Humanitarian Aid

When Congress turned down the President's contra-aid package three weeks ago, it kept its options wide open. Now House Democrats have trimmed out the lethal-aid part of the old request and come up with a "humanitarian" package that, if nothing else, could provide some cover when election time rolls around. Its impact on Nicaragua, of course, is not likely to be entirely humanitarian. The vote - perhaps as early as next week - comes while cease-fire talks are stalled in Nicaragua.

News reports have it that the Reagan administration plans to ask Congress for $100 million in military and "humanitarian" aid for the contras fighting to overthrow the elected government of Nicaragua. This comes almost 10 months after the administration assured Congress that, in exchange for $27 million in "humanitarian" aid, the U.S. would actively seek a political solution to the conflict through direct negotiations with the government of Nicaragua. At the time, the administration also indicated that it would not continue to condone terrorist attacks by the contras on Nicaraguan civilians.

Money from a $27 million program of "humanitarian" aid to the Nicaraguan contras was used to supply weapons to the rebels at a time when all U.S. military assistance was banned, State Department records and interviews show. Congress strictly prohibited using any of the $27 million to help the contras obtain weapons and ammunition when it approved the humanitarian assistance program in 1985. But records and interviews show that the State Department hired retired Air Force Col. Richard B. Gadd to deliver most of the humanitarian aid at the same time he was setting up a secret, supposedly private weapons supply network - and that he used his State Department contracts to offset his weapons delivery costs.

George Bush's policy on Yugoslavia is a cynical farce, designed to convince the American public he is trying to stop the horrors in Bosnia. In reality his policy is a subterfuge for doing nothing. It will only allow the atrocities to continue. The Bush policy is limited to sending humanitarian aid into Bosnia. The administration is pressing for a U.N. Security Council resolution that will authorize the use of force if needed to ensure that the aid is delivered. But there is limited value to sending in food and medicine to civilians while Serbian militias continue to shell, imprison and deport Bosnians by the tens of thousands for no other reason than because they are non-Serbs.

While the CIA arms pipeline to the Afghan resistance leaks weapons, another American program leaks wheat. Afghan resistance leaders have taken advantage of a $90 million U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) humanitarian-assistance program, according to experienced international relief workers. They say the mujaheddin have sold off tons of wheat, army jackets, boots and other supplies. "You have so many, many cases of open corruption," said Anders Faenga, the director of the Swedish Relief Committee, perhaps the most respected relief agency in Peshawar.

Some of the $6.7 million Congress has provided since September to the Nicaraguan contra rebels for nonmilitary "humanitarian" assistance has been used to deliver weapons, according to congressional aides. The funds were supposed to be spent for food, clothing, medicine and family assistance, and not for direct military aid, the aides said. But some of the money - the exact amount is classified - has been used to pay for flights that have delivered both nonmilitary goods and weapons to rebels inside Nicaragua, they said.

All right, so President Bush has decided America won't help the Iraqi rebels in their doomed military struggle. But does the administration plan to do anything to address the desperate humanitarian needs created by the rebellion? So far, there is no sign. In the south of Iraq, as people are being hanged from utility poles and bodies dragged through the streets behind tanks, 25,000 refugees have streamed into the American occupation zone with thousands more arriving every day. In the north, as Kurdish rebel leader Massoud Barzani urges the allies to stop the "genocide" against his people and to offer them humanitarian aid, three million Kurds are fleeing into the freezing mountains with little food, and 500,000 of them are heading for the Turkish border.

UNITED NATIONS BAGHDAD WARNED ON SHIITE ATTACKS America, Britain and France warned yesterday that attacks on Shiite Moslems in the marshes of southern Iraq could lead to the creation of a U.N. safe haven similar to the one for Kurds in northern Iraq. The allied envoys did not specifically call for a U.N.-protected zone for rebellious Shiite "marsh Arabs" in the south. But they strongly hinted at the possibility and nearly all the speakers asked for U.N. humanitarian aid in the south.

Shame on The Inquirer for using McCarthy innuendo smear tactics to bash George Bush, i.e., "linking him with Colonel North. " Why not show some of your old photos of Mr. Bush with Soviet KGB chief Yuri Andropov; that'll really get the juices of your readers going! Most amusing of all is that when you report on the left sending medical supplies to the communists, it is humanitarian aid; however, when the same is done for pro-democratic forces in Nicaragua, then it is made to appear something sinister.

