Niger Started Crying When Kerry Did!

As the famine and ensuing starvation crisis in Niger lingers at the forefront of African news today, I do nothing. I sit in a cafe with my laptop and log onto the wireless internet that is so plentiful in the developed world and I pontificate. I put down in writing my views, concerns and opinions as only I can. What makes me any better than the politicians that stall aid efforts over minute verbiage technicalities and wait for the right moment in prime time news to announce their intentions: because we all know that no one reads the Saturday paper. We are so used to this insidious stalling and political sport that we think little of it. We are comfortable. Lord knows there is no sin in being comfortable, but what of the miserable? Are we too to be miserable? Are we to give up our abundance until we are the ones with nothing left? Or what about Marxist philosophy? Should the world not do a better job of distributing and sharing the scarce resources provided by Mother Earth? Or does it matter?

I feel deeply for Africa. I have no reason to care for Africa specifically except for the fact that it languishes in squalor mostly ignored by media. Niger's food crisis was first reported in November 2004 but no one could possibly pay attention to Africa when the US was having elections. I even remember that during most of November, the US election was daily front page material for both of the major French newspapers Le Monde and La Figaro not to mention the major news mills BBC and CNN. In November 2004, we already knew that one third of Niger was facing food shortages and fleeing the country over foregone conclusions of the dry rainy season.

Now that the World Food Programme (WFP) has responded with urgency, the world will soon forget the crisis though it could last for years. Should you want to follow an aid worker's journal, I think it is a fantastic way to understand the situation from the core.

Economically speaking, the UN claims that the delayed deployment of food to Niger was not due to the usual logistical hangups, but the lack of donorship they were able to drum up. I cannot defend Washington's measly yearly donation 0.15% Gross National Income (GNI) to developing countries (as opposed to Norway's 0.9% andEurope's s average of 0.35%) as the goal set by the UN is 0.7% GNI for all countries. I have been informed, however, that US private citizens take the donation cake. It appears that not only are they the most generous private donors worldwide, but they are more generous to developing countries than the US government itself. US privately donates 15 times more than Europe. This could be due to the lower tax burden on US citizens: 31.6% compared to Europe's 45.6%. Well, if the citizens are doing such a fantastic job handling their own income.......why do we even let the government take so much of it when they obviously are not putting it in the grid where the citizens want it?!

Darfur: The Beginnings

In researching the history of the complex conflict in Sudan, I was rather surprised by the "Retrospective Mortality Survey among the internally Displaced Population, Great Darfur, Sudan August 2004." This report was instituted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Sudanese Ministry of Health (MoH) to determine the deaths per 10,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) per day between June 15 and August 15, 2004 within the most contested, Darfur region. Each, Northern Darfur, Western Darfur and one camp in Southern Darfur, Kalma Camp, were statistically boiled down to representative households who were asked a series of questions regarding deaths and causes of death in the household during the above stated time period.

The reason I enjoy stripping away the sensationalism of over zealous journalists especially when researching conflicts, and going right to the source and flipping through pages of statistical reports that make me question my intelligence, is that, in the end, the situation is so sensational in itself. I think adding clever verbiage around the information actually takes away from it. So here goes:

Obviously the highest instances of death per 10,000 was greatest in Southern Darfur. This was highly predictable considering that the survey team could only gain access to one camp in all of Southern Darfur as their wellbeing had been threatened by the insurgents (SLA, government, Janjeweed...take your pick). But throughout all of the regions of Darfur, DIARRHEA was the main cause of death, not acts of genocide, violence or bodily injury...but diarrhea. This is indicative of poor environmental situations. It is also the most preventable cause of death and makes me wonder why the UN often seeks to use a military presence in African when the situation is generally crying for humanitarian aid. I don't just mean sacks of maize and bottled water, but hand pumps that allow them to access their own clean water for years to come and simple education about personal and food sanitation. It would take so little of our effort.

