Uganda: Donors must step up to help agencies address domestic violence

On our mission to northern Uganda we were told that the biggest immediate danger for women in the displacement camps is domestic violence. My colleague, Camilla Olson and I heard that the stressful overcrowded conditions in camps and the lack of livelihood opportunities for men and women contribute to this violence, which puts the physical and mental health of so many women at serious risk.

So I asked in the camps how a woman could find help and protection if she was assaulted by her husband. Some women said that they could go to local council leaders, although others complained that most local council leaders are male and few listen to women enough. We heard that survivors of domestic violence could turn to Community Development Officers, who are employed by local districts to do social work. We heard good reports about the quality of these officers, but they rarely get out to meet people in the communities because the districts have allocated insufficient resources to them.

Many women said that they would be reluctant to go to the police, because they have seen many perpetrators bribe their way out of a situation. Furthermore, the police are so under-resourced that victims have to pay the police their fuel costs to come out to attend to their case.

The UN and international non-governmental organizations have set up programs to prevent and respond to gender-based violence (GBV) and to build up the capacity of local Ugandan systems to take on this work. At the beginning of 2008, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) took over the role of coordinating GBV response in Uganda from the UN children’s agency, UNICEF. It has deployed coordinators but UNFPA does not have dedicated funds to support GBV programs.

UNFPA in Uganda is now seeking funds from donor governments for several aid agencies to continue their activities after the end of the year. They hope to continue providing legal, medical and psycho-social support to the survivors of domestic violence, campaigning to prevent domestic violence, and supporting Ugandan national institutions that can work long-term in the fight against domestic violence. For example, the Government of Uganda has made a major step forward by establishing a National GBV Reference Group where representatives from different government ministries meet and incorporate gender-based violence issues in their planning and programs.

The U.S. government refuses to contribute to UNFPA’s work anywhere in the world, creating a major limitation for the fight against violence against women in Uganda and globally. This policy should be reversed, particularly now that UNFPA has been designated the lead UN agency on GBV in humanitarian crises globally. In Uganda, international donor governments must support UNFPA to ensure the continuation of GBV programming. If these programs have to close for lack of funds this will represent a big step backwards, and a worrying precedent for other countries where UNFPA has taken the lead.

-Melanie Teff

Chad: Bring us security to return home

Within the past three years, insecurity remains the primary obstacle to the return of Chadians who have been forced to flee their villages, located in the south-eastern areas of Chad bordering Sudan. Insecurity and violence are also increasingly hampering the provision of assistance to the people displaced as aid agencies come under recurrent attacks by armed men on the roads or in their compounds.

The security situation has deteriorated drastically within the past two years and has become widespread given the persistent climate of impunity. In May 2007, I visited eastern Chad and I was able to travel by car from Abeche to Goz Beida and Koukou without any concern. I just returned from another visit in June with my colleague Erin Weir and we could not do the same because of highway banditry.

The increasing presence of marauding armed men is also affecting civilians as it is disrupting and destabilizing the economic networks of people in the region including those who are displaced. I met several women and men in sites for Chadian displaced people. One of the women I spoke to, who fled in November 2007 in search of safety, says that she feels relatively safe within her new site. However she is afraid of armed men on horseback who roam around the areas where she searches for firewood. (Firewood is sold by the displaced at local markets to earn money.) Some men also said that they are afraid to take their livestock to graze in fields far from their sites because they can be raided, beaten and robbed by armed men. Many displaced Chadians we met said that security should be restored in the area before they could fully resume their traditional social and economic activities.

People displaced in eastern Chad are in limbo as they cannot return home to resume their traditional lifestyle and cannot integrate within their areas of displacement because the resources available to them are not sufficient to address their needs. Nonetheless, there are ways to confront these challenges. My colleague and I released two reports calling on UN officials, international agencies and donor governments to establish lasting security and promote sustainable returns. The people of Chad are counting on these officials to act.
-Mpako Foaleng

Northern Uganda: Real Options for Returning Home

Displaced people in northern Uganda are slowly starting the process of returning home after two decades of conflict between government forces and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which forced over 1.5 million people to flee their homes. In June, I traveled with my colleague Melanie Teff to the Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, and Adjumani districts in northern Uganda to meet with displaced people and find out from them what the return situation is like. What we found was the need for real options for the displaced in the form of access to basic services and livelihood support but also in the ability to choose when to return freely.

