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Mediawatch

AlertNet scours the world's media for provocative articles on humanitarian themes. Below are our choice pickings, updated daily.

The rhetoric of a "humanitarian crisis"
08 Jan 2009 17:54:00 GMT
Author: Joel Charny

Crises are the stock and trade of humanitarian agencies. Yet there is no consensus or clarity in the emergency response field as to what constitutes a humanitarian crisis. In a saturated global media environment, the temptation is great for agencies to designate particular situations as humanitarian crises to get attention to a neglected group of vulnerable people or to stigmatize the responsible parties. The rhetorical leaps from difficult situation to humanitarian crisis to massive humanitarian crisis to the worlds worst humanitarian crisis are as easy as skipping over a puddle.

In the absence of clinical definitions, the challenge for Refugees International and other groups that engage in humanitarian advocacy is to maintain discipline and consistency in the way we use language. For example, RI recently declared Somalia the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world. We had a brief internal debate prior to issuing a statement to this effect. While there are certainly other large-scale complex emergencies, including those in Afghanistan, Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we were able to agree that Somalia embodies a unique combination of large-scale vulnerability coupled with violence and internal chaos at a level that is preventing any sustained humanitarian response despite heroic efforts, mainly by Somalis themselves. The fundamental criteria we apply, admittedly unscientifically, are the scale of the emergency and the gap between the needs and the response.

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International Criminal Court prosecutor under fire
19 Aug 2008 13:46:00 GMT
Author: Joanne Tomkinson

The reputation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has lost its shine of late. There's a growing storm of criticism against ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, and some commentators have even called for him to resign.

So what are the charges being levelled at the five-year-old court, established to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes?

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The untold story of Iraq's refugee crisis
19 Mar 2008 16:28:00 GMT
Author: Alex Klaushofer

Coming back on the train from a news-free holiday earlier this week, idly flicking through the papers abandoned by commuters, I found myself plunged into the tabloid world of Iraq Five Years On.

One paper devoted half a dozen pages to the anniversary. There was extensive reporting of the ongoing discussion about when 'we' will withdraw our forces, an 'I told-you-so' piece by a vexed defence correspondent about politicians' failure to listen when it mattered, and a heart-rending account by a childhood friend of a promising young Englishman killed in the battle against Saddam.

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MEDIAWATCH: Somalia heads for crisis
12 Mar 2008 15:55:00 GMT
Author: Joanne Tomkinson

Violence has raged in Somalia since U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops entered the country in December 2006, and news organisations are cottoning on to warnings the country is plunging further into chaos.

U.S. magazine Newsweek sounds the alarm with a report that humanitarian conditions are deteriorating dramatically, in part due to difficulties getting aid into the country.

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Keep quiet about atrocities, Ethiopia warns aid workers
27 Feb 2008 16:44:00 GMT
Author: Joanne Tomkinson

Aid workers in Ethiopia's remote Ogaden region are currently facing an impossible dilemma. In order to carry on helping people in the east of the country, the government has warned them that they better keep quiet about allegations of army atrocities in the area.

International humanitarian staff have spoken anonymously to the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor about public executions, rapes, torture, arbitrary detentions and beatings of civilians by government forces in Ogaden, where most people are ethnic Somalis. ...

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