BBC Claims Ethiopia Famine Aid Misused
By Larry | March 8, 2010
The BBC is reporting that 90% of money raised in 1985 to alleviate famine in Ethiopia went to Tigrayan rebels to buy arms in the struggle for independence. Musician Bob Geldof, founder of Band Aid, which raised $100 million is demanding the BBC provide evidence of abuse of funds.
The claims are made by two individuals who were part of the rebel movement and who are opponents of the current president of Ethiopia with whom they were once affiliated. He stands for re-election in the spring. The report also says the CIA alleged some money was misused.
In an effort the magnitude of the famine response in Ethiopia there is a risk that food or funds will be misdirected. But not at the scale alleged in this report.
The claims sound preposterous. The two say rebels posing as businessmen sold bags of sand to aid agencies rather than grain. And they claim that most of the funds went to purchase arms.
Aid agencies operating in Ethiopia at that time were not newcomers. Many had long experience in the country. They were there long before the famine and were among those who attempted for several months to make the world aware of the suffering that was underway. They struggled to gain attention.
The ecumenical agency in Ethiopia responsible for distributing some of the food was headed by an Irish priest who had lived in Ethiopia for many years and was well-known across the country. It’s unlikely he was misled by imposters selling sand. That experienced aid agencies were fooled in this way is difficult to believe.
It’s also difficult to believe misappropriation could have occurred at the level alleged under the control of a heavy-handed military dictatorship that was hardly likely to allow diversion of resources to the same rebels it was fighting. The Ethiopian government was led by a Marxist military junta heavy on control.
I traveled extensively in Ethiopia during the famine and afterward and witnessed distribution of food and medical care under extreme hardship. While I wouldn’t argue that the effort was flawless, nor that some leakage of funds is possible, the response abated the worst effects of the famine and saved millions of lives. The war continued long after and, in fact, aid agencies resisted the use of aid for military advantage by either side in the struggle.
The BBC must produce the evidence Geldof is calling for. Otherwise, reasonable people should reserve judgment about the accuracy of the report.
Topics: On Development, On Poverty | No Comments »
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Internet Access A Fundamental Right?
By Larry | March 7, 2010
A survey of several thousand people in 26 countries says Internet access should be a fundamental human right.
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Pakistan, Taliban and Jobs
By Larry | March 5, 2010
In an intriguing BBC report on Taliban tunnels in Pakistan the point is made that people in the Bajaur region need jobs. If not, the deposed Taliban could return and re-capture control of the region.
It’s a persistent theme in the region. The breeding grounds for the seeds of Taliban terror are fertilized by poverty and its related branches, unemployment, lack of health care and education and desperation exploited by Taliban organizers.
This points to the fact that military actions are not sufficient. After successful military intervention even more important steps must be taken to create effective, sustainable development, provide children quality education and create effective, reliable governance. These are easily stated but difficult to achieve.
It’s easier, apparently, to fund military activities than to fund these softer community development changes, yet security is equally dependent upon such functions.
I note that Church World Service is carrying out long term development in Pakistan, not necessarily in the Bajaur region, but in places with similar need. Security and social instability are directly related to poverty. The work of community development may be the most significant action the world can take to stem terrorism and recruitment of young people to carry out acts of terror.
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Community-based Develoment in Congo
By Larry | February 8, 2010
In Lumbumbashi, Congo last week I sat outside in the late afternoon before an impressive stand of bamboo listening to a conversation about community-based development.
Actually, the conversation was about how this interfaith group of clergy and physicians would provide bednets to two of the most most resource-deprived neighborhoods in the city. They were devising a bold plan, giving thought to other partners, how to distribute nets, train residents in utilization, recruit volunteers and get media coverage.
They will recruit 150 volunteers, survey the neighborhoods, conduct community meetings and organize in-home distribution.
It is a grassroots group organizing to tackle a common enemy that knows no boundaries and affects everyone regardless of faith, gender, age or location–malaria. They are confident and practical in laying out their plans.
They had met earlier in the day with the regional minister of health to begin the process of establishing a relationship with this essential government partner. In the late afternoon the UN Special envoy for malaria met with them as well.