Ojok, an 80 year old man who has been living in a displacement camp in Gulu district since 2002, told me he would go home tomorrow if someone could help him build a hut on his land. Most of the people in the camp where he is living have returned home or will be returning soon. However Ojok is disabled and cannot build a hut for himself and his wife. His former house was burned down by the LRA.

International donors, especially the US, should provide flexible and timely funds for recovery activities in the areas of return, particularly to improve access to basic services like water, health and education, but also to assist more vulnerable people like Ojok to rebuild their homes and their livelihoods.

While he stays in the camp, Ojok remains dependent on food rations from the World Food Program because he is unable to farm his own land. Many of the displaced people we met with continue to keep a hut in the camps in order to access those services that are not yet in the return areas. Others, like Ojok, have no choice but stay in the camps until they receive assistance to go back.

Building up services in home areas will help to incentivize voluntary returns, but donors must also be conscious of the need to continue providing basic services in the camps for those who remain, in order to avoid forcing people to go back before they are ready.

Even if the LRA were to return to northern Uganda and commit more atrocities against the local population (which many displaced people we spoke with feared given the current uncertainties around the peace process) Ojok told me that he would still want to go home – he doesn’t care about the rebels any longer, he just wants to live on his own land once again.

--Camilla Olson

President’s Corner: Foreign Confusion about U.S. Policies and Values

On Monday I met with about 30 teachers from around the world who are spending the summer here learning about and trying to understand the United States. They are intelligent, well read and, quite frankly, puzzled by what they are seeing and learning.

They have read about America’s commitment to rule of law and respect for human rights, yet they are hearing about prisoners being held without charge and allegedly tortured at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. They also wanted to know why the U.S., while working to stabilize Iraq, isn’t more concerned about five million Iraqis—20% of the population—who are displaced.

When we discussed the case the International Criminal Court is bringing against President al Bashir of Sudan, several wondered if the ICC will bring charges against President Bush or others in the United States for the invasion of Iraq or alleged mistreatment of Iraqi and other prisoners. (The answer, for a variety of reasons, is no.)

Their tour is part of the Fulbright Program sponsored by the State Department. Unfortunately, the very administration of the program highlights the inconsistency of U.S. policy. A teacher from Iraq was supposed to participate in the program, but one of the other teachers in the program said that the U.S. government wouldn’t issue her a visa.

This not only deprived the Fulbright program participants from hearing about what is happening in Iraq, but it prevented one Iraqi teacher from discussing U.S. policy in Iraq with a wide range of Americans at precisely the time when both countries need to understand each other better.

--Ken Bacon

The militarization of aid to Africa

What do you get when, at a 17 to 1 ratio, US spending on the Global War on Terror far outweighs the funding for diplomatic, development and long-term capacity-building programs, combined?

In a report released yesterday by RI’s peacebuilding program manager Mark Malan, we outline exactly what’s happening now, and what’s at risk of happing in the very near future. Foreign aid is being increasingly militarized, meaning more and more of US humanitarian aid is being funneled through the military to go towards the Global War on Terror. There is an increasing danger that civilian agencies, which do important work for long-term stability and development, will lose out to military initiatives focusing on short-term gains at the expense of crucial development and humanitarian aid.

Mark urges AFRICOM, or the US Africa Command, to play a productive role in support of a more stable and secure Africa: “AFRICOM will dominate US foreign policy in Africa for the foreseeable future, and we need to make sure it gets off on the right foot.” To do so, AFRICOM should focus its efforts on professionalizing African armies and security agencies, and creating the foundations for the kind of long-term stability, under the rule of law, that is so essential for growth and development in Africa.

What does all of this have to do with displaced people and refugees?

