Refugees on The Huffington Post

Kathryn Schulz: Billie Jean in Baghdad

2009-11-16T14:40:21Z

On Watching the Michael Jackson Movie With Iraqi Refugees

Forgive me, but I am going to start at the end. I am sitting in a dark movie theater in Damascus, Syria. It is October 30 and This Is It, the Michael Jackson movie-slash-valediction, has just opened worldwide. In 24 hours, I will fly home to New York, after a month in the Middle East reporting on the Iraqi refugee crisis -- on the terrifying past, miserable present, and uncertain future of the estimated two million people who have fled the war. Right now, though, nine of those two million people are sitting next to me: my friend Z., who invited me to the movies, plus eight of his pals. Chronologically, they are just kids, college age or slightly older -- say, 19 to 25. Measured by life experience, they have nine or ten light years on me.

This is, as I said, an ass-backward way to begin. By rights I should start with the big picture: with those two million refugees, the other 2.6 million who are displaced within Iraq, the 1 million dead. I should tell you something about them -- about these doctors, engineers, artists, former U.S. Army interpreters, mothers of murdered six-year-olds, English teachers, hyper-articulate fifth-grade kids. I should tell you something about international refugee policy, about Sunnis and Shiites and Christians, about life in Iraq before and after the war.

Instead, here I am in this movie theater. Michael Jackson is up on screen: singing, sliding his astonishing feet, doing that thing where he points to precise, invisible spots in the air. Billie Jean is not my lover. I was in second grade when this song came out; I can barely remember a time when I didn't know it by heart. Down at the end of the row, a young Kurdish woman who sports a vintage MTV T-shirt and speaks perfect idiomatic American shouts, "We love you, Michael!" All around me, the other kids are singing. She's just a girl who claims that I am the one. They know every damn word. It is one of the happiest, strangest moments of my trip.

***

Here are five things you should know about these kids:

1. "College age" is a category, not a reality. Back in Iraq, kidnappings, gunfights, and bombings conspired to make going to school impossibly dangerous. As a result, almost all Iraqi kids have missed out on years of education. Z., a highly motivated student, persuaded his parents to let him keep going to high school throughout the war. When I asked him how he got there every day, he grinned broadly: "At top speed." But most kids just stayed home -- for months, for years.

In Syria, Iraqi refugees can go to school -- in theory. In practice, fewer than 20% of them do so. Some can't afford the books and uniforms. (Refugees can't legally work in Syria, so even families that were affluent when they first fled have long since burned through their savings.) Some are too busy being the sole wage-earners for their families, since minors who work are far less likely to be busted than their parents. (I met a former government functionary whose family survives on the $17 per week that his 13-year-old son makes by cleaning a print shop.) Some drop out from sheer frustration and shame -- the shame of being so far behind, so much older than their classmates, so unwelcome and displaced.

2. These particular kids, however, want to be in school -- more than any young people I've ever met. One of them almost started to cry when telling me about missing out on four years of school (and these are kids who can describe the bombing that killed their best friend without shedding a tear). Specifically, they want to go to school in the U.S. To get there, they are banking on a program called the Iraqi Student Project, which connects qualified Iraqi kids with American universities that are willing to waive tuition.

3. As the dream of studying in the U.S. suggests, they have all made some kind of peace with the country that invaded their own, bombed it (in the words of the first George Bush) "back to the stone age," and opened up a power vacuum inside which every imaginable monstrosity now flourishes. Like almost all the Iraqis I met, the kids show a graceful ability to separate the actions of a government from the intentions of its people. Perhaps that's one legacy of life under Saddam. Or perhaps it's just an awkward concession to a country that gave them, in no particular order, a model for a free and democratic society, a war, crippling sanctions that devastated civilian life, another war, Thriller, Beat It, and Bad.

4. They have lived through hell. Z. lost 14 friends in three years, enough to fill the row of seats in front of us. Another kid I met arrived at school one day to find a decapitated body on the doorstep, an experience that left her seven-year-old sister mute for a week. Another saw two of her friends kidnapped from the street in front of her. Later, the parents found their children's remains in the garbage. She doesn't know why she was spared.

5. Most of the time, looking at these kids, you would never guess any of this. They act like kids everywhere, not least because they need to. They do it for their parents; they do it to pay their debts to the dead. They do it because no one can live in a state of crisis forever. It is only in rare moments that you see the price they've paid. The rest of the time, they play soccer and World of Warcraft and ultimate frisbee. They negotiate with their parents over what time they'll come home. They have Skype names and tricked-out cell phones and 60 bajillion Facebook friends. And they are seriously in love with Michael Jackson.

***

So now Michael is up there on screen singing all I wanna say is, they don't really care about us. The kids are stomping their feet so hard the whole row of seats is rocking back and forth. Later, when we get to the half-spoken, half-rapped part of Thriller made famous by Vincent Price, they go at it in unison:

Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'alls neighborhood.

To me, it sounds like the Iraqi national anthem. For them, though -- well, I hesitate to make too much of it. Part of Michael's beauty, after all, was just beauty. Thriller was brilliant when it came out, so brilliant that it did not age into campiness. Nor did its creator. Even at fifty, he could sing with the best of them, and dance everybody else into the ground.

Still, Michael Jackson's particular brand of genius had the fairy dust of American possibility and prosperity shining all over. Did he speak to the dispossessed, with his corny-yet-sincere bid to "Heal the World," and his indisputably successful bid to rule it? Of course. Ask Marjane Satrapi of Iran, or Helene Cooper of Liberia, both of whom have written movingly about their childhood obsessions with Jackson, that strange, single-gloved beacon of hope in dark times. And they are hardly alone. As a diehard Nabokov fan, it pains me slightly to say this, but for every five people who have read Lolita in Tehran (or in any other oppressive locale on earth) roughly a billion have tried, in the privacy of their own rooms, to master the moonwalk.

That is why -- let's face it -- Michael Jackson probably did more than anyone else in his lifetime to enhance America's image overseas. Granted, a plausible rival has recently emerged, in the form of another kinda-black-kinda-white guy who has lately come in for some serious global fame. But the jury is still out on that one. Not so Michael Jackson, King to Obama's president. Part of his allure was the way he threaded together the two great American fantasies: universal brotherhood (It don't matter if you're black or white) and collective progress through individual improvement (If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make that change). His ethos was our national one: just give a guy a fighting chance.

It's not perfect, but it is something. And it is, unquestionably, every refugee's dream. Watching This Is It in Damascus, next to my tough, sweet, somehow surviving Iraqi friends, it was impossible not to think that this is some of what they saw: Michael Jackson as (I think he'd appreciate the comparison) Lady Liberty.

Palestinian Officials Criticize US Over Israeli Settlements

2009-11-01T19:59:17Z

JERUSALEM -- Palestinian officials on Sunday criticized the United States for what one called "back-pedaling" on demands that Israel stop settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, saying that the Obama administration's change of approach on the issue damaged the likelihood of a peace agreement.

Reporters Uncensored: The Real Refugees of Kakuma County

2009-10-31T11:34:33Z

Imagine you and your family in Kenya's Kakuma camp, along with seventy thousand refugees. Dust storms darken the sky and dry out your skin and the few scraps of food that aren't sealed away. You do all you can to guard your children from malaria but can't keep them from malnourishment. Your life expectancy is less than 60 years and you won't spend one day of it free from hunger, disease and hopeless poverty. Your children have never left the camp, but then, for one day, you can take them to Oz. With the help of this week's social innovator, the hearts and imaginations of thousands of people around the world have a chance to be freed, if only for an hour or two, from the bleakness of life in a refugee camp.

This week we're profiling FilmAid International, a non-profit organization that aims to bring the healing and educating power of cinema to refugees in the most desperate situations. The organization was founded in 1999 by a group of film professionals to entertain refugees in Macedonia at the start of the war in Kosovo. They began screening movies in refugee camps to restore hope, educate and inspire those who were displaced by the war. In 2001, FilmAid expanded to support refugees from Sudan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Rwanda. In addition, they also had a program helping families in the United States left homeless after Hurricane Katrina.

FilmAid's programs consist of three components. First, the organization partners with other aid agencies to provide video-based educational workshops. Sessions are held in community centers and schools throughout the camps, and involve topics relating to health, gender-based violence, conflict resolution and family planning. They also offer outdoor screenings inside the refugee camps. The films screened are typically local African films related to social, health and environmental issues. They stress positive messages that are meant to provide the viewers with tools for coping with often taboo issues. Finally, FilmAid works directly with the refugees to produce short films on the issues that affect them most. In doing so, they keep a finger on the pulse of communities and provide a forum for public dialogue.

For more on FilmAid, check out our latest show ON DEMAND.

Luis Carlos Montalván: The Myth of Collateral Damage: Truth, Consequences and a Challenge to 'Say It Plain'

2009-10-30T15:26:49Z

Maybe mainstream media's penchant for superficial and divisive reporting, combined with the Department of Defense and State's culture of secrecy, have created a popular vocabulary that reduces wide-scale human suffering to a necessary and insignificant cost, the equivalent of a few broken eggs. Maybe there are too many reporters telling the same story from a barely-sourced news feed instead of reporting from the ground, showing and telling the stories as they unfold.

At the outset of our invasion of Iraq, our press took its unquestioning cue from policy makers like Donald Rumsfeld, promulgating a Hollywood vision of post-war, Phase IV reconstruction Iraq where throngs of Iraqi citizens would wave in a new era of goodwill on the joyful breeze of thousands of American flags, so the Iraqis could cheer their noble liberators.

We know the story unfolded differently, and predictably. The throngs quickly became looters, and the flags were shelved. Made vulnerable by policies that wishing makes it so, our troops were making sacrifices on the premise that their own suffering and that of the Iraqi people is and always was for a greater, long-term good.

It is the tragedy of this invasion that the people we sought to help are suffering on a scale that should have been predictable and remains the Allied force's responsibility, given our plan for reconstruction and our failure to realistically plan for required troops, budgets, infrastructure, reconciliation, time, materiel, expertise, security, stability, and all the other factors required for a functional Iraqi government.

Caught in the tsunami of this war-of-choice, Iraqi men and women are being forced to face the very real possibility that they may never get home. If we do not address this in our press and in our policies, other forces unfriendly to our country will feed, secure and protect many of these refugees, and new generations will grow up hating us for invading with good intentions, but nonetheless having left them destitute and displaced.

What are the statistics?

Nearly 5,000,000 Iraqi people are now displaced.

