Change.org's War and Peace Blog

'Girl': Is the New MSF Video Good Social Advertising?

Una Vera — 2009-11-20T12:03:00-08:00

Back in August, the humanitarian and international development blogosphere slogged it out over a controversial video from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) UK. The video, titled 'Boy,' featured a stark image of a small, clay house in an unnamed warzone, with audio of a child's pained screams. It never aired. MSF deliberately released the video online to provoke responses. And provoke it did, from overwhelmed sadness, to outrage, to furious accusations of sensationalism and exploitation, to passionate defenses of MSF's endorsement of the video --and, in the case of one blogger roundtable discussion, all of those reactions.

MSF communications head Avril Benoit handled the deluge with the skill of a true social media pro. She engaged her critics, and even linked to them.

For my part in the melee, I argued that MSF does emergency medical relief, so it is entirely appropriate for its ads to highlight that. MSF is not CARE, or even the International Rescue Committee. Even outside active conflict zones, MSF employees work with blood and guts and human goo all day, treating badly injured, ill, and malnourished people during what are surely among the most desperate moments of those patients’ lives. On the operating table, no one is empowered. And we're all made of the same breakable stuff. A campaign featuring nothing but resilient, empowered beneficiaries (such as CARE's widely-praised “I Am Powerful”) does not make sense in this context, while a disturbing one that shocks the viewer’s conscience does.

Many disagreed. Bill Easterly and Laura Freschi thought the ad played to stereotypes of Africa as a wasteland of civil wars and rape –-even though the setting was never named, and no actors were ever shown. On Aid Watch, Freschi wrote, "After watching this ad several times (I don’t recommend you try this), I feel 1) deranged and 2) hopeless, as though nothing I could ever do, much less donate a few dollars to MSF, could possibly have any effect on the vast, incomprehensible suffering in the world."

The MSF video debate dominated conversation in the humanitarian corner of blogosphere for a solid week, including here, raising questions about what makes a good (or bad) advocacy or fundraising piece. Can an advocacy video compel people to take action for a cause they weren't previously involved in, or think about an issue differently? Does suffering open more wallets than hope? Can visual media meaningfully convey realities people in peaceful parts of the world have never experienced? Is it even possible, psychologically, for a London tube commuter to empathize with an IDP in Sri Lanka, or a Manhattan office worker with a Darfuri refugee in Chad?

No consensus was reached on answers. That's a good thing, in my opinion. The value is in the debate itself, which just reignited with the release of MSF's follow-up to 'Boy' -- 'Girl.'

(Trigger warning, obviously.)

On its post about the new ad, social advertising blog Osocio has already received reactions as disparate as:

"This video is revolting, yet I realize that was the point of the creators. But its so jarring, I wanted it stop, immediately. I couldn’t muster the will to get thru the whole video -it was too painful and gross. And since it remains anonymous, there’s no individual for me to self-identify with or feel a sense of commitment for. I recognize the injustice is real, but you lost me - I don’t have the strength to witness that story. My guess is most people aren’t either."

And:

"Yes this is intense, but totally relevant… so many of us, myself included, live in a sanitised media cloud, that never alerts us to the fact these issues are going on every second of every day somewhere in the world. Well done, hope it get plenty of air-time."

What do you think?

Take Action: Call on UN to Prevent Civilian Killings in Eastern Congo

Daniel J Gerstle — 2009-11-20T08:00:00-08:00

Our esteemed Humanitarian Relief (now War and Peace) blogger, Michael Kleinman, who's on break, introduced us to Oisteen Thorsen, a humanitarian campaigner with Oxfam. Led by Oxfam, one of the most respected and trusted names in the aid biz, partners are working to advise positive change to policy on Congo at the UN. Ten years of UN peacekeeping so far. Please see the video and sign the petition this week. Here's Oisteen's intro:

"...Oxfam with partners are currently running a petition calling on the UN Security Council to stop the killings of civilians in Eastern Congo by the UN-supported Congolese army operation Kimia II. We will be handing over the petition to the Security Council next week (Nov 24th) so this is the last push to get more people to sign on... http://apps.facebook.com/causes/petitions/306 or http://www.oxfam.org/en/emergencies/congo/stop-killing-in-congo. please also see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3cJbJcd104."

[Photo: UN Peacekeepers on patrol in Congo DR, UN Photo.]

Alex de Waal is Wrong on Afghanistan

Una Vera — 2009-11-19T10:27:00-08:00

In an essay for Prospect magazine (UK), Africa expert Alex de Waal offers his solution to Afghanistan's governance and security problems: more corruption.

"NATO has crippled Karzai’s ability to bargain properly," writes the contrarian researcher best known for his work on Sudan. "Foreign firepower and funds give him the strongest hand in the souk, but western demands to stamp out corruption and defeat the Taliban stop him playing his best cards."

It reads like sarcasm, but that is de Waal's actual thesis --the state-building project has failed because it has not involved enough payoffs to the country's various powerbrokers, and the remedy now is to help Hamid Karzai bribe his rivals, from opposition politicians to the Taliban, into passivity. De Waal argues that only money talks in failed states, and "a well-managed, inclusive patronage system is often the only way of running such countries." So, naturally, "it would be more cost-effective to ditch the extra troops and revert to funding patronage."

De Waal could not be more wrong.

De Waal: "Underneath the old model remains: a political souk where buyers and sellers haggle over the going rate for renting allegiances."

It is descriptively true that corruption is entrenched, but where does that leave us? Afghans passionately hate corruption. Poll after poll tells us this, and ordinary Afghans lament the level of corruption in their country to foreign journalists every chance they get. Corruption is not in Afghan DNA, and it is antithetical to Afghan social norms. The pervasiveness of corruption today is largely a product of a get-rich-and-get-out mentality fed by the displacement of three-quarters of the population during thirty years of war.

De Waal: "Karzai’s best asset is that he knows how his country works, with loyalties transacted on the basis of kinship, faith and cash. The Taliban showed that a government can be run cheaply on the first two alone."

The Taliban did not run a tidy Islamic state by appealing to kinship and faith, they ruled most of a territory through violence and fear. What the Taliban established could hardly be called a state at all, even by a minimalist definition. Their idea of service delivery was Radio Shariat and ethnic cleansing. The Afghan Taliban are not, and were never, comparable to Islamist-nationalist welfare-providing organizations like Hamas or Hezbollah, or even Somalia's deposed Islamic Courts Union. Let's not use the Taliban regime as a model for governance --even an "alternative model"-- ever, anywhere. It is a recipe for a humanitarian catastrophe.

De Waal: "In the months after 9/11, the Americans dollarised Afghanistan’s patronage system, flying in planeloads of shrink-wrapped $100 bills to pay off warlords, while putting on a fireworks display for the media to pretend that military might, not bribery, defeated the Taliban. It worked."

No, it did not work. What de Waal doesn't get --because he knows almost nothing about Afghanistan-- is that the CIA-cashwads-for-commanders scheme is a large part of why the Taliban are now winning strategically, while NATO, with its overwhelming tactical advantage, is losing. The US hobbled the Afghan state from the beginning by sidelining reformists for fear of rankling re-empowered old powerbrokers believed (incorrectly) necessary for averting a Taliban military comeback.