Africa is home to millions of the world’s refugees and internally displaced people – people who have faced years of violence and conflict that has forced them into terribly unstable environments. Focusing long-term development efforts into building a more stable and secure future would allow so many displaced people to return from exile and begin to rebuild their lives.

Frogs, not chocolate: Post-cyclone survival in Burma

On May 30th, four weeks after Cyclone Nargis struck Burma, the New Light of Myanmar, one of the government’s propaganda mouthpieces, ran a particularly nasty editorial, accusing the international aid community of being stingy in response to the disaster while assuring the world that the Burmese people were tough enough to survive. “Myanmar people are capable enough of rising from such natural disasters even if they are not provided with international assistance,” the commentary stated. “Myanmar people can easily get fish for dishes by just fishing in the fields and ditches. In the early monsoon, large edible frogs are abundant. The people can survive with self-reliant efforts even if they are not given chocolate bars from [the] international community.”

The commentary, coming at a time when the government seemed to be finally accepting international access to the Irrawaddy Delta region, elicited global condemnation from political activists and human rights groups, as it underscored the cruelty of the military junta and its lack of concern for the welfare of the people. To this day, two and a half months after the cyclone, the international aid effort has fallen well short of the scope and depth of coverage required to meet the needs of the more than two million survivors directly affected by the storm. Outsiders with no experience inside Burma have stated that a “second wave of dying has begun” and made alarming predictions that “hundreds of thousands” of Burmese may die as the result of Burmese government obstruction.

As access has improved to the delta region, however, and the tri-partite aid coordination body, consisting of representatives of the United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asia Nations, and the government, completed its assessment of conditions, the conclusion of the aid agencies is that there were very few additional deaths after the cyclone’s initial fury. According to reports by The New York Times and the Associated Press, there was, in fact, no second wave of dying as the result of food shortages, epidemics, and exposure. The Burmese people in the delta showed exactly the resilience and strength to survive that the government of Burma was touting.

This in no way excuses the government for obstructing the relief effort. The resilience of the people derives from their life-long experience of government neglect and failure to tend to their basic needs. They knew that even in the aftermath of the cyclone they would probably be on their own, or reliant on neighbors, religious institutions, and other non-governmental sources of assistance.

My regret is that I didn’t have the courage to express skepticism about the alarmist predictions of a second wave of deaths as aid agencies gradually gained access to the delta within two or three weeks of the cyclone. My experience in Cambodia in the aftermath of the 1979 famine taught me that in the relatively lush environment of mainland Southeast Asia, once people are free to forage for food they will survive. Rice paddies are full of small fish, crabs, and frogs that provide protein. Fruit and edible plants grow in abundance. Air temperatures rarely go below 75 degrees, limiting deaths from exposure. Contaminated water is a menace, but in the rainy season drinking water can be collected.

I knew that no one in the Irrawaddy Delta was going to die from lack of food. The risk was that a cholera epidemic or a wave of diarrheal diseases might sweep through the weakened survivors, especially children. Thankfully, it appears that this did not occur.

International aid agencies have a long record of exaggerating their impact and underestimating the self-help capacity of local people. One of the primary lessons of the response to the 2004 tsunami was that the true “first responders,” the ones who save lives in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, are precisely the survivors themselves. They, and supporting organizations, including local government agencies, are the ones who make an immediate difference, well before even the fastest international agencies can mobilize. In disaster prone areas, therefore, strengthening the response capacity of communities and their institutions, whether government or non-governmental, is an essential investment to save lives in the future.

In Burma, the government and its most powerful institution, the military, did very little relief work. What helped save the day in Burma was the tremendous outpouring of individual and small group efforts by Burmese citizens. Buddhist monks, teachers, doctors, merchants --- even travel agents according to a former U.S. diplomat in touch with friends inside the country ---banded together to raise funds, collect materials, and provide direct assistance. While the military confiscated some of this aid, and periodically blocked access by Burmese, enough of these efforts were successful to help meet some of the immediate needs of the survivors. Coupled with their ability to live off the land as they re-gained their strength, these efforts were enough to stave off a second catastrophe.