Over 2,000,000 of these men, women and children live as refugees in neighboring countries

These numbers represent the highest percentage of people seeking asylum in the world. (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)

Total Iraqi population in crisis in and out of Iraq? 7,900,000

Of these, approximately 750,000 are trying to survive in Jordan, where it is illegal for them to find legitimate employment because of their status as displaced persons from Iraq.

As of January 2010, draconian cuts in UNHCR supported assistance will further reduce subsistence levels of health care, food, water and other assistance.

Rising food prices have cut daily caloric food content from 1300 to 1100 calories per person, including children. That is for those who receive such food.

What are some of the consequences for this group of displaced persons?

According to the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children,

"Generally it is (displaced Iraqi) women who work (illegally) outside the home, since men and boys are more likely to be deported. Working illegally as waitresses... and domestic labor, women are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse by their employers and colleagues... Some women have resorted to sex work... to provide for their families, putting themselves at incredibly high risk of sexual violence. All of this takes place in a climate of complete impunity: women rarely come forward after they have been raped, and rarer still is the successful prosecution of the rapist."

Our press should be putting a face on these statistics. They should be telling the stories that turn this massive humanitarian crisis into a compelling, personal tragedy that moves our people and policy makers to take action. Precedent exists across modern American history; from the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 to the post-Vietnam War 'orderly departure' policies, modern American history is replete with instances where journalists informed the public and policy-makers, and America did the right things for displaced persons and for our country.

It is the role of the media to challenge us to consider that we should face this humanitarian crisis, if not out of basic decency then out of overriding self-interest, since displaced and desperate people are vulnerable to the influence of the first person or group to offer help.

The Fourth Estate has a responsibility to reach, challenge and inform the public and politicians, policy makers and military, to challenge the "party line" and provide us all with an unflinching analysis of what we would otherwise be unable to know or see.

How does our Fourth Estate use its unparalleled powers in response to a humanitarian crisis we helped create and can help to correct?

The choice is ours. We will have to respond to this crisis by design or by default. It would be refreshing to respond by design, instead of having to address further crises that unfold due to our neglect.

What can we do?

While the Departments of Defense and State would take broad issue with the position that the military or the State Department are somehow responsible for or condoning of physical abuse, torture, or the use of food as a weapon, Iraqi refugees who fled what remained of their homes experienced one or more of the gruesome practices, often at the hands of neighboring clans, tribes, ethnic and religious groups or competing and often physically combative political parties.

The current administration has pointed out that it inherited this problem from its predecessor. That said, this tragedy continues to unfold. It is time for proactive policy and action; for Americans to make friends of the people we were seeking to help by doing the right things for the refugees who attribute their current suffering to our reckless invasion and policy of reconstruction-through-wishful-thinking.

Let's do the right thing for the refugees, and we will surely benefit as we have benefited before from surges of gratitude, intellectual contributions, safety, alliance and innovation that every previous group of displaced persons has brought to our country as they return to their own country or emigrate to others.

The life of an Iraqi refugee is defined by lack of basic human necessities -- food, clothing, medical care, clean water, and education. These traumatic conditions stress in the extreme all aspects of their lives -- physical, emotional, psychological, financial, and spiritual. The results are predictable as solid families unravel into poverty, violence, hopelessness, and despair, becoming the perfect candidates for radical rage against those who would have been their liberators.

President Obama stated, on February 27, 2009, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina,

"let there be no doubt: Iraq is not yet secure, and there will be difficult days ahead. Violence will continue to be a part of life in Iraq. Too many fundamental political questions about Iraq's future remain unresolved. Too many Iraqis are still displaced or destitute... And even as Iraq's government is on a surer footing, it is not yet a full partner - politically and economically - in the region, or with the international community. In short, today there is a renewed cause for hope in Iraq, but that hope rests upon an emerging foundation."

Get them the help they need. Do it now while we still have the troops and other resources in place to facilitate their return and rehabilitation.

Luis Carlos Montalván is a former Army captain and the Director of the Iraq Veterans' Refugee Aid Association (IVRAA).

Refugees International: Pakistan: Inconvenient Truths

2009-10-29T21:30:09Z

By: Patrick Duplat, Advocate

"When they realize you're a Mehsud, they treat you like a suicide bomber who's wearing an explosive jacket." -- A displaced Pakistani from South Waziristan, quoted in Dawn

Pakistan is in the midst of an internal conflict with severe humanitarian consequences. Tens of thousands of civilians fled South Waziristan in the past few days, as the Pakistani army continues its offensive against the Taliban in the country's northwest. With the UN declaring that 1.7 million displaced Pakistanis from the Swat and Buner districts returned home since July, it's easy to forget that this crisis has been going on for more than a year, and will likely continue for the foreseeable future.

Indeed, while I was in Pakistan in early October most aid workers insisted that their biggest challenge will be to sustain the required level of aid in the coming months. More than 700,000 civilians remain displaced, the families who've returned will need help to rebuild their lives. The army's operations continue to displace thousands. The humanitarian community is preparing to launch a fundraising appeal for 2010 based on projections of future large scale displacement. It's hard to fathom why, in the words of a high ranking UN official, the Pakistani government "thinks the crisis is over."

Yet funding is not the only concern. As the Overseas Development Institute, Oxfam and Refugees International (Protect People First, published on 26 October 2009) have all highlighted in our respective reports, aid is politicized and is not reaching the most vulnerable. The Pakistani government is a party to the conflict and is at the same time coordinating the relief effort. The humanitarian community, led by the UN, has found it difficult to collaborate with the government while ensuring that assistance is given on the basis of need, rather than serving as a political instrument.

The dilemma is particularly flagrant in South Waziristan, where the government has kept most aid workers and journalists out of the area. A major international aid organization was escorted out of D.I. Khan, South Waziristan's neighboring district, when it tried to conduct an assessment there. UN agencies are forced to operate via 'remote control' through Pakistani aid organizations, with little oversight on how aid is distributed. Population movements are controlled, with some areas cordoned off by the military. Tribal allegiances are being played out as aid is handed out to one group over another, in an attempt to create or deepen tensions.

In the face of such violations of humanitarian principles, human rights abuses by the Pakistani army and discrimination in assistance, the international community is remaining mostly silent. To avoid disrupting relations with a key ally on the war against the Taliban, the U.S. and the European Union have failed to raise these sensitive issues. As the head of an aid group told us, everybody is "afraid to deliver inconvenient truths" to the Pakistani government. But treating civilians like "suicide bombers" is not going to earn their trust -- and the international community should understand that it would be a pyrrhic victory if winning against the Taliban meant losing the population.

Monroe Price: Nursing a Memoir to Publication: Finding a Niche, Defining a Life

2009-10-29T17:02:32Z

The publishing of a book -- especially one that's personal and not a footnoted artifact -- is still worth celebrating, even if it's being published in the traditional format of pages between covers. This is particularly true if you're the author and the book is primarily about you.

So here's a bit of self-promotion for which I apologize in advance.

The book -- out this month from Central European University Press -- is called Objects of Remembrance: A Memoir of American Opportunities and Viennese Dreams. It's about an arc of life that starts in pre-War Vienna, but quickly shifts to the United States. It's a book in the shadow of the Holocaust, but also about the amazing and complicated process of becoming American in the 1950s.

My mother was pregnant at the time of the Anschluss, and we left Vienna in 1939 when I was seven months old. I became a refugee, of sorts, and the book tries to discover what that could possibly mean. I was hardly a "Survivor." And our family did not have to traipse through woods to get to freedom. But no family of the time was unscathed and there was abundant and tragic damage to ours. My mother was separated from her parents. We left for America and they stayed and perished.

The word "Jewish" doesn't appear in the title, but that's something of an oversight. The book could have been called Rootedness and Rootlessness since it is illustrative of the religious and social fates that confronted so many people as they were distributed, or they distributed themselves, around the world. We, for example, did stints in Macon, Georgia (three years) and Cincinnnati, Ohio (close to 15 years) before finally, late in our migration, returning to New York City. How these exile communities in the South and the Midwest sought to educate and hold on to its young charges is a tale in itself.

Indeed, for me as author, one of the most interesting aspects was learning how the national Jewish organizations worked to expand opportunities for refugees and immigrants by encouraging them to move from the major ports of entry to other places, other towns and cities, where jobs (hard to find in a Depression) might be located. That's how we got to Macon.

When I wrote this book, one question involved genre. Was this a Holocaust book -- even though I (who was born in Vienna and left as a seven month old refugee in 1939) was hardly a Survivor? Was this a book about universalizing the refugee experience -- trying to show, directly or indirectly, that the lives and patterns of families of the 1930s are echoed in the lives of refugees of the 21st century?

Or, was this predominantly a book about Vienna and Austrian Jews who tried to recreate their life in a new world? My desire to write the book was triggered after -- owing to reparations and restoration-related legislation -- Austria was providing citizenship to people who left in fear and terror. I applied and received Austrian citizenship and, I think, wanted to explore my motives and feelings in doing so. In this period, my working title for the book was How Austrian Am I?

But could I write, authentically, about myself and Vienna, a place I had studiously avoided?

I compensated for my own lack of direct observation by reading such memoirs or recollections as George Clare's Last Waltz in Vienna, David Weiss's Reluctant Return, Lore Segal's Other People's Houses, Richard Berczeller's A Trip into the Blue and Peter Gay's My German Question to find voices that would educate me and with whom I can, in my mind, converse. I tried to learn from such stories what life in the critical days of the 1930s was like for my mother and father.

And I talked to Austrians who remained Austrians. I wanted to maintain my distance from my Viennese past while writing about it. This proved tricky. I wanted to capture how I felt about Vienna growing up while, all the while, new friendships, new experiences were altering my prism of attention. I became a more frequent visitor to the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York. I went to Vienna on the earlier publication of the German language version of the book.

I'm not sure I achieved the balance that would have been appropriate. My dichotomy is captured by the subtitle (that's what subtitles are for). It could be a book about my complex relationship to Vienna and my process of becoming an American at one and the same time.

You can find the book on Amazon.com.

You can see some of the book's photos and find out about upcoming book talks on the Facebook fan page.

UN Tests Text-Messaging Food Vouchers To Iraqi Refugees

2009-10-27T13:19:38Z

GENEVA (AFP) -Iraqi refugees in Syria will receive UN food vouchers through text messages on mobile phones, the World Food Programme said Tuesday.

Rahim Kanani: The Great Convergence of Crises: Can We Handle the 21st Century?

