Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
14 SEPTEMBER 2004
MS AMELIA
BOOKSTEIN AND
MR GRAHAM
MACKAY
Q1 Chairman: Good morning. Just for the
record, we have Amelia Bookstein from CAFOD and Graham MacKay
from Oxfam, and just so there is no confusion, at some stage there
are some questions that we are going to ask today which, I think
everyone has agreed, it might be helpful to be taken in a private
session, so there will come a time when I will ask those who are
not witnesses or immediately supporting witnesses if they will
leave. Both CAFOD and Oxfam have been very much involved in the
Sudan for some time and I think it would be of interest to the
Committee to have some view of how you characterise the crisis
in Darfur and what are its causes. Our US colleagues are now describing
it as genocide, but genocide, to me, as a lawyer, usually implies
one race seeking to kill another race—the Hutus and Tutsis
in Rwanda are an example. Is that what is going on here or is
it pastoralists versus other kinds of farmers—is this a
land dispute, totally unrelated to land or religion? I just think
we would welcome your thoughts on that because different journalists,
different newspaper reports and different media commentary seem
to suggest different answers to that. Then I think it would be
helpful if you could give an overview on what you see as the present
humanitarian needs in Darfur and, also, eastern Chad, which seems
to be taking much of the burden of the refugee migration from
Darfur. Amelia, would you like to go first?
Ms Bookstein: Sure. We have divvied
up some of the questions between the two of us witnesses as well,
so we might do a bit of sharing.
Q2 Chairman: Yes, of course, but I think
on this question it would be interesting to hear from both you
and Oxfam.
Ms Bookstein: Our position is
that this crisis, although it has hit the media in the last six
months and people have been saying it has been occurring for the
last 18 months, is not something that just arose 18 months ago;
it has decades of roots in ethnic tensions in Darfur, an influx
of arms from the north/south civil war and, also, from other wars
across the region. Also, the breakdown of traditional conflict
resolution mechanisms using traditional leaders has led to conflicts
between nomads and settled farmers escalating in a way we have
never seen before in this part of Darfur. There are also ecological
factors; there has been desertification and so places with pastureland
have been moving further south. In this context of the ecological
tension growing there is on-going tension across Sudan, with both
political marginalisation and economic marginalisation. In that
context, 18 months ago, the Sudan Liberation Army, known as the
SLA, and the Justice and Equality Movement, known as the JEM,
took up arms against the Government and against government installations
in Darfur. The fighting has escalated with the use of the Janjaweed
militia and we have arrived where we are now, which is more than
1.2 million displaced, more than 2 million conflict-affected in
Darfur, including host families and vulnerable communities, more
than 200,000 refugees in Chad, as you said, and very dire public
health statistics even coming out yesterday from the World Health
Organisation on deaths rising due more to disease than to violence.
So a really harsh humanitarian situation but with deep political
roots, we would say.
Mr MacKay: Our analysis is pretty
similar to that. The Janjaweed movement we have heard about has
actually been around for nearly a decade and people have migrated.
These are nomadic bandits who include people who crossed the borders
from Chad into Darfur in the 1970s and 1980s and they traditionally
live by stealing cattle and attacking farmers. Among other things
the scale of it has dramatically changed in the last couple of
years.
Q3 Chairman: Just going on to the second
part of my question: what is your assessment now of the humanitarian
needs in both the Sudan and eastern Chad? You have mentioned some
pretty big figures for Chad but how many people do you estimate
are affected both in the Sudan and Chad?
Mr MacKay: I will come to Chad
first because I think the position in Chad is actually clearer.
There are about 200,000 refugees located within eastern Chad.
Probably about 120,000 are now located in camps, with the rest
remaining at the border. This is an area which normally only supports
about 80,000 Chadians, and the defining factor for these communities
is the amount of water they can pull out of the ground, so there
is huge constraint on that basic resource. Space is not an issue
but access to water is a huge issue there. Going back on to the
Darfur side of the border, things are a lot less clear, but we
have statistics on the WFP's food distribution, which is approximately
1.2 million people but they are expecting this to go up to 2 million
people requiring food, mostly because they have missed the harvest.
