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Preparing to Save Lives If War Engulfs Iraq - NGOs - Global policy Forum Preparing to Save Lives If War Engulfs Iraq
By Katherine Arie
AlertNet
December 16, 2002
Lutheran World Relief (LWR), based in Baltimore, Maryland, is hoping for a diplomatic solution to the Iraq crisis but is preparing for the worst -- the possibility of more than one million refugees and eight million internally displaced people. The lack of a strong local NGO culture and the lack of historic presence of international organisations have presented challenges to the relief community. LWR’s president, Kathryn Wolford, told Katherine Arie that the organisation is working with established networks of churches in the region.
AN: How did Lutheran World Relief get involved in Iraq and how does it operate there?
KW: In all of its global emergency responses Lutheran World Relief tries as much as possible to work through local organisations and, because of our constituency and our background, with church organisations and other civil society groups. As you know in Iraq there is not a strong history of autonomous non-governmental organisation activity, either in emergency response or in development. But in our case, we do cooperate closely with the Middle East Council of Churches which has members not only in Iraq, very long-standing historic churches, but also throughout the whole region, and I think that gives us a good opportunity, in terms of understanding what’s going on on the ground, in terms of the humanitarian impact on people and also in terms of beginning to prepare a response in the event of war. As you know, given the situation in Iraq, given the impact of sanctions and the continuing political sit there, Iraq is already in a pretty severe humanitarian crisis.
AN: How would you characterise it? How bad is it right now, to your knowledge?
KW: Our understanding is that food and medicine are still available but they’re out of the reach of the average person. Iraq is in strong economic crisis and so you have many people who are not fully employed or, if they are employed, their salaries aren’t enough to cover their daily needs. What we’re hearing is that people are subsisting on tea and bread, very minimal foodstuff. If you’re looking at the elderly and children, that raises a lot of problems in terms of food sufficiency and food security. It’s not a famine situation but the money doesn’t stretch far enough when you have households of five and six children. As for the situation in terms of health needs, chronic health situations aren’t being met, because of lack of medicines in the hospital or inability to afford medicines and it’s really quite significant.
AN: You mentioned that LWR was making preparations. Can you talk about what you’ve done so far and what you anticipate the main challenges to be, should the US go to war against Iraq?
KW: Sure, we’ve already been doing some mapping together with the Middle East Council of Churches and other members of our international church network to understand what we’re in a position to do, particularly in the event of a war. The Middle East Council of Churches is already training people within Iraq, church volunteers as well as people in Jordan and Syria for the possibility of refugee outflows. Volunteers are being trained to look at where they might be able to purchase food locally, what kind of distribution networks exist, whether the churches themselves can be used as shelter in the event that that’s needed. It’s a modest start-up. The capacity the churches have in Iraq is not extensive but they’re definitely prepared to do their part and cooperate and provide that support regardless of religious affiliation, to do it based on humanitarian need.
AN: How are the churches in Iraq perceived in Iraq, the churches that want to do humanitarian work?
KW: They’re cooperating with the Iraqi Red Crescent, which is a symbol of people working together to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable parts of the population. They’ve been active throughout the 1990s, working in some of the poorer neighbourhoods, and are prepared to take on this role, in the event of a more severe humanitarian crisis. It’s also true, in Jordan, where we’ve pre-positioned about a half million dollars of material aid, which would include quilts and blankets, some health care items, school materials, which could be used in Jordan in the case of refugees who cross the border or just as likely if camps are set up just inside the border with Iraq. The Middle East Council of Churches has extensive experience. During the Gulf War in 1991, they worked in those refugee camps, including a person who is now on our staff as our Middle East director. Where these camps would be is quite a desolate area, and difficult in terms of conditions, so we’re looking at mobilising additional aid.
AN: Do you worry that in preparing like this you’ll give the impression that war is inevitable?
KW: We’re using all our resources in this country (the United States) to raise up the voice for diplomatic resolution of the current crisis and I think that voice is coming strongly from the church community. But at the same time, as a humanitarian organisation, we do have a responsibility to look at the need to save lives in the event that war breaks out. So we’re doing the mapping of material and human resources that can be mobilised. Unfortunately, I think the perception of churches in the region is that it’s not a matter of if, but when. I think we’d all like to think otherwise, but we’re preparing for the outbreak of war. But there’s a significant enough crisis in the region, not just in Iraq but in Palestine, that if the material resources we’re providing are not necessary, if the war is averted and there is a diplomatic resolution, there will be other humanitarian needs we can respond to quite effectively with the resources in place.
AN: Generally, do you communicate with the U.S. government when planning to respond to disasters overseas and have you been in touch with government officials about Iraq?
KW: We’re part of an organisation called InterAction, which has a particular committee that works on disaster response and through that committee there has been a significant amount of communication with US government officials, but we take very strongly our responsibility to keep some separation between humanitarian response and what political and diplomatic and military actions might be taken by the government. We’re quite clear in this case that any response we develop needs to work with our local partners and have a clear humanitarian focus.
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