2009-10-21T10:36:44Z

We have entered a new era of human civilization in which the challenges pressed upon our world have yet to be matched by the fierce intelligence required to resolve them. The challenges we face encompass a boiling planet and vanishing cropland; extreme poverty and fledgling economic development; and impeding shortages of fresh water, oil and other natural resources, among many others--all of which are arrows in the crossbows of mankind. The moving target: effective, sustained, and strategic global partnerships. This century, the world shares a uniquely common future, whether in tragedy or victory, and the only way to nail that bull's-eye is shifting the mentality of the international community from one of reactive assessment to proactive engagement.

There's just one caveat: the United Nations estimates the global population surpassing 9 billion by the year 2050. Of this projected increase, nine countries are estimated to account for a full 50% of this growth. Listed in accordance with their contribution, they are India, Pakistan, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, the United States, Ethiopia, and China. Pause for a moment, and think about integrating the implications of adding an additional 3 billion people to planet earth to the host of already-complicated challenges outlined above. Failing to build in consequence will result in devastating scenarios. One example is the new notion of food security. Recently, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton noted that since 2007, there have been riots over food in more than 60 countries. "Massive hunger poses a threat to the stability of governments, societies and borders," she held.

Just last week, World Food Day was marked by UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman declaring that for the first time in human history, more than 1 billion people around the world are suffering from malnutrition and hunger--up 100 million from 2008. We are losing the battle to feed the world's unnourished, and if we continue down this line of negative progress, one can imagine dozens of food riots evolving into dozens of armed conflicts. Indeed, the quest for basic life-saving sustenance will also encourage incredible population flows unrestrained by international boundaries, sharply increasing the number of refugees worldwide.

Mass migration is unquestionably another foreseeable challenge: instead of developing an emergency action plan upon witnessing the tens of millions of people around the world who are ultimately forced to migrate beyond their borders after having suffered from the damning effects of climate change, extreme weather and severe impoverishment, we need to intelligently anticipate the crisis and prescribe potential solutions well in advance. One avenue of resolve is for the international community to encourage regional leadership in parts of the world likely to be most affected by this astonishing growth, and to call on them to act as Ambassador's for 2050. Rather than leading the charge, we must act as brokers of new partnerships between nations who must confront these crises, in addition to integrating their implications into our national strategies of international development, diplomacy, and defense. We must help countries help themselves, and enable them with the proper tools of research, policy planning, and resource management to allow them to incorporate predictive modes of thinking into their current frameworks of decision-making.

There has been no other moment in history that has required our civilization to, more quickly and more adeptly, re-conceptualize the way in which we understand ourselves in relation to the other. Every citizen of the earth has a stake in the future peace and prosperity of our species, and we can no longer limit our thinking to merely second and third generation consequences, for we must start thinking about fourth, fifth and sixth generation consequences--the challenges of our time demand such prudence. The learning curve is a steep 90 degrees, and it will take courageous leadership from all levels of society to rebrand the future as common, shared, and valued. A critical component to rebranding the next one hundred years is the proactive measure of redefining the role of education in addressing societal ills. The need for creative and interdisciplinary thought, study, and action has never been greater. We must institutionalize a culture of innovation into our educational systems; revamp our curricula to reflect the defining issues of our time; and graduate cadres of students around the world who are well versed in the interconnectedness of social, political, economic and environmental challenges. A transformation of the education sector provides a new method of problem solving, and is not a solution in itself. Rather, it is a gateway to elicit new bodies of issue-specific knowledge required to predict and solve future calamities, valuing the wisdom of hindsight equally with the wisdom of foresight.

With United Nations Day approaching this Friday, it is important not to ignore the role of this institution in handling these crises, which is, at best, facilitative, and at worst, irrelevant. The debate between legitimacy and efficiency, while of necessity, has come to a crossroads: it is now time to choose. The effective, sustained, and strategic global partnerships I refer to as essential in confronting these issues are not based on principles of universal inclusion, nor are they driven by global consensus--they are a constellation of action-oriented alliances aimed at specific regional and international challenges. Cooperative agreements between particular nations, rather than 192 member states, targeting key areas on a collision course with climate change, preparing for the coming needs of millions more hungry souls, designing refugee and migration policies where massive growth and flow is inevitable, and exercising smart fiscal and social management of finite resources, is the sensible way forward in the 21st century.

The symptoms of catastrophe are unmistakable, and the diagnosis is clear: we are in a race against time with the forces of the natural world. Predictive modeling and preventative planning is phase one of the cure. We must administer the treatment, as for the hundreds of millions to be born in societies already unable to provide for their people, this truly is a matter of life and death.

Pakistan: Refugee Crisis Looms As Military Battles Insurgents

2009-10-20T15:33:26Z

Thousands of refugees fled fighting between Pakistani soldiers and Taliban militants in South Waziristan Tuesday, raising fears of a humanitarian crisis compounded by dangerous conditions and the onset of winter weather.

Aid agencies said there were as many as 150,000 refugees already, and the number could rise to 250,000 in coming weeks as the fighting intensifies.

Georgianne Nienaber: Congo Spurns Burundi Refugees at Border

2009-10-09T12:21:58Z

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) UNHCR is repeating its call for Congolese refugees currently in Burundi not to return to their native South Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This follows an incident when more than 400 Congolese refugees from the recently closed camp in Gihinga, central Burundi, were stopped from entering their country by immigration officials of the DRC and allegedly attacked by Burundian authorities.

Reports from the refugees say Burundian soldiers from the Mwaro military camp together with the police attacked the camp last Monday at 4 a.m. to force the refugee survivors to a different relocation facility. "They stormed the camp and badly beat the refugee survivors," who are now sleeping outside after their tents were destroyed by the military and police. Other survivors tried to enter Congo.

A UNHCR summary report presented at the Palais des Nations press briefing in Geneva cited security concerns as the reason refugees should avoid Congo.

The immigration services said their actions were based on security concerns for the group. The refugees had boarded 11 trucks provided by Burundian government yesterday morning, leaving behind another group of some 500 refugees waiting for their turn to return. When they reached the border they found it closed and the Burundian authorities took them back to Gihinga.

The Congolese refugees who were denied access to their country are those who earlier refused to relocate to the newly established Bwagiriza camp in eastern Burundi, claiming their security would not be guaranteed there. Bwagiriza camp is presently sheltering some 1,200 mostly Congolese refugees, including 599 who voluntarily transferred from Gihinga earlier this week.

For months, UNHCR and the Burundi authorities had carried out an information campaign to prepare the refugees in Mwaro for the voluntary relocation. However, when the exercise started, only 264 agreed to relocate. Those refusing to relocate said they feared for their safety in Bwagiriza. Once Gihinga closed, the refugees are only be able receive assistance in Bwagiriza. So far, 2,300 have refused to move.

Francesca Fontanini, UNHCR regional spokesperson, clarified the situation in an email exchange earlier this week.

Those refusing to relocate said they feared for their safety in Bwagiriza because of its proximity with the Tanzanian border where there are rival ethnic Bembe Congolese refugees. Despite UNHCR assurances that the camp was at a safe distance of 60 km from that border, they said they preferred to return to South Kivu and informed local Burundian authorities of their planned departure date of Monday 05 October.

UNHCR fears that any unorganized, large, movement of the Banyamulenge group to South Kivu at this time would put them at security risk. In the region, several revenge attacks on civilians of the same ethnicity -- or fear thereof -- have forced many of them into exile since June 2004, including those intending to return today from Burundi. The Gatumba massacre of August 2004 was one such attack, though it extended beyond the DRC borders. In the incident, armed men assaulted what was then a temporary camp for Congolese refugees in Burundi, setting huts ablaze and killing at least 160 people, mostly women and children, and wounding another 100.

If it is memory of the Gatumba massacre which is stopping the displaced from following relocation orders, it is no wonder that they have elected to return to the uncertainty of war in eastern DRC. With the demolition of Gihingi, they have little choice.

Image: Gatumba 2004

The future for these dispossessed is grim, considering that OXFAM, the International Rescue Committee, and Human Rights Watch maintain that the "joint-peacekeeping" operation between Rwanda and Congolese government soldiers (FARDC), led by war criminal Bosco Ntaganda, has been a dismal failure, creating a humanitarian crisis of another 250,000 displaced since January 2009. The victims were at Gatumba were mostly Banyamulenge, a group often categorized with Tutsi, and who remain at the center of the political discourse in DRC.

In a statement today, the Gatumba Refugee Survivors Foundation condemned the actions of the UNHCR.

In the face of the refugee resistance to move to Ruyigi, the UNHCR decided to cut all its assistance to these refugees, including foods, medical assistance as well as schooling for the children. As of now, these refugees, more than 2300, have been without food or drink, or any other sort of support for about two weeks. The most vulnerable, including children and pregnant women, are already in a dire situation, and their situation is deteriorating day by day. Moreover, the UNHCR withdrew its support staff from the camp, and no other sign of its presence is visible around there.

We condemn this decision and request that the UNHCR resume its activities immediately. We believe that subjecting these people to inhuman treatment in order to acquire their consent to move is not shocking to human conscience. No one should tolerate such behavior and no one should be put in a condition, be it refugees. This is so especially considering that among the refugees there are hundreds of children who are affected by the UNHCR decision.

Frustration in the face of this humanitarian tragedy is understandable. Where is SOS Hillary Clinton in the face of this, especially after her courageous meetings with Congolese President Joseph Kabila and his promises to the United States that he would do something to alleviate the crisis?

To turn away Congolese at their own border is unconscionable. There are additional reports from the ground in Congo that the "voluntary" relocation of IDP's from camps in and around Goma is a sham exercise. The displaced and dispossessed literally have no safety net as violence and atrocities, though unreported, continue in the Kivus.

Image: HRW Kabila says "go home" to this failure of Kimia II

Has Clinton been sidelined by President Obama because of her increase in popularity after her African tour, while his numbers were plummeting at home before the announcement today of the Nobel Peace Prize?

Additionally, the State Department said quietly last week that the United States will soon be pumping millions into a new Embassy in Burundi. The DOS Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) and the Bureau of Administration announced the award of a $109 million contract to build a New Embassy Compound (NEC) in Bujumbura, Burundi.

The NEC in Bujumbura, Burundi, will be constructed by Caddell Construction, Inc. of Montgomery, Alabama.

The project consists of a chancery building, a support annex/warehouse, a Marine security guard quarters, recreation facilities, three compound access control facilities and "related site development."

Something is afoot in central Africa and we are dropping the ball. On a visit to the region in 2007, a deep source at the UN told me that his/her expectation was that violence and genocide could erupt again and that the epicenter would be Burundi.