These people are wonderful people...I guess this all goes back to my not being able to understand why we won't help Africa in the simple ways that Africa needs to be helped. Their IDPs die because of no access to clean water and latrines.

Nothing to Us...Everything to Them...

For the last month, I have been going out of my mind wondering what Corporate America does with its discarded technological equipment. A few books and articles on the International Criminal Tribunals of both the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), combined with my own work place (one of the largest investment banking companies in the world) inspired me to search out the answer. Having been unsuccessful in my own search, BBC brought the answer to me.

My firm recently replaced PCs nation-wide. This means we replaced from 25 to 300 PC in each of about 20 North American Offices. We replaced machines that, though slow by current competitive standards, had Windows 2002, Pentium 4, etc etc. But where did they go? I asked my IT guy. I am told that they are shipped off to a PC recycling center in New York (our World Headquarters). So, basically, we scrap thousands of perfectly functioning computers every 3 years or so.

This is UNbelieveable! In researching International Law, the UN, genocide and Africa, I have come to understand that the criminal tribunals charge with the duty of trying and prosecuting genocidaires, lack the most basic office supplies (Administration of the International Tribunal): paper, paper clips, fax machines, printers, etc. Romeo Dallaire, Force Commander during the 1994 Rwanda genocide had ONE suitcase sized laptop and a dot matrix printer on which to write reports to fax to UN headquarters. NO WONDER NO ONE AT HEAD QUARTERS WOULD LISTEN!!! I HAVEN'T BEEN NEAR A DOT MATRIX PRINTER SINCE THE AGE OF 4!! FOUR!!!!!

So what is the answer? Why do we discard these computers local IT guy? To the IT guy's credit, he tried to get these computers donated locally, and that is when he was told "that it is do to security issues" that we cannot donate the computers....oh, I see, so lobing them into a big pile in a junk yard is a whole lot more secure than wiping the hard drive and donating them to people who will ultimately use them for word processing and internet surfing because that is the extent of their knowledge!?!?!?!?!?! I'm pissed.

And then comes BBC (my personal favorite source for world news) with an article about what we SHOULD be doing with these perfectly useful PCs. The organization is Computer Aid International. I suggest EVERYONE give this website to the head of their company. Personally -since I have been cock blocked by my local IT guy as to whom I would actually need to ask about this situation- I intend to write an email to one of the most praised CEOs in America if not Internationally...and do you know why? Because if the people with the passion will not make the people with the power listen, the world would be a useless sad place. My power is my passion....as is yours. I am not an activist (I don't even like activists because they quite frankly annoy the hell out of me) I DO, however, feel that we must never bow to money or intimidation in hoping for a world that actually does care for humans on a human level.

Bowling for Columbine Comes to Kenya

All Americans remember April 20, 1999 as the day when two students at Columbine High School opened fire killing 19 students and teachers and wounding 23 others before turning the guns on themselves (High School Shooting Stats). This deeply painful incident was completed in a manner of precise execution allowing time for the eyes of each victim to be searched by the teenage murderers. Since then, many of us have become familiar with the documentary "Bowling for Columbine" as written and directed by Michael Moore. This informative and moving film paints a portrait of gun slinging Americans and their propulsion towards the use of fear to manipulate the masses. Millions of Americans viewed this film and felt enlightened about our media-driven society. A significant reduction of crime over past years, has seen media reportage sore to 600%. How can we possibly feel safe as the media searches for the most grotesque of stories to blow out of proportion in order to contain the public within this "culture of fear"?

This brings me to Kenya. On the morning of Tuesday July 12, 2005 "Hundreds of armed men surrounded a primary school and nearby houses and opened fire as children were making their way to school" in Turbi Village, Kenya. Of the 76 people killed, 22 were children (mostly under the age of 10) wearing pristine school uniforms.

