International Relief Organizations Research Articles

Years of Horror, Days of Hope: Responding to the Cambodian Refugee Crisis

The Cambodian refugee crisis is described from the viewpoint of 50 authors, including physicians, nurses, aides, and other health workers serving as volunteers or as staff of international relief organizations responding to the crisis. This was a truly international response with at least 11 nations represented. The reports of Cambodians participating in the relief operation further broaden the perspective. Cambodia is similar to Missouri in area and population size. The ancient civilization there has had some French influence from about a century of colonization. After the overthrow of the proWestern Lon Nol government by the communist Khmer Rouge in April 1975, urban populations were forced from cities, dislocating most of the people into rural areas far from their homes with little food and housing, poor sanitation, and virtually no services. In a pogrom along class lines, anyone appearing educated or prosperous was killed. During the next four years about 2

Introduction to “Disaster Resuscitology”

History of “Disaster Resuscitology.” The late Rudolf Frey, Professor of Anesthesiology at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, West Germany (see pages VIII-X), founded the “Club of Mainz” in September 1976, following initiating discussions with Peter Safar at the “International Symposium on Mobile Intensive Care and Advanced Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Delivery Systems” in September 1973 in Mainz (1), and the drafting of objectives and plans with the founding members in 1976 in Geneva and Mainz. Throughout the initiating discussions, Safar stressed the following: Presently active national and international disaster relief organizations are public health oriented. In mass disasters, such as major earthquakes, these organizations have been rendering effective aid to uninjured survivors, usually starting one day or later after the disaster event.

Israel Zangwill's project for Jewish colonization in Mesopotamia: its context and character

Zionist aspirations, according to some Arab leaders, are not limited to the region between the Mediterranean and the river Jordan, but extend to the entire area between the Nile and the Euphrates.' The present paper does not propose to discuss the possible validity of that suspicion. It intends, rather, to indicate one possible historical basis for it. Admittedly, official Zionist attention has always been centred on Palestine itself. Yet, especially during the movement's early years, this preoccupation did not preclude occasional forays of Jewish interest into other, neighbouring, lands. Indeed Herzl, some time before he secured a tentative British offer of a Jewish land of refuge in East Africa, undertook protracted negotiations into the possibility of Jewish settlement in El-Arish, Cyprus and southern Syria.2 Soon after Herzl's death, the Zionist movement largely abandoned such schemes. In particular, during the emotional debates over the East African offer during the Sixth and Seventh Zionist Congresses (1903 and 1905), the vast majority of delegates proclaimed their unswerving adherence to Palestine. Nevertheless, several prominent leaders continued to advocate the establishment of an autonomous Jewish region elsewhere. Of these, one of the more articulate was Israel Zangwill, the Anglo-Jewish author. Despite his own initial wish to 'live in Palestine and make it his home',3 Zangwill had long maintained that 'Zion is not the only possible centre for a restored Jewish nationality.' Indeed, at the seventh Zionist Congress he had led the minority call for an alternative refuge. To this end, he established the Jewish Territorial Organisation (ITO) and thereby split the Zionist camp.5 Four years later, he suggested one method whereby that breach might be healed. In a series of speeches delivered to mass audiences during the summer of 1909, Zangwill proclaimed the virtues of Jewish colonisation in Mesopotamia. This, he claimed, was a project which warranted the attention of both the Zionists and their opponents. The land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, he argued, suffered from none of the defects which the Zionists had found in East Africa. It was, after all, the historic 'cradle of the Jewish race' and no further than 'across the river' from Palestine. Yet, it also presented a legitimate field of enterprise for those international Jewish relief organisations which feared the political and particularist implications of the Zionist movement. Ultimately, the anti-Zionists would acknowledge that a Hebrew settlement in Mesopotamia need not be identified with a restored Zion situated in the traditional focus of Jewish nationalistic hopes. Such a colony would not therefore arouse their fears that the 'universal' mission of their religion was being betrayed, or that their own loyalty to the countries of their birth was being challenged. On the contrary, the project presented a unique opportunity for a combined effort by both poles of opinion.' Zangwill's timing was auspicious. At the turn of the twentieth century, the

The Work of Brothers to All Men in Bihar, India

During 1965-66, India suffered the worst drought in living memory the monsoon had failed for the third time in four years; food grain production fell by 19 per cent, and there was widespread famine. Mothers spent hours searching the cracked earth for grains of rice or wheat with which they could feed their children; and would walk miles to the nearest good well for a couple of buckets of water. Life was reduced to the absolute basics. Women would cut a sari into two and wear half each. When the Brothers to All Men (B.A.M.) team first drove into the village of Kosila the people tried to take the canvas from the jeep for clothing.Bihar is the most backward state of India, and the Gaya district is one of the poorest in the State. Thus B.A.M. established a team of volunteers in the town of Gaya in December, 1966. The first two volunteers began a well-digging programme in the worst-affected part of the district. This work was done in conjunction with the international Relief organization AFPRO (Action for Food Production) and was completed by April, 1967.B.A.M. started its own programme in May, 1967, employing villagers to dig emergency irrigation wells on a ‘Food for Work’ basis. For this project the National Council of Churches provided a jeep, and a supply of food grain with which to pay the villagers.

A new ICRC film

The International Committee has just produced a new film (16 mm.) entitled “Rescue” on the relief action which it has been pursuing for many months in Nigeria and in the seceding province of Biafra, in co-operation with a large number of National Societies and international relief organizations mentioned on several occasions in the International Review. Of 20 minutes duration, the film is in colour and can now be obtained from the ICRC Information Department in French, English or German versions.