November 2004
In this section:
Sudan Death Reach 70,000 Since March
U.S. Sets Policy for Displaced
Fighting Locusts
Karzai Wins Afghan Election
Sudan Death Reach 70,000 Since March
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Afghan women vote in Kabul at 9:15 a.m. Oct. 9 in the
first presidential election in the country's 5,000-year
history. An estimated 3 million Afghan women and 4 million
men voted. Separate lines for men and women were required
by Afghan culture.
Albana Vokshi/USAID |
The U.N. World Health Organization (WHO) announced October
15 that 70,000 people have died from disease and violence
since March in the Darfur region of western Sudan, as U.S.
and other aid teams struggled to feed and protect about 2
million Sudanese fleeing violence.
The U .S. government is the largest donor to the crisis in
Darfur. To date, U.S. contributions total $302 million for
humanitarian projects and relief supplies. In addition, a
USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team has been in Sudan
since April overseeing relief efforts.
Overall, however, donor support for Darfur is inadequate,
USAID officials say.
Dr. David Nabarro, head of crisis operations for WHO, said,
"We still don't have a significant enough popular perception
around the world of the enormity of the suffering—disease
and suffering is being experienced on a quite extraordinary
and inhuman scale."
According to Roger Winter, Assistant Administrator for Democracy,
Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, violence against ethnic
African Darfur people has waned somewhat in part due to the
presence of international aid workers in September. Lately,
however, violence had been increasing.
"Violence has tapered off after we got more international
eyes out there, but it hasn't ended," Winter said.
In April, USAID warned that without international assistance
80,000-300,000 persons could die, due to violence, disease,
and hunger by the end of the year. These estimates have not
been realized, due to the provision of international assistance
and subsequent improvement in the humanitarian situation.
"People have not stopped dying but mortality has fallen
back," said Winter. "The humanitarian situation
is improving. But we must remain vigilant and assistance flows
should remain at a higher level or mortality rates will again
begin to climb."
The rainy season, which bogged down relief trucks, has ended
and the number of humanitarian workers has more than doubled
in the last three months, largely due to U.S. pressure on
Sudan's government.
U.S. and other international aid teams have recently gained
access to 500,000 more displaced people in rebel-held areas.
"A week ago," Winter said in an Oct. 15 interview
with FrontLines, "an agreement was signed between the
government of Sudan and the rebels to give access to these
people."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who called the Darfur
crisis "genocide," said in July there were 1.1 million
internally displaced people. Now U.N. officials say it has
grown to 1.5 million.
Another 200,000 are refugees across the border in Chad.
Administrator Andrew S. Natsios visited Sudan in September
(see Notes from Natsios, p. 3), where he saw first-hand the
rage of the displaced.
In one camp, while interviewing residents, a Sudanese official
tried to tell the people not to talk about the attacks they
experienced and their fears of government-backed militia forces
called Jangaweit. The residents then attacked the official,
and Natsios and other USAID officials had to intervene to
save the man's life.
Humanitarian activities in Darfur continued despite risks.
In mid-October, two staff members of the British aid group
Save the Children-UK, a USAID partner, were killed in an explosion
believed caused by a land mine.
Image: Afghan women vote
Albana Vokshi/USAID
Afghan women vote in Kabul at 9:15 a.m. Oct. 9 in the first
presidential election in the country's 5,000-year history.
An estimated 3 million Afghan women and 4 million men voted.
Separate lines for men and women were required by Afghan culture.
U.S. Sets Policy for Displaced
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Refugees, who flee persecution across international
borders, are entitled to U.N. protection. Internally
displaced persons, who flee their homes but not their
home countries, often lack international protection.
ICRC/Virginia de la Guardia
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The 25 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) wandering
across the earth to escape violence, hatred, hunger, and natural
disasters are getting a formal offer of assistance and protection
under a new USAID policy adopted in September.
"Refugees get protection from UNHCR [the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees], but there has never been one U.N. agency to
protect the IDPs," said Roger Winter, Assistant Administrator
for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance.
There are about 13 million refugees in the world today—
people who have crossed an international border in fear of
persecution and who then get aid and protection from UNHCR
under a 1951 international convention.
However internally displaced people such as the 1.5 million
Sudanese in Darfur—who fled marauding raiders that burned
their villages but did not leave Sudan—have been in an
unclear status, Winter said.
"We have a responsibility for the IDPs," and that
has led to USAID's new strategy, he said.
The International Committee for the Red Cross, UNICEF, and
other humanitarian agencies have taken on the lead role of
helping IDPs in specific emergencies. But they must seek permission,
visas, and access from the very government that may be persecuting
the IDPs.
"The principle that IDPs are the internal affairs of
a sovereign state sometimes keeps other countries and U.N.
aid agencies out," said Winter, a former head of the
American Refugee Committee.
"But the world is changing. There is a growth of concern
internationally about human rights broadly, and it is no longer
the case that a rogue government can do what it wants to its
population."
However most countries outside of North America, Europe,
and Australia do not like imposing sanctions or intervention
to halt abuse of IDPs, Winter said.
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USAID Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons
Policy
October 2004
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The State Department has formal responsibility for aiding
refugees. USAID has traditionally helped IDPS and now has
formalized that role.
In Iraq, for example, USAID deployed its first abuse prevention
officers, as part of the Office of Transition Initiatives,
to help prevent ethnic cleansing and protect displaced Kurds
and Arabs.
The new strategy broadens the USAID focus on IDPs to address
all phases of displacement, ranging from emergency relief
to transitional aid to long-term development assistance after
resettlement and reintegration.