Tell me now what happened to the media frenzy and over blown reportage common to such an incident should it have occurred in the US or Europe. Tell me now how two teenagers with legal, federally registered semi-automatic weapons have the ability to frighten the people of the most powerful nation in the world into feeling "unsafe." And tell me now how the petty fight over the "personal injury" caused to the brother of Oklahoma City Bomber Terry Nichols, James Nichols by statements of fact made in the documentary "Bowling for Columbine," causes more of a media fuss than the Turbi Village Primary School killings.

Rwanda Today

Though it is never my intention to point fingers at specific countries just for the purpose of placing blame, I do find it necessary to call each and every country out on their humanitarian debacles. Such mishaps can always easily be avoided with the use of a collective moral conscience void of political ambition. Yet, on April 6, 2005 (the 11th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide), France was once again called to the forefront of investigations of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) which is based in Arusha, Tanzania. For more information on France's involvement in the preparation of the Rwanda genocide of 1994, please visit La Voix Humaine Historique for the "Domestic Analysis of the Rwanda's 1994 Genocide."

Africa's Children

Children flock to cameras with smiling faces and uninhibited fascination as western photo journalists rummage their way through refugee camps. These smiling faces give hope to citizens of war torn countries that someday their people will prosper. In our western minds, we have blanket associations regarding the inherent innocence of children. We believe the very definition of "child" to be synonymous with "sheltered," "protected," "carefree" and "valuable." If anything, children of African countries such as Rwanda, the Congo, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Somalia and Cote d'Ivoire who have all seen major conflict within the last 10 years, survive in three categories completely disassociated from the above western synonyms of childhood. There are (1) the privileged, (2) the scarred and (3) the corrupted.

(1) Considered privileged are those granted US citizenships as their birth right or those able to escape the conflict without being caught up in the deluge of refugees frantically jumping borders. In the case of citizenship, the child born in the US bears the role of family savior from a very young age. They have little to rejoice in and will never forget that they are first and foremost African, but their birth within the borders of a powerful country at least ensures their family's survival. In regards to remaining in Africa but avoiding a traumatic plight, families are usually tied to powerful leaders (corrupt or otherwise) within bordering countries and are flown out as a reaffirmation of that tie.

(2) The scarred children of Africa are so many and so tragic. They sit and watch family members die and endure torture in the most grotesque of situations. They lose mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and friends. No one sits down with them to explain the meaning of death, no one dares offer a reason why people kill one another for they themselves cannot understand and nor are they taught that death and destruction is not supposed to be a common occurrence. They are sponges upon which everything around them is poured and they live with a deep sense of helplessness. However, the scarred, unlike the corrupted, are able to somehow maintain their innocence and overcome their hardship. A large portion of these can be found in refugee camps.

(3) Deeply disturbing is that insurgents and corrupt dictators use children to fight their battles. They recruit orphaned boys (usually this means that the regime has killed the child's family and abducted the boy for soldering or the girl to serve as a "rebel wife"), force them to partake in drug use, ensure their addiction which further ensures their dependency on the regime. This cycle starts from as early as 7 years old. By the age of 10 the children are expected to fight in the front lines using AK-47s. They are purposely used at the forefront of battle so as not to waste the more valuable adult soldiers who hide behind the inevitably mowed down children.

Angelina Jolie recently adopted a baby daughter from Ethiopia. Many, I'm sure, wonder why and if such an endeavor is meaningful. I assure you, to that one child, such an action is enormously important. We cannot weigh the value of people in numbers. If you have the ability to save only one, then you have done exponetially more for humanity than you could imagine. We must learn to value even just one person as deeply sacred and deserving of love, hope, peace and a prosperous life. I hope that Zahara will cling to her ancestry and the rich ancient culture of her people even as she is to live in the throws of an uber-industrialized nation. Until we can view others as valuable, no matter how many children rush to cameras with smiling faces, we will never see them. We will only see the conflict that has categorized them.

Can the West Ever Understand Human Rights?

