Darfur - Food Security will result in actual security.
I am starting to think you only have to be Rwandan, to fully understand what it feels like to repeatedly receive insults on your human conscience and intelligence.
Only two weeks after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and less than one week after World Food Day, President Barack Obama, today, unveiled his strategy on Darfur.
Obama’s new policy aims to resolve the Darfur crisis with a conciliatory tone that contradicts his election campaign promise. He hopes to ‘normalize’ relations with President Omar al-Bashir – one who was charged with war crimes earlier this year.
The new policy appeases US envoy to Sudan, General Scott Gration, who suggested awarding “cookies” and “gold stars” to the government in Khartoum.
The same general who seeks to have the region’s attrocities downgraded from “genocide” to “the remnants of genocide”.
Why does this stink like Rwanda in 1994 when then Secretary of State Warren Christopher did not authorize officials to use the term “genocide” until a time hundreds of thousands were dead.
Even then, U.S. officials waited another three weeks before using the term in public.
‘Nobel’ standards notwithstanding - 400,000 mostly civilian lives, 2.5 million refugees, widespread use of sexual violence, gang rapes of women and girls, castration of men and boys with thousands of peacekeepers on watch – Darfur remains, the world’s most misunderstood conflict – a protracted struggle for the most basic human need. Food.
Right before the conflict escalated in 2003, the region expected a bumper harvest but grasshoppers descended on key millet-producing areas and ruined everything.
Grain prices shot up as high as 10 goats for one sack of millet – yes, barter trade was the medium of exchange. Prior to this the rate was a more reasonable two goats per sack of millet.
The combination of conflict, drought and pests became very overwhelming on the population and led to social disruption.
Young men with no food raided villages and looted livestock in the droves while farmers tried to sell their cattle at a giveaway prices before it got looted. Market systems and seasonal labour opportunities were lost due to insecurity, and commercial transport was at a standstill.
“Survival in Darfur is a delicate balance with limited room for margin. While most communities have developed complex coping mechanisms to deal with a single bad season of drought or failed harvest, a second failed, ruined, burned or looted harvest can push families to the edge of survival,” HRW warned. For the last two decades, the Darfur region has been experiencing drought and desertification.
Otherwise intelligent young Darfurian males are left with no option but to grab Kalashnikovs and join a rebel forces when faced with the option of watching themselves and their families starve to death.
For lack of a better option, girls find themselves in early marriages and their children will be the rebels of tomorrow should the conflict protract.
This highlights a clear relationship between hunger, drought and the increment in numbers of militias.
The most crucial elements to resolving the Darfur crisis must start with addressing the basic needs of Darfurians. Providing adequate food, proper nutrition and access to education to make youth less vulnerable to recruitment by rebel forces.
‘Ensuring that no child goes to school hungry is the single greatest investment we can make in building prosperous, healthy and stable societies.’ Samuel R. Berger, a former national security advisor to President Clinton comments in an opinion piece in the L.A Times, published on World Food Day.
Equally important, a focus should be put on micro-economic activities to give the elderly population occupation and self reliance. A continued dependence on humanitarian assistance will leave communities even more disorganized once the aid is cut.
There are many other factors that have fueled Darfur crisis like crucial interests in oil investments, lucrative weapons trade, land pressure and more importantly, the marginalization of the southern region.
Only time will tell if Barack’s new policy will bear fruit but one thing is for sure — General Gration will be surprised to find that Darfurians prefer the cookies to the goldstars.
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The Nobel Prize affirms intriguing realities.
By Babu Emile
In 1936 a young man was born in Kanyadhiang village, Rachuonyo District on the shores of Lake Victoria, Kenya. At age 23, he fathered a son with a beautiful young lady from Kansas named Ann Dunham. The two, now deceased, would have been very proud to know that their son, Barack Hussein Obama II was last week announced winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
It did not come as a surprise that seven of the 2009 Nobel prize winners are American. What many did not notice is that four of the seven are actually immigrants - born outside of the United States yet hold US citizenship. As newcomer in the country, I have experienced, first hand, the anti-immigration trend that is sometimes blamed on the recession. The rationale being - everyone who is born outside the United States is in the country to take away American jobs.
Among the realities that this year’s Nobel prizes brought to light is the fact that the United States is a nation made up of immigrants who drive its innovation economy. Statistics indicate that foreign-born science and engineering students earn one-third of all Ph.D.s awarded in the United States.
Perhaps no one acknowledges this better than Nobel laureate Barack Obama in his inaugural speech after being sworn in as president, ‘…For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth…’
It is this unifying tone that built on the momentum that led him to win this year’s Peace Prize. While naysayers will cry foul over the irreversible fact that he won the award – and that it was a well deserved win – President Obama is and will continue to be the greatest beacon of hope and the most important human symbol of charismatic leadership and positive change in this decade.
The prize also signals America’s return to global leadership after a Bush era that was defined by rigid adherence to blunders in foreign policy, atrocious human rights abuses, reckless disregard of the international community and a shoe – one that was thrown at the head of state during an official press conference.
As the Nobel prize comes of age, it is also important to note that the world is not the same since the time Alfred Nobel’s will was read in 1896. Being the ironic chemical engineer who invented the dynamite and ballistics only to later create a ‘peace prize’, he would have been cornered to overlook current global problems like greenhouse gases and climate change.
Many fundamental breakthroughs in technology and science do not receive recognition from the Nobel Foundation. In terms of sciences, the Nobel committee only rewards physics, chemistry and medicine: leaving out genetics, engineering, computer science, environment and public health.
It is important for the prize to evolve in a way that enhances the contribution of scientists that are struggling to meet the most important challenges of the 21st century like climate change.
It is equally important for the Oslo committee to wake up to the reality that, years back, Obama would have to wait for a telegraph or handwritten letter to receive notice of his award and world would wait several days for the news to circulate into the print media before knowing.
This year, he, like the rest of the us, caught the event in real time on high definition television while others caught it on cable and internet through new media channels like Facebook and Twitter. By the time the news got to print, it was history.
‘It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.’ W. Edward Deming
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