De Waal: "[...] this hardheaded approach was then abandoned in favour of the illusion that, freed from the aberrant Taliban, Afghanistan would begin a path towards western-style democracy."

"Western-style democracy" is hardly what has been promoted in Afghanistan. Governance projects have varied wildly in quality and many have been neglected. That said, Afghanistan now has a parliament that is more popular than the US Congress, and support for democratic values is strong. Afghans are deeply disenchanted with the outcome of the presidential election, but only because their expectations for the process --and for the international community's hand in it-- were so high at the outset.

Bottom line: Alex de Waal's suggested means of establishing peace in Afghanistan is ill-informed, dangerous, and already a spectacular failure. I have come to expect such nonsense from the likes of Fareed Zakaria and Fred Kaplan, but de Waal is a serious scholar and should know better.

[Photo: Alex de Waal. Social Science Research Council.]

Somalia's Judiciary Attacked but Not Defeated

Daniel J Gerstle — 2009-11-18T12:48:00-08:00

Gunmen killed Judge Sheikh Mohamad Abdi Aware outside of his mosque last week in Bossaso, a scorching Aden Gulf port on the northeastern coast of Somalia. Judge Aware, despite whatever debate he may have stoked in Somalia, devoted his life not only to the rule of law but to the pursuit of justice according to the sometimes conflicting state, Islamic, and Somali customary law systems in an incredibly volatile political environment.

Back in 2007, a group of local rights workers and I carried out the UN Rule of Law and Security Programme's first child justice survey across the entire north half of Somalia. What tears me up personally about Judge Aware's death is that I believe I met him and yet I cannot remember his face. There were so many times when the imagination became so obsessed with who the bad guys were that it was hard to really focus on the good guys. The painful truth here, which I believe illuminates why foreign interventions often stumble, is that once murdered the dead's lifetime of positive accomplishments, like those of Somalis as a whole, were forever obscured beneath the headline, "Shot dead." Aware accomplished and represented much more than an early death. Although this is a blog format, I believe this topic is so important and so often misunderstood that I'm compelled to write a personal editorial essay.

The rights team and I met with kids detained in the ridiculously hot and uncomfortable prison in Bossaso where the accused from the court where Aware served were remanded and punished. All prisoners, thieves, murderers, rapists, hijackers, those awaiting trial, and children either accused of crimes or simply homeless and troublesome slept on the same floor together. Rumors abounded of men abusing the teenagers. Three girls accused of chronic pickpocketing and a pregnant woman resided in the largely empty women's wing. It was deeply disturbing to listen to some of the detained plea for a new trial, or even a first trial. But looking closely, we found that the trouble was not always coming from poor leadership or ill-will; it was usually the incredible lack of qualified legal officials and funds...

The UN's Rule of Law and Security Programme, with all its kinks and challenges, was working with the Ministry of Justice to dramatically improve these conditions. European donors had helped to expand and improve the prison, so things were getting a little better here and there. We also got a chance to meet with police officials in the new academy in nearby Aarmo. Again the UN with European donors had rightly chosen Somalia's northeast, the state of Puntland, to pave a foundation in rule of law with improved policing, courts, and legal aid. It was, I believe, the most critical factor in rebuilding Somalia. To construct this vital force of society upon which everything in Somalia relied, the global community should have rallied around the Puntland Ministries of Justice and Interior. But there were two factors persistently sabotaging the rule of law effort before the criminal groups including the Islamic youth militia, "Shabab," and those referred to as "pirates" had begun their criminal sprees.

The international community did not have faith in the Somali leadership, partly because they only took the time to get know government officials and gang leaders, rather than traditional elders and non-traditional progressives, and partly because they simply could not get through the debates on how to get Islamic and Somali traditional leaders to work together with the state. As a result of this fog, many donors looking in from the outside were timid, afraid they were throwing their money in pits to support leaders who would either go corrupt or be killed. Some believe that this is exactly what happened.

But having met many of the state justice officials, Islamic leaders, and Somali traditional elders and discussed with them everything from child rape to forced marriage to the death penalty, I believe that despite their chauvinism, pig-headedness, and antiquated methods they were the best thing to happen to modern Somalia. The fact that they were under-supported, obscured beneath the body count headlines was exactly the reason criminal gangs rose in power. It was not simply the Justice ministry lacking funds; it was the Somali society losing faith in a Justice ministy which could not keep up with demand that undermined it.

By the time the team and I arrived to the top court in Bossaso where Judge Aware worked, the team and I were covered in sweat, with Bossaso's white dust speckling our hair and clothes. I arrived fuming about seeing the pregnant woman and under-aged girls rotting in the prison. As our armed guards waited outside, all eyes fell on me, expectantly. The clerk of the court decided against my wishes to interrupt an actual trial just to introduce me to the judge sitting on the bench. People watched patiently, but I expected them to explode. We finally got the chief judge, and two appeals judges, to join us in a back room to discuss the kids in prison. One of them was also an Islamic sheikh of the moderate Shafii school. Immediately, I launched into a harangue on the rights of the kids and the pregnant woman. I expected a fight. Instead, the chief said, "We agree with you."

Every move they made, they explained, was critical to the stability of the city. Every day dozens of people were flooding into the city's slums, escaping either the harsher than normal droughts or fighting in the south. And with every influx of new, impoverished inhabitants, there were more fights, more thieves. Many believed that hijacking foreign ships was the only industry that had any future in it since only the UN agencies were willing to donate and invest in livestock and only the Gulf states bought Puntland fish and lobster.

The ministry's pool of trained officials got stretched every month or two when one of their league just blew up, quit, and decided to leave for Dubai or Sweden. To make matters even more difficult, the judges had to satisfy the state in order to secure their accounts, satisfy the Islamic leaders to be sure of divine protection, as well as to reduce the chances of being targeted by radicals, and satisfy the Somali traditional elders who were those with the greatest power in the region.

In the case of the "pirates", sentencing one of their kind for crime was to take on the broader population which was starving for economic circulation at a time when some foreign ships were stealing from the fisheries with impunity. To sentence Islamic radicals for crimes committed in line with their political goals was to take on those who had lost complete faith in a state stretched beyond its means and reliant on Western donors for every rifle. And so, here's what surprised me, finding non-judicial resolutions for the imprisoned girls and re-locating the pregnant woman was to take on the only thing society had left intact, Somali traditional law.

The appeals judge explained it this way. Several times he had seen these cases and asked the girls' parents to take them out of the prison and return them home, but the parents refused, claiming the girls had shamed them. Others told the judge that to send the girls to the street was to make them homeless and vulnerable to prostitution or trafficking. We followed the judge in asking the local women's organizations to take the girls under their wing, but even there the care-providers frowned. They could hardly keep up with the huge load they had, they couldn't take on new protection cases.

