From: Dorothy Morse <dmorse@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Date: 12 Oct 92 19:09 PDT
Subject: Jeffrey Clark: 'Journey to Hell'
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1471700181:000:10008
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmorse    Oct 12 19:09:00 1992


From: Dorothy Morse <dmorse>
Subject: Jeffrey Clark: 'Journey to Hell'

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/* ---------- "Jeffrey Clark: "Journey to Hell"" ---------- */
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From: Dorothy Morse <dmorse>
Subject:      Jeffrey Clark: "Journey to Hell"

This was originally sent as email to Andrew Varvel, but since I have
to type everything in online, I hope people will skip over the
headings and go to the main part of the testimony.

Jeffrey Clark is with the US Committee on Refugees.
From varvel@plains.NoDak.edu Sun Oct 11 14:52:35 1992
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From: Andrew Varvel <varvel@plains.NoDak.edu>
Message-Id: <199210112152.AA06797@plains.NoDak.edu>
Subject: Re: Jeff Clark on Somalia
To: dmorse@igc.apc.org (Dorothy Morse)
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 92 16:52:18 CDT
 92 2:21 pm
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Status: R


Andrew--this is *not* the message of hope--that's already posted and
I'll forward it.  This is an important piece of testimony Sept. 11,
1992--a briefing at the House Office Building Sept. 11, 1992.

I've been delaying posting it because I've had other stuff to do, but
it has very important info, IMHO.

               A JOURNEY TO HELL
                Jeffrey Clark
/selections from a briefing given by Mr. Clark at the Rayburn House
Office Building September 11, 1992--I will mail a copy of the full
text to anybody who sends me their snailmail address/

Nothing previously seen was adequate preparation for my travels in
Somalia--a journey to hell if ever there was one.

I have returned shaken and shocked--but I have also come back angry--
angry at the stewards of the international humanitarian assistance
program that have allowed this horrible situation to deteriorate into
a monumental catastrophe of unparalleled dimensions and the toll of
suffering to exceed comprehension, let alone forgiveness.

The Situation
....
Violence and chaos have been complemented in their effect on food security
by severe drought and the near total end of agricultural production.

The consequences, as now so starkly portrayed in the media, are:

death by starvation of untold hundreds of thousands of Somalis

a 95% malnutrition rate (estimate of the International Committee for
the Red Cross) with some 75% severe malnutrition rates believed to be
existent.  There is no precedent of such suffering for such a large share
of the population in my experience

a total absence of even rudimentary health care

rampant epidemics of the diseases associated with malnutrition, plus
malaria and typhoid

food in such short supply that it is the currency of the land and thus
the spark of much of the violence

a lawless society in which apparently thousands of hungry, uneducated
undisciplined teenage boys armed with automatic rifles roam the streets,
all high on the narcotic of choice, chot, an amphetamine----I quite
possibly heard more gunfire in six days in Somalia than previously in my
life--cumulatively

.............................................

But let me tell you a little more personally....
I came around a corner and encountered a 10 or perhaps 12 year old boy
in an advanced stage of malnutrition.  He was stretched out on the
ground, clearly in great pain and need.  he had sticks for arms and legs,
open sores, a sunken face.

"Oh God," I said to the nurse," Why is this child so much worse off:
Why has he been abandoned? What do we do about him?" I pleaded

"Nothing," she said. "He will die."

"What do you mean nothing."

"I mean no one has the time or the means to help this child.  There are
thousands like him all over town.  There is no one to help him. How would
someone help him.  Who would help him?  He will die," she repeated.

...By the time I left Mogadishu and travelled around Belet Huen and then,
worst of all, to Baidoa, I understood.  The current operation is one
of trying to reach the few that you might reasonably expect to assist given
limited resources.  The others will in fact die, as have *perhaps
half a million already* [emphasis added by dm]

IN Baidoa I saw...thousands of people in a condition like this boy's.  Many
of those individuals are now dead, there is little doubt.



     RESPONSE TO THE TRAGEDY: NOT A PROUD LEGACY

...How is it that after all we have been through in Ethiopia and elsewhere--
after all of the lessons learned...all of the experience..that a famine
of this magnitude could unfold.