As the lead U.S. government agency for addressing internal
population displacement, USAID will advocate
- Lifesaving humanitarian access to needy populations
- Information sharing to forge common understanding of
the problems and build consensus on policy and strategic
approaches
- The protection of IDPs during all phases of displacement
- Wider international recognition of the U.N. Guiding Principles
on Internal Displacement
If the host country, United Nations, and other international
organizations do not protect and assist IDPs, USAID will advocate
the use of bilateral diplomacy to galvanize support and end
human suffering, said Ann Ralte of the Bureau for Policy and
Program Coordination and one of the authors of the strategy.
The policy was approved September 24 by Administrator Natsios.
Fighting Locusts
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Locusts at work.
Richard Nyberg/USAID |
In response to a locust invasion in the Sahel region of
West Africa, USAID has sent experts involved in the last invasion
in the late 80s to Niger, Mali, and Mauritania-with a command
center in Senegal-and sent six aircraft to spray pesticides.
Some $3.8 million in immediate assistance to protect crops
as part of a regional approach to combat the locusts was approved,
in addition to $3.65 million in aid channeled through the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and regional
governments.
The damage caused by the locusts is affecting families of
many farmers and herders throughout the region.
Six Air Tractor airplanes, which can each spray up to 2,500
hectares a day, were dispatched to the region to treat infestations
in Mauritania, Senegal, and, potentially, Mali.
In October, USAID's Office of Food for Peace participated
in a United Nations' assessment that looked at damage to crops
and pastures and recommended a response.
In Senegal, villagers have tried fighting the bugs.
In Ndjingué Sissé, people tried chasing larvae
into long trenches and used pesticides provided by the local
government.
In Keur Sambou, the community rushed to apply pesticides
to the hatched hoppers (young locusts) and dug trenches to
bury them. But they were overwhelmed by the second generation.
"The principal problems facing us are starvation and
famine," said Cheikh Ba, a village elder who said that
locusts have destroyed the crops of about 70 percent of Keur
Sambou farmers.
Mbaye Ba, 70, a farmer with 11 children, watched the locusts
devour his peanut, green bean, and millet crops.
"It is painful," he said. "How can I repay
my loans and feed my family?"
After poor rains in 2002 and 2003, this is the third year
Ba has earned nothing from harvests on his six hectares of
land. He was hopeful this year, because it rained. His children
planted crops June 11. But thick, yellow clouds of locusts
swept into view August 18 and quickly went to breed and lay
eggs everywhere. In days, the crops were gone.
Contemplating this year's peanut crop, Ousseynou Diop, an
official of the state Plant Protection Unit, said: "It's
finished; it's a catastrophe."
The armies of locusts are driving Senegal's poor farmers
deeper in debt, said Fodé Sarr, director of the government's
regional rural development office in St. Louis.
Many farmers have had to sell off cows, goats, and sheep
to make ends meet, he added.
A bumper harvest in many regions of the Sahel last year could
help offset locust damage.
Karzai Wins Afghan Election
KABUL, Afghanistan—An estimated 80 percent of the 10.5
million registered Afghan voters traveled by foot, donkey,
and vehicle Oct. 9 to select a president in the country’s
first free election in its 5,000 year history—carried
out with more than $50 million in U.S. assistance.
Despite concerns about Taliban attacks, warlords, and intimidation,
the huge turnout was peaceful, and election officials were
able to resolve problems swiftly. Millions of Afghan women,
who had been barred from all public life by the Taliban until
2001, lined up by the thousands to also cast their votes.
Oct. 27, two weeks after the election, with 99 percent of
votes counted, interim President Hamid Karzai had won more
than 55 percent of votes, far ahead of the 16 percent won
by his nearest rival, making a runoff between the two top
candidates among the 19 running for office unnecessary, election
officials said.
With a $56 million contribution, USAID was the largest donor
country to the $200 million election process.
The first Afghan to vote was a young woman—19-year-old
Moqadasa Sidiqi—who was one of the 750,000 Afghan refugees
in Pakistan and another 500,000 in Iran registered to vote
by the International Organization for Migration. Refugee turnout
in Pakistan was 80 percent; in Iran it was 50 percent.
One-third of election centers were monitored by groups supported
by USAID, including
The Free and Fair Election Foundations of Afghanistan, the
Asian Network for Free Elections, and the International Republican
Institute.
Agency funding to the National Democratic Institute trained
10,000 poll watchers and printed 50,000 field manuals for
all candidates.
The Asia Foundation also used USAID funds to hire Global
Risk Strategies to provide operational and security planning
support to the U.N. voter registration and election effort.
U.S.-funded civic education programs also aided the smooth
voting process, despite the fact that many Afghans are illiterate
and have never used a pen before the election day.
In fact the poll watchers appointed by the candidates often
broke ranks with their candidate and refused to support calls
to invalidate the elections after permanent ink— used
to mark voters’ hands to prevent re-voting—was reported
to be washing off in some cases. The opposition candidates
agreed to submit the dispute to a panel for investigation.
USAID’s Democracy and Governance Office in Kabul has
played a vital role in Afghan’s emergence from Taliban
rule: it supported two Loya Jirga national councils to set
up the government and write a constitution, and it helped
prepare for and run the Oct. 9 presidential election.
The election commission declared Oct. 27 that with 99.7 percent
of the eight million ballots counted, Karzai won 55.4 percent.
Former minister Yunus Qanooni had 16.3 percent. Mohammad Mohaqeq,
a warlord and leader of the Hazara ethnic minority, was third
with 11.6 percent, followed by Uzbek military strongman Abdul
Rashid Dostam at 10.0 percent. The only woman running, pediatrician
Masooda Jalal, was sixth with 1.2 percent of the votes.
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