The neighborhoods they serve have never had a bednet distribution. When we visited them the following day it was clear they lack virtually every basic service from clean water to paved streets to sewers to trash pickup. Fetid, rotting garbage lined drainage ditches flowing with sewage and rain water. Children walked barefoot and played in the pockmarked dirt road amidst standing water and garbage. No wonder outbreaks of diseases are common here.
The clergy and physicians know the problems firsthand. They live or work here. They discussed how community residents might react to the bednet distribution and how to train them to use the nets properly. They know the people, their fears and capacity. This is the value of community-based organization. It is organically connected to the realities on the ground.
I came away from Congo more optimistic than I was going in. I had a media-created image, accurate but incomplete. The meetings under the bamboo gave me a bigger picture, and a belief that solutions to seemingly intractable problems are possible.
I left thinking new thoughts about community-based development and hopeful that as this small group of committed leaders continue their work they will experience a success and in due time move from net distribution to other activities that empower them and their communities, and make life better for the kids walking barefoot through the fetid trash and foul water.
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Kristof: Congo Ignored
By Larry | January 31, 2010
Having just flown out of Congo this morning I read Nicholas Kristof’s column Congo Ignored in the NY Times while sitting in an airport lounge in Johannesburg, South Africa. He writes that the raping and death in eastern Congo is one of the most ignored humanitarian crises in the world today. He says it’s a horrific war zone where barbarism has been inflicted on people for several months. He hopes the world will give Congo the same compassion it is currently bringing to Haiti.
He’s correct, Congo’s suffering is ignored by the world community and the bodies just keep piling up. However, I’d go him one further. It’s not only the war zone that needs immediate, urgent attention. The whole of the Congo needs it. Certainly eastern Congo needs it most of all, and most urgently. But this country is in a frustrating long-term fix. Someone with influence and power should address it. The E.E.C., U.S. and China are the most likely outside powers who could bring influence to bear.
Mining extraction and economic trade have not worked to the advantage of the people, but they are enriching elites. This is a the long-term reality, dating as far back as Belgian colonialism two hundred years ago.
Only yesterday I walked with a group of aid specialists through a suburb of Lumbumbashi with twenty thousand residents. The infection rate from malaria is high. Standing water, open sewers, a contaminated water table and scarcely any economic infrastructure for jobs or businesses makes this place one of the poorest suburbs in the world.
The only way out is for the people to be empowered through community organization to create better conditions for themselves. This will take support from outside because their resources are limited–their own hands and hopes. Powerful as these are, they still need training in marketable skills. They need cash resources, education, materials for better housing and shops, clean water, improved roads and sanitation.
This won’t just happen, it will come with community organization. And that won’t happen unless the community leaders are empowered and trained. So long as people live in poverty conditions they assume they have no voice and they live as if they have no power. No one listens to them and no one pays them any attention. Congo ignored, as Kristof correctly writes.
Eastern Congo, central Congo and western Congo. Urgent as the deaths are in the east, and disgusting as the raping that is part of the strategy of intimidation and terror, death by malaria, malnutrition and infectious diseases such as malaria are no less significant.
With the smells of that suburb still in my nostrils and the dust still on my shoes, I agree with Kristof that the world must pay attention, and more. It must stop the dying in the east and the west through enlightened policies, peacekeeping and community-based development. And it can be done.
I’ll write more about that next.
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Save One Life, Save the World
By Larry | January 29, 2010
I’m writing from Lumbumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo where this afternoon I sat in on a very remarkable conversation. A UN special envoy for malaria was addressing a group of religious leaders from several Protestant traditions and two imams. The meeting was held outdoors at the edge of a stand of towering bamboo at a Roman Catholic retreat center. It was late afternoon. All the participants had already put in a long day working on planning for a World Malaria Day event that will feature a distribution of insecticide-treated bednets.
The meeting was significant because Christians and Muslims have come together here to combat a common enemy, as one said today. The enemy is malaria.
Second, it’s notable that when the coalition is fully formed they hope to have additional members from other religious traditions. They’ve extended invitations.
One speaker explained the group’s mission by referring to past experiences which were more spiritual and less practical. He said they have come together for interfaith religious observances, for example. Tackling malaria is a move from the spiritual to the practical.
But the grand imam for the district said he differed with the statement. It sounded as the newly forming group was about to have its first disagreement.
