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 AssistanceMSF, 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
