Darfur - Tragedy and Hope

Crimes Against Humanity – Humanitarian Rights – What to Do?

It is now 2 months since I returned from working as a Medical Doctor for Medecins Sans Frontieres in Darfur, Sudan. Since I left things have gotten a lot worse with the expulsion of aid organisations (including MSF) leaving the people of Darfur without even basic health services. Some of it has made the news, but not enough. So I want to give you an update, and use the words of those still there to describe it to you.

Crimes Against Humanity
On 3 March, 2009, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan, Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the words of the ICC:

“He is suspected of being criminally responsible, as an indirect (co-)perpetrator, for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property.”

This is the first time an arrest warrant has been issued by the ICC for a sitting Head of State and the decision has been applauded by human rights groups (despite little expectation that he will actually be brought to justice any time soon). However, for humanitarian workers and for the Darfur people they serve, the fall-out has been catastrophic. MSF has been one of many aid organisations forcibly expelled from the country by the Sudanese Government who accuse them as acting as “spies” for governments with a “neo-colonial agenda”. This is farcical, especially for MSF, who are so careful to maintain independence from political forces and neutrality in their operations.

The result is that the majority of the 2,700,000 displaced Darfuri men, women and children have lost access to basic humanitarian assistance – including health services, water and sanitation, and livelihood recovery. Letters I have received from Sudanese doctors with whom I worked in Darfur paint a bleak picture.

“The situation is gloomy, we are all in a daze, the patients in Niertiti will not have that simple health service.”

“They took everything, everything in any place where MSF had office or cars, even the computers and personal things in the compound.”

Since MSF was expelled, the field activity in Niertiti has ground to nothing. Reports from the few remaining medical assistants in Niertiti are tragic.

“Its very sad, with no doctors now in Niertiti. We had an outbreak of meningitis [which started at the time we left] and now there are more and more deaths reported in Thur and the Jebel Marra mountains. It is painful to hear that.”

“There is no one to take care for the people… all the activity to Zero.”

In spite of these setbacks, the strong spirit of the Darfuri and Sudanese people is evident. Some of the doctors with whom I worked and who were evacuated out of Darfur with the rest of the team have found ways to go back and continue work with other agencies like the United Nations. But for people in places like Niertiti, this will be no consolation.

The Right to Humanitarian Assistance
MSF, like other humanitarian organisations, operates on the basis that every community in distress has the right to humanitarian assistance. This should not be dependent on political, economic, ethnic or other factors – it is a basic human right. Yet in Darfur, one of the most troubled areas of the world, millions of men, women and children are being denied even the most basic humanitarian assistance.

Political action on an international and national level have once again had their most devastating effects on the little people – the communities scattered in camps and villages throughout Darfur. It was the big people’s political and military game that put them in the situation in 2003-04, through rampages through village after village. In 2009, once again, the people of Darfur find themselves pawns in a political and military game that is totally out of reach. This time as a consequence of conflict between the Sudanese Government and the International legal bodies.

Can We Do Anything?
It is easy to feel helpless given the dire situation. And nobody could be feeling more helpless than the ordinary people of Darfur. Yet, if they can keep going, keep doing whatever little thing they can to survive, keep hoping for peace - then perhaps the least we can do is to try and stand in solidarity and do the same.

So… if you can pray, then say a prayer. If you can read, then look up more information and share it with your friends and colleagues. If you can write, then write to the newspaper, or your local MP, or the Australian Government, or maybe even the Sudanese Government and United Nations (hell, why not!). If you can write music, compose a song and play it til your fingers bleed. If you can paint, splash out a banner and hang it off a bridge. If you have money, invest in a humanitarian charity. If you have friends, get them together and invite a speaker to show pictures and tell stories. If you have a computer go to www.savedarfur.org or www.darfuraustralia.org, and get Active.

Peace

Leaving Darfur

Farewells – Profiling ‘Mahmoud’ – Homecoming – More Info

My time in Darfur has come to an end. As I return to Australia I want to say a huge thank you to all of you who have vicariously accompanied me on this extraordinary adventure. It has been a great encouragement knowing there are so many people interested in Darfur and the work I have been involved in. Already my humble letters home have found their way into hundreds of hands all over the globe. And very soon they will all be publicly posted as a blog on the MSF Australia website along with lots of photos (www.msf.org.au). So please invite all your relatives and friends to check them out and also read the letters and blogs of other MSF volunteers from all over the world.