That was not the case, however. The imam said, “The work we are about to begin is not less spiritual, but more deeply spiritual. The Quran says when you save one life, you save the world. What we are doing is not merely practical, it is more spiritual.”
The thought caused a hush of appreciation to fall over the meeting as the members reflected on his words. It was a statement that was not only interesting, it was an important moment of spiritual teaching. This did not escape the members of the group.
Another person spoke saying that, in fact, the three religions of Abraham all affirm a similar claim about the sanctity of human life. And the group seemed to be finding a deeper commitment to the fight against malaria by affirming life, which is, after all, good theology whether you find it in the Quran, the Talmud, or the Bible.
Topics: On Development, On Faith, On Health | No Comments »
Where Two or Three Are Gathered…
By Larry | January 23, 2010
This is also posted on a blog I write for United Methodist Communications.
Hearing the stories of the UMCOR and IMA executives trapped in the rubble of the Hotel Montana is to hear of conditions so horrifying they are unimaginable. Utter chaos. At times utter hopelessness. And always courage and more courage. Faith and more faith.
It is a profound gift that Jim Gulley and Sarla Chand give us when they tell this story, difficult as it is to hear. We need to know, to grieve and to hope. And they help us.
They help us to fill in the blanks. To understand the darkness and chaos. The silence. The pain. With their help, our heavy hearts can take solace in the strength of the human spirit and the power of faith. Through their words, we imagine the unimaginable – being trapped under tons of rubble in darkness.
Strangely, however, for me it’s harder to imagine singing. But sing they did. "I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got love like an ocean, I’ve got joy like a fountain, in my soul."
Such strength and faith.
They help us to piece together the fragments of life in the darkness and silence, to assimilate order out of the chaos. Our minds are still troubled and our hearts still heavy, but we find a measure of peace, like a river, in our souls.
They are helping us to shape a narrative for a community of faith. We stand with Jim Gulley, who tells us, like Job of old, he has no answers about why some live and some die, some suffer and others don’t. But some questions have no answer, and there are times when we need each other more than answers.
And these brothers and sisters in Christ comforted each other, told stories and sang. They created community out of chaos. They cared for one another. Offered comfort, encouragement and stories.
We also hear from others like Pam Carter, who was evacuated unharmed on the outside but her heart was torn by leaving a friend who chose to stay. Their separation under such conditions haunts her. But she is tirelessly advocating for Haiti now more than before.
Asked if they will return to the place of their great personal pain, all answer yes. The tasks that brought them together remain unfinished. The work of redressing the inequities of the people of Haiti has not run its course. The challenge of empowering the women, improving the quality of life of the children, partnering with the church in Haiti all lie before us and even more so now. The search for justice and the fruitful life God intends for all will bring them back, and perhaps take them to other places in God’s world as well.
This is the narrative they are helping us to understand. We share a faith of deep conviction about the abiding, loving presence of God in our midst, wherever we find ourselves. And this faith is expressed in practical action that changes the world as we believe God calls us to partner with God for change.
And, for me, most profound of all: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I will be also." Even under tons of rubble in the darkness and dust and blood, I am with you.
And if this be true, and I believe it is, then we must be with people wherever they find themselves seeking a fruitful life because that is where God is and that is who we are called to be as followers of Jesus.
God, what a story.
Topics: On Faith | No Comments »
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Don’t Tell Me Love Ain’t Worth the Fight
By Larry | January 17, 2010
This is a cross-post from a blog I write for the agency for which I work, United Methodist Communications.
It is a time of darkness and deep sadness. This morning I wrote a personal note to my colleague Sam Dixon telling him of my joy at his rescue. Around noon today as I sat in the newsroom at United Methodist Communications, my colleague David Briggs informed Tim Tanton and me that Sam was dead.
I exhaled loudly, as if I had been kicked in the stomach. Tim suggested we pray together, and we did.
I went to my office and listened to the song that’s the music bed for our television spot playing now. And a line caught in my throat. "Don’t tell me love ain’t worth the fight," by the band The Congress.
Sam fought the fight against poverty and disease. He fought against indifference to human suffering and the unequal division of the world’s resources. And I think he would say, "don’t tell me love ain’t worth the fight." He died fighting the good fight.
I was to be in a meeting with him on Thursday to talk about combating malaria. And we were inviting him to attend our board meeting for strategic planning next month. Now there is this void.
