darfur. I don't believe I've maintained that AID has. Yet, is there not more to an agenda than statements?

I counsel a healthy skepticism regarding the potential influences that you dispute and the putative certainty that you embrace. I am unclear as to why such skepticism would require proving or disproving.

[gottaB]

12. "I am unclear" --then let me splain it to you

Naturally it is not a matter of proving or disproving skepticism, but rather a question of how much and what kind of skepticism is warranted. On this we disagree, and we have made our cases.

Obviously you think your skepticism represents a healthy skepticism. I rather think that it's misplaced.

You seem to be sticking to the opinion that Beaumont's article represents a healthy skepticism. I think it's potentially misleading, and could easily feed into a kind of skepticism that I regard as decidedly unhealthy, for instance the latest from Islamonline: US Amplifies Darfur Crisis Eyeing Regime Change: Report.

Now if you want to exclude statements from the discussion on the grounds that they do not announce agendas (and therefore should not be used to interpret agendas), or because other evidence for having agendas exists, then perhaps we should end our debate. I am partial to evidence that can be cited and critically examined, and do not expect to change for the sake of this debate. I will cede the point that you are more skeptical than I am, and that you believe your degree of skepticism is healthier than mine.

[Eye and Monkey]

13. You really do insist on being disingenous, don't you?

Do you honestly believe that USAID statements are evidence of agenda? Do you honestly believe that what you are doing is "critical examination"?

A clue - this is not a debate.

A second clue - I've made no case. One hasn't been required.

A point - unlike you, I've tried to avoid insulting you, and I've tried to avoid mischaracterizing your statements.

You've made your affinities and prejudices clear. Believe away to your heart's content.

[gottaB]

15. I don't believe you've avoided insulting me

Would you like to be the final arbiter of that too?

[Eye and Monkey]

16. as I said "I've tried" - there you go again. And "final arbiter"?

There's really no need to respond. Really. Ad hominems don't improve your position.

[gottaB]

17. Yes, "final arbiter"

One should be given credit for trying? Is that the way insults work?

[The Magistrate]

18. A Question, Mr. Monkey

You may recall that we have exchanged words mildly on events in the Sudan previously. For two years here at least, to my recollection, you have expressed yourself of the opinion that things there are not nearly so bad as they are reported to be, and it is beginning to pique my curiousity.

What is your opinion, Sir, of the current government of the Sudan? Do you think they rule in a progressive manner? Do you feel their military forces abide by the laws of war in their activities?

[Eye and Monkey]

19. Perhaps you are mistaken.

I don't recall the exchange to which you refer. If you'd like to clarify, I'll try to respond.

The tone of your inquiry seems to indicate that you've attributed to me a position that I do not hold.

"things there are not nearly so bad as they are reported to be" - from what comment do you draw this mischaracterization?

Re: your three final questions - Very low. Not in the least. No, I've worked alongside folks attempting to reinforce the Geneva Conventions as operable elements of the ground rules.

I'm not sure that I can satisfy your curiosity. But I will try if you expand on your comment.

[The Magistrate]

20. Long Ago, Sir

We discussed the matter of slave raids there, briefly and amicably. My recollection is that you felt the reports then current here to be somewhat exaggerated. In such a situation, there is certainly room for giving different weights to various evidences. My questions were simply an attempt to clarify your views for my own understanding of your positions in the matter. We would seem to be in agreement on basic ground rules.

It does seem to me that for many years the situation in the Sudan has been a most vile one. The rights and wrongs of it, from the view of any particular party to it, do not interest me much. In situations where there are great cultural, ethnic, and religious differences, my sympathies seldom lie with a central government controlled by one strain of the melange, though certainly any government has the right to defend the integrity of the state it controls.

Outside intervention, whether by the United Nations or by a great power, aimed at breaking the current government of the Sudan, and drawing the teeth from its capacity for misrule and criminality in suppression of portions of its populace, would not bother me much, but rather strike me as the sort of thing that ought to have been done long since.

[Eye and Monkey]

21. I don't recall a conversation about the slave trade, and the reports

would have had to be wildly exaggerated for me to suggest so. It's the sort of thread I might respond to, and if I wrote it, I'm accountable for explaining it - but it's possible that your recollection's off.

Whether called an emergency or not, for years the situation has been either horrific or more horrific. It is no less so when seen from up close. A litany of rights and wrongs - therein does not lie a solution. I would express skepticism that such a performance by a central government could be characterized as "defending the integrity of the state".

Outside intervention - in a different sense from your use of the term, it could be said that outside intervention is a large part of the problem. Is outside intervention - as you mean it - the solution? Well, I am equally wary of both "yes" and "no" when we get right down to it.

I would wonder whether there exists, in the world, a force that is able to intervene as you describe. Is there a force that can actually be fielded to create a situation not just different, but progressively less horrific?

[lexicon089]

7. just...

trying to get a few posts in so i can have thread capabilities.... this is redicilous I have revelant information i want/need to inform!

[lexicon089]

8. by the way

To say that things are good in the sudan is like saying things aren't bad in iraq.

[newyawker99]

22. Hi lexicon089!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[camero]

14. While commiting genocide in Iraq.

They sure know it when they see it, don't they?