As we suggested in the LA Progressive earlier this week, given the current humanitarian mess in the region, an unholy "alliance" between Rwanda and DRC, the failure of Kimia II, and political fumbling, the source appears to be prescient.

Let's hope the source was wrong.

Angelina And Brad In Syria To Shine Light On Iraqi Refugees

2009-10-02T15:56:50Z

DAMASCUS, Syria — Angelina Jolie met with Iraqi refugees in Syria on Friday and urged the world not to forget the plight of those among them who cannot return home because of the trauma they suffered and the country's instability.

Jolie visited Syria in her role as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, and was accompanied by her partner, Brad Pitt, the agency said.

Craig and Marc Kielburger: Doulas Deliver Positive Birth Experiences for Immigrant Women

2009-10-02T15:26:50Z

Imagine being admitted to a hospital in a foreign country.

You're alone as doctors explain your condition in another language. On top of that, in just a matter of hours, you'll be completely responsible for a new life.

In one of Vancouver's most multicultural communities, this is exactly what Jalana Grant sees on a regular basis. New parents who are also new to Canada are virtually alone. Some have fled violence while others look to begin a new life. Either way, bringing a baby into that transition is terrifying.

That's where Grant puts her doula skills to work.

Doulas have been gaining popularity but are still a relatively uncommon. The word comes from ancient Greek, meaning "woman servant." But, in fact, they are much more.

Doulas are women who provide emotional, physical and informational support before, during and just after childbirth. Unlike midwives, they don't assist in delivery. They do help with pain management and act as a coach. They are also a comforter and an advocate in the delivery room.

"Doulas mother the mother and include the partner to make sure everyone is working together," explains Grant, a doula of 26 years. "When labour gets started, the doula comes to the couple's house. As things start to get more interesting, she makes sure they don't end up at the hospital too soon. They are a constant presence so no one has an urgent feeling."

That urgent feeling is hard at the best of times. But, for the women Grant works with as the doula coordinator for the South Community Birth Program, those fears are compounded with other pressing issues.

"We have had women who are HIV-positive, in abusive situations, homeless, single women giving a baby for adoption, concealed pregnancies, teens," says Grant. "Birth is a huge transition and our doulas really make a difference in helping women through this transition, in particular those who are marginalized by class and ethnicity."

As of 2006, about one in five Canadian residents were born outside the country. While a doula's role is usually filled by grandparents, aunts or friends, these people are inaccessible to new immigrants. So is service in a native language.

That's where Grant's team comes in.

The goal is to ensure everyone has a positive birth experience, no matter their circumstance. One client from El Salvador had come to Canada at 14. She lived in foster care and in her twenties became pregnant by a man who was forced to leave the country.

The woman had no family support. But, through her doula, she received care in Spanish. The doula became her mother-figure, alleviating the woman's fears and offering encouragement. Afterward she kept the baby, finished her degree at the University of British Columbia and still regularly contacts her doula.

Grant says she often sees women in similar situations and works to pair them with a doula. That means she's always looking to expand her multicultural team.

Recognizing Vancouver's obstetricians couldn't reflect the city's diversity, Grant seeks women with varied language skills who often don't call themselves doulas but help with pregnancies in their communities.

They are offered official training through DONA International, a doula association providing certification based on international standards, and learn massage techniques and how to determine when to go to the hospital. The volunteers attend a few deliveries as observers. Soon, they begin seeing clients.

Since 2003, they've assisted with over 600 births.

"We speak 17 languages right now as well as English," she says. "But, just when you think you have lots, you have some woman speaking a language you've never heard of."

This makes Grant's search for new doulas ongoing search. As long as there are new moms, she'll need new doulas.

Knowing the answers is easy. Delivering them is the challenge.

Alex Thurston: A Domino Effect in the Horn of Africa?

2009-09-30T18:40:11Z

Somalia's civil war, pitting the Transitional Federal Government against al Shabab and other Islamist rebel groups, has been destabilizing Kenya and Ethiopia for some time now. Al Shabab recruits fighters from Kenya, and conflict on the Somali-Ethiopian border has provoked Ethiopian military interventions in Somalia even after the 2008 withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from the country. How far will chaos spread, and what is the appropriate US policy response?

At the United Nations General Assembly meeting last week, leaders from Kenya and Ethiopia openly warned of the consequences Somalia's instability could have for the region. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga devoted a large portion of his floor speech to Somalia, saying that "the continuing inflow of refugees, small arms and light weapons [from Somalia] is the major source of insecurity in our country."

Ethiopian Foreign Minister Ato Seyoum Mesfin painted an even more alarming picture, arguing that not only might Somalia fall soon to al Shabab, but the conflict there could expose Sudan to radical influences from the Horn. Mesfin did not spell out precisely how he thought fighting in Somalia would destabilize Sudan, but likely he was alluding to North-South tensions stemming from the run-up to next year's presidential election and a 2011 referendum on Southern independence.

Unspoken, perhaps, was another, more immediate fear: that the Somali civil war will fan flames of conflict in Ethiopia's majority-Somali Ogaden region. Reports of collaboration between the Ogaden Liberation Front, a rebel group, and al Shabab undoubtedly have Ethiopian officials nervous.

How should the US react to these warnings? Washington should certainly take regional leaders' perspectives seriously, both as knowledgeable assessments of the situation on the ground and as political messages indicating the shape of Kenyan and Ethiopian foreign policy.

Yet Washington should not make the mistake of viewing all problems in the Horn as stemming from a single source. Somalia's civil war constitutes a danger to the whole region, but it is not the only cause of instability. Drought strains East African governments' capacities to provide for the welfare of their constituents. Ethnic tensions inside Ethiopia and Kenya cause strife, and maneuvering in advance of the next elections (Ethiopia's are in 2010, Kenya's in 2012) consumes a significant portion of leaders' energies.

These tensions would exist even if al Shabab -- or Somalia -- did not. Similarly, armed conflicts in the region that threaten to reignite - civil war between North and South Sudan, separatist violence in Ogaden, war between Ethiopia and Eritrea - began long before al Shabab formed. It is important to recognize the threat al Shabab poses to the region, but it is also important not to lose sight of the complexity of political relationships inside Somalia and across the region. This is especially true as al Shabab finds its political support slipping in some parts of Somalia. Even as the Islamist rebels bid for control of Mogadishu, other groups are challenging their dominance in strategic towns like Kismayo, a major port on the Indian Ocean, and Beledweyne, which sits near the border with Ethiopia.

In American policy toward the Horn, one feature appears settled: Washington will continue to support Somalia's Transitional Federal Government with aid and weapons. But this step does not in and of itself fulfill the need for a more developed policy toward Somalia. Going forward, Washington should think carefully about how Somalia fits into a regional context. Clearly Somalia's neighbors are worried. If the United States is to play a positive role in the region, we must think about whether our policies will help allay fears or increase them. Will missile strikes on terrorist suspects in Somalia do more harm - particularly to US relations with Kenya - than they will good? Will strategies of quarantining southern Somalia keep al Shabab out of Kenya's refugee camps and urban centers? Will the perceived need to stabilize Somalia eclipse other concerns in the region, such as the political and human rights situations in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Sudan? All these questions bear scrutiny as the Somali civil war rages on, creating unpredictable effects both inside and outside of the country.

Judge To Decide If 9-Year-Old Liberian Refugee Will Stand Trial In Arizona Rape

2009-09-29T00:00:26Z

PHOENIX (AP)-- A 9-year-old boy charged in the gang-rape of an 8-year-old Liberian girl sobbed in court Monday as his teacher testified that he rarely did his homework and often got into fights with other students.

Under questioning by the prosecution, second-grade teacher Toya Abrams said the boy was a challenge and had various behavioral problems.

The boy eventually put his head down on a table and began sobbing, prompting his lawyer to ask for a recess.

The boy is one of four Liberian boys facing charges in the rape. Police say the boys lured the girl to a storage shed at a west Phoenix apartment complex with the promise of gum and took turns raping her.

All the children involved are refugees from the West African nation of Liberia.

The case sparked an international outcry after police reported the girl's father said she brought shame on the family and he didn't want her back -- comments a family pastor later said were misunderstood because of a language barrier.

State child welfare officials have custody of the girl, and police are recommending neglect charges against her parents.
Story continues below

Monday's hearing was to designed to help Judge Dawn Bergin decide if the 9-year-old charged in the rape is competent to stand trial. Two mental-health experts found that he is not, and Bergin must listen to testimony from them and others before she makes a decision.

Bergin was expected make a ruling Monday or Tuesday, but decided testimony would take too long for that. She scheduled another hearing on the same matter for Nov. 18.

Abrams, who teaches at Camelview Elementary School in Phoenix, also testified that she was concerned about the boy's home life, saying he wore the same dirty shirt to school for months, often smelled bad, and was often hungry. She said no one in his family ever showed up to his parent-teacher conferences or signed his homework.

"As a teacher, that let me know that I'm on my own," she said.

She said the boy often acted out in class and received poor grades even though she believes he was capable of learning his lessons. Whenever the boy was punished, she said he would "shut down," putting his head down in his arms and refusing to work for the rest of the day.

The boy's attorney, Art Merchant, asked Abrams whether he would be prevented from properly doing his job because of such behavior. She answered yes, but Bergin ruled her answer as inadmissible.

A 14-year-old is charged as an adult in the case. A 13-year-old is undergoing a court-ordered process intended to make him competent to stand trial. Another 9-year-old has been ruled incompetent but is undergoing classes to teach him about the court system and become competent to stand trial.

(This version corrects boy's age per updated court information.)

Lee Bycel: New Year: Is There Hope for the Darfuri People, for Us?

2009-09-28T18:36:43Z

No one says it ... but the uneasy feeling was palpable. I could see the questions in their eyes: Why are you going to spend Rosh Hashanah in Darfuri refugee camps in Eastern Chad? Why would a rabbi welcome the Jewish New Year in a place where there are no Jews? Do you really think going will make a difference?   I understand these questions. I only regret that they are rarely asked aloud. I have had lots of time to reflect on these questions on this three day journey to a place that is far more distant from San Francisco than the days of travel to get here.

I am here in Eastern Chad, this epicenter of human suffering. I am here with fellow human beings, reminding them that we do care and we have not forgotten. I am here listening to their stories and letting them know that I will bring their stories home. I am here because our worlds are inextricably linked.