President Reagan assailed congressional opponents of contra aid yesterday, questioning their courage and accusing them of trying "to pass the buck of responsibility. " Speaking at a Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting, Reagan turned up the heat on House Democrats, whose plan for humanitarian aid to the Nicaraguan rebels was defeated last week. "Courage hasn't exactly been the watchword of some opponents of contra aid," Reagan said. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the administration would produce another legislative contra-aid package, but he acknowledged that it could be a long time before there was another vote on the issue - and that the delay could be critical to contra fighters in the field.

The distance between Peach Bottom, Pa., and Wajir, Kenya, is 7,800 miles. That also happens to be the distance of Karl Frey's life trajectory, which has arced from growing up Mennonite on his family's Lancaster County dairy farm to helping improve children's health in a drought-stricken area of eastern Africa. Don't even bother asking Frey if he's got milk - the answer will be yes. "I did drink a lot of milk when I was growing up," said Frey, 50. "It is the best thing out there in terms of nutrients, right?"

BEIRUT - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened a donor conference for humanitarian aid for Syria on Wednesday by calling on all parties, especially the government of President Bashar al-Assad, to end the violence in the nearly two-year-old conflict that, by United Nations estimates, has left at least 60,000 dead. "The situation in Syria is catastrophic and getting worse by the day," the U.N. chief said at the conference, which is being held in Kuwait and has drawn representatives from more than 60 countries as well as several nongovernmental organizations.

Now that the U.S. elections are over, the Obama administration is applying a full-court press for a political solution in Syria. Finally. But U.S. officials still refuse to openly engage with, or give military aid to, Syrian rebel commanders, who will exercise major influence after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Instead, the Obama team has been outsourcing the role of aiding military rebels to Saudi Arabia and the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar, with the Saudis now taking the lead. At a meeting last week in Antalya, Turkey, more than 300 commanders from the rebel Free Syrian Army agreed under pressure from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to form a unified command structure, in return for promises they would get more advanced weapons.

An 80-member team led by Philadelphia firefighters on Friday ended an 11-day deployment to assist victims of Hurricane Sandy in the New York City area, officials said. The Philadelphia Fire Department and 26 other agencies in Pennsylvania and Maryland provided search and rescue and humanitarian aid in New York City and Nassau County, officials said. The Fire Department was the lead agency of the Pennsylvania Task Force One FEMA Urban Search and Rescue, which was fully activated the day Sandy made landfall.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Turkey accused Syria of "state terrorism" Wednesday after a sharp spike in the death toll from the Syrian civil war, and Iran came under new scrutiny with the United States alleging that Tehran is flying weapons to President Bashar al-Assad's regime across Iraqi airspace. With violence escalating in the nearly 18-month-old crisis, strains rippled across the region as Egypt's president urged Assad to take a lesson from the Arab Spring uprisings that deposed other leaders and step down.

BEIRUT - The Syrian government blocked a Red Cross convoy Friday from delivering badly needed food, medical supplies, and blankets to a rebellious neighborhood of Homs cut off by a monthlong siege, and activists accused regime troops who overran the shattered district of execution-style killings and a scorched-earth campaign. Humanitarian conditions in the former rebel stronghold of Baba Amr have been described as catastrophic, with extended power outages, shortages of food and water, and no medical care for the sick and wounded.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A leading coalition of American humanitarian aid groups has written to the CIA chief to protest the agency's use of a Pakistani doctor to help track Osama bin Laden, linking the ploy to a worsening polio crisis in Pakistan. Polio, a crippling childhood disease, is endemic now in only three countries, including Pakistan, which had the highest number of polio cases in the world last year. Health workers in this impoverished nation warn of an impending health catastrophe.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Food and water are running dangerously low in the besieged Syrian city of Homs, as residents frantically called for help amid government shelling that pounded rebel strongholds and killed at least 30 people Tuesday, activists said. Shells reportedly rained down on rebellious districts at a rate of 10 per minute at one point. The Red Cross called for a daily two-hour cease-fire so it could deliver emergency aid to the wounded and sick. "If they don't die in the shelling, they will die of hunger," activist and resident Omar Shaker told the Associated Press after hours of intense shelling concentrated on the rebel-held neighborhood of Baba Amr that the opposition has extolled as a symbol of their 11-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

JUBA, South Sudan - The World Food Program estimates that as many as a half million people could be forced to flee Sudan if the government in Khartoum does not allow humanitarian aid into the country, while a top U.S. official said Monday that a humanitarian crisis is looming. World Food Program Deputy Executive Director Ramiro Lopes da Silva said WFP is in talks with the government in Khartoum to allow its aid workers into the states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, which lie on the border with South Sudan.