That's when I believe I met Aware, we got up to go and shook hands with dozens of people, following up with a workshop later. Now, looking at these men in the eye, knowing that I disagreed with them on so many things from marriage law to the death penalty, I was suddenly struck with that feeling which plagued them and united them as a vital, but shrinking cadre. I was never able to help resolve the case of those kids and the pregnant woman in the prison; and it weighed on me, just a tiny fraction of what likely weighed on them.

I advocated with everyone I could in the ministry and the UN so that I could alleviate that weight, but eventually my colleagues and I could not find any mutually beneficial issue. To take a stand, to insist that an aid agency or orphanage take the kids would without a doubt bring on the wrath of the parents and their clan leadership for undoing their wishes and exposing the girls to Western influences without their permission. And so Judge Aware, like the others, mucked around in these kinds of cases for a long time. Eventually, he took a stand for state and Islamic law over that of the clan. He decided at last, and based on hard evidence, to take down several pirate thugs despite threats. And then their advocates shot him to death.

Judge Aware's surviving colleagues have near their reach the reigns of law for northeastern Somalia. With success there, chances are better to bring greater rule of law to the south. But their number, those who can equally satisfy not only the state but also the Islamic and traditional leadership, which requires gravitas, are dwindling. If the international community at last recognizes the critical importance of the Puntland Ministries of Justice and Interior and their backers for stability for the country, perhaps greater effort will be taken not only to enhance the police academies, prisons, and law school, but also to protect the judiciary leaders and encourage candidates residing overseas to return home. With this critical effort judges like Aware will not be so easily gunned down on the street simply for being tough on crime and society may eventually re-gain confidence in its leaders.

There are some trouble-makers, sure, just like in every country, but there are also a great number of scarred and imperfect heroes who, if they are highlighted amid the whirlwind of obituaries for the country, may just have the power to resurrect Somalia.

[Photo: Bossaso court house, Daniel J Gerstle]

Addressing Local Land and Herding Disputes is Pre-Requisite for Peace in Africa

Daniel J Gerstle — 2009-11-18T10:49:00-08:00

Twelve killed in violence in Lakes State, Southern Sudan. Eleven killed in a cattle raid in Kenya. Somalia, Ethiopia, Congo DR. There is something beneath the political battles we read about in the news. Feuds between ethnic rivals over land and rural groups over herding routes have rocked Africa's Sahel and Horn for a long time but some believe it has gotten worse recently.

As states crumble or leaders manipulate tribal animosity, the coping mechanisms which have held many groups together begin to fray. In fact, a great deal of traditional and Islamic law practiced outside the state focuses on land and herding dispute resolution. Given the combined benefits of having a traditional dispute resolution system when it is functional as well as the reality that many of these systems have been corrupted or broken by the broader political disputes, many international agencies, including traditionally health oriented agencies, are seeking to innovate further new hybrid peacebuilding methods to address local-level conflict.

Here's a great peacebuilding starter kit for donors and agencies considering broadening this front for peace. Perhaps this is one path toward addressing cattle raiding, and through it one of the associated factors in broader conflict. The efforts have been growing for a while, but funding has been lax until recently.

[Photo: Kenya cattle drive, Greg Westfall]

Is the Afghan Government Serious about Fighting Corruption? Are We?

Una Vera — 2009-11-17T13:43:00-08:00

Spencer Ackerman asks if I think the Afghan government's imminent crackdown on corruption, announced with much fanfare yesterday, will be serious. I added a question mark to the title of my previous post -The Great Afghan Corruption Crackdown?- precisely because I'm skeptical.

I believe Ershad Ahmadi and Eshaq Alek o are sincere when they say they want to stamp out the kind of official corruption that has undercut every effort to advance peace and development in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, but they are in for quite a fight if they are. The history of post-2001 Afghanistan is filled with stories of civil servants who tried to do the right thing, and were crushed into the dust by corrupt and vastly more powerful forces within the state, and abandoned by an unreliable and divided international community when they could have steered their country away from today's treacherous waters with a little political support. Just look at the disarmament program. Or the elections. Or the transitional justice plan.

The past eight years are a wasteland of under-resourced and half-hearted reform attempts. As much blame as the Afghan government deserves for not keeping its promises, the international community has broken most of its own. Time and again, we bought, lied and stalled our way out of doing the hard work of actual state-building. Now, we see how dearly that has cost us and the Afghan people. One unnamed US official quoted in the Guardian put it bluntly, "Afghans see us [the International Security Assistance Force] as being the enforcement mechanism for the mafia."

What gives me a little hope for this new anti-corruption push is the strong-worded support the US and NATO are voicing for the plan from the outset. Hillary Clinton has called for a "major crimes tribunal" to prosecute high-level officials for corruption. There's nothing weasel-worded about that statement, which is why my stomach flopped when I read it. I want this to be the real deal. I want this to work.

According to reports in the media today, NATO will be setting up its own anti-corruption task force to work with the new Afghan Interior Ministry anti-corruption unit. NATO anti-corruption officers will conduct independent investigations, and pass intelligence to their Afghan counterparts in the High Office of Oversight & Anti-Corruption in Afghanistan. The FBI and Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency will also train Afghan anti-corruption agents.

Afghan reformers exist, and they're brave and dedicated, but they are also up against the worst odds. At every turn so far, we have let them down, even as they warned us what lay ahead. That can't happen this time. The hour is far too late and the costs of failure are the highest they've ever been.

[Photo: UN Office on Drugs and Crime. (UNODC)]

Debate: Should US Civilian Aid and Military Operations be Conducted Together or Separately?

Daniel J Gerstle — 2009-11-17T09:47:00-08:00

The US military is perhaps the greatest logistical operation in history and the best suited for transport and supply drops in out of the way places. And in countries where the US is not involved in political security or violence, it may be well suited also to provide medical and civil assistance as well. But during war time, should the US military provide aid alongside international and local civilian nonprofits at the same time and among the same communities in which it is conducting combat operations?

The question is important now because the US Agency for International Development, one of the largest planners of civil-military operations, may have new leadership in the nominee for Administrator, Dr. Rajiv Shah. Many supporters of the Obama and Clinton candidacies for President believed that the Bush Administration had not only gone to war for the wrong reasons but then conducted those wars poorly. Many remain hopeful that some of the more contraversial changes in how aid was delivered might be revised.

Questions about civil-military action during wartime heated up in 2002 when the US began these efforts in Afghanistan, relying largely on Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) which were military units working alongside state department employees to meet with nonprofits on the ground and distribute a variety of projects meant to help local communities recover while making the US military look more friendly. For example, I got a chance to see a tremendously successful PRT project restoring rice paddies in Kunduz...

However, the debate really took shape when humanitarian aid workers, particularly locals, were afraid that greater cooperation with the US military while it was conducting combat operations nearby was endangering aid staff and programs. Taliban fighters began seeing the civilians as spies working with their enemy, so instead of attacking soldiers in armored vehicles the fighters began more often simply attacking the unarmored civilians and their programs. The same month of my visit to that project in Kunduz, the Taliban took credit for murdering twenty-two foreign civilians and at least four local aid workers (Source: ReliefWeb). Many also believe that the civil-military enterprise is the most contraversial aspect of the NATO presence in Afghanistan given that Afghans can no longer discern an impartial doctor or businessman from one who then turns over private information about patients and beneficiaries to the US authorities. Here's an important study on the PRTs by the Wilson School.