I first visited here in 2004 and since then I have returned several times. The Chadian people are some of the poorest people on the planet. Here, 275,000 Darfuri refugees have found a fragile safe haven in U.N. tents. These shelters provide minimal protection from the harsh conditions of sub-Saharan Africa and not much more from the storms of conflict. The plight of the Darfuri people -- the nearly three million displaced from their homes and the 400,000 dead -- has been well documented. Our advocacy and diplomacy has had some impact on decelerating this genocide, now in its seventh year.   Our humanitarian aid has saved lives. Still, the situation on the ground remains dismal.

Rosh Hashanah is a holiday that celebrates renewal and creation. It implores us to care for each other and to care for this planet. It reminds us that as long as there is life there is hope. What better place to welcome in the New Year than with the victims of man's brutality to man. Although we have yet to turn our powerful prayers into a world that is just and humane, I have hope -- and hope is all these refugees have. It is their lifeblood.

As I sit here with new friends and refugees whom I have known for years, I marvel at their ability to survive. The soul of a refugee camp resides in the courageous people who dwell within it. The silent screams that echo through the camp are those of a people who are asking if the world still cares. My presence, it could be any of us, conveys that we do care and we are doing our best to restore their lives.

These refugees are the victims of horrific events: genocide, climate change, lack of resources and a world that is confused about its humanitarian priorities. It is no longer possible to separate these problems; real solutions will only come when we think and act in integrated ways. Ways which allow people to live with inalienable rights -- to food, shelter, potable water and the absence of violence in their day to day lives.

There is currently much discussion about the role of the United States and what international pressure should be applied to change the situation. This work is essential and provides hope for long term solutions. Immediate humanitarian needs, however, cannot be overlooked. My friend Adam cannot wait another year for drinkable water; his daughters cannot wait another day for a life without the constant threat of rape; the elderly and the infants cannot survive another winter without shelter from the torrential desert rain. Where will the aid come from unless we help to provide it?

Is my trip making a difference? I see a difference in the smiles of the children. I feel it when I hold a refugees hand. I witness it when I visit the aid clinics. Perhaps the difference isn't quantifiable, but it is profoundly apparent to me.

Soon I will be returning home renewed and filled with hope for the New Year, thanks to the brave spirit of the Darfuri people. Experiencing the horrific conditions of their day to day lives brings an indescribable perspective to my own challenges and reminds me that my life will never be full until their suffering is over.

Our humanity is defined by our actions -- our ability to show compassion, to empathize with others, and to do something constructive -- and opportunities to help others are present each and every day. For us, remembering the Darfuri people is a measure of our conscience and humanity. For them, it is their hope for survival. That is why I have returned to Chad.

Lee Bycel is Executive Director of the Redford Center which is based in Berkeley. The Redford Center inspires positive social and environmental change through the arts, education and civil discourse. For suggestions on actions you can take regarding Darfur please go to the website of the Save Darfur Coalition.

Manila Flooding: How You Can Help

2009-09-27T13:02:24Z

Typhoon Ondoy dropped one month's worth of rain on the Philippines in a single day. Flooding in Manila has forced millions out of their homes and rescue teams are working around the clock.

Huffington Post Impact is working to collect a comprehensive list of links and ways to get involved in relief efforts, detailed below.

NOTE: We will continually be updating this page. If you have more information about how people can get involved in relief efforts, leave a comment or e-mail us at impact@huffingtonpost.com

•Latest Info: Google has compiled an extremely helpful list of emergency numbers and groups in the Philippines who are accepting donations. It also includes a broad view of the map displayed below.
•Help the UN World Food Programme by making a donation. This program identifies families in specific need of aid. Just $18 provides a family with rice for two weeks. This is the most critical and immediate way you can make an impact.
•UNICEF has already provided $143,000 worth of relief to affected children in the region. You can call 1-800-4UNICEF or donate via their Philippines Floods page.
•Call the Philippine Consulate General at 646-4620 or the Filipino Community of Guam President Alex Gagaring at 483-2539. They can tell you how you can help and where to send donation checks.
•The Pacific Daily News of Guam recommends writing a donation check to the Filipino Community of Guam — put "Calamity Fund" in the memo line.
•Filipino blogger Manuel L. Quezon III has compiled an impressive list of ways people can help, both locally and internationally.
•Plain and simple — donate to the International Red Cross and help them continue to put relief workers on the ground in the Philippines.
•Donate via Catholic Relief Services online or call 1-877-HELP-CRS
•If you're in the area and have access to a computer, you can update the interactive Google Map which is dedicated to impacted areas. Check it out below.

Updates from the ground can be found on IHaveNet, a Filipino news site. If you're in Manila and have photos, you can send them to GMANews, who will post them on their site and on Facebook.

Diane Tucker: Brutal Destruction Of Iraq's Archaeological Sites Continues (SLIDESHOW)

2009-09-21T16:46:10Z

Buried in Iraq's clay and dirt is the history of Western civilization. Great empires once thrived here, cultures that produced the world's first wheel, first cities, first agriculture, first code of law, first base-sixty number system, and very possibly the first writing. A brutal plundering of this rich cultural heritage has been taking place in broad daylight ever since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. These days Ancient Mesopotamia looks more like a scene from the movie Holes.

"I still find it hard to believe this is happening," Clemens Reichel told the Huffington Post. "Since the 2003 Iraq War, my work as a field archaeologist has changed forever. Sometimes it feels more like an undertaker's work." Reichel, a Mesopotamian archaeologist at the University of Toronto, is former editor of the Iraq Museum Database Project at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute.

The scope of the catastrophe taking place cannot be overstated, said Reichel.

Thousands of cuneiform-inscribed tablets, cylinder seals, and stone statues have illegally made their way to the lucrative antiquities markets of London, Geneva, and New York. Irreplaceable artifacts have been purchased for less than $100 on Ebay.

Beyond the loss of these precious objects, reckless digging has destroyed the ability of researchers to assemble a mosaic of meaning from the shards of ancient art and mud bricks buried in the ground. "Artifacts without context are decoration, nothing more. Pretty, but useless," said Reichel.

View slideshow:

Looters Aren't The Only Culprits

The United States military turned the site of ancient Babylon into Camp Alpha in 2003 and 2004, inflicting serious damage according to an exhaustive damage assessment recently released by UNESCO. Bulldozers leveled many of Babylon's artifact-laden hills. Helicopters caused structural damage to an ancient theater.

But don't be quick to pin the blame on the U.S. military. In the past, protecting antiquities was an important part of U.S. military planning -- that is, when the leadership at the Defense Department deemed it important. During World War II, American officers persuaded allied commanders to avoid combat inside Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. Members of the Third Army rescued ten works by Rembrandt from the salt mines of Germany, then shipped them to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. for painstaking restoration before returning the works to Europe.

Why, then, are military helicopters still landing on the remains of ancient Babylon? Why are looters still bringing shovels to the cradle of civilization and stripping it bare?

The Buck Stops With Donald Rumsfeld

Remember Rummy? The former defense secretary's jaw-dropping insensitivity was immortalized by the Washington Post's Thomas E. Ricks, after Army Specialist Thomas Wilson complained to Rumsfeld that he and his comrades were forced to root through Iraqi junkyards to improvise armor for their military vehicles:

TW: "A lot of us are getting ready to move north soon. Our vehicles are not armored."

DR: "You go to war with the Army you have."

Rumsfeld was equally indifferent about the looting of more than 15,000 objects from the National Museum in Baghdad on his watch. "Stuff happens," he said.

According to U.S. military intelligence officer Major James B. Cogbill, the principal reason the U.S. failed to protect the National Museum in Baghdad and key archaeological sites was the relatively small size of the force sent into Iraq. "There weren't enough troops on the ground to guard known ammunition dumps, let alone cultural and archaeological sites," Cogbill told the Huffington Post.

Remember it was Rumsfeld who pushed hard to send as small a force as possible into Iraq. This failed strategy, now called the Rumsfeld Doctrine, resulted in unnecessary loss of life, and loss of history.

In 2003, museum officials in Baghdad had more on the ball than Rumsfeld. They wisely hid many premier objects inside an air-raid shelter and the Central Bank before the Coalition invasion. Even so, thousands of precious objects covering 5000 years of recorded history were stolen or smashed to bits. Today nearly 10,000 artifacts remain missing.

Even more devastating is the continued destruction of Iraq's reknowned archaeological sites. Here are three examples. There are thousands more.

Babylon

First built nearly 5,000 years ago, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon was once the largest city in the ancient world. Hammurabi, whose principles of justice are still recognized today, lived here. So did Nebuchadnezzar, who reputedly established the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Alexander the Great once ruled this resilient city.

The use of Babylon as a military base was a grave encroachment on the ancient site. Several areas were leveled to serve as parking lots. Heavy vehicles destroyed relics buried near the surface. Troops filled sandbags with soil full of archaeological fragments. (Something as simple as a broken plate can hold the key to how ancient cultures traded.) The remains of Ishtar Gate, the most beautiful of the eight gates that ringed Babylon's perimeter, was among the structures most abused.

"The damage to Babylon is so great," said Maryam Mussa, an official from the Iraqi state board of heritage and antiquities, "it will be difficult to repair it, and nothing can make up for it."

Samarra

The Great Mosque of Samarra, built in the 9th century, was once the largest mosque in the world. It's minaret, the Malwiya Tower, is a dramatic spiraling cone that rises more than 170 feet above the desert. Not only is the tower one of the most recognized buildings in the Middle East, it was featured on Iraq's currency. Despite protests issued by scholars, U.S. snipers occupied the Malwiya Tower as a lookout. In 2005, the top floor of the minaret was blasted by an insurgent bomb.

Umm al-Aqarib

Archaeologists uncovered a palace and a large temple complex more than 4,500 years old at the ancient site of Umm al-Aqarib, findings that were expected to help rewrite the history of Sumerian architecture. Today this buried treasure has been completely picked over by looters. Many of the illicit digs were massive efforts carried out by organized teams with backhoes and bulldozers, some financed by foreign operations. Stolen artifacts included fragile clay tablets etched in cuneiform script that revealed recorded decrees, business transactions, and other details of Mesopotamian life. Archaeological bjects like this are difficult to trace because they have never been recorded.

Who is going to step in and protect these sites?

The United Nations is trying to name Babylon a World Heritage Site, a designation that would bring additional support and protection. The hitch? The World Heritage Organization might deny the request if it decides Iraq doesn't have the personnel to maintain the site. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has kicked in $700,000 to help with restoration, a figure most archaeologists consider too small to make a difference. "Of course it is not enough, but it is better than nothing," said Mussa.

Speaking of better than nothing, last fall the U.S. became the 123rd country to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. (That date, 1954, is not a typo. It took 55 years for the U.S. to get on board.) The Hague Convention is the first multilateral treaty devoted exclusively to the protection of cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict.

Major Cogbill is pushing to institutionalize wartime cultural planning "so it is not marginalized as an afterthought in the junk drawer of the Pentagon."

The U.S. Government should create a permanent, dedicated structure within the Department of Defense that, at a minimum, ensures that appropriate cultural planning occurs and is disseminated to all levels of command. This organization should be fully integrated into the operations and policy directorates -- not marginalized as an afterthought in the "junk drawer" of the Pentagon. It would also be responsible for coordinating directly with whatever civilian agency has overall responsibility for protecting cultural arts and antiquities. Perhaps most importantly, cultural planning should not be relegated to the periphery as part of "phase IV" operations. Unless such planning is a formal aspect of all phases of the operation, it will not be executed properly.

The Department of Defense is "seriously considering this recommendation" said Cogbill.

Army cultural services manager Laurie Rush told the Huffington Post the Department of Defense has already started to do more than just talk about antiquities issues. In 2007, Rush developed a set of playing cards for U.S. soldiers that illustrate Iraq's wealth of ancient historical sites. "This summer, the Central Command Historical Cultural Advisory Group completed its first ever on-site archaeology training for military personnel in the Middle East. Next month, the group will return to Cairo to provide additional sessions with an international faculty," said Rush.

In the meantime, the U.S. military is in the process of slowly withdrawing its troops from Iraq. It begs the question: who is going to step in and stop the slow death of human history?

Georgianne Nienaber: Congo: Time to Send in the Clowns?

2009-09-18T11:49:43Z

"Sarcasm, sarcasm, the Devil's weapon." ~~ Jane Trahey

Less than 24 hours after the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists sent an open letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing concern about the safety of three female Congolese journalists covering women's issues in Bukavu, south of Goma, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) issued a press release about "Clowns Without Borders" entertaining children in the IDP camps near Goma. What about Reporters Without Borders? An even more novel idea would be Doctors Without Borders. Frankly, I am not sure how to write about this amazing disconnect. Do we laugh or cry about the search for truth?

Congolese president Joseph Kabila paved the way for a troupe of Spanish Clowns, while thugs and militia rule the Kivus and truth-seeking journalist are threatened. Sending in the clowns will not end this war or the oppression of women and children. Hillary's idea of 3,000 armed women seems the way to go, but there has been no news about whether or not it will happen. Armed clowns protecting journalists? Now that might work.

The three reporters, Delphie Namuto and Caddy Adzuba of U.N.-sponsored broadcasting network Radio Okapi and Jolly Kamuntu of local station Radio Maendeleo are members of the South Kivu's Association of Women Journalists (AFEM), which has trained female journalists and presents radio programs spotlighting women's issues, especially in rural areas. "Just three weeks ago, a radio journalist was murdered in Bukavu, the third reporter killed in the city since 2007, and local investigations have not been thorough and transparent in solving the motives and circumstances of the murders, " CPJ told Clinton.

Namuto, Adzuba, and Kamuntu were named in an anonymous text message sent on September 8 to Namuto:

You have a bad habit of interfering in what does not concern you to show that you are untouchable. Now, some of you will die so that you shut up. We've just been authorized to start with Kadi, then Kamuntu, then Namuto: a bullet to the head.

You might say that the journalists choose their occupation and have to endure the consequences. Rare is the journalist who has not been detained in DRC on trumped up charges, but death threats are another matter. So are the children who are raped, abused and forgotten.

Clowns in the IDP camps will help the children "forget their experiences of flight and violence," the UNHCR release says. Attacking the clowns seems almost too easy, but having been in these camps I cannot help but wonder if the time and energy and money was well-spent. I am certain the clowns were entertaining, if not frightening (my bias here), but the children are so deprived in these camps that my tattoos provided hours of fun for them to explore and touch, not to mention blond Muzunga hair under a baseball cap. Is this kind of exercise really of any value? Give the clowns a job. Perhaps digging latrines and cleaning up the mounds of garbage and filth. Laughter only goes so far before it morphs into tears.

Adding to the black comedy of horrors, UNHCR issued another press release within hours of the clown notification which indicated that a questionnaire sent to all the residents of the IDP camps indicated that they "wanted to go home."

The IDP families, much of which comes from the territories of Masisi and Rutshuru, had informed the provincial authorities and the humanitarian community in their desire to return to their villages. Although spontaneous return movements have been observed continuously since January 2009, these movements in greater numbers only began in September after questionnaires about the intentions of returning IDPs have found that the majority of residents in the camps wanted to go home. (Translated from French)

Given the choice of living in a plastic hut, with your baby sleeping on lava, the stench of garbage everywhere and disease stalking the camps like a leopard looking for its prey, I doubt that a questionnaire was needed to indicate people just want to go home to plant their crops. We observed pitiful plots of squash and tomatoes planted in the crevices of lava while at Mugunga II in January.

IDPs themselves filled in forms indicating a possible date of return and a special area of return. UNHCR and its partners continue to provide certificates of voluntary return of all IDPs wishing to return home. These certificates will also facilitate the reintegration assistance in the areas of return. Several UN agencies jointly provide partners with assistance packages to return, UNHCR distributed and not with a ration of food for 3 months provided by WFP and a kit of non-food items (placemats, plastic sheeting for temporary shelter, sleeping mattress, blankets, buckets, soap, etc..) (Translated from French)

I know UNHCR is trying, but the situation in DRC remains such a mess that it is difficult to resist sarcasm. There is also the real concern, and reports from the ground in Goma support this, that the displaced are in some instances being forced to "go home."

Real investigative reporters disguised as clowns? The State Department might want to consider that option. (Forgive me, Secretary Clinton.)

In fairness to UNHCR, spokesperson Francesca Fontanini has been very willing to directly answer questions about the movement of the internally displaced. She has a job that cannot be rightfully criticized by sarcastic journalists. I hope she does not take me off her mailing list.

The current return of IDPs from the camps in and around Goma to their home is voluntary (80% out of 65,000 opted for voluntary return). This is an IDP-driven process, in that the IDPs themselves have informed the Government (GNK) and humanitarian agencies of their intention to return. Some of the factors influencing the return at this particular time include: (i) the fact that the cultivating season is approaching and (ii) that school will soon begin. It is important to note that there has already been significant return movement from the camps in Goma. The camp population in Goma has decreased from some 140,000 individuals in November 2008 to 65,000 individuals in mid-August 2009.

Refugees International has a different take on the situation, suggesting that the situation in both North and South Kivu Provinces remains insecure.

Image: Map of Kivus with mining interests

The Kimia II operations continue to cause new displacements in parts of North Kivu, including isolated and inaccessible areas such as western Masisi and Walikale territories. Meanwhile, a lull in the fighting in areas such as Rutshuru territory has also led to an increase in the number of people returning home, as they can access their lands for farming. However, not all return areas are fully secure and many return communities include newly displaced people, the majority of whom live with host families.

While people are slowly returning to certain areas, this can not be taken as an indication of lasting peace in the region, particularly given the fact that many people have been displaced at least two or three times previously. The cycles of violence in eastern Congo have continued relentlessly for more than a decade, and the Kimia II operations are still creating insecurity in North Kivu. For many displaced people, the armed group that forced them to flee in the first place has been replaced by another armed group which is causing new displacements and preventing returns.

If reprisal attacks by the FDLR in North Kivu are to be any guide, in South Kivu, where the FDLR are even more integrated into the local population, the Kimia II operation has the potential to create widespread human rights abuses and displacements.

A woman displaced from Ziralo in Kalehe territory told RI that she fled after her husband and two young grandchildren were killed by the FDLR in July and all the houses in her village were burned down. Other people displaced from Ziralo said women were raped by the FDLR as they fled their homes. As a local official in Uvira territory said, "It's ironic that the army has come to chase the FDLR, and it's the population who flees."

The international community sanctioned the failed intervention of Rwanda in this region earlier this year, and violence increased exponentially.

Don't tempt me with the armed clown analogy.

Resources: UN EXCEL summary of IDP movement since January 2009

North Kivu is a province bordering Lake Kivu in the eastern DRC. Its provincial capital is Goma. South Kivu's provincial capital is Bukavu.

Naazish YarKhan: The Holiday Season is Here!

2009-09-09T04:26:02Z

'EID IS FOR EVERYONE' – HELPING OUR COMMUNITIES & REFUGEE NEIGHBORS DURING THEIR HOLIDAY SEASON

"Ramadan is the Muslim holy month where acts of worship and charity are especially recommended for Muslims. It is especially significant at this time, when Muslims abstain from eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset, to remember Prophet Mohammed's saying that, 'Whoever goes to bed while his neighbor is hungry is not a true believer,'” says Amina Tahera, a Refugee Assistance Program lead volunteer.

It's no surprise then that there are a plethora of initiatives by Chicago-area Muslims aimed at leaving the world and our communities a better place, and more so in Ramadan. Many of these initiatives are being recorded on President Obama's web site United We Serve and MuslimServe.org. ICNA Helping Hands and Refugee Assistance Programs, are organizations with their combined service project 'Eid is for Everyone' running full-throttle. UMMA, besides its many programs, has 'Adopt a Refugee', while Muslim Women's Alliance has 'Rush For Rewards,' which includes stocking a food pantry, making breakfast for the homeless at at Our Lady of Sorrows Bascilla, visiting sick children at a nursing home and other events. The most famous of all Muslim social-service organizations is IMAN, on Chicago's South Side.

RAP focuses on helping refugees of all faiths, who've escaped war and victimization in Iraq, Burma and Africa. We also work in collaboration wtih resettlement agencies, state organizations and NGO's.

As the founder of this grassroots initiative, I hope for self-reliance amongst refugees. How we do it sets RAP apart from many organizations -- we coordinate with refugee leaders to inform us of their community's needs. Our responses have included providing these families -- most living far below the poverty line -- with groceries, personal care products, and gifts for children.

Working with refugee leaders who have lived the experience, we get their expert input as we provide services that include sponsorship of driving lessons, assistance with rent and college fees, and mentorship. Several heart-wrenching refugees stories can be found on our web site.

What I invariably come away with is a feeling of just how vulnerable we are as people. It's just a roll of a dice -- life can be all roses ( or carnations, at least) one moment and the very opposite, soon after.

EU To Admit More Refugees

2009-09-02T08:49:02Z

The European Commission has unveiled plans to allow more refugees from conflict zones and poor nations into European countries.

