Picture of the day: Humanitarian space

Every Red Cross vehicle in the world is emblazoned with a logo of a Kalashnikov with a red line through it - No Guns on Board. The Red Cross symbol alone should - but alas is not - be the only protection aid workers need, as the Red Cross (or Crescent) symbol is enshrined in international law signifying that the bearer takes no part in hostilities. (Full)

More Pictures of the Day on The Road.

Picture courtesy Paul Conneally, a fellow aid worker and blogger

Read the full post...

The Red Cross is 150 years young.

A counselor listens to a rape victim at an ICRC-supported "listening house" one of numerous such sanctuaries near the fighting in the DRC where victims can receive medical support and emotional support.

On 24 June 1859, during the War of Italian Unification, Franco-Sardinian forces clashed with Austrian troops near the small town of Solferino in northern Italy. More than nine thousand wounded took refuge in the village of Castiglione, lying dispersed and unattended.

On that day, a gentleman by the name of Henry Dunant, a citizen of Geneva, Switzerland, was travelling in the area. He was shaken by the human suffering, resulting from the war. He mobilized a small army himself. An army of local volunteers, mostly women to care for the wounded, wash and dress their wounds, and to provide shelter and basic food.

In 1862 he published a book entitled "A Memory of Solferino", in which he described the battle and the wounded of the Chiesa Maggiore, concluding with a question:

"Would it not be possible, in time of peace and quiet, to form relief societies for the purpose of having care given to the wounded in wartime by zealous, devoted and thoroughly qualified volunteers?"

That question would set the basic principle of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, which is now to the largest humanitarian network in the world.

Dunant also asked the military authorities of various countries another basic question:

..whether they could formulate "(...) some international principle, sanctioned by a convention and inviolate in character, which, once agreed upon and ratified, might constitute the basis for societies for the relief of the wounded in the different European countries?".

This second question was the basis for The Geneva Conventions.

2009 marks 150th anniversary of the battle of Solferino and the 60th anniversary of the four Geneva Conventions. To put these anniversaries into the spotlight, the Red Cross Movement has launched a campaign, Our World. Your Move, to remind everyone of our individual responsibility to lessen human suffering.

The photography exhibition "Our World at War," scheduled to tour 41 countries, is one of the events of this campaign. Life magazine features several of the pictures.

Picture courtesy Ron Haviv (ICRC - VII)

Read the full post...

News: The Forgotten Wars...

Most people in the UK are unaware of major conflict zones around the world, according to a new survey by the British Red Cross.

The survey was carried out to discover how much the British public knows about armed conflicts ahead of the Red Cross’ Civilians and Conflict Month, which launched this week.

Respondents were able to name Afghanistan and Iraq as war zones, most probably because that's where British military are stations.

However less than one per cent identified the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where an estimated 5.4 million people have died as a result of the country’s long-running conflict.

Less than one per cent of respondents were able to identify countries such as Sudan, Somalia, and Central African Republic.

Almost one in five (18 per cent) could not name five countries experiencing conflict. (Full)

I would add that in the case of Chad and DRC, the media is partially to blame as the crisis in those countries hardly ever gets the spotlights. Which is not the case for Somalia, and certainly not for Sudan.

If you look at all the campaigning which has been done around Sudan and Darfur, one would then ask, what it really takes to ensure the forgotten wars are brought back into the spotlight? Reuters Alertnet runs a survey on this topic.

Via The Other World News

Read the full post...

The Real Out of Africa

Malawi 1994.