Proponents of the civil-military effort soon countered this resistance when the war came to Iraq by arguing that by simultaneously conducting raids against insurgents while offering peaceful community members job opportunities and social service projects in Anbar and Diyala, Iraq, that they were wooing the less-radical insurgents away from box one and into box two. The "Sunni Awakening," when many insurgents changed sides is heralded as the great success of the civil-military strategy and it was developed further in Afghanistan. But many people on the ground believe that it's a dangerous mixed bag. While the civil-military effort tends to woo economic fighters who see that they can live under a US/NATO occupation as long as they have income, it further infuriates the radicals who see the effort as a colonial hypocrisy. The result, as in Anbar and Diyala, is fewer insurgents and less frontline combat but an incredible increase in large, unpredictable terror attacks.

Many of the aid workers I've known and worked with who got their start in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Somalia, Sudan, El Salvador, or Biafra, as well as most of the New York and Paris aid agencies tend to believe in aid worker "impartiality". True, no one can ever be completely impartial in conflict, but - and Gaza may be the best example of this - local populations have long been sophisticated enough to separate the aid workers on US contracts from the Pentagon given that there was a physical separation. For this reason and for the greater security impartiality may offer civilian aid workers, many of this group wish to reform, if not undo, the civil-military enterprise.

As for me, I got my start in the military, but then I joined the International Rescue Committee as a civilian aid worker and quickly came to understand why one wouldn't want to be wearing a USAID patch when a US bomber blows the Hell out of a nearby village. I later got a chance to see the civil-military efforts work on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. After all this, I've come to the conclusion that for the greater success of aid programs and to prevent the further radicalization of extremists in Afghanistan, Iraq, and even Somalia, USAID and the Pentagon need to get a divorce. (Keep in mind this is a separate debate from that on aid worker security and military contractors.)

The Pentagon would do well to help deliver people and products in arenas of peace, but at the height of war I don't want my local staff shot to death, aid projects frozen, simply because the insurgents spotted them hitching a ride with the US Army. When the new head of USAID takes office, I believe those of us who feel this way should make a concerted effort to petition for this reform, or at least to open the debate back up again. And I think Change, along with agency heads, might be a better vehicle for this than Interaction. Agree? Disagree? Let the debate begin.

[Photo: US military preparing to deliver humanitarian aid in Basra, Iraq, US Army / Maurice A Galloway]

Save the Children Warns of New Displacement Along Israel's Divider Wall

Daniel J Gerstle — 2009-11-17T04:47:00-08:00

There is a growing channel of research exploring whether there's a relationship between border security and hunger. Nowhere is this question so critical as in Gaza and the West Bank where Israel constructed a security wall to separate Israeli Jewish communities from Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian communities. Save the Children, a humanitarian aid agency with a strong record of political impartiality, has just released a new report showing how the divider wall, which was constructed not only along the dividing line, but in a winding meandering pattern often cutting off some Palestinian villages from markets, is directly related to food insecurity and unemployment for Palestinians living along its length. And this has forced some to leave their homes.

If you have not already, please open this Israeli divider wall map from the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. Zoom in on the northwest part of the West Bank around Qalkiliya. You'll see the bluish areas are settled by Jewish families and the brownish areas are Palestinian. The bold green line is where the UN-brokered agreement stated that the dividing line should be. The bold red line is where Israel built the wall. Having traveled there or at least considered the economic, if not political, impact of this wall according to the map, the findings of the Save the Children report will make a lot of sense.

On the humanitarian level, the report shows evidence that the wall's construction has led to increased hunger and economic malaise among Palestinians, and in some cases increased outward migration. On the political level, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that these displacements were not intentional. Some would call it a kind of slow ethnic cleansing.

For those who disagree, consider why during the previous Intifada the Israeli government didn't instead decide to put up temporary blast wall barriers like it has around some settlements, which could be removed when tensions fell. Instead, they constructed a wall that has no other comparison except to that of the Berlin Wall, perhaps to portray a sense of permanence in the division. Also, the wall was built well inside the West Bank, rather than along the dividing line agreed upon by the UN-brokered agreement. How will it be undone?

[Photo, Bethlehem, Susan Mizrahi]

The Great Afghan Corruption Crackdown?

Una Vera — 2009-11-17T01:47:00-08:00

In recent months, the Afghan government has faced steadily intensifying pressure from its own public and from NATO governments to take meaningful action to curb official corruption. With the announcement on Monday of a new anti-corruption unit under the Interior Ministry, it may finally be about to do just that.

According to Afghan Attorney General Eshaq Aleko, a major investigation is already underway into corruption at the highest levels of the Afghan government. The individuals under investigation reportedly may include some members of president Hamid Karzai's cabinet.

"Big mistakes have been made in signing contracts, procurements, and providing logistics and other supplies for the government," Aleko told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. "According to the law, I can not name them, because they are still considered to be suspects and we've not received the ruling of the court yet."

Ershad Ahmadi, the deputy head of the newly established High Office of Oversight & Anti-Corruption in Afghanistan, said his agency is ready to get tough on corrupt officials.

Ahmadi's recommended zero-tolerance policies, if put in place, would be nothing short of revolutionary in a country where impunity has long been the rule.

"The Afghan Government must commit itself to ensuring that public office is not held by individuals perceived by the public to be corrupt," said Ahmadi. "Specifically, it must identify the top 100 most corrupt individuals and dismiss them."

At the same time, Ahmadi wants the corruption crackdown to target corrupt contracting practices by foreign organizations and militaries as well. "The international community must address genuine concerns about faulty and corrupt contracting practices," he said. "A good start would be a review of contracts awarded for work at Bagram airbase and with provincial reconstruction teams. Afghans want to know who is benefiting from these contracts — and how."

Corruption has been allowed to bloom unchecked for the past eight years, and is now ranked second only to insecurity as the most serious complaint Afghans have with their government, according to a recent survey by the Asia Foundation. Here's hoping Aleko and Ahmadi are sincere about fighting it --and if they are, that both men have top notch security details.

[Photo:http://www.flickr.com/photos/kennymiller/ / CC BY-SA 2.0]

What's Your Favorite Music from the Frontlines of Crisis Zones?

Daniel J Gerstle — 2009-11-15T14:25:00-08:00

Tumultuous political times often breed a prolonged and painful tension. For many, it is a time to escape, to descend to the bunkers, or to fight. And yet for others, it's a time to dance.

There were the rock clubs on Marsala Tita during the siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Three years of isolation and bombardment produced only so much suffering; one sometimes needed to wind down, deny the fear. There was even a Miss Sarajevo contest. After the recent West African civil wars, Sierra Leonean and Liberian survivors crafted new forms of Afrobeat and Dancehall, some also linked up to Caribbean reggae stars. In Congo DR, there were herders who developed a hybrid style of Congo folk rap which persisted and evolved even after they took up arms and joined the militia.