“Frogs, not chocolate” is not going to become the motto of the international aid community, nor should it. The blocking of aid by the Burmese government in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis was unconscionable. But the phrase contains a measure of truth, and suggests that we should never underestimate people’s ability to find a way to survive in the face of catastrophe.

--Joel Charny

Visit our website to learn more about Joel's mission to Burma.

President’s Corner: ICC Case Against Bashir is Risky but Right

As the head of a humanitarian organization, I worry that Monday’s decision to seek charges of genocide against the president of Sudan will complicate efforts to achieve peace in Darfur and interrupt flows of lifesaving aid to millions of people. Despite these risks, I believe the effort to bring Sudan’s leader to justice is correct and necessary.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court presented evidence that Omar Hassan Ahmad al Bashir, the president of Sudan, is guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the five-year civil war in the Darfur region of Western Sudan. President al Bashir has repeatedly denied the charges, which must now be reviewed by another ICC body called the Pre-Trial Chamber I. If this review concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe the alleged crimes were committed, it can issue an arrest warrant or take other action to bring the accused to trial.

The United Nations has been struggling to deal with the human toll of a vicious civil war in Darfur since it began in February 2003. The war has been characterized by massive death and displacement; some 2.7 million people have been displaced and as many as 400,000 have died from war-related causes, according to some estimates.

In a summary of the case, the prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, said: “The evidence establishes reasonable grounds to believe that al Bashir intends to destroy in substantial part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups as such. Forces and agents controlled by al Bashir attacked civilians in towns and villages inhabited by the target groups, committing killings, rapes, torture and destroying means of livelihood.”

Throughout the conflict, which has been characterized as an attempt by an Arab dominated government to displace or destroy largely African tribes in Darfur, the government of Sudan has tried to interfere with aid organizations and UN food deliveries and the deployment of international peacekeepers. The risk of the announcement of the ICC’s case is that such harassment will increase to the point where the delivery of aid to millions of people will be impossible. This would be a tragedy.

Nevertheless, the announcement of evidence against President al Bashir is correct, because those responsible for the death and displacement in Darfur should be held accountable.

Every case of extreme violence or crimes against humanity is different. But in two previous cases where sitting presidents—Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and Charles Taylor of Liberia—were charged by internationally mandated criminal courts, the indictments helped open the way to peace and reconciliation after years of brutal killing.

It is too early to tell if the ICC’s action will have a similar impact in Sudan. But the ICC action will have an immediate impact on President al Bashir. If evidence is sustained and the court issues a warrant for his arrest, he won’t be able to leave the country, for fear of being arrested and taken to the Hague for trial. The ICC action could complicate the outcome of elections schedule for next year—if the elections occur.

But most of all, the case announced by the ICC shows that when it comes to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, nobody is above the law.

--Ken Bacon

Afghanistan: Refugees' Difficult Road Home

Visit our website to download our new report, Afghanistan: Invest in People, and Newsweek.com for some exclusive footage from our mission.

President's Corner: Facing up to Iraqi Displacement

Everyday I survey a selection of websites, looking for updates on news of displaced populations around the world. The news is seldom cheery, particularly when it’s about Iraq. Two new reports highlight the plight of internally displaced Iraqis.

It’s clear from the reports that security conditions aren’t improving fast enough to encourage significant numbers of families to return home. In fact, the International Organization for Migration estimates that the internally displaced population in Iraq is still growing and has reached 2.8 million. The Iraqi Red Crescent Organization puts the number of internally displaced Iraqis at 2.2 million and says the number is falling slowly. Still, the Red Crescent says, “The humanitarian crisis in Iraq resulting from the displacement problem continues.”

Both reports are on Reliefweb, a compendium of news and reports assembled by the UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs.