So there is a water element—lack of water—there is
access to food because people have not been able to farm, and
compounded on that is the access of humanitarian agencies—difficulties
with logistics because the rainy season has come now, and, also,
issues of security. There are an awful lot of communities that
we just have not been able to get access to in Darfur for security
and geographical reasons.
Q4 Mr Robathan: Just to clarify, there
are 200,000 refugees in Chad?
Mr MacKay: Yes.
Q5 Mr Robathan: Approximately 1.2 million
people being fed by the WFP. Does that include the 200,000?
Mr MacKay: No, they are separate
from that. We have estimated—we have no hard figures on
this—about 2 million people displaced within Darfur, of
whom I think the WFP are trying to target 1.2 but actually they
are only reaching roughly 80% of that 1.2 million. To be precise
they reached 920,000 beneficiaries in August. So there are 800,000
we do not know where they are—which, let us face it, they
are in trouble and we do not have access to them—and about
200,000-300,000 within Darfur that the WFP, who do the most comprehensive
blanket feeding, do not have access to at the moment. So the figures
are roughly 900,000 people we have got access to and 300,000 we
know are there but do not have access to, and 800,000, we are
estimating, are in trouble—
Q6 Mr Robathan: Plus another 200,000
in Chad?
Mr MacKay: Yes.
Ms Bookstein: Can I just add something,
and sort of paint a picture? I was in Darfur about four weeks
ago, and security was very bad at that time so I was only able
to go up to one set of camps near Mershing. For people who have
not been there the situation is such that we have access to many
of the people some of the time. There are thousands of people
in some of the big camps—in Kalma camp and Kass camp, IDPs
in Zallingei, for example, have now been consolidated into three
big camps, but there are also many, many different pockets of
about 3,000 people here, 2,000 people there, or communities
that are half host families, that are in quite a vulnerable position,
and half IDPs. So NGOs working for the UN are trying to reach
all the vulnerable people and trying to assess where the most
acute needs are, but it is not a straightforward case of the people
are in one place and we can just do a blanket feeding. In some
places in camps where there are 50,000 or 80,000 people there
are mechanisms that are in place but in other places it is much
more about getting out to reach these people. That is as much
about logistical obstacles and the state of the roads in the rainy
season as it is about insecurity and roads being open one day
and closed the next due to insecurity. That is the overall picture.
Q7 John Barrett: I wonder if you could
go into more detail about how effective the humanitarian response
has been. There are obviously a lot of problems between the security
issue and the rainy season, but even on the basics—water
and food supplies—how effective has the response which has
already taken place been, and what is the outlook for the future?
As you mentioned in your introduction, we often see this as an
18-month build-up to the current crisis but in fact it has been
going on for decades. Just how are the agencies beginning to make
an impact, if they are?
Ms Bookstein: I think both of
us will want to comment on this. I think all the agencies are
racing against time right now and we are quick to admit that we
are not everywhere that we want to be. There has been, over the
last 18 months, a well-known history of bureaucratic and logistical
obstacles. Darfur is also a very difficult place to work, so even
before this hit the media there were not many organisations there
and the ones there did not have many staff, so scaling up from
that size and getting good information without access of journalists
and other people is a big challenge at the beginning of an emergency
like this. It should be said that a lot of the bureaucratic obstacles
have been lifted in the last two or three months, but the logistical
ones have gotten worse with the rainy season. It also should be
said that right now the UN's full, Consolidated Appeal is only
50% funded, and while NGOs may be doing separate appeals and working
with the UN, the UN provides the backbone for a lot of what we
are able to do. The UN Joint Logistics provides the transportation
of non-food items, for example; the World Food Programme provides
transportation of most of the food, and the UN OCHA provides the
co-ordination that makes sure that we are not doubling up as we
are trying to reach the whole population. So if the UN is under-funded
then the entire humanitarian effort is weakened.
Mr MacKay: If I can answer that
by giving an illustration of how effective we are being, at the
moment, I have already quoted the World Food Programme meeting
80% of their target beneficiaries, and that is with really low-level,
basic foodstuffs; that will not be with a comprehensive basket.