Let's hear from you the readers, which local musicians really bring out the vitality and resilience of people surviving on the frontlines of crisis zones? Can you recommend specific local groups or songs, ideally with links? For an example, see my colleague Frank's blog and collection of West African Voodoo Funk. Tell a personal story about how you found it, if you can. What a better way to bring out the melodious nature of a culture otherwise shrouded in bad press?

[Photo: Photo Frank found among friends in West Africa, Frank'03net.]

Re-arming Afghanistan's Militias

Una Vera — 2009-11-14T15:31:00-08:00

In an attempt to recreate the movement that peeled Iraqi Sunnis away from the insurgency in the most embattled areas that country, the United States is arming and paying local militias in Afghanistan in the hope these groups will keep the Taliban at bay where Afghan security forces cannot. No one is sure exactly how many militias have formed or regenerated over the last year, but the number is at least in the hundreds. The official name for the support-the-militias program is the Community Defense Initiative, and it is being touted by NATO as a way to, "assist the local population to provide their own security with defensive 'neighborhood watch'-type programs." You know, just with fewer nosy grandmothers and more bossy guys with Kalashnikovs.

Militias have a long and bloody history in Afghanistan, and were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths during the long-running civil war. A major survey conducted in 2004, ahead of the first parliamentary elections, showed that a large majority of Afghans wanted local militias disarmed and local commanders sidelined politically.

The Community Defense Initiative is setting off alarm bells in many circles of the international community and Afghan civil society. UN officials and Afghan civic leaders, especially those involved in human rights protection work, have complained bitterly that Afghanistan's Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) and Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) processes failed because they were not carried out evenly or widely enough, and were undersupported financially and politically by both the Afghan government and its foreign backers. In this sense, the Community Defense Initiative is just a continuation of the same policies the United States has supported in Afghanistan all along.

"For the past eight years, the U.S. has done business with known drug lords, held high-level meetings with notorious war criminals, and employed unregistered armed militias to guard their bases," writes Rachel Reid, an Afghanistan specialist for Human Rights Watch. "Afghans desperately want to see a change. They are disgusted by the venality of their leaders, sickened by the killings, rapes and abductions that go unpunished."

Militias have been responsible for killing numerous human rights activists, journalists and aidworkers in recent years. After the fall of the Taliban regime, thousands of ethnic Pashtuns were driven from their homes in Northern Afghanistan by Northern Alliance militias. The ranks of the insurgency later swelled with young men from the displaced communities, and the mistreatment of Pashtuns at the hands of non-Pashtun militias became a common refrain in Taliban recruiting propaganda.

"With a raging insurgency and a discredited government, the 'security before justice' argument no longer holds up to scrutiny," writes Reid. With American tax dollars paying for the re-arming of old militias and the creation of new ones, it's clear that message is not getting through to Washington.

[Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/luodanli/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.]

A Chechen Girl's War Diary: A Glimpse of the Past, and Maybe the Future

Una Vera — 2009-11-14T13:50:00-08:00

With violence rising in the North Caucasus, and Ingushetia poised, tragically and preventably, to become the next Caucasian hot zone, I've been thinking about Chechnya's two recent wars more. Between 1994 and 2009, at least 100 thousand Chechens died as Chechen separatists and militant Islamists fought the Russian army in the tiny republic. The violence leveled Chechnya's towns and cities, and triggered refugee outflows to other parts of southern Russia and into Caucasian former Soviet republics.

In April 2009, Russia declared the war in Chechnya won, but violence had already spilled over into neighboring Dagestan and Ingushetia, and Chechnya's insurgency is growing once again, largely in response to the repressive tactics used by the government of Moscow-backed former warlord Ramzan Kadyrov. Chechnya never grabbed headlines the way the wars of the former Yugoslavia did. A million Chechens suffered out of the spotlight because Chechnya's conflict was seen as far away and inconsequential, unlike the very European Balkan wars, and the Russian government severely curtailed media access to areas affected by fighting.

Today, as the Caucasus region braces for the possibility of renewed large-scale conflict, more and more narratives of the Chechen wars are appearing in the media. One such narrative comes from Polina Zherebtsova, a teenager who kept a diary of her life in Grozny, Chechnya's capital, through the second Chechen war. Polina's diary entries, published by a Russian literary journal and translated in pieces by the blog Tangentialia, lend a child's words to the shattering of civilian life under a rain of bombs. In one entry, dated 27 Sept. 1999, Zherebtsova writes:

In our Staropromyslovsky district, the station ‘Beryozka’ was bombed – it’s right by us. They’ve been bombing it since morning. I am going to read Shakespeare. Our library has twelve of his books. These are old books, printed early in the 20th century. My grandfather, the journalist and cameraman, bought them. He was killed in a crossfire in 1994 at the beginning of the first war.

I have terrible dreams at night.

Born to a Russian mother and Chechen father, Zherebtsova feels fully Chechen, but finds her identity and heritage difficult to reconcile as the war drags on, and animosity toward ethnic Russians grows. "The woman who sells medicines introduced me to her sisters," she writes. "She says that everyone has taken a liking to me. But I must wear a scarf so that nobody knows that my mother is Russian and will treat me better."

During the Bosnian war, the diary of Sarajevo schoolgirl Zlata Filipovic became an international bestseller. Polina Zherebtsova's war diary is just as compelling, and important to understanding the nightmare that may soon engulf Ingushetia. This blogger hopes a publisher picks it up soon.

[Photo: Polina Zherebtsova's Chechen war diaries. Tangentialia.]

The Latest Views on PTSD and War Video Games

Daniel J Gerstle — 2009-11-14T13:31:00-08:00

After my previous post "Coming Soon: War Video Game Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?" started some discussions, I reviewed the questions with childhood & adolescence social worker Anna Fewell of Green Chimneys, as well as a few other sources, to consider the latest views on this potential intersection between varieties of trauma and war video games.

There are several questions to consider, some of which are top priorities at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) which is hard at work on its fifth edition Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Psychological Disorders. The current one is known by your friendly neighborhood therapist as the DSM-IV-TR. Please join the discussion on any of these questions below. I've linked each one to some further reading on the issue. And please if you encounter them submit any studies which show opposing results as well...

How do psychiatrists define Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Psychiatrists remain in debate about related topics like childhood traumatic stress (when a kid loses or lacks a primary care-provider), vicarious or secondary traumatic-stress (when the trauma is either indirect, accumulated, or is absorbed from repeatedly discussing the trauma with another). Other topics for debate include whether and how gamers who remain hyper-vigilant through a visually violent game for sustained periods of time are changed by that, whether gamers spending hours on violent games can be de-sentized to real-life violence, and whether some gamers might be diagnosed and treated as addicts.

