 November 2001
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Patrica Watson, Editor Sara Burke, Assistant Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Doctors Without Borders Rejects Link of Humanitarian and Military Actions ISLAMABAD, OCT 8: The international medical aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders), which has been working in Afghanistan since 1979, today cast doubt on the so-called 'humanitarian airdrops' which have accompanied the military strikes against Afghanistan. Such action does not answer the needs of the Afghan people and is likely to undermine attempts to deliver substantial aid to the most vulnerable. MSF's Dr Jean-Hervé Bradol, speaking from Pakistan, explained that the so-called 'humanitarian' action, was in fact purely a propaganda tool, of little real value to the Afghan people. It was likely to cause real problems for truly independent non-governmental aid organisations who are less likely to be perceived as impartial actors in the future. "How will the Afghan population know if an offer of humanitarian aid does not hide a military operation? We have seen many times before, for example in Somalia, the problems caused for both the vulnerable population and for aid agencies when the military try to fight a war and deliver aid at the same time." The real impact of the much-vaunted 37,500 single day rations was likely to be minimal. What is needed is large-scale convoys of basic foodstuffs, rather than single meals designed for soldiers.
Medical relief is not the same as dropping medicines by plane.
Dropping a few cases of drugs and food in the middle of the night
during air raids, without knowing who is going to collect them
or administer them, is virtually useless and may even be dangerous.
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