From: Robert Bruce Ware (rware@siue.edu)
Subject: Reply to MSF (JRL 9312)
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005
I appreciate the response from MSF Press Officer, Emma Bell, in JRL 9312, to my criticisms of the North Caucasus operations of MSF and other NGOs, which appeared in JRL 9304. Her response offers an opportunity to clarify some important points, and I request that Ms. Bell and others at MSF should now assist me in doing so.
First, my critique explicitly referred to “rights and relief organizations”. I believe that it is fair to say that MSF is a medical relief organization. Nevertheless, MSF has issued numerous statements over the years concerning human rights in the North Caucasus, in contrast to other medical relief organizations, such as the Red Cross for example. As Ms. Bell acknowledges, MSF has frequently commented on human rights issues, and may be fairly said to have human rights concerns.
Second, if MSF’s activities in the North Caucasus have been as impartial as Ms. Bell claims, then why has it done so much to assist Chechen refugees, and so little to help the 32,000 Dagestani refugees who were left homeless and almost entirely unassisted following the incursions of Chechnya-based militants in August and September 1999. Many of them remained homeless and in desperate need for years after MSF returned to the region in 1999. It is striking that in her message claiming impartiality, and proclaiming MSF’s concern for Chechen refugees, Ms. Bell should not have even have mentioned the Dagestani refugees, though their neglect was a focus of my critique.
Finally, I don’t think that any attentive JRL reader could possibly agree with Ms. Bell that I have been “glib” in my characterization of the North Caucasus hostage situation and the repercussions thereof. I think most JRL readers are aware that my contributions have been very much to the contrary on that point. But Ms. Bell’s concerns about this problem raise another issue that she and her MSF colleagues should now clarify: Since Ms. Bell acknowledges that the hostage industry drove MSF out of the North Caucasus, why has MSF done so little, over the years, to explain that situation to the international community, and to inform the public regarding the full extent of its horror? MSF has appropriately issued numerous statements about human rights abuses committed by Russian federal forces and their allies in the North Caucasus. Why has MSF said so little regarding the human rights abuses of the hostage industry that destroyed thousands of local people in the late 1990s, and to which the Russian return to Chechnya was a partial response? Since MSF has said so much about abuse on one side, and so little about abuse on the other, how can Ms. Bell, or anyone else at MSF, hope to make a serious claim for impartiality?
I hope that this will be an opportunity for Ms. Bell and everyone else involved in MSF’s North Caucasus operation to awaken themselves to what Ms. Bell describes as the “neutrality and impartiality are enshrined in MSF's charter”. I suspect that MSF has a fine charter, which has unfortunately failed to preserve MSF from ideological bias and institutional hubris.
Though it was not a point that Ms. Bell considered, I also wish to reiterate my earlier point that there are many fine NGOs doing important work in Russia. I find it very unfortunate that the imbalanced efforts of groups like MSF, HRW, and AI in the North Caucasus should now be contributing to difficulties for other organizations throughout Russia.