How can video games be helpful to combat veterans ramping down from their experience who encounter post-traumatic stress? Another view? Note that with video game therapy for combat PTSD the psychiatrist is usually walking the veteran through a virtual war experience not to fight and earn points but to simulate the environment in which they may have acquired the traumatic memory which affects them. The therapist can try to isolate each input - lighting, sounds, physiological reactions, perhaps smells - which triggers the veteran's painful memory response in order to learn which triggers might be addressed. So this is very different from game playing with the goal of ramping up, gaining points and scoring high by battling another team in the violent context.

How can video games be helpful for therapy among people with other health concerns?

Could violent video games be associated with aggressive behavior among gamers? Another view?

How are game playing and other physiological and social behaviors potentially related?

Do violent games really de-sentitize players to real-life violence?

What's that theory about race as a factor in how people view games; the African-American and Hispanic oriented games like Grand Theft Auto viewed negatively while more Caucasian oriented games viewed as educational?

Physiologically, what is happening when a gamer puts his or her mind into a highly competitive, if not violent, video game?

Of course, this is just a sampler platter of studies, so if you're following this topic you can find more on Google Scholar if not via the APA. If you're an expert on these topics, please write in and feel free to correct me if I've misrepresented anything here. Many of us love games, including those cinematic war games, and love those who play them. This is more a discussion about what associations there may be between real virtual violence, and psychological resilience.

[Photo: Men at Play (Shooting Zombies), Toby Otter]

Protect Displaced Families on the Northern Yemen Front

Daniel J Gerstle — 2009-11-13T21:00:00-08:00

Yemeni rebels, Zaidi Shiites known for their allegiance to the Houthi clan, continue battling the Yemen government over a dispute which began about what level of power Zaidi Shiite clerics were to have in government. After weeks of fighting which caused at least 150,000 people to flee for their safety in and around Saada, northern Yemen, the conflict then spilled over into Saudi Arabia last week.

Recently I got a note from an aid agency representative working there illuminating how desperate the situation has become. With the rapid Saudi military response, the Houthu rebels apparently have retreated back into Yemen. But now Saudi defense asserts its right to continue fighting against the Houthi militia, into Yemen in alliance with the Yemeni government, until the rebels remain outside of a border buffer region...

The US may try to stay out of this conflict but it has long been a supporter of the Saudi and Yemeni governments in their quests to counter terrorism and militant groups like the Houthis. Most likely, the US government will play a key role in providing funding for aid to the displaced.

"I was recently deployed on an emergency mission to deal with the evolving situation in the north," my colleague tells me. "Displacement which is caused due to the sixth war between the government and Al Houthi rebels, a Shia group in Sa'ada governorate. We have over 150,000 internally displaced persons who moved south to Amran and Hajjah governorates and we are tying to set up the camps, expand our assistance in the rural and urban places, cause not all IDPs are in the camps... which is good as camps are the last resort and the least preferred option from the protection point of view. Few days ago the violence and conflict escalated and spilled over in to Saudi Arabia, causing more displacement so we have new arrivals in Amran and Hajjah governorates..."

For more, see "Saudis' Efforts to Swat Rebels From Yemen Risk Inflaming Larger Conflict," by Robert F. Worth at The New York Times as well as a call for support from the International Committee of the Red Cross. To contribute to the aid response (this will become my refrain here) please read the updates and choose from the list of aid agencies which are on the ground at Reuters Alertnet.

By the way, for those seeking to understand the role of Islam in this conflict, here's a quick specification. Islam's two largest branches overlap in this region. The population of Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as well as the governments which are US allies, are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. While the Saudi government is very conservative Sunni Wahhabi, the Yemeni government is Sunni moderate and secular in some respects. There do persist some pockets of Sunni Salafi extremism a la Al Qaeda in Yemen, but to be clear this is not directly related to the rebellion in the north.

As the NY Times story above explains, the Houthi rebels are Zaidi Shiite, which is not only in disagreement with Sunni and Salafi practice, but is also distinct from broader Shiism like that prevalent in Iran. If Iran which is friendly to the Zaidis were to see this as the Saudis, Yemenis, and by proxy the US ganging up against this small rebel group, it may - may, but not necessarily- choose to back them up.

[Photo: Yemen market, Ai@ce: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aiace/351528619/.]

Women, the Afghanistan War, and the Malalai Joya Problem

Una Vera — 2009-11-13T20:43:00-08:00

On my co-blogger Daniel's first controversial post on Afghanistan, one commenter posted a link to a speech by Afghan peace activist and suspended member of parliament Malalai Joya, who argues all foreign forces should leave Afghanistan immediately. Another commenter quickly added, "I won't comment again, I will just put up Malalai Joya's words! Her knowledge is greater than anyone's." To which I say, wait a minute. Joya is a committed democrat in a tough situation, but that does not make her knowledge "greater than anyone's."

Since her suspension from the parliament two years ago, Joya has traveled the world and delivered her message to thousands of people, in intimate activist gatherings, packed lecture halls, and dozens of opinion pieces in national newspapers. No other Afghan woman has received as much international attention since the toppling of the Taliban eight years ago. In the Western press, Joya has become more than a cause célèbre --she's become a stand-in for Afghanistan's entire female population. Even the UK cover for her recently-released autobiography calls her "the Afghan woman who dared to speak out" as opposed to "an Afghan woman who dared to speak out." There is something deeply troubling about this framing.

Joya is far from the only outspoken Afghan woman in public life, and no one woman should be used as a representation of all women from her country or her culture. When she ran for parliament four years ago, Joya never asked her foreign supporters to appoint her Voice of All Afghan Women, a position made even more problematic by the stark fact that her view on the international military presence is actually in the minority in Afghan civil society.

When American anti-war group Code Pink visited Kabul recently, founder Madea Benjamin, a staunch opponent of US military involvement in Afghanistan, was shocked to find the Afghan women's rights activists she met with almost unanimously supportive of coalition troops remaining in the country. Women for Afghan Women, an Afghan-international humanitarian NGO recently released a statement saying it "deeply regrets having a position in favor of maintaining, even increasing troops," but the alternative is "abandoning 15 million women and children to madmen." In an interview with NPR, Kabul-based human rights activist Orzala Ashraf Nemat said, "I think definitely getting away or staying away from Afghanistan will not only affect our lives and the progress that we have made so far but it will also affect the lives of everyone beyond that country in specific." In a Washington Post column I recently wrote about, Wazhma Frogh, another activist, echoed that senitment:

At this time of violence and anxiety, it is important for the international community and the United States to reaffirm their commitment to Afghanistan rather than questioning whether it is worth defending an entire people against those who would install another brutally repressive regime under which women cannot be educated or seek to improve their lot, where "justice" is meted out in mass public executions, where repression is the rule -- and where new terrorist plots will inevitably be hatched to attack the United States and its allies.

"We have been feeling a sense of fear of the people of the return of the Taliban," Benjamin told the Christian Science Monitor. "So many people are saying that, 'If the US troops left the country, would collapse. We'd go into civil war.' A palpable sense of fear that is making us start to reconsider that." Once a proponent of all American troops leaving within two years, she now favors a flexible timeline for withdrawal, along with greater support for Afghan civil society and education initiatives.

