How Humanitarian can Humanitarians Be?

Weekends in the camp are long. What do you do in the middle of a refugee camp in the middle of the desert? We went out to Ifo yesterday morning to see the food distribution that World Food Programme does for all of the camps. In collaboration with USAID and UNHCR they provide all of the food for the refugees, and have for years. I was interested in the process, for as much a reason to see just HOW food is distributed to 45,000 people twice a month as well as exactly what we are providing.

The United States provides 75% of the food that world food programme distributes. I know, all the Americans readers are probably patting themselves on the back right now thinking, huh, we're not so bad after all when it comes to humanitarian aid. And the truth is, 75% is a lot of food, considering it is not only the camps in Dadaab that are being subsidized. But it is in looking at the kind of food that is being provided where the problems arise.

Having spent the better part of 2 years working in public health in Mali, with populations of women and children, most of whom were wildly malnourished, I have a special place in my heart for things like food programs that are designed to aleviate hunger and provide a solid source of nutrition for people. I saw in Mali the possibility of taking a staple like millet and amelieorating it with simple leaf sauces to enhance the nutritional values. The choice of grain, to me, is one of the most important choices, as there are MANY different grains with varying nutritional values. I would always look longingly at my friends who were in the southern regions of Mali where rice was the staple (white rice, mind you), but know that the millet eating populations would get a more complete meal than the rice eating populations since millet was just so much more complete.

Here in Dadaab there is no millet. Instead there is sorghum, and lots of it. The way that food is rationed out is by person--for each extra person, one more portion of each grain is added. The rub is that the sorghum, when the Somalis get it, is not already shafted, so about 1/5-1/4 of the bulk is discarded in the preparation. In addition to the sorghum, each person also recieves a small amount of maize, oil, salt, and a corn/soybean mix. The refugees are given nothing to create a sauce for their grain, or any sort of powdered milk, just the grain and salt and oil. It is not a lot. And it is not a lot of grains that are not terribly high in anything. It was slightly upsetting.

Here is the debate: when we give food aid, should we give the grains that will yeild the highest possibility of a complete and healthy diet, or should we fill the truck with whatever surplus grain we have left, while continuiung to pay farmers subsidies to stop producing so much of the other grains? I think, if you know me well, you will know my position on this. But I will go ahead and elucidate it anyway.

The grains that are being provided are not complete, and the people in the camps know it, because their kids are malnourished and everyone is still hungry. No, I don't think that is the America's job to be the world's breadbasket, but I do think that if we are going to participate in programs such as this, we need to do it completely and stop paying off farmers to stop growing grain. Instead, when the soy farmers have a surplus, or more acerage where they can harvest the beans, let them, then BUY the goods and use those. There is no perfect solution, but there is a better one than what has been developed now.

As we were walking through the barns and sheds watching the people get their food, I asked whether there was a larger ration for expectant mothers, or those who are breastfeeding. Apparently, there is a program in the maternity, but it is hard to be a part of, and it does not provide much assistance.

One point of view that has been raised is that giving the refugees a sub-standard of food, not allowing them to develop economically, not giving all of them proper houses is good, since this should not feel like a permanent solution to them, and there should be no incentive to stay. I do not agree with this assessment.

In a perfect world there would be no refugees, there would be no civil war or minorities, no warlords with machetes and guns directing the stronger propulation to run around the country hacking people up, raping women, and shooting people in the face. Governments would function FOR their people, not against them, and global decisions would not be predicated on oil. But, suprisingly, utopia does not exist, therefore we deal with what we have.

In Dadaab, it's a lot of people who fled for a pretty solid reason (see above). I don't think there is one person on earth who would advocate for permanence in refugee camps, but I think there are a lot of people who understand that human beings should be afforded a certain level of protection from harm if possible. There are "transit centers" in all of the camps that house ethnic groups who are at a high risk of facing violence within the camp because of their ethnicity. We went to one yesterday where there were Ethiopian Anwouks staying and I started chatting with one. He had fled with his family in 2004, had bullet wounds all over his arms and wrists. I was asking him why he left, why he came here. He said that when you're given the choice between war and suffering, he had to choose suffering because of his family--he could not risk having them remain in Ethiopia. What kind of a choice is that? And what kind of humans would we be if we said "tough shit buddy, grab a gun and may the best man win"?

UNHCR is a protection agency, it's not a resettlement agency. We tell every refugee that resettlement is not a right when they sit down for their interviews. And I agree with that. It's problematic that UNHCR is so terribly lacking in funds and it makes me wonder if it will continue to survive, but as long as it does do we not have an obligation to the common humanity to continue to protect people? I would like to see someone who is able to look a group of people in the face, people who have fled, who have watched their husbands adn daughters and parents get murdered, who have been raped and tortured and beaten, and tell them that there is no more protection. That the world is back to the Hobbesian dog-eat-dog nature, and that they need to go back and fend for themselves. How can one do that? Or believe that is the right thing to do? I don't think that refugees should be shipped to the US or Canada or Australia and resettled in droves (see next post for more on that) but I do think that by sharing a common humanity we adopt a duty to not turn our backs in our comfortable homes and toss people away like garbage under the survival of the fittest rationale.

It's easy to lose sight, after 15 years, of the reasons that people have come to Dadaab. But Somalia is not a functioning country, and there is no fucntioning government. Babies have been born in the camps, marriages have occurred, people have continued to live. Would it have been better to force the Somalis to stay and be annhilated just like the Hutus in Rwanda while the stronger nations just conveniently ignored the situation and Hobbes' world unfold? How can anyone say yes to that?