The sun slowly descends behind the hills left of me. She magically pours a yellow-reddish glow over the wide plains at the other side of the road. The evening odour of Africa hangs around me. I switch on the headlights of my Landcruiser and concentrate again on the road to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, my home since a couple of weeks.
I left Blantyre, the old capital in the south, this afternoon, where I was spoiled by the hospitality of two friends, Ron and John. Both of them are hams like me. We talked several times on the radio in the past years, but I had never met them. While we were having lunch, I forgot all about time. On top of that, I got enchanted by the hippos in the lake right in front of a lodge along the road, where I stopped for a quick drink. Time went by too fast, and now the darkness took me by surprise. But it does not bring any feeling of danger with it. On the contrary, it is a veil falling over you, inviting you to participate in the secrets of Africa. The road leads me along villages where men sit on branches of fallen boababs, talking to by-passers, while children play hide and seek behind the skirts of their mamas. Some people stand on the road, waving their arm horizontally, asking for a lift. But I have no more room as the jeep is loaded to the top with my telecom gear, stowed in aluminium crates. I installed mobile radios in two of our 4x4's, in Blantyre, and refurbished the other installations which had one or the other problem.

Malawi is a beautiful country, it could have been taken right out of the film 'Out of Africa'. The people are friendly and enjoy a good laugh. The IFRC, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (call us the 'Red Cross' for short) actively helps the Malawi Red Cross cooping with the thousands of refugees who fled the civil war in Mozambique, some time ago. We also help the local Red Cross people preparing for a period of drought. The past rain season did not fill up the water reservoir to even half of their usual level. Nature gives and takes in Africa. At its own will.

The remote relief centres of the Red Cross use radio equipment to coordinate their activities with the Lilongwe and Blantyre headquarters. As the refugees move, we move, and as we move, the radios need to move. So the international HQ in Geneva regularly sends over a telecom delegate to keep the equipment up and running. I'm one of them. And I have my hands full. Especially the mobile installations in the cars suffer from the bad roads and the dust in the bush. But I enjoy my work. I get a lot of satisfaction out of it. And, a telecom delegate is always welcomed like a prince. While you do your 'thing', local 'helpers' carefully watch your every move. That annoyed me a bit at first, as I like to work alone, and the other guys were always running in my way. But in the end, I got used of having ten people standing around, and asked them to do small jobs for me. Whether they held my ladder, while I was climbing yet another tree trying to find a support for a wire antenna, or whether they were looking for an extension cord, or whether holding one end of a yagi in the air, they did their job with extreme care and concentration. It was as if they felt they were now also part of the magic, which, at the end of an installation, makes a radio come to life. On such moments, when the radio is first switched on, their eyes light up, while the voice of the radio operator, hundreds of miles away, sounds in the speaker.

It was quite a challenge installing the big antenna used for the radio link to Geneva, on the roof of the new Red Cross building last week. The building was not completed yet, and it had no easy way to get onto the roof, 10 metres high. A group of local workers, promised me a 'ladder'. They put two long chopped trees almost vertically against the wall, and nailed horizontal wooden steps on them. As they finished one step, they climbed onto it, and nailed the next one, working their way up. After a day, I had my 'ladder'. Don't ask me how many times I climbed it up and down, while installing the antenna and the tower on the roof. One thing is for sure: I could always count on some locals standing below to watch "the crazy white guy in thorn shorts and a dirty T-shirt saying 'Hamradio, more than a hobby', who would install an antenna to 'telephone' to Geneva". While most of them did not even dare to climb up the ladder half way, they did seem to enjoy watching the 'radio engineer' balancing on the edge of the roof, with a big concrete drill in his hands. Some got so interested that they even brought a chair the next day, so they could watch me more comfortably. From ground level. Luckily, Blackson, the foreman of the workers helped me out a bit with the heavy work. I assembled the antenna on the ground. It was a big thing, made out of a whole box of aluminium tubes. To my surprise, I missed one small tube. Fortunately, Heikki Keto, the second in command at the UNHCR over here was also a ham, and he had some scrap alu tubes laying around. One of those fitted as my missing piece. 'God, Thy Do Exist!".