For listening to Afghan women --instead of simply speaking for them -- and then taking a nuanced position among peace groups, Benjamin's organization was dubbed "Whores for Wars" by AntiWar.com columnist John Walsh. Classy, no?

Lost in the name-calling, the battles over who speaks for the women of Afghanistan (answer: no one, many people, and all Afghan women), and the debate over troops are Afghan civil society's priorities and plans for the future --concrete goals and strategies for bettering Afghan life that deserve far more attention than they are presently receiving. Here at War and Peace, I will try to cover these issues in greater depth in the future.

UPDATE: A commenter below correctly notes: "The concluding declaration of a Nov. 10 CodePink blog entry (which extensively quotes Malalai Joya) is 'Call on your government to ground the drones and bring the troops home now!' ) So it may not be quite accurate to say that CodePink is pushing for a flexible timeline for withdrawal."

[Photo: UK book cover for Raising My Voice, by Malalai Joya. Defense Committee for Malalai Joya.]

Afghan Aidworkers More Vulnerable After UN Attack

Una Vera — 2009-11-13T08:19:00-08:00

The 28 Oct. attack on a Kabul guesthouse that left five United Nations election workers dead had its perpetrators' intended effect. Reeling from the tragedy, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has temporarily relocated 200 of its international staff outside the country, and 400 to more secure locations in-country. With many NGOs also considering additional security measures, expats aren't the only ones concerned about the future, and Afghan aidworkers have even more to worry about.

“Scaling down the UN’s presence is very worrying for all Afghans and in particular NGOs, because they will become softer targets for the armed opposition,” Khial Shah, head of the Agency for Rehabilitation and Energy Conservation in Afghanistan told IRIN, the UN's humanitarian news service.

Without the privilege of being able to leave Afghanistan on the next flight out, Afghan aidworkers live with more risks and fewer guarantees than their foreign colleagues. Eighteen Afghan aidworkers have been killed so far this year, and many more have been harassed, threatened and injured.

Afghans working for international NGOs worry about what will happen if their employers decide to pull out of Afghanistan, as several international NGOs did in recent years following deadly attacks on expat staff. Working for an NGO can offer Afghan aidworkers some minimal protection, but when NGOs leave areas of the country where insurgent groups are active, their local employees face intimidation and suspicion. "Afghan aidworkers are wrongly labelled as spies and collaborators of foreign forces,” said Shah.

Some within and close to the Afghan government aren't worried about UNAMA reducing its presence, even permanently. "We don't need the UN agencies, the UN agencies are a burden," Ashraf Ghani, a former minister of finance and presidential candidate, told the Christian Science Monitor. Afghan president Hamid Karzai was even more dismissive. When asked during a PBS interview on Monday what effect the UN staff relocation would have, Karzai said, "No impact. No impact. They may or may not return. Afghanistan won't notice it."

Afghan aidworkers beg to differ. Abdul Sataar Siddique, a program director for an Afghan relief coordination NGO told IRIN, “We do our work in close partnership with UN agencies and if they reduce their staff numbers it will adversely impact our projects and activities.”

Other Afghans see the UN staff relocation scheme as an ominous sign that worse times lie ahead. "Whenever a UN unit is active in one part of Afghanistan, people in that place are thinking there is peace. If they pull out, for sure the people are thinking negatively," M. Qasim Ahmadzai, a Ministry of Economy official said. "So far, no NGOs have decided yet to leave, but they may."

[Photos: Fardin Waezi (UNAMA)]

What is Checkpoint Etiquette?

Daniel J Gerstle — 2009-11-12T20:00:00-08:00

Every checkpoint is different, from border crossings to police roadblocks to Holy crap heads down! Here are a few insider tips from locals, aid workers, contractors, and journalists to help newcomers to relate to people who live this every day. Do get professional training if you're planning to work out there. As you approach in your vehicle...

You might want to turn the music down. The song, "Shaft," might feel appropriate but it's probably not a good idea... At least not unless you're chased out of there...

Chill or be chilled. You've gotta be smooth as silk, soft as cashmere. Listen to the guards attentively and answer them with kindness and respect even if they're wearing a necklace of human ears and a tutu... Or even if they're just nine-years-old...

Massage the break, slowing to 5km until a guard makes some kind of halting signal... Or starts firing at the road in front of you... You might want to stop at that point...

Crack the windows just wide enough to communicate with the guard and slip documents in and out... Although you may be compelled to, do not wind the window up on the guard's hand and start tickling him...

Seems obvious, but if there is a weapon in the car do not chuck it out the window, aim it at the guards or slam the transmission into reverse... In fact, why do you have a weapon in the car in the first place? In most cases for civilians, you'll only be hurt if you are seen with a weapon... al Qaeda is an exception...

Beware of "rock blocks," otherwise known as junk and/or livestock strewn across the roadway so you can't pass. This is a common practice for both poor traders trying to get potential buyers in no man's land as well as lunatic marauding kidnappers... Don't assume one isn't the other... (Also, get trained on how to evade explosive devices marked by stones...)

If you're under attack, driving forward is probably obstructed by the checkpoint itself, reverse is risky unless you have a trained stunt-driver, so best to duck until there is a break in the firing then escape the vehicle for low cover... Once in ditch, call for mommy...

If you are seriously going somewhere dangerous, first make sure to get serious security orientation from professionals, and bring lots of chickens with which to bribe troublesome checkpoint guards...

Any of you old timer's have more tips to share with newcomers? Perhaps a course with RedR or InterAction?

[Photo: Upyernoz.]

Send Your Government Officials to Auschwitz (To Learn How Best to Prevent War Crimes)

Daniel J Gerstle — 2009-11-12T18:25:00-08:00

My colleague Amelia Green-Dove and I had a chance to have coffee with Alex Zucker, the Media Relations guru for the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, at the Empire State Building in New York. We agreed that one of the best ways to help reduce the rate of war crimes around the world is to send government officials to Oswiecim, Poland, for one of two powerful public policy seminars offered by the Auschwitz Institute on the site of some of the world's most horrendous war crimes.

The Institute, constructed painstakingly by founder Fred Schwartz with his bare hands, just rounded up one of its Raoul Wallenberg Center seminars focused on advising education and culture ministry officials on how they might commemorate war crimes sites and include lessons in education. This November's group included Serbian, Bosnian Serb, and Croatian officials working together with Argentinian, Azerbaijani, and other officials. Wonder what dinner conversation was like?

In the spring, the Institute also offers its Raphael Lemkin Center workshops, named for the man who forged much of the world's first Genocide Convention, to advise policy-makers on conflict mitigation techniques. In April, the group will be having a reunion in Argentina to help alumnae of the seminars to network with each other. Sounds great, but what's the catch?

Well, the Institute is still new and evolving, so what they offer is just the beginning, one part of a large number of efforts needed to effectively support change. The Institute will continue to invite people from places like Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Myanmar, but it must be matched with fundraising. Some governments like the idea, but may not be able or willing to front the airfare. What do you say? Want to buy the official of a war-threatened country a ticket to go see Birkenau and, perhaps, bring some lessons back home?