The answer is no. The standards inherent in Western leaders are impossibly color conscious and geographically specific. The core of human rights as a philosophy and as a discipline of international public law is that each and every person is a valuable being and deserves a life free from oppression and abuse on all levels. After the US reluctantly intervened in the first and second world wars, it was named "the great humanitarian": then came the second half of the twentieth century.

As humanitarian wars took the forefront of international conflict, the US was suddenly unavailable as presidents began to forget their ideological foundation: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, equality, yadda yadda. The West has proved that it cannot understand human rights because it has a selective conscious. Though it took the Clinton Administration months of ethnic bloodshed, an unprecedented number of resignations within the Department of State and the promise of primary military support from NATO, the US did end up intervening in the genocide of the former Yugoslav nations. The situation there was that Muslim men and boys were being torn away from their families, isolated in detention areas, murdered and buried in mass graves that to this day have not fully been recovered. The approximations of deaths in Bosnia range from 8,000 to 10,000. Regardless of the actual number of deaths in former Yugoslavia, it remained in the thousands and the Clinton Administration decided to intervene. Yet when it came down to assisting a tiny, impoverished African country, we refused to even acknowledge its occurrence.
"In 1994 Rwanda, a country of just 8 million experienced the numerical equivalent of more than two World Trade Center attacks every single day for 100 days." Yet in this case, the Clinton administration not only ignored direct and fully incriminating evidence about the planning of the Rwanda genocide ("The Dallaire Fax"), but they made it administration policy not to discuss or intervene in the actions of a rogue government nor dirty their hands with peacekeeping efforts (PDD 25). Hence, when a million people died in Rwanda we made it POLICY to let it happen, but we intervene in a FAR lesser genocide in Europe. And we only did that after standing by an arms embargo on the Muslim victims; preventing them from defending themselves. This in turn forced them to seek help from Islamic extremists, including Osama Bin Laden himself. West values the human rights of those who they consider valuable. That is a gross perversion of the core of Human Rights.

As Simple as That...

In many parts of rural Sub-Saharan Africa, the prevention of malaria boils down to keeping children under 5 years old protected from mosquitos as they sleep and providing villages with clean ground water. What good could such simplisitic solutions do? Prevent up to 80% of malaria cases.

In acknowledgement of the US failure to prevent the Rwanda genocide of 1994, the U.S. ambassador in Kigali, during the Clinton Administration, David Rawson, stated "Most of us thought that if a war broke out, it would be quick, that these poor people didn't have the resources, the means, to fight a sophisticated war. I couldn't have known that they would do each other in with the most economic means" (i.e. machetées and garden utensils). George Moose, then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, agreed: "We were psychologically and imaginatively too limited."

Africa is a continent far more simplistic than any western power can imagine. We look to fix a '74 Pinto with the parts of an '05 Mercedes. Though it will be beneficial, would it not be less expensive, less intrusive and more practical to fix the Pinto with Pinto parts? Even if we forgive 100% of their debt , give them billions of dollars in aid and go home feeling like the saviors of the universe for throwing money at problems that are direct consequences of our irreverent behavior in the past: who will actually get the money? The leaders will use the money to build government buildings, pay government salaries, the salaries of soldiers and to build roads. This is what western nations see as progressive; yet, what of all of the displaced, diseased and impoverished? They don't come to visit the capital of their country, they don't have cars to drive on the roads, and now the corrupt and brutal leaders and soldiers will be able to rule them comfortably.

"It takes two days of an engineer's time and about two days to build." As simple as that. I say Halaburton, Vought Aircraft, Lockhead, and Rand Corporation fly a load of engineers over to Africa (in coach) with one C-130J Hercules full of privately donated mosquito nets and another C-130J full of industry donated hand pumps and large plastic bowls stolen from Corporate America's plethora of crappy SWAG items and save the bloody continent! I'll even coordinate it!

C130-J Hercules

....That could fit a lot of SWAG...