'Slow, Police', says a small sign in the ditch next to the road. I switch on my beam lights, and all of a sudden, a heavy chain hung across the road, appears right in front of me. I hit the breaks, and with screaming tires, the Landcruiser stops, a few inches from the chain. The policemen who jumped out of the way, see the Red Cross emblem and walk towards my car, smiling as always.
"Evening, Sssssir", salutes one of the two officers.
"Evening, that was a close call, wasn't it? If I were you, I'd put the sign a little bit more visible, or at least I would suggest lighting a fire next to your checkpoint, so that people might actually see the checkpoint from a distance.", I snap back, with my heart still beating in my throat.
"Yessss, Sssssir", replies the policeman, but he obviously has no idea what I'm talking about. I smile.
"On your way to Lilongwe, Ssssir?"
I nod, and he lowers the chain as a sign that I can drive through.

I'm not used to be addressed as 'sir', I told Raphael, my cook, and asked to be called, 'Peter', but he said that was impossible. People in Malawi are called by their last name, or just 'baba', 'sir', or ‘father’. When they try to get your attention on the market, they make a sissing sound between their teeth and snap their fingers at you. 'Baba, fruit, baba? Do you need fruit?'. I smile as I compare the flat I lived in, in Angola a few weeks ago, to the quiet villa I stay in over here. In Luanda, I lived as the only white guy, amongst the locals. Everyone put there radio or TV as loud as possible, and during weekends, the sound of music and children yelling and screaming went on all night long. Here, I use the villa of the head of the delegation of the Red Cross as he is on holiday. My own villa, in the quiet suburban area of the capital, with nice tropical trees and flowers in the garden. Fletcher, the gardener, maintains the garden as if it were his own. He also grows vegetables in the field behind the house: tomatoes, cabbages, and avocados. In Angola, I woke up by the sound of cars hooting in the street below or rallying around without exhaust pipes, while over here, at sunrise, birds tick on my window, asking for a bit of bread. While in Angola, the security rules forbid you to drive around without a local driver, in Malawi I have my own jeep, and can go wherever I want, whenever I want. Security problems are virtually unknown here.

In a distance, I see a truck in the middle of the road. No lights. A few men are loading fire wood. Speeding is not advisable on these dark roads. The main roads are in good shape, but the local drivers do not pay too much attention to the safety rules. Busses or trucks often stop for a while, in the middle of the road, with no lights on, while their drivers are talking to the people of one of the many villages. And it does not feel good, while driving 60 mph, and all of a sudden see an abandoned truck appearing in your headlights..
Meanwhile, the road is climbing into the hills. The night is pitch dark, no moon yet. Here and there, scattered on the slopes of the hills, I see the glow of camp fires. The fire projects dancing shades of huts and women with babies tied on their back, onto the background. Again, a car in the middle of the road. I step on the brakes, and see some cars coming in behind me. I make signs asking them to drive by, and I follow them. If they brake, I will, if they take over another car, so do I, no more surprises, thank you very much. Sometimes it pays off not trying to be the lead dog of the pack.

For a moment, I thought I saw the lights of Lilongwe in a far distance, but I was wrong. It must have been one of the huge bushfires, intentionally lit to burn down the dense vegetation, to make more room for corn fields, or grazing space for cattle. Deforestation is a big problem here. The soil erodes real quickly, without trees, leaving the farmers with no other option than to burn down yet another part of the bush.
The policecar in front of me makes signs that I should pass him. I go to the right of the road (yes, we drive on the left handside, Malawi is an old English colony) and pass him over a double yellow line. They do not seem to mind.

It seems like tonight, I'm driving on a road with no end, following the cars in front of me, to the edge of the world. From time to time, the two way radio in the car comes to life, and I hear some remote voices in a language I do not understand. Once I even hear two guys talking in Afrikaans. I give a call to a friend who is monitoring the radio tonight and pass on my position. He answers ‘Good, 10 more miles to go’. I can already see the lights of Lilongwe in a distance. As I enter the city limits, I drive towards the HQ building. It is pitch dark as I park the car in front. I know that the night guards are sitting, wrapped in blankets, somewhere on the left, and say 'Good evening' into the darkness. 'Evening, Sir', several voices reply. I can not see them. It looks like the night is answering me.
I unload the boxes with equipment from the car and drag them up the stairs. There is no electricity and by the faint light of a flashlight, I prepare the stuff I need for the next day. I pack everything in, and lock up. The flashlight fades. The batteries have died.. Have to remember to go shopping for new ones tomorrow. But that is tomorrow. As I drive home, I remember Raphael, my cook, has promised to put something in the fridge for me. Something to look forward to. That and the sound of birds ticking on my window tomorrow morning.