[Photo: Leftover arms and legs at Auschwitz, Muddyclay.]

Rule of Law Still Out of Reach in Eastern Congo

Daniel J Gerstle — 2009-11-12T17:26:00-08:00

Congo (DR), also known as DRC, Congo-Kinshasa, and former Zaire, currently hosts one of the most complex wars in the world. Why does it keep boiling on? What can concerned citizens do to contribute to solutions?

Despite government reforms, peace initiatives, millions in aid, and one of the largest UN peacekeeping efforts with 17,000 troops, the violence remains out of control. Many believe the various rebel groups, as well as the government, are really battling for control of territory not only for sanctuary for their particular group but also to control natural resources beneath the soil including minerals, jewels, and metal ores Western companies seek.

In brief, the government is fighting a number of rebel groups in the east including such incorrigible all-stars as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) (yes, the former Rwandan rebels remain in Congo), the National Congress of the Defense of the People (North Kivu), the Union of Congolese Patriots, and various Mai Mai militias, just to name a few. And the UN is trying to step between them only to get embroiled in deep questions about their role and rules of engagement.

For more detail, the best places to start are Reuters Alertnet for a summary of the crisis, list of aid agencies you can contact or contribute to, and links to breaking news; ReliefWeb for updates on the humanitarian and peacebuilding dimension; and the International Crisis Group for political writing and serious recommendations to the actors involved. The ICG offers such indie hits as "A Comprehensive Stategy to Disarm the FDLR" and "Five Priorities for a Peacebuilding Strategy."

How can a concerned citizen contribute to peace and recovery? If I were your philanthropy adviser, I would suggest committing donations not only to aid agencies listed on Alertnet which promote health and protection for civilian survivors, but also to those which pursue peacebuilding efforts, particularly those aspects recommended by the ICG.

If I were your activism advisor, I would suggest that after reading everything here to then go to the Enough Project and consider their suggestions and/or prepare petitions to encourage the actors you've learned about in this reading, as well as members of your congress or parliament who have power over these issues, to pursue the recommendations of Enough and the ICG.

If you have worked in the Congo DR and have recommendations on what concerned global citizens can do, please write in below and let us know.

[Photo: UN Peacekeepers under attack in Bunia, Congo DR, UN Photo.]

11/11 Impressions

Una Vera — 2009-11-11T16:30:00-08:00

This being the War and Peace blog, I feel I should say something about Veterans Day (Remembrance Day, Armistice Day) before it's over. Truth is, I'm never sure what I should say, beyond thank you, veterans. Nevertheless, here are some of my scattered thoughts today, a few stories that 11 November brings to mind.

My grandmother is 91 years old. She was born four months before the end of the First World War. She lost her first husband, the great love of her life, in the South Pacific twenty-five years later. To this day, she can't talk about Bill without bursting into tears. The necklace he gave my then newlywed grandmother before he shipped out, young and doomed, became part of my her body over the decades that followed. It wore a groove in her skin, because she never took it off. My grandfather, her second husband, never objected. The necklace is a heavy silver cross with tiny diamonds in the pattern of the southern cross constellation and rests on my grandmother's triple bypass scar.

Three years ago, I was living in Belgium and spent 11 November in my small town in Flanders. While Veterans Day in the United States focuses on sacrifice and gratitude, the focus of Remembrance Day in Europe is on the costs of war, of tens of millions killed in the span of just thirty-one years. 11 November in places like small Flemish towns is a solemn, quiet day. Even though living memory of WWI is all but gone, that conflict, like the more catastrophic one that succeeded it, carved deep marks on Europe's collective, cultural memory. Even today, it's still there, throbbing just below the surface of those happy societies. This is something I always hope Americans keep in mind when they criticize European governments and publics for hesitating to support military interventions, even in those places where military intervention may be the lesser of two evils.

It was a cold spring morning in 2007 I woke up to my first full day in Bosnia. After slipping into sweats, I made my way to the kitchen of the guesthouse I was staying at in the oldest part of Sarajevo. I was the only guest, and the only other person in the house when I arrived the night before was the owner, Nazira, a woman in her fifties who spoke no English and fussed over me, an exhausted, surly foreigner, like I was her own child. This morning, Nazira's son, Emir, was visiting. I was taken aback by his American accent, which he said he'd developed over a decade in New York City. Emir left Bosnia as soon as the war there ended, as soon as he was demobilized. "Of the boys I graduated from high school with, not many of us are left," he said, "I think about them every day, usually about foolish things we did as kids, but also how they died. That stuff never leaves you." A few weeks later, after many, many drinks, a Bosnian employee of one of the international NGOs inserted into a previously lighthearted conversation, with no advance warning, the story of how, at sixteen, he came home one day and found his parents murdered and dismembered by paramilitaries in one of the war's first atrocities. I excused myself, ran two blocks to the Miljacka river, and vomited until I had the dry heaves. I've heard so many similar, and even more gruesome stories since then, from places as far flung as Colombia and Burma, and though I don't throw up anymore, I still don't understand how people go on after such experiences. In my heart, I know I wouldn't be able to. If I lost the people closest to me in any of those ways, I can't imagine forcing myself to keep going; I can only imagine searching, frantically, for the fastest way to end my own life. For this reason, I will never stop marveling at the resilience of refugees.

Z lay silent on the air mattress next to me, staring at the ceiling. "In my head, I can still hear them screaming," he said finally, "I can hear them and see them like it's happening now." Z was born in 1978, to a child mother and despondent father in Wardak province, Afghanistan. Given up to the Soviet Union by his impoverished parents at age five, he was educated in Kazakhstan. In 1992 and 1993, Kazakhstan sent Z and hundreds of other Afghan children back to Afghanistan, into a civil war in a homeland they barely remembered. The Soviet-educated Afghan teens were easy prey for murderous thugs. Z and his classmates ended up homeless, sleeping in the grounds of a ruined hospital. One day, armed men rolled up in pickup trucks and began grabbing the girls. There was nothing the boys could do. The girls kicked and screamed as the militiamen bundled them into the vehicles. Z never saw any of the girls again. Later on, some of the boys disappeared as well. Z was eventually kidnapped, but miraculously manged to escape and find protection with the United Nations. He has never spoken about what happened when he was held captive. "Only those bad people, and God, know," he whispered into the darkness between us.

Not having read J's file yet, I needed to ask the question: "Are you married?" The interpreter posed my question again, in French. Yes, J, a Congolese refugee resettled in the United States, replied. I asked him if his wife was still back in the refugee camp. Through the interpreter, he said no, his wife disappeared when their village was attacked. Biting my lip, I asked J if he heard anything about his wife's fate after that. He had not, but he wasn't willing to believe she had died. Not yet. "She is my love," he said, smiling sadly, "I will wait a little longer."

Before I left Bosnia almost two years ago, I got a lettering tattoo on my hip. "Neka Mir Prevlada Na Zemlji." May Peace Prevail on Earth. I try to remind myself.

[Photo: View from the Sarajevo-Ploce train at dusk. Author's own.]