Let's Get Ready to Rumble - John Holmes Attacks Save Darfur | War and Peace

Let's Get Ready to Rumble - John Holmes Attacks Save Darfur

Published January 23, 2009 @ 05:05PM PT

John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs / Emergency Relief Coordinator, recently had some rather scathing comments to make about Save Darfur.

In the interests of fanning a possible conflict - listening to the imp of the perverse, as it were - thought I would reprint his statement below.

During a Newsweek interview with journalist Steve Bloomfield, he said the following:

"Bloomfield - What effect do you feel the Darfur activist lobby has had on U.S. policy?
Holmes - There is a very powerful lobby in the U.S.: 'stop the genocide'. That's not a description I subscribe to myself.

Does it do more harm than good?
I do agree with that. When I moved to New York I remember seeing a poster in the subway which read: 'Save Darfur—tens of thousands are dying each month'. That's just not true. They are a bit misplaced but they do create a political context and that can be helpful."

I think Holmes goes too far with his rather sweeping condemnation - Save Darfur does play an important advocacy role. That said, I'm also not convinced they've always fully understood the situation on the ground.

Curious to hear others' thoughts on this.

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Comments (3)

I can't stand Save Darfur, but that's just a personal opinion. It worries me that there seems to be an almost complete schism between the campaign and those who are actually working on the ground; and I find it mildly offensive that so much focus is on Darfur with so little understanding of why this campaign gained traction in the first place.

Posted by Paul Currion on 01/24/2009 @ 08:06AM PT
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In my humble opinion, I tend to agree with John Holmes position. Our good lobbying intentions sometimes have the potential to backfire on the very people we are trying to save.

Posted by Gonzalo Pena on 01/24/2009 @ 09:22AM PT
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People like Holmes are the reason that Doctors Without Borders was formed (the founders couldn't stomach the head-in-sand politics of other aid groups). It amazes me that so many progressives are complete objectivists when it comes to the conventions against torture but are willing to ignore the convention against genocide. Like it or not, the official position of our government, not Save Darfur, is that Darfur is a genocide. We now know what that's worth -- a response guaranteed to do nothing more but to let aid workers attend to some of the victims. No doubt that will have an amazing deterrence effect in the future.

Posted by Jake Hewitt on 02/06/2009 @ 03:44AM PT
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Author

Michael has worked for NGOs in Afghanistan, across east and central Africa, and Iraq. Prior to going overseas, he worked on a project providing assistance to the United Nations on the application of International Humanitarian Law to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.