From: Dorothy Morse <dmorse@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Date: 05 Oct 92 17:28 PDT
Subject: Jeffrey Clark: HOPE FOR SOMALIA
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1296500398:000:5115
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmorse    Oct  5 17:28:00 1992


A statement by Jeffrey Clark, of the US Committee for Refugees.

Mr. Clark was in Somalia the last two weeks of August.

                         HOPE IN SOMALIA


"Media concentration on the violence and anarchy in Somalia is obscuring the
fact that as bad as the situation is, it is not a hopeless one.  There
is much good that can be done--that is being done.

"I am a recent eyewitness to the incredible work of Save the Children
Federation (of the United Kingdom), of the International Medical Corps from
Los Angeles, and of the International Committee of the Red Cross in a number
of locations throughout the country.  These groups are doing monumental
good for the desperate people of Somalia.  Their efforts need to be
supported--financially and politically and emotionally--by all of us.


"The complications of an effective relief effort in Somalia make our
support for the private relief groups ever more critical.

"If we wait until the situation is calm and we have guarantees on all relief
being effectively delivered, we will lose many more children--and
we've lost too many already.

"We cannot afford to wait.  The time to send your check to one of these
groups is today."

Jeffrey Clark
United States Committee for Refugees

Be sure to mark all checks and  envelopes plainly for 	SOMALIAN RELIEF.

The addresses again are:

American Red Cross
Box 37243
Washington, DC 20013
(sends donations for Somalia to the International Committee for the Red Cross)

International Medical Corps
5933 W. Century Blvd., Suite 310
Los Angeles, CA 90045


Save the Children
54 Wilton Rd.
Westport, CT 06880
(supports Save the Children UK)

Mr. Clark's message of hope and appeal for aid is timely.  The media
is reporting less and less; many reports concentrate on looting or
repeat the phrase "half the aid delivered may have been looted" (the Red
Cross says there is no practical way of determining how much has been
looted, but they say more than half of the food they deliver reaches
the truly needy).

The result of media lack of coverage, followed by media repetition of
the looting charges and emphasis on looting is this predictable one:
the average American believes enough food is being delivered to Somalia,
but "it is just looted."  I have heard this recently from two very
kindhearted women, who obviously got their impressions from the mass media.  

Naturally people will not contribute to or support relief efforts if they
think the food will not reach the needy.  We then read reports that
people are suffering from "compassion fatigue."

My hometown newspaper ran an editorial today saying Yugoslavia and
Somalia have to make it on their own and should expect no outside aid!
Of course that will mean death for Somalia--their food supply has
failed and they are dependent on outside aid until agriculture can
be restored.  The editorial said that the Somalia was "self-eviscerated."
Looking at a whole nation as a "self" may have some merits some times,
but we hear that 3/4 of Somalia's children will die without aid--
are these children eviscerating themselves?  Certainly not.

The editorial blamed Somalian "gunmen," but did not take note of the  
fact that the guns came from extensive US aid, which in dollars, far
outstripped the amount of humanitarian aid we have sent  (estimates
range from $200 million to half a billion in military aid was sent
to Somalia in the 1980s).

In the same issue of the paper was an article headlined
"Kitchen Attacked, Red Cross Suspends Airlift in Somalia"

The article went on to say 444 pounds of food had been looted from
a Red Cross feeding center, and the RC was suspending its operations
for a while in that particular town.  There was no report on the
other 330 feeding centers operated by the Red Cross.  Next to
the headline, with its dreary give-up-hope effect, was a little
box telling you where you could make donations to Somalian relief agencies.

I don't know what the motives are, but the media have really hurt
Somalian children.  They ignored this crisis until it was almost too
late--and I'm told they said the American people just weren't interested
in it.  Then when they began to report, they bombarded us with stories
of looting and images of food rotting on the ship at the port of
Mogadishu.  They managed to convince a large number of Americans that
"Somalians have enough food, it just gets looted."

Now their story is, give up.  No outside aid for Somalia.


Pardon my long post, and I know I've posted some of these arguments before.

But people are still clinging to life and hope, against the horrible
odds.  Aid workers are still pleading for a flood of food, which they
say is the most important thing for stopping the violence.

Mothers are still taking their own pitiful ration and adding it to that
of their dying children, in the hopes of giving the children a few more
days of life.

Please give all the help you can--in the form of donations, in the form
of trying to get the word out to other people, in the form of phoning
and writing and faxing public officials and the media, to keep hope
alive for Somalians.
,