We are talking of the prospects of one third of the Somali people starving
to death.  One fourth of the children under five have already perished.
Several thousand more per day are already following.

How did this happen?

there are several major factors--the history of Somalia...the legacy
of the Siad Barre dictatorship, supported by external powers, unfortunately
including the US, and the infusion of arms into the country during the
cold war era are contributing factors.

But...let me address a basic question.

Did the international community do what it should have done--could have
done to prevent this catastrophe?

The answer is no, it did not.  We did not.

There are few clean hands in this tragedy.  As I see it the United States,
The United Nations, the voluntary agency community, the media, all missed
opportunities to alleviate at least some of the suffering for some of \
those hungry--if not now dead--children.

THE UNITED NATIONS
..When I asked about the contributions of UNICEF--normally by far the
most effective UN agency--I would get no response (frequently, "What
contribution? They have played no role here") or a scathing review.

The stories were always the same--unqualified personnel who seemingly
spent all of their time in Nairobi.  The lack of credibility after
the UN evacuation from Somalia--while others stayed.

Uncoordinated and fitful efforts--such as UNICEF bringing food one time
to an arbitrary location without notifying other relief groups, creating
expectations for people, and then never returning despite the gathering
of the hungry.

The sad UN preoccupation with protocol and agency turf again prevented
effective coordination and useful action.

.....The record of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the
handful of private relief organizations that have been operating in
Somalia throughout the chaos demonstrates what can be done.  The UN, on the
other hand, perfected being absent and unaccounted for during the
critical period.
..........
.......
.....


The United States Government

/criticisms  for not using our influence to move the UN.../

We could have prepositioned food when the potential dimensions of the
tragedy were becoming clear--as they were more than a year ago.  WE
could have used our excess logistical capacity in the Persian Gulf
to get relief supplies in the area long ago.
.....\

This whole story is one of missed opportunities--of not moving the food in
early to prevent it from becoming a precious and thus dangerous commodity----
of treating the entire country as if the extreme anarchy of Mogadishu
were omnipresent----of not getting people in to get good information---
of not encouraging more relief agencies to become operational---
of not pressing at the highest levels for an effective UN coordinator
for the task at hand---of not starting a food monetization program to
reduce the prospects of violence around the delivery of relief commodities.


***And of course it is true that the bold and dramatic step of
the current US airlift into Somali could have been launched at any
number of earlier junctures before so many children died******
Despite statements and implications to the contrary, there is very little
that is different now that would have prevented an airlift much earlier
--and at lower cost and with better planning. *****The difference
is front page coverage of the Somali famine inthe Washington Post.****

What To Do Now

.....Congress and the Executive Branch should work out the details of
a formal inquiry as to what is so wrong in the system to allow this.

Secondly, the OFDA account should be given an immediate $85 million
add-on for Somalia.  Not money for these inept UN agencies, but for
the International Red Cross and for NGO projects.

thirdly, the migration and refugee assistance account for FY 1993 should
be funded at no less than $685 million dollars, with $75 million in the
emergency refugee account.  There are, I assure you, additional
hundreds of thousands of equally desperate Somalis in Kenya, Ethiopia,
Yemen, and elsewhere.

----We found $200 million in military aid for Siad Barre--we can find
the money for food, medicine, water, shelter for these desperate people.

Fourth, the American voluntary agencies need to immediately launch or
expand their efforts in Somalia.  --redouble your efforts!  Get people
there!  Get proposals together!  Educate your donors!  Assault the people
at AID with requests and proposals.  Nobody is better prepared to
quickly and effectively help these people than the NGOs tried and proven
capable in Ethiopia and elsewhere.

fifth--all of you here need to *****keep the pressure up*****[emphasis
added by dm]  pressure on the Congress, on the
administration.  Go see for yourself.  Raise money.

Do not let people forget---as the media may soon- what is going on in
Somalia.

A further delay in effective action of three or four months equals
another 100,000 or perhaps 200,000--or perhaps more--starvations.
[Actually, from what I hear, it's more like 1.5 million--dm]

THIS SIMPLY DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THE WAY THINGS ARE.  YOU--WE--CAN
DO BETTER FOR THESE CHILDREN.

/Note--the all caps is not mine. Actually, the entire Jeffrey Clark
testimony was faxed to me in all caps./