Georgianne Nienaber: Congo: Midwives Transform Trash Into Hope

2009-08-31T17:29:40Z

Since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ended her African trip, the news cycle has seemingly abandoned the women of Congo--women who soldier on despite overwhelming odds that make staying alive a gauntlet rife with terrible odds. But lives continue to unfold, babies are born, mammas die, and hope burns with a fire that even the rainstorms which pummel the plastic dwellings at the Mugunga I displacement camp cannot extinguish. Secretary Clinton spoke eloquently about her experiences at Mugunga I and she is a powerful witness to the societal breakdown in eastern Congo.

The Mugunga Internally Displaced Persons Camp sits in a land of volcanoes and great lakes on the edge of Goma, a provincial capital in the eastern Congo. The camp is now home to 18,000 people seeking refuge from a cycle of violent conflict that has left 5.4 million dead since 1998. Chased from their homes and villages by armed rebels and informal militias, these men, women and children walked for miles with little food or water until they reached this relatively safe haven.

Now they live in tents, one next to the other, row after row, some clinging to life, others hanging on to whatever glimmer of hope remains in a region plagued by years of brutality. Many of these people have been robbed of their homes, possessions, families and, worst of all, their dignity.

Women and girls in particular have been victimized on an unimaginable scale, as sexual and gender-based violence has become a tactic of war and has reached epidemic proportions. Some 1,100 rapes are reported each month, with an average of 36 women and girls raped every day.

(I) met a woman who told me that she was eight months' pregnant when she was attacked. She was at home when a group of men broke in. They took her husband and two of their children and shot them in the front yard, before returning into the house to shoot her other two children. Then they beat and gang-raped her and left her for dead. But she wasn't dead. She fought for life and her neighbors managed to get her to the hospital - 85 kilometers away.

I came to Goma to send a clear message: The United States condemns these attacks and all those who commit them and abet them. They are crimes against humanity.

These acts don't just harm a single individual, or a single family, or village, or group. They shred the fabric that weaves us together as human beings. Such atrocities have no place in any society. This truly is humanity at its worst.

But there is reason to hope. We have seen survivors summon the courage to rebuild their lives and their communities. We have seen civic leaders and organizations come together to combat this appalling scourge. And we have seen health care workers sacrifice comfortable careers so they can treat the wounded.

The midwives who fight to preserve new life as babies struggle to enter the world in the Mugunga camps and in the villages are tired, but their courage overcomes discouragement. When we visited with them in January of this year, their requests were simple. "Do not forget us." "We have no means to feed our own families." "Some cloth for the babies would be nice."

Image: Gathering of midwives in January 2009 to assess needs© Nienaber

Thanks to the efforts of Emmanuel De Merode, director of Virunga National Park, there is now hope and opportunity for the Association pour la Promotion de la Sage Femme (APROSAF) midwives. 118 wise women ("sage femme" means " wise woman") form the backbone of APROSAF, which was created in the wake of the 2002 Nyiragongo eruption order to help families made homeless by the devastating lava flow that buried Goma. These traditional midwives of APROSAF are considered community leaders. The respect they garner results from selfless dedication as they transport pregnant women and rape victims, sometimes by carrying them on their backs, to get help. They do this without pay and subject themselves to rape and shootings along the way.

These courageous women, who now fight overwhelming odds in the face of a total societal and moral breakdown, will receive a stipend of $20 US per month to establish a unique briquette business. The midwives will transform refuse into precious fuel, thereby saving not only the lives of women and children, but also protecting the severely endangered ecosystem of Virunga Park, home to the last remaining mountain gorillas. In addition, the women will receive $.50 for each bag of briquettes they sell.

The humanitarian crisis cannot be overstated. Since the start of new military operations against rebel armies in January 2009, more than 800,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in North and South Kivu, according to the United Nations. Another 250,000 have fled their homes in northern Congo. The UN estimates that the total number of internally displaced people throughout the DRC is over 2 million.

Due to the ongoing fighting in eastern DRC, massive relocation camps are now located on the perimeter of Virunga Park. Secretary Clinton visited one of these camps, Mugunga I. People need fuel to cook and to keep their children warm. Until De Merode's appointment after a series of environmental scandals, there had been an effort to keep the displaced from harvesting wood in Virunga. As a humanitarian gesture, and after being appointed as chief warden in August 2008, he removed the charcoal barrier at Kibati Camp. Prices in Goma dropped from 33 to 16 dollars a sack in the weeks that followed as a result of a massive increase in supply from the park, and considerable damage was inflicted on the ecosystem. If each midwife can sell 10 sacks of briquettes a month, it will replace more than 1000 sacks of charcoal that would have come from the trees of Virunga National Park.

The issue is access to energy for fuel and this represents a classic human/wildlife conflict. Energy infrastructure in eastern Congo is a non sequitur. There is no fuel supply in the displacement camps, and women are desperate for charcoal to provide the most rudimentary means of sterilization, cooking, and heat. The biggest threat to the mountain gorilla, beside war, is the rapid deforestation of their mountain habitat. When the old-growth forest goes, so follows the fate of the mountain giants.

In an interview in January De Merode said that he still believed "wildlife should not take priority over peoples' needs."

Sometimes it is a strong belief that leads to solutions, causing faith to transform into hope for the beleaguered and abandoned. DeMerode understands this conflict. 1.2 million humans are in as much danger as the gorillas. If one adds up the column inches both online and in print over the past three years, it is obvious that Western news reports have focused on the gorillas above all human concerns. We presented this conundrum to De Merode in January.

You are right in claiming that, by focusing on charcoal, we are neglecting some of the more pressing humanitarian needs. But we have to look ahead. Virunga's forests cannot last more than 5 years with the amount of charcoal that is coming out of the park. When the forests are gone, Goma will suffer a massive energy crisis, and that will quickly become a humanitarian catastrophe: domestic energy is key to people's survival. They need domestic energy for food and for their health.

Charcoal is incredibly destructive and inefficient. When people cut the tree they only use the branches because they don't have the tools to cut the trunk and it is a huge amount of waste. We have to find an alternative. It's a human priority as much as it is a priority for the wildlife.

No problem, no fight for the right path is without a moral compass, and righteous direction can lead to solutions to challenges that once seemed impossible to conquer. The US-based Legacy Foundation developed a process by which fuel is created from grass, sawdust and debris--thereby transforming waste and garbage into energy. 5000 presses will replace the charcoal demand of Goma, and create 30,000 sustainable jobs.

Besides the need for an income so that the APROSAF midwives can continue their courageous work of walking through the conflict areas to carry rape victims and dying pregnant women on their backs to get medical aid, the dream of the APROSAF midwives is to see the completion of a clinic building which will serve as a way station. Estimates are that they could save up to seven lives per day. The relatively paltry sum of $100,000 will accomplish this, but so far there have been no American foundations or individuals willing to entertain this life-saving project.

IMAGE courtesy of APROSAF midwives

Despite having little money to work with in his own programs, DeMerode has indicated that he will be donating some additional funds to aid this project. Not nearly enough to fund the clinic program, but something that will generate even more hope for the brave midwives.

Secretary Clinton in indicated that she is willing to infuse up to $17 million into eastern DRC. One would hope that there is a spare $100,000 available. The APROSAF midwives have some hope now, due to the generosity of the officials of Virunga Park. But lives cannot be saved nor the future ensured through hope alone.

Clinton spoke to a group of Congolese at a roundtable discussion while in Goma. Clinton's words held concrete pledges of support.

On each and every one of the points that you made, we will try to help. But I want to emphasize something I said yesterday, when I spoke with the young people. Just as President Obama said in his historic speech in Ghana, the future of Africa is up to the Africans. The future, ultimately, of the Congolese people is up to the Congolese people. There have to be changes, politically. There have to be changes in the impunity. There have to be changes that only the people of this country can demand, and can help bring about.

We will try to provide the help that we're both asked for and that we think could be useful. But, ultimately, that help has to be received, changes have to be implemented, people have to be committed. And I hope that we're beginning to see that, here and in the region and internationally.

So, there is much to be done. I do not want to over promise. I am not just here to leave a business card, but I don't have a magic wand, either. But what I do pledge to you is that we will work. We will work hard. We will work with your government, we will work with groups like many of you represent. We will work with individuals, the private sector, and civil society, to try to help resolve the conflict and provide a better future.

But it is ultimately up to the people here. And I have seen so many examples of courage. I know the Congolese people do not lack in courage. And I know they do not lack in hard work or perseverance or survivorship.

Secretary Clinton did not have opportunity to meet with grassroots organizations such as the APROSAF midwives. Here is hoping that her staff will meet with them and others as they scope out opportunities for women of courage in Congo. APROSAF is community organizing in the best sense of the word. The midwives deserve attention and a drumbeat of support from the United States. How rewarding it would be to see immediate results on the ground in the form of babies suckling from breasts rich with milk, their mothers safe from the rapist, and cradled gently in the strong arms of the wise women midwives.

The midwives need the means to accomplish their noble goal of saving women through direct intervention, HIV/AIDS counseling, and nutrition. This is truly a grass-roots effort with a humble beginning that literally transforms grass and roots into life-supporting energy.

For a summary of the conflict in DRC please see this report from Human Rights Watch.

Q&A: Burmese Detainee Tells Of Squalor, Beatings In Malaysian Camp

2009-08-28T11:15:06Z

While incidents of refugee trafficking in Malaysia have diminished since the U.S. State Department’s Annual Report on Human Trafficking called attention to the country’s ranking among the world’s worst offenders, there has been no sign of a decrease in arrests of refugees in Malaysia.

Malaysian detention camps are severely overcrowded as a result, and conditions are reportedly wretched, with limited or no access to clean water, medical treatment and food.

Karen Zusman, an independent journalist, recently returned from Malaysia, where she reported on the plight of Burmese refugees. In a previous blog, she wrote about "Jack" a young Burmese man who had fled to Malaysia.

Jack’s brother, “David,” had been arrested in Malaysia. At the time, 32-year-old David had been in a Malaysian detention camp for four months. But just recently, Zusman received a jubilant phone call in the middle of the night from the brothers — David had just been released from detention.

David joined Karen Zusman and Worldfocus to discuss his life and experience in the camps.

Karen Zusman: I know the camps have become overcrowded because the Malaysian government has come under scrutiny from the U.S. about trafficking refugees. So the deportations have stopped, but the arrests have not stopped.

David: Yes, that is exactly how it is. So the camps are way too crowded. They just pack us in there, they don't care. To them we are illegal. Like criminals. They don't care why we are here. So they put us in here like as if we are dogs.