Approximately five million Iraqis—20% of the population—are displaced, either within Iraq or as refugees in neighboring countries. Despite reports of some recent improvements in Iraq’s security, most of the displaced are afraid to go home. “Many [internally displaced persons] do not consider returning to their original areas of residence because their homes were destroyed or because they do not think that security is really enforced,” the Iraqi Red Crescent reports. “Displaced families continue to face problems related to health, education, shelter, income, food, water and electricity.”

Addressing the security and livelihood needs of displaced Iraqis is a key to making Iraq a stable, prosperous and peaceful country. Any joint American-Iraqi effort to stabilize Iraq must include a program to help Iraqis return home. This includes providing human security—employment, health care, education and protection of property—as well as physical security.

Iraq is rolling in oil revenues; it’s time for the Iraqi government to start spending this money on meeting the needs of its own people. And it’s time for the U.S. to start working with Iraq to develop a comprehensive plan to dealing with displaced Iraqis. Most want to return home, but they can't—at least for the foreseeable future. They all need protection.

--Ken Bacon

Meeting our Match

Two weeks ago, we launched a matching gift campaign in honor of World Refugee Day. We are happy to report that we raised over $24,000 from people across the country in just five days. We wanted to take this opportunity to thank these donors, and all of you who support our work by donating, telling your friends about us, signing petitions, or just staying current on the plight of refugees by reading this blog.

The money raised will go directly to supporting our recent mission in Chad and all of our work around the world. In Chad, Mpako Foaleng and Erin Weir just assessed the dangers being faced by over 400,000 Sudanese refugees and Chadian internally displaced people. Mpako and Erin have just finished talking directly to European Union and United Nations officials in Brussels and Geneva about ways to ensure these people have food, shelter and protection from further violence. Next week, they will return to the US, where they will demand action from the US Congress and Department of State to support displaced people who desperately need our help.

We accept no government or UN funding – this allows us to say what needs to be said to those who need to hear it, and to push policy makers into doing what they don’t necessarily want to do.

Watch this video to learn more about our work and some of our achievements – achievements that are made possible by you.

--Megan Fowler

Chad: Before the Rainy Season

“The music has played again as is the case almost every year before the rainy season starts in eastern Chad.” This was a metaphor used by a Chadian in eastern Chad last month to describe the recent attacks by rebel groups against the government’s forces. The latest attack is one of many that has contributed -- together with ethnic tensions and the spill over of Sudan’s Darfur crisis -- to destabilizing eastern Chad in the last five years.

I recently visited Habile, a site for internally displaced people (IDPs) situated near the border between Chad and Darfur. Almost 29,000 Chadians have taken refuge there. In addition, more than 20,000 Sudanese refugees forced to flee violence and human rights abuses in Darfur, are currently hosted in Goz Amer camp, a mere eight kilometers away. They will not be able to return home to Darfur anytime soon, given the persistent insecurity in their villages.

However, in Habile, people are starting to consider returning home, especially those whose villages are located in relatively secure areas. Ahead of the rainy season, some people have returned to cultivate their land and start re-building their homes. One woman told me that if the security situation in her village continued to improve, her husband and their 4 children would return permanently.

This glimmer of hope is not shared by the majority of IDPs in Habile. People whose villages are located close to the border with Sudan are not planning to return soon. They are still afraid of attacks, killings and the loss of their property. The root causes of the violence that has forced people to flee their villages have not yet been properly addressed. In some border areas, there are no local authorities or government security forces, leaving these villages vulnerable to attack by armed rebels coming from Sudan.

The latest rebel attacks in the region have made things worse. In the past, Chadian rebel incursions have been followed by armed men on horseback from Sudan who profit from the chaos. They attack and kill civilians, and loot people’s property. These incursions have also generated tensions between communities, breaking the social fabric and weakening the traditional mechanisms for conflict prevention and management.

The UN Refugee Agency has been facilitating a dialogue between the leaders of the displaced communities and those from their home villages. Such initiatives have to be revitalised and understood as an integral part of a broader reconciliation process that will bring trust back among the different communities. This will set the stage so that when people return home to cultivate their land before the next rainy season, they can re-enter their communities and rebuild their lives.

-Mpako Foaleng