This past week has been a time of emotional highs and lows. And if I’m feeling this at a distance, how much more so must it be for families missing loved ones? They are heavy on my mind. They fight through these days, clinging to hope and seeing reasons for despair.
In times like this when our human vulnerability is so fully exposed, faith means the most to me. We stand in the gathering darkness utterly vulnerable, our pretenses laid bare, our arrogance humbled, our false sense of power brought low and perhaps most significantly, our hopes dashed. In this state, in some miraculous way, we experience God’s grace.
Thomas Merton wrote, "If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent him to us as he is, then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness." In the darkness we find God. A mystery.
Through no action on our part, without justification or reason, it happens. We are encircled by a loving presence that affirms us, strengthens us, assures us and restores our hope. A great cloud of witnesses testifies to us that our vulnerability is not the whole story. There is more. It is the story of God reaching out to us because it is the nature of God to be with us in our darkest time.
The scriptures come alive. Those who wrote the sacred stories experienced life as we do. The passage of centuries does not diminish their authenticity. They knew pain as we know it, stumbled in the darkness as we stumble.
And in darkness they find themselves, even in their vulnerability, powerlessness and grief. "Once you were not a people, now you are God’s people," one writes. "I will gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise," another says of God’s promise. And a third says assuringly, "You will not fear the terror of the night." Yes, they know. They have walked where we have walked. Our humanness is their humanness.
In this I find hope. A connecting thread. A common humanity. "The Lord is near to the broken-hearted," they tell us. "Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning." A promise and hope.
Don’t tell me love ain’t worth the fight.
Topics: On Faith | 2 Comments »
Somalia and Yemen
By Larry | January 10, 2010
Stories about the Palestinian suicide bomber and the Nigerian who tried to blow up the U.S. Air flight stir memories of young men I worked with in several trips to Somalia several years ago. This was before terrorism and modern-day piracy. Many of them pleaded to leave with me–an impossibility for many reasons–and others asked me to carry their school records, letters of application, or other documents to the U.S. and some tried to exact a pledge that I would assist them to leave the country and enter a college in U.S. When I see the young pirates now menacing shipping in the Indian Ocean, I wonder how many young, uneducated Somali men have found pirating and other illicit means of employment a desirable alternative to the un-ending turmoil of anarchic Somalia.
A recent report from Kenya details a boom in construction and skyrocketing housing prices in that country due to an influx of Somali money, the proceeds of pirates looking to invest in a more stable economy. And other reports bring tales of more dangerous results.
A story about Yemen’s role as a training ground for terrorists states that "the Somali problem is merging with the Yemen issue." Yemen is a poor country torn by internal division and led by a corrupt government. The report says 200,000 Somalis have migrated to Yemen, adding even more potential recruits for terrorist actions and certainly adding to the population of the economically disadvantaged.
Another story opens with the claim that a decade after the bombing of the USS Cole, deep mistrust between Yemen and the U.S., plus a lack of political will to deal with Al Queda, has allowed the organization time to rebuild and regroup in Yemen. The two stories contribute to a holistic view but probably could offer even deeper context.
Several factors contribute to the wasting of opportunity for these young people. The deterioration dates back decades and is rooted in the way Somalia was created as a nation by European negotiators. Land use patterns and tribal differences were not managed by the Somalis in the same way Europeans manage nation-states but the European governance model was imposed on the territory never the less.
In the post-colonial era a strong-arm government held competing tribal interests together after a fashion but insurgency and open warfare with its neighbors kept Somalia in a state of instability.
The superpowers in the Cold War played Somalia and Ethiopia against one another, and at one point Russia and the U.S. flipped sides and created alliances with their former enemy states. Siad Barre , a military officer, toppled the government and ruled by dictate until his government fell under its own corrupt weight. After the Cold War Somalia seemed so remote and inconsequential it slipped from world attention until famine brought international response and the presence of the U.S. military.
Rule by warlords, regionally powerful tribal leaders who constitute their own militias and rule by force illustrates the lack of any social or political capacity to pull Somalia together. Many creative and street-savvy Somalis are working to make life better. But they labor in one of the most unique social situations I can imagine. This fragmented power contributes to on-going instability.