To illustrate the problems with water in Chad, we have a camp
that was designed to sustain 20,000 refugees but now has 40,000
refugees there but the amount of water has not increased, and
we drilled bore holes and there is no water. We have already mentioned
access, and physically trucking food and water to camps is difficult
and we are months behind schedule and the rations go down and
down and down. So I have to say we have only been partially effective
so far, just simply because the working conditions in Chad and
Darfur are so difficult. We recognise that we are not doing everything
that we would like to be doing. Funding, access and security are
the reasons for that.
Q8 Hugh Bayley: To what extent have restrictions
on NGOs prevented you doing what you would choose to do?
Mr MacKay: The restrictions can
be classed in several ways. We have got the issue of security
in that there are areas where displaced people will be where we
simply cannot go because it is just too unsafe. Also, I think
it has to be said that the bureaucratic restrictions have been
lightened somewhat.
Q9 Hugh Bayley: These are the registration
procedures in Khartoum?
Mr MacKay: Visas and internal
movement has improved enormously, and we can get a visa within
48 hours, which is magnificent compared with the two months it
was taking five months ago.
Q10 Hugh Bayley: I suppose, really, we
are looking at the obstacles that need to be removed to enable
humanitarian work to meet the challenge. One of those obstacles
is funding, as you have mentioned. If the UN target funding were
met would there be sufficient financial resources?
Mr MacKay: I think it is probably
fair to say yes, but there is another issue of simply the number
of bodies we can put on the ground in places like Chad and Darfur.
At the moment our funding and our personnel is reasonably balanced
for Oxfam, but I know that UNHCR have complained in eastern Chad
that there simply are not enough implementing partners—NGOs—to
actually do the work. We feel we are at full stretch in both countries
now, but there probably are not enough NGOs there at the moment
doing work. That is one of the issues. It might be funding related
if they cannot get funded, but it is a bit of six of one and half-a-dozen
of the other, I am afraid.
Q11 Hugh Bayley: You cannot avoid the
weather or avoid the rain but you can, maybe, get around in the
rain. What else could be done to get more humanitarian assistance
to places where it is needed?
Ms Bookstein: The current WFP
air drops—which they have been doing for the past four to
six weeks, I believe—are a sign of WFP taking it quite seriously.
That is a very expensive option but the one that the UN puts in
place when there really are large numbers of people that are out
of reach by trucking. If the rainy season continues longer than
we are planning for, we will need to continue looking at that
heavy lifting capability, which takes a lot more money than trucking.
Also, as Graham says, it does have to do with recruiting good
staff, not just any staff but recruiting good staff, and working
with local staff as well on the ground to make sure that there
is good quality programming across Darfur, which is something
that we are just racing to do but it also, unfortunately, takes
a bit of time.
Q12 Hugh Bayley: To what extent is the
WFP being able to build-up or pre-position stocks of food? Can
you tell me a bit about the pipeline itself? Where is food trucked
from? Where is food flowing from and what are the difficulties
in getting food to the sort of trucking points?
Mr MacKay: I can say a bit about
that. Unfortunately, if we could turn back time that would be
one of the ways in which we could improve the NGO response, given
that the rains are happening now. One of the criticisms—and
I am sure we will discuss this later—that we have made is
that the rain has appeared to come as a surprise to the UN bodies
co-ordinating things in eastern Chad. There are roads which trucks
are not now allowed to go on during the rainy season because they
destroy those roads, and that is just a hurdle we have got to
get across, and consequently food and water trucking is behind
schedule. Going back to the earlier part of your question, you
said how could things be improved? One of the things, I have been
reminded, is that we do not have access to the rebel-held areas
in Darfur, where there must be an awful lot of displaced people.
That is one of the big unknowns, and if we were to secure safe
access to those areas that would mean we could help a lot more
people.
Ms Bookstein: For CAFOD, our work
in Teisha is partially in rebel-held areas and partially in government-held
areas and (and I am sure it is the case for Oxfam and many agencies
on the ground) we are pushing the envelope, but we do need UN
OCHA and, also the rebels' and the government's guarantees of
security to be able to work in those places.
