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Dear list members, I don't know if the following Reuters story has already been posted to the list. The quote from Christian Aid re. the Galahad is an excellent rejoinder to the Sun's sickening coverage (eg. 'Ship, ship hooray', http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003142089,00.html). Best wishes, Gabriel voices uk *************************************** Source: Reuters Date: 28 Mar 2003 Aid groups say military see aid as propaganda tool By Kate Holton LONDON, (Reuters) - Relief agencies accused British and U.S. forces on Friday of being more concerned with food aid as a propaganda tool than feeding hungry Iraqis. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like Save the Children said chaotic scenes shown on televisions on Wednesday, in which Iraqis scrambled for food thrown from a truck at Safwan near the border with Kuwait, was an example of how the provision of aid has become just another tactic in the U.S.-led war against Iraq. "What they are doing is not humanitarian aid but a 'hearts and mind' operation and that is quite different," Save the Children's Director of Emergencies Lewis Sida told Reuters. He said humanitarian missions would seek to avoid such high profile incidents, saying it illustrated that the military did not have the competence to do aid work and said such operations did not serve the best interests of the people most in need. Wednesday's pictures of young men fighting it out with each other to grab meagre supplies off the backs of trucks also raised concerns at Care International UK over the plight of those not strong enough to do battle for food. "Inevitably the people who need that assistance most are least able to physically collect it," Care's emergencies advisor Adrian Denyer told Reuters. "The most vulnerable and the weakest, the women and children, are a long way from that truck and it will be the young men who grab the aid and will most likely sell it rather than distribute it." Another concern is the amount of food aid that can get through to a country where 60 percent of the population had been relying on an oil-for-food programme, which was suspended when the U.S.-led war against Iraq began. The first ship to bring humanitarian aid since the start of the U.S.-led invasion was British ship Sir Galahad, which docked at the port of Umm Qasr on Friday. But its cargo is a drop in the sea of aid which the oil-for-food programme had provided. "To put it in context, we have been waiting for the Sir Galahad for days with its 200 tons of food. Under the oil for food programme ... 16,000 tons a day were supplied, so you are looking at 80 Sir Galahads a day just to restore the normal supply," Christian Aid spokesman John Davison told Reuters. He said aid agencies and the military have had many discussions over several years about how best to distribute aid. The agencies said their experience has taught them that the distribution of food and supplies must be held at secure warehouses if those most in need can hope to be fed. Almost all aid agencies have said southern Iraq is still too dangerous for civilian relief teams, but they are demanding the U.N. take control of humanitarian work when the fighting ends. They say they refuse to work alongside the military because being seen alongside troops would put their own workers in danger and erode the confidence of the Iraqi people in them. On Wednesday, another convoy of Kuwait Red Crescent trucks heading for Safwan was surrounded by Iraqis fighting for the food packages inside. The troops accompanying the convoy ordered the aid released for safety reasons. "The fact that it was chaotic and badly planned and off the back of a truck illustrates that they (military) do not have the competence to do that," Sida said. A British defence source told Reuters that the military should not accept blame for Wednesday's chaos and said aid agencies should plan the distribution. "Ships are standing by all over the world to bring aid in but we must be sure we can effectively distribute it. It needs some planning - but that's for the aid agencies," said the source on condition of anonymity. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Lewis" <mhl24@cam.ac.uk> To: "CASI Committee" <soc-casi-committee@lists.cam.ac.uk>; <casi-discuss@lists.casi.org.uk> Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2003 2:21 PM Subject: [casi] Aid and reconstruction figures [ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ] I've been trying to put together some figures for various amounts of aid pledged by various governments. So far I've got: 1) UK (DfID): 210m pounds (120m for DfID's work in Iraq 2003/4; 50m for humanitarian agencies; 40m set aside for further contributions to the immediate humanitarian problem) http://wwww.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/ea8077f 916a88c4b85256cf70075e057?OpenDocument 2) Australia: 100.5m Australian Dollars (17.5m for unspecified humanitarian aid; 100,000 tonnes of Australian wheat at 38m; 45m for handling, processing, distribution) http://wwww.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/abd25d6 d67e423a449256cf800196a5d?OpenDocument 3) Romania: unknown Will despatch medical teams, drinking and mineral water, medicine, medical equipment, foodstuffs, clothing, shoes, and tents http://wwww.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/8f9d2c3 46dd9115dc1256cf7005e8182?OpenDocument 4) USA: 2.4bn US dollars allocated by budget supplemental for both aid and reconstruction (Thus far accounted for: 16.3m for stockpiled emergency supplies; 300m for food purchases; 206m for humanitarian relief organisations via USAID, (of which?) 60m for WFP logistics, 10m for WHO, 7m for IOM (International Organisation for migration, 8m for UNICEF water/health/sanitation, ); 600m for construction contracts, which at present have mainly gone to US companies with "security clearances") http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/ http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/19051.htm (USAID briefing, 25/03/03) http://wwww.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/f210f5f c9852814c85256cf70059d8d4?OpenDocument (UNDPI humanitarian briefing, 28/03/03) 5) European Union: 100m euros (from Emergency Aid Reserve, 79m of which still awaits approval by European Council) http://wwww.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/ea8077f 916a88c4b85256cf70075e057?OpenDocument 6) Canada: 100m Canadian dollars (of which immediate allocation of 20m to CARE Canada, UN agencies and Red Cross) http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/cida_ind.nsf/vLUAllDocByIDEn/636A2AFA0F8E6B1E8525 6CF400585A09?OpenDocument 7) Japan: approx. 112.53m US dollars (40bn yen), although most, it seems, actually to Jordan (3.3m for emergency medical activities by Japanese NGOs; 5.03m for advance procurement by UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF; 100m to Jordan to alleviate "economic impact" of situation in Iraq; 4.2m to Palestinian refugees via UNRWA) http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/c7ca0eaf6c79faae852567af003c69ca/a169366f 096e743549256cf50028caa7?OpenDocument If anyone has any more recent or further information, it'd be very useful. Mike Mike Lewis Christ's College Cambridge CB2 3BU 07712 655130 mhl24@cam.ac.uk *********************************** "We had a great day. We killed a lot of people" - Sergeant Eric Schrumpf, 5th Marine Regiment (NY Times, 28/03/03) "I'm sorry," the sergeant said. "But the chick was in the way." www.camsaw.org.uk _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk