0:00

The US tolerance for some

0:03

of the misconduct by the Israeli government and the

0:05

Israeli military here is setting

0:08

a precedent that is going

0:10

to come back to bite us in a lot of other

0:12

crisis zones well into the future. Welcome

0:18

to Global Dispatches, a podcast for

0:21

the foreign policy and global development

0:23

communities and anyone who wants a

0:25

deeper understanding of what is driving

0:27

events in the world today. I'm

0:30

your host, Mark Leon Goldberg. I

0:32

am a veteran international affairs journalist

0:34

and the editor of UN Dispatch.

0:37

Enjoy the show. Looking

0:52

for a trustworthy podcast to

0:54

bring you unfiltered viewpoints and

0:56

experiences on global health, tune

0:58

into Global Health Matters, the

1:00

podcast that connects silos and

1:02

amplifies diverse voices to give

1:04

you a holistic picture. Each

1:07

month, Dr. Gary S. Lanyon from

1:09

the World Health Organization hosts discussions

1:12

with guests spanning former ministers of

1:14

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1:26

Global Health Matters is available

1:28

on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and

1:30

YouTube. For

1:38

humanitarian professionals, people whose job it

1:40

is to deliver aid in conflicts

1:42

and disaster zones, Gaza

1:44

is unique. Unlike

1:46

other crises that suffer from lack of

1:49

attention, the situation in Gaza is a

1:51

top priority for governments around the world.

1:54

Accordingly, there is no shortage of aid

1:56

available to stem the crisis, which in

1:58

some parts of the world. of Gaza

2:00

has crossed the threshold to famine.

2:04

Rather, distributing that aid has become

2:06

the challenge, both in terms of

2:08

getting the aid through Israeli controls

2:11

and inspections, and then,

2:13

once in Gaza, getting the aid

2:15

to where people need it most.

2:18

My guest today, Jeremy Konyndyk,

2:20

is the president of Refugees

2:23

International and a veteran humanitarian

2:25

professional who served as head

2:28

of USAID's Office of Foreign

2:30

Disaster Assistance from 2013 to

2:32

2017. We kick

2:35

off discussing why humanitarian groups,

2:37

the United Nations and the

2:39

Biden administration are so concerned

2:41

about a full-scale Israeli assault

2:43

on Rafa in southern Gaza.

2:46

We then discuss the propriety of

2:48

a humanitarian pier the U.S. has

2:51

constructed off the coast of Gaza,

2:53

and why this crisis in Gaza

2:55

is just so different from other

2:58

humanitarian crises around the world. We

3:01

conclude our conversation with an important

3:03

discussion of the crisis in Darfur

3:05

and specifically the complicity of the

3:08

United Arab Emirates in supporting a

3:10

genocidal paramilitary. This

3:12

conversation is full of expert insights

3:15

from a veteran humanitarian affairs professional.

3:18

I think you will learn a lot from it. I know I did.

3:21

And of course, as always, please visit

3:23

globaldispatches.org to get in touch with me.

3:26

I love to hear from you. You

3:28

can suggest to me topics that I

3:30

ought to cover, people I should interview,

3:32

or anything else that is on your

3:35

mind. I respond to all my emails,

3:37

eventually at least. And so please don't

3:39

hesitate to reach out to me using

3:41

the contact button on globaldispatches.org. And of

3:43

course, as always, while you are there,

3:45

I so appreciate those of you who

3:48

have become paying supporters of this show.

3:50

You help us keep the lights on around

3:52

here. Thank you. Now

3:54

here is my conversation with

3:57

Jeremy Knine-Dyke, President of Refugees

3:59

International. Jeremy,

4:17

we are speaking at a time

4:19

of an expanded military campaign in

4:21

Rafa. The UN has been warning

4:23

against this. Humanitarian

4:25

agencies have been warning against this.

4:27

The Biden administration has also been

4:29

insisting that Israel not conduct a

4:31

full-scale military operation in Rafa, whatever

4:33

that means. Why is