Karen Zusman: The government has now allowed journalists to visit the camps. We have heard that some camps are getting better. Is this true?

David: I want to tell you, with all due respect, it is not like anything good at all these camps. It is like, truly, it is like hell. And they treat us like animals.

AUDIO: “David” discusses conditions in the camp.

Karen Zusman: What are your days like in the camps?

David: We wake up every morning at 6:30 a.m. They give us some tea that is very weak, and a few biscuits. We can see on the package the biscuits are expired — they should not be eaten. As soon as we have our tea, we must rush to find a place in the shade to sit down. There are 700 people in this camp. It is only supposed to have half that many. So there is not many places to sit down if you don't want to be in the sun all day. The sun is very hot here. About 33 or 35 degrees Celsius [roughly 90 degrees Fahrenheit]. So we all want the shade, but it is so crowded — it is very difficult even to find a place to sit down out of the sun.

Brothers David, Jack and friend John spend their time playing cards in their room. They are afraid to go outside for fear of arrest.

Karen Zusman: And the other meals?

David: We get rice to eat for lunch, but very small amounts, and often it is moldy and not fully cooked. It is very bad. Maybe five days a week it is like this. And sometimes they give it to us right on the dirt, on the ground.

Karen Zusman: What about the hygiene in the camps, and sanitation?

David: The toilets are a big problem. There is no door and only four toilets for 700 people! If you are lucky, you can do your toilet needs in the middle of the night when people are asleep. The toilets are so terrible because nobody cleans them. You can imagine, 700 people using these four toilets! Oh, it is terrible.

Sometimes the only place to sit in the shade is near the toilets. The smell can make you sick. But still, it is better than being in the sun all day, because some days we don't have any water.

Karen Zusman: What about bathing?

David: There is one tank of water. This is disgusting. No faucet. We have to dip into this water. 700 people. Can you imagine how dirty and oily this water gets from everyone using it to clean? And there is sometimes no water for the toilet, so, I mean, people are getting very dirty. I think you get the idea. And skin diseases. There are many skin diseases happening because the conditions are so bad. So these people with the diseases are also dipping their bodies into the water tank. Oh, it is so bad. So we are all catching everything from each other.

Karen Zusman: And what about if a detainee gets sick — is there any medical treatment available?

David: This is also really bad. You can be sick but they are not going to let you see the doctor. It can be really bad. One night a girl was crying a lot. Then we heard a lot of girls screaming for help. For a couple of hours they were shouting like this. But the detention people wouldn't get the first girl see the doctor or take her to the hospital. She died that night, because her appendix burst open. I was also sick. I have a heart tension problem. But they do not want to give you any medical [treatment], so you just have to suffer there.

Karen Zusman: Is there any kind of discipline or punishment?

AUDIO: “David” discusses being beaten by the RELA, the People's Volunteer Corps that monitors illegal immigration in Malaysia.

David: Yes, yes. That is what I wanted to talk you about. Another problem is that we get punished a lot. There are three main types of punishment:

1. The first one is the helicopter. This one we have to make a noise with our mouth like a helicopter. Then we are forced to take our shirt off and swing it around with one arm like a propeller. That is why they call it the helicopter. Maybe we have to do this for one hour. Your arm and your throat are in so much pain, but you have to keep going. They say, “Do the helicopter!” Or you will be beaten. It is really a humiliation, that one — doing the helicopter in front of all these people.

2. Sometimes they just beat you for punishment. They don't even ask you to do the helicopter.

3. Press-ups, maybe 50 or 100 press-ups, I mean push-ups, in the sun.

Karen Zusman: What are the reasons for these punishments?

David: The main reason is talking during prayer time. The Muslims in the camp need to pray five times a day. Most of the refugees are not Muslims. So it is very hard for almost 700 people to keep quiet while only about 30 people are praying. But it doesn't matter. If anyone talks at this time when someone is praying, they will be beaten or punished in another way that I have mentioned. Sometime we get beaten for asking for medical [attention]. That happened to me when I asked for medicine.

Karen Zusman: How did you get out of the camp?

AUDIO: David’s brother, “Jack,” discusses how the UN Refugee Agency (UNCHR) helped secure his brother’s release, and the difficulties experienced by detainees without UNHCR refugee cards.

David: The United Nations came. My brother got them to register me in the camp. And then they come every so often and get some of us released, if we are refugees that have been registered. If you are not registered by the U.N., then this is a big problem. That is why so many people want to be registered.

I have heard from other refugees that there are many people in the camps that were registered and arrested anyway, even though they showed the police their U.N. refugee card at the time of arrest — do you know anything about this?

Yes, this is also true. I don't understand why they do that. The RELA, the immigration police, they really don't seem to care about this card, if you have it or you don't. Sometimes they might rip it up and laugh at you, or throw it on the floor or put it in their pocket. It only helps after you have been in the camps a long time and experiencing this kind of hell for a while. Then the U.N. can take you out. But not before.

Karen Zusman: How do you feel now that you have left?

David: I am so happy to be here back with my brother. But still, I — we — we are not free people in Malaysia. We are like animals, still, with no basic freedoms or rights. We really want to leave this place. We Burmese people are not safe in Malaysia. Even if we do nothing wrong and work very hard, any day can be a day we go to jail.

AUDIO: David’s friend “John,” who was also recently released from the Malaysian detention camp, talks about his hopes for resettlement in the U.S. David’s brother, “Jack,” translates.

Karen Zusman: What is your dream for the future, if you can have a dream?

David: I don't know if it is a dream. It is very simple, really. I want to have a family. And I want to see my mother and father in Burma, my parents. Let me tell you, this is a serious thing. A most important thing. For me first I need to see my parents. Then I want to get married and have my own family. As a free man. It can be in any country. Just not in Asia anymore please. I have been in Thailand, too, and it is also bad. We are from Burma. We want to go home to our families only in Burma. But we cannot. So then our next dream is that we would like to come to a country where we can have a family and feel safe.

– Karen Zusman

For more, listen to the audio documentary Please Don't Say My Name.

Worldfocus speaks with “David,” a Burmese refugee who was recently released from a Malaysian detention camp. The camps are severely overcrowded, and conditions are reportedly wretched, with limited or no access to clean water, medical treatment and food.
http://worldfocus.org/files/2009/08/th_karen_davidjack.jpg

Anne C. Richard: Refugees Lose Three Inspiring Champions

2009-08-27T11:11:19Z

Over the past year, three Americans who served as leaders of humanitarian causes have succumbed to cancer. They shared an outspoken passion for the cause of aiding refugees and other victims of oppression, war and poverty, but they also shared something rarer: the ability to translate concern into action.

The Statesman and Legislator: Senator Edward Kennedy's interest in refugee issues dates from the 1970s, and I can personally attest to that. Nearly 30 years ago, as a student at Georgetown University in Washington, I walked to the State Department to hear him speak about Vietnamese refugees. I found the Senator's remarks and the energy he brought to the issue remarkable. He became the author and driving force behind the Refugee Act of 1980, which moved the country from an ad-hoc program to bring refugees to the U.S. to a formal partnership between government and private organizations with annual goals for refugee admissions His Senate office regularly produced staff members who would become foreign policy leaders in their own right. A year ago, I finally got the chance to meet Senator Kennedy in person. In a small room off the Senate chamber, the Senator met with a group from the International Rescue Committee, led by his sister, Jean Kennedy Smith. He had squeezed the meeting in between giving an interview to a Boston reporter, receiving a delegation of Irish officials, and votes on the Senate floor. He interrupted our rehearsed points on the Iraqi refugee crisis -- he already knew all about it -- and refocused the conversation on what should be done next. He had already overseen the passage of legislation that gave sanctuary in the United States to Iraqis whose lives were threatened because they had helped Americans. Now, he pledged both staff resources and his personal energies to continue to help refugees in need.

The Spokesman: Kenneth Bacon had been a long time Wall Street Journal reporter before accepting the post of chief spokesman at the Defense Department in 1994. In that role, he became known to a wider public as the unflappable bow-tie-wearing man behind the podium at the Pentagon, explaining U.S. involvement in wars in Bosnia and Kosovo. But it was in his third career -- as the president of Refugees International, a group that reports on humanitarian crises and advocates on behalf of refugees -- that Ken may have rendered his greatest service. He spoke out on behalf of the vulnerable, displaced and dispossessed all over the world, and put in many hours traveling to Sudan, Iraq, Cambodia and the Thailand-Burma border. While his colleagues at Refugees International may have written the essential reports analyzing crises, Ken was the one who translated their recommendations into plain English and got them published in newspaper op-ed pages and on television, radio, and the internet. He was a genius at finding ways to get often neglected stories covered by the media. He did all this with a clear voice that was always rational and never shrill, using the same reasonable, informed tone whether talking to refugees in camps, policy wonks in Washington or world leaders at conference tables.

The Advocate: Julia Taft died a year ago, in August 2008. She was born Julia Vadala, the daughter of an army doctor and his wife, and married into the famous Taft family of Ohio. She and her husband, Will, moved comfortably in Washington foreign policy circles and took turns serving in government while raising a family. Julia Taft directed the Interagency Task Force on Indochina Refugees for President Ford, led the government's response to foreign disasters in the Reagan Administration and served as an assistant secretary covering refugee policy in the Clinton Administration. In between these tours in the government, Taft led Interaction, the coalition of relief and development aid agencies, and spearheaded reforms at the UN. I worked alongside her in the Clinton Administration and afterwards and learned a great deal about the importance of speaking out. I adored her fearless approach to seemingly intractable problems and her ability to convince decision-makers (often all men) to cooperate. In times of crisis, whether in Southeast Asia, the Horn of Africa, or the Balkans, Julia became the hub through which information flowed, decisions got made and government assets, from food to military cargo planes, moved. She was approachable and could always be found outside after a meeting taking a cigarette break and ready to mentor younger staff. She would be up to speed on emerging crises and several steps ahead of the rest of us. Her greatest talent may have been spurring the reluctant to take action. In the last weeks of her life, she was working the phones from her sickbed challenging us to do more.

With the passing of these three heroes, the community of activists, aid workers and donors who care about refugees and relief work has been diminished. In reflecting on their lives we see that they had several things in common: a passion for and mastery of the issues; a strong desire to help the most vulnerable; the ability to work in a bipartisan fashion and inspire platoons of younger colleagues; and voices that could make themselves heard. Their examples challenge all of us to do what we can to carry on their important work.

Anne C. Richard is a Vice President at the International Rescue Committee, www.theIRC.org.