The absence of a formalized civil society means a generation of Somali young people have known rule by force and tribal governance but not standardized education nor elected leadership or governance. The Somali migration from one of the poorest countries in the Horn of Africa to one of the poorest in the Middle East is telling.
The long-term neglect of human well-being and internal tribal fighting in Somalia is now manifesting itself as a threat to global security. Corruption, tribalism and economic neglect are paying dividends to terrorists. A population of young Somali males is a recruiting pool for terror.
Right now options for people of good will are limited. The World Food Program has suspended operations in the southern Somalia due to armed conflict. However, the world can learn from Somalia. Hunger and lack of development breed instability. This opens the door for those who seek political control by manipulating unstable conditions. We can encourage the Obama administration to support the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative as one means of prevention, and a proactive step toward preventing instability elsewhere. Other options for dealing with Somalia seem limited to peacekeeping and diplomacy.
Topics: On Culture, On Poverty | No Comments »
Poverty is About More Than Material Well-being
By Larry | December 29, 2009
A responder to my blog post about the relationship between religious extremism and poverty asks if my argument holds when a young, educated, affluent, elite such as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , the Nigerian who attempted to blow up a Delta airliner over Detroit, turns to violence. Why do young people who have achieved advanced degrees and attained levels of material comfort want to blow up other people?
While individual motivations remain distinct, a composite is emerging that offers some clues.
It reveals that assimilation into majority cultures isn’t accomplished in short time periods but over generations and, in fact, assimilation doesn’t accurately reflect the give-and-take that is more likely necessary in this age.
Racial sensitivities are not eliminated by affluence and can be aggravated by subtle social distinctions and overt acts of racism.
Cleavages occur within ethnic communities as well as between these communities and the broader culture and can cause some individuals to feel isolated, a condition that among some festers into simmering rage.
There are extremists trolling for those experiencing this social anomie and they are skilled at recruiting and exploiting them for terribly destructive political purposes.
The Internet makes recruitment easier as extreme views and social disaffection can coalesce globally.
There is an unsettling fear afoot not only in the U.S. but across Europe and other regions about loss of community, social influence, economic security and identity that contributes to social discrimination against ethnic communities and conflict between ethnic and majority communities.
Global interconnections and mobility brings people into contact with others who bring new social values and cultural practices that sometimes feel threatening to majorities.
In short, poverty isn’t just about material well-being. We can experience a poverty of affirming relationships that can be as devastating as lack of material necessities. Affluence doesn’t treat poverty of relationships.
This isn’t an excuse for violence but recent events in Switzerland, France and the UK all point to a sense of unease with immigration and assimilation, particularly affecting Muslims, that reveals a more complicated social mix than religion alone. Religion becomes an organizing principle and proxy for this milieu of anomie.
Recently the Swiss banned minarets from building design, the French banned headscarves worn by Muslim girls in public schools and the UK sacked a Muslim female teacher who wore a veil when working with boys banned female students wearing veils . In each case controversy stoked resentment and fear on all sides. It also heightened resentment among young Muslims.
Conversely, fears of economic insecurity, cultural differences and loss of national identity surfaced among those in the majority culture. Religion is the focal point but wider social dynamics are at work.
In addition, the disputes also lay bare the disconnect between generations within the ethnic communities. Abdulmutallab’s father reported his son’s extreme views to the U.S. embassy and the grandparents of one of the 2005 London bombers told an interviewer she couldn’t believe her grandson’s extreme views and disavowed them sorrowfully.
If there is learning in this, I think it is that we need to work intentionally to create greater understanding, not only between faith groups but between communities through opportunities for conversation, interaction and acting together on things that bring mutual benefit such as public education, jobs creation and community development. We need interfaith dialogue. We need political leaders who speak with diplomacy and concern for the good of the whole, not for narrow political gain among their partisan bases. We need reporting that provides context and does not separate individual isolated events as if they occur apart from this greater social dynamic. We need churches, mosques, schools and journalists who see the world through a global perspective and who interpret our interconnections more holistically and less provincially.
Whether we understand it or not, we are more interrelated today and our relationships and understanding of each other are more important than ever. Poverty is about more than material well-being. Poverty is also about the quality of our relationships and we are seeing how poverty of relationship leads to damaged individuals and damage to the community.
Topics: On Culture | No Comments »
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