Continue reading The Road to the Horizon's Ebook, jump to the Reader's Digest of The Road.

Read the full post...

The Children of Ambriz

Angola 1994.
The pilot in the seat in front of me, pulls his headset off one ear and looks at me: "What do you think? Shall we try?". I'm staring at the ground below us.
Our single engine plane from the World Food Programme (WFP) circles around Ambriz, a small town a 100 miles north of Luanda, Angola's capital. I'm working here for the IFRC, the ‘International Red Cross' for short. They gave me one month to install or refurbish radio equipment in as many outposts of the Angolan Red Cross as possible. More than thirty years of civil war has isolated quite some areas from the outside world, making some Red Cross relief points only accessible by plane or boat. In some places, like Ambriz, the city below us, we are the only 'tolerated' relief organisation. The city is surrounded by the rebel troops of Unitad, who shot down a UN plane around here last year. Since then, no relief organisation dares to risk sending planes to Ambriz anymore, without getting a 'clear to land' by radio, even BEFORE taking off in Luanda. But... there are no radios in Ambriz because these need to be flown in. You see the vicious circle: no plane without radio, and no radio without plane...

After long negotiations with the WFP people, we agreed that they would fly me and two local helpers into Ambriz, and allowing me a 24 hours time period to install an HF radio. But.. this would include a 'blind' landing: having no radio contact with the ground, we would be the first to land on the earthen airstrip in a year, without knowing if we were going to be shot at by any party. And then we would have twenty four hours to install a complete HF station, including emergency power facilities...

"What do you think, shall we try?", asks the pilot again. We fly in sharper and sharper circles above the city's peninsula. I can clearly see the wide lanes with villas, the old oil refinary, and the red landing strip below. "Let's fly over at low altitude first", I suggest, “let’s see how it looks like from close by”.
The pilot pushes the plane's nose down and dives towards the landing strip. A hundred meters above ground, he pulls back up, like a Stuka in the second World War: "Iiiiiiiieeeeeeeaaaaaawww". Everyone in the plane looks tensely at the movements on the ground below. Soldiers come out of the bushes. "Did you see anyone shoot", asks the pilot? "No, let's try again!", I answer, thinking back on our landing, a few months ago, during our expedition to the Antarctic. That landing surely was a bit easier than this one.

Iiiiiiieeeeaaaaaaawwwwww". Now we fly over real low. Groups of soldiers run towards the landing strip, but all looks clear. The pilot indicates he'll land, and we touch ground on the red earth runway, before even realizing it. We taxi to the end of the strip and get out of the plane. The soldiers look surprised, but friendly. They smile and wave at us. With their arms, not their AK47s. "Sigh".

After a traditional "picture_of_all_of_us_near_the_plane", we load my metal boxes with radio gear into a truck -the only vehicle in town- and drive to the Red Cross “headquarters”. Our local contact person sits next to me and tells the story of Ambriz, which must be typical for so many other places in Africa at a time of war. Almost everybody has fled the city during the recent conflicts between Unitad and the government army. Since the latter took the city over again, a few months ago, Ambriz has been isolated from the outside world. For the thousand people still living here, there is no food, no fresh water supplies, never mind gas or electricity.

We drive through the wide avenues with large villas in soft pastel colours, reminding me of those in Southern France or California. But, here everything is deserted, the villas are empty, windows and doors have disappeared, and traces of the war can be seen everywhere. Once a luxurious Portuguese holiday resort with 60.000 inhabitants, Ambriz is now a ghost town. While driving through, I can only see a few people here and there. Most of them are soldiers. Birds are singing in the high trees. A lonesome skinny dog looks up as the truck drives by.