Farewells
My last few weeks were spent tying up loose ends, completing some pet projects and saying lots of goodbyes. The end of my mission has come so quickly, but as I reflect on everything that I have seen and done I find it difficult to believe it is has been only 6 months. A list of highlights is impossible, but here are a few memories from my last week.
· Visiting friends in the IDP camps and feeling so humbled by their love and generosity (it still leaves me speechless and moist-eyed - and an upset tummy).
· Being stopped a dozen times while walking down the street by men who heard the mosque health talks to have tea and chat more about sex infections (and starting to see condoms come into vogue).
· Giving the medical assistants a quiz which they took very seriously (and gratefully seeing results that justified the many hours of teaching).
· Playing with kids in the hospital and seeing their fantastic reactions to my little koalas (with one mother wondering if I would like to take her son back to Oz).
· Receiving a huge tub of wild honey from the staff in Thur (and seeing their motivation and hard work reap results in the improved malnutrition program).
· Enjoying my farewell party complete with live music and a swarm of cute kids who came to join the fun and dance (and could they dance!).
· Being given a traditional knife and decorate leather pouch by our beautiful cook Fatma (then miraculously getting it through customs despite it being a ‘dagger’).
· Being loaded up with jalabiyas, shawls, writing boards, tagia, and local craftwork that I will treasure as a reminder of my amazing friends in Darfur.
· My tough translator (and best Darfur friend) hiding his tears as we talked of when we would meet again (and him reminding me that the traditional marriage rules for his daughter could be modified for a certain khawadji doctor…uh oh).

Profiling 'Mahmoud'
Mahmoud Abdujamal Issa, 69 year old man from Nieriti who I see regularly for diabetes and heart failure.

Mahmoud has been sitting in the queue outside my consultation room since the morning along with dozens of other patients attending the Monday chronic disease clinic. I am hot and sweating as I usher him in and try not to rush as I apologise for the long wait. He looks me in the eye, smiles beautifully and tells me how grateful he is for our work no matter how long the wait is. I thank him, and as I look back into his one eye I think with amazement of all the things he has witnessed in his life.

Mahmoud was 18 years old when Sudan became independent from British-Egyptian rule. He was in Darfur at the time and cannot remember many details about the event. But he remembers well the overthrow of the civilian government two years later while he was living and working in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. Another couple of years and the Communists were in power, only to be overthrown by another military junta (who executed a few of his communist-leaning friends). By this time Mahmoud was 32 years old and decided it was time to return to Darfur to get married and start a family.

At the age of 42 years Mahmoud decided to head south to the newly opening oilfields in the hope of improving the situation for his family (now grown to wife and three children). Mahmoud soon found a job and had his first experience working with the culturally very different south Sudanese. Unfortunately this was soon disturbed by a fresh outbreak of war in the south so Mahmoud returned to Darfur determined to stay out of the political conflicts. This turned out to be a good choice as southern Sudan was locked in a brutal civil war and another two military coups took place in Khartoum (finally depositing the current President Omar Al-Bashir into power in 1989).

Mahmoud’s homecoming was mixed with joy and sadness. His children were all growing up quickly. But his wife had been very unwell and died a few months after he got home. Mahmoud took this very hard and initially resisted encouragement to marry again. But in the end he realised he needed a wife to look after his children and married his younger cousin Hawa. Life settled into a pattern for Mahmoud who had reopened his trading business, headed a growing family, and played his role as an elder in the local community. It would be these strong social connections that continued to give Mahmoud hope and meaning in the next difficult years.

Mahmoud does not like to dwell on his suffering and loss, preferring to praise God for what he still has. But I do know that he has lost sons and daughters in the fighting and suffered great personal loss at the hands of the various armed factions. Mahmoud’s concern is for the children who have never known the peaceful coexistence with neighbours that he remembers from his own childhood. He tells me that it is for them he tries to tell his story “so that they know that peace is possible”. I ask him if he really believes that peace is possible and he reminds me of the peace agreement that ended over 40 years of war between north and south Sudan – “the same can happen for Darfur…it must happen”.