Q13 Hugh Bayley: Is it a co-ordination
problem? Are the different agencies, UN agencies and NGOs like
yourselves, failing adequately to co-ordinate what you are doing?
Who should take the lead on co-ordination? How do you improve
it?
Mr MacKay: The second part of
your question is much easier to answer. That is the UN. All NGOs
recognise that we are co-ordinated by OCHA in Darfur and by UNHCR
in Chad. The co-ordination has not been great. When there is a
vacuum like that NGOs do tend to go off and do their own thing.
The whole discussion over how well the international community
has responded to the crisis—I think "could do better"
would be an answer for that one.
Ms Bookstein: I think, also, just
to be clear, the UN lack of co-ordination did not cause this crisis,
and the reasons that the UN and the NGOs are working in this difficult
space is due to causes that were not of the UN's making. While
it is important to look at what can be improved, I think it is
important to keep that in mind.
Q14 Hugh Bayley: Have either of you suggestions—I
take that point—as to what should be done to improve—
Ms Bookstein: We will get to this
later in the conversation, I believe, but security is the number
one problem in Darfur, so the political steps to bring an end
to the insecurity will make many of the issues about humanitarian
access evaporate.
Q15 Mr Davies: I think we have identified
two major problems in this discussion so far. One is logistics—not
anticipating the rains and whether you can use trucks or whether
you need to spend more money on the airlifts, and so forth—and,
secondly, security. Before I come on to those two, let me ask
you about your estimate of the scale of the crisis, the human
losses. You have 200,000 refugees, you have got two million people
in Darfur, many of whom you cannot even identify where they are
or what has happened to them. Have you got any estimate at all
of people who may be dying as a result of, simply, a lack of food?
Ms Bookstein: The World Health
Organisation statistics came out yesterday[7]
Q16 Mr Davies: I have not seen them.
Ms Bookstein: All of us NGOs do
work in certain areas (as part of the co-ordination) but the overview
of statistics is the responsibility of the UN. The UN figures
are quite dire, actually. The crude mortality is about three times
what they expect it to be, which leads to an estimate of about
10,000 people a month dying or dead. Those are their figures,
which are quite dire.
Q17 Mr Davies: Very dire indeed. Let
us go back to the logistics and the security. First of all, on
logistics, do you think everything is being done now—obviously
some stupid errors were perpetrated earlier and you have already
mentioned one of them—to address the logistics issues? If
not, what needs to be done?
Mr MacKay: I suspect everything
is now being done that can be done. The fact that we are exploring
expensive options like food drops and trucking water from one
place to another implies that we are pushing the boat out.
Q18 Mr Davies: It is not your feeling
there are any either bureaucratic hold-ups that are unnecessary
or that there is a lack of money which is preventing people from
doing what they need in order to try and get that tragic figure
of 10,000 deaths a month down?
Mr MacKay: I think a lot of great
strides have been made in the last few months. The quality of
the UN co-ordination in both Chad and Darfur has improved
enormously, and that just means we can focus resources where they
are most required, which is much more efficient. As for other
things that could be done if we had more money, again I think
it comes back to an earlier answer where you have to pay for the
right staff so that you can reach more people. That becomes a
challenge, and that becomes the real limiting factor in this.
I think more money would be useful.
Q19 Mr Davies: You have a wonderful opportunity
today to put on the public record anything concrete, specific
and practicable that could be done in the short term which is
not currently being done. You do not want to add anything to what
you have just said?
Mr MacKay: UN funding is at 50%,
which is inadequate. What that implies is that we could be hitting
a brick wall in a few months' time with regard to funding for
all operations. So ensuring that the rest of that money comes
in will help us plan and will help operations continue. That would
be the most important thing that needs to come out.
Ms Bookstein: On the public record,
we will talk in more detail about the African Union (AU) but I
cannot emphasise strongly enough that the lack of security is
hampering humanitarian efforts on a daily basis. So funding for
the African Union monitors, funding for communications and their
mobility, so they can move fast, so they can report and investigate
violations as they are occurring or even preventing them from
occurring rather than just past occurrences, will change the landscape
that humanitarians are working in.
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