The Angolan Red Cross HQ is set up in one of the many deserted villas. It's 5 pm, and while the sun slowly descents, we scout the area around the house for some way to get the radio antenna up. Trees will do nicely. Half an hour later, I'm hanging in the top of one, 15 meters high, thinking to myself "What the hell am I doing here?". We work through the night and in the early morning, we're ready: the radio connected to a dipole antenna, hanging way up and clear of obstacles, powered by a heavy battery and a small generator which I brought along. I do a radio check with Luanda. The reception is loud and clear at both ends, and the local Red Cross staff standing around me laughs and shouts of joy. They look at the wonder of radio, and the magical powers of 'Loco Peter de Belgica' - 'Crazy Peter from Belgium'. From now on, this small radio will enable the big relief planes to land. Planes bringing in regular water, food and medical supplies. In my best Portugese (not!) I train the local staff on the use of the radio, batteries, charger, generator and dive onto an improvised bed to take a nap for a couple of hours. Above my head, on the wall, graffiti letters stare back at me: "Unitad was here - Oct'93".

The next day, I have an hour to spare before the plane picks me up again. I ask one of the local Red Cross volunteers if it is safe to walk around town. She says ‘Sure, there’s nobody left anymore’. And that is how it looks. Deserted.. Empty lanes. Empty houses. Empty everything. Almost no traces of life anymore. Not even garbage. I come across a low building. ‘Ambriz Tennis Club’, it says on the sign. The iron gate hangs off the bottom hinge. I push it open and walk in. Careful, just to make sure there is no hidden trip wires from booby traps anywhere. All doors are open. The clubhouse is empty. Everything that could be removed is stripped and looted. The pool is empty. The bottom is filled with dead leaves. The tennis courts still look intact. The orange-red dirt once was well maintained and probably the life-work of one of the old caretakers. I can imagine it clearly. The nets still hang as they hung probably during the last match two people played there, a couple of years ago. And above all, there is silence..
The WFP plane comes to pick me up in the afternoon, and a few hours later, we're back ‘home’, in the capital Luanda. As I walk through the door of the office, I hear the radio operator talking to the people in Ambriz. It feels good. My task is fulfilled. For Ambriz at least, as there are dozens other similar outposts waiting for equipment, and I will at least visit a few of them before flying to Malawi.

Antonio, my local driver/helper who went with me to Ambriz, walks me back to my apartment. The streets of Luanda are dusty and busy. Old cars of all makes, rally in between the newest models of Mercedes-es and BMW's. People are selling all kinds of things on the sidewalk. You can buy everything here: from guns to ties, from light bulbs to cigarettes per piece, from car tires to gas per liter, sold in recycled plastic Coke bottles. I think of the contrast with the silence and emptiness of Ambriz just a few hours ago. The smiles of the local people are the same. Friendly and light hearted, despite their 30 years of ongoing misery. The sun sets, as I walk up the stairs to my flat. "Ola, Senor Peter, Senor Peter!", the kids of my neighbours call out. 'Hey guys, everything OK?", I answer in my best Portuguese. They smile at me, and continue with their football match on the stairs of the building. The streets are too unsafe.

The sun stands big and reddish just above the horizon. The smell of baked fish and fried noodles hangs around me. Exotic music plays through all doors and windows. Kids shout to eachother in the heat of their game, while their mothers sit in the doorway, talking to the ladies across the hallway. This is Africa. It starts to feel like home already. I guess, for me, this is already my home, for as much as the world as a whole feels more and more like home. The horizon seems only a few steps away... As I open the door of my apartment, I know this has been a good day. This is a good life.

Continue reading The Road to the Horizon's Ebook, jump to the Reader's Digest of The Road.

Read the full post...