On his last visit to see me Mahmoud took my hand and asked if I would come back to Darfur. I said that I would certainly like to, inshallah. Mahmoud concluded by telling me that the world needed more people who could see beyond the colour of skin or the identity of race and tribe. I cannot remember his exact words but the touch of his hand and the intense sincerity of his gaze will always stay with me as a profound challenge. A challenge to always confront my own prejudices and assumptions and actively seek to identify with the marginalised. A challenge to free myself from the tribal thinking that defines my relationship with others in terms of race or ethnicity or gender or language or religion…

Homecoming Challenges
Since leaving Darfur I passed through Paris, Sydney and Melbourne before heading to Tasmania to spend some quality time with my family. I am still reaching for the mosquito net when I wake up, but the novelty of hot water has faded and I actually wonder if squat toilets are not anatomically better for bowel functioning. I know culture shock is invariably worse on return home and I am sure it will be a while before things get back to ‘normal’. I just hope I can find enough friends who I can continue to share my experience with – there is nothing worse than finding those closest are apathetic about something I am so passionate about. So I will ask you (as I ask myself) what now? Will this adventure just be filed in the ‘interesting story’ box or is there something more that we can do?

Personally, I don’t want my involvement with Darfur to end here. And I would love your help in trying to make a continuing contribution to Darfur and the world. Here are a few ideas I have been pondering. If you are interested or have other ideas please drop me an email and let’s make something happen.

1. Discussion forums and presentations. Lots of you have expressed interest in seeing my photos and hearing more of Darfur, humanitarian aid work and the work of MSF. I am very keen to share my experience and would be very happy to speak to any group of co-workers, friends or family that you could get together. Perhaps you are also involved in a community group or religious community that could organise something like a Darfur dinner or discussion group…

2. Polly push. Before leaving to Darfur I sent letters around a few Federal MPs. When I arrived home I found a pile of really quality replies from Jenny Macklin, Kevin Rudd’s African advisor, Bob McMullan, and Brendan Nelson. I wonder how we can do more to encourage our government to contribute more strongly and effectively to areas of the world experiencing humanitarian crises. Perhaps I can send around some of my letters that you can use to write to your own MP. And if they are interested, we can pay them a visit and push global health and international affairs onto their agenda even more strongly…

3. Write to the newspapers. Writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper is pretty simple but can attract a great deal of attention to an issue. Perhaps you also know of other magazines or newspapers who would be interested in publishing a feature article on Darfur. Maybe we could even get together for a writing workshop…

4. Money. There are many aid organisations like MSF doing really amazing work in some of the most challenging places on earth. Of course they all need finances to keep things working and provide their much needed services. Unfortunately the current global financial crisis has slashed donations and program spending is being tightened across the board. Perhaps we could all sign up as regular donors to an aid organisation we respect and trust, and encourage family and friends to do the same. And maybe we could organise a fundraising evening to both raise awareness and raise money...

5. Thoughts and prayers. It is sometimes easy for important issues to fade from our consciousnesses as they disappear from the media. It is also easy to get overwhelmed but the suffering that saturates the media anew every day. But maybe there are some things we can do to keep our hearts caring and minds sensitive. We are all part of a family and friendship group, and perhaps also involved in discussion groups or spiritual communities. Perhaps these all offer us great opportunities to share our concern for justice and humanity with others and keep ourselves passionate…

More Info
When I left for Darfur 6 months ago I sent around a list of books, films and websites for you to check out. I hope you have found them useful. Here are some more resources you may be interested in.

Books – personal stories
‘The Translator’, by Daud Hari a Zaghawa tribesman from north Darfur who risked his life translating for journalists and genocide investigators after his own village was destroyed and community destroyed.
‘Heart of Darfur’, by Lisa French Blaker about her experiences as an MSF nurse in Darfur during 2005-2006.
‘Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival’, by Jen Barlowe (and others) who collected testimonies from many survivors of the Darfur genocide.
‘What is the What’, by Dave Eggers following the story of one of the ‘lost boy’ refugees from Sudan through refugee camps and finally to the USA.

Books – exploring the issues
‘Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond’, by Don Cheadle (actor in Hotel Rwanda) and John Prendergast.
‘Darfur: A New History of a Long War (African Arguments)’ and ‘War in Darfur and the Search for Peace’, edited by Julie Flint and presenting essays from African activist and thinkers.
‘Darfur’s Sorrow: A History of Destruction and Genocide’, by MW Daly.
‘Darfur: A 21st Century Genocide’, by Gerad Prurier.

Films
‘The Devil Came on Horseback’
‘Darfur Diaries: Message from Home’

Websites
www.msf.org.au
www.savedarfur.org
www.darfurolympics.org
www.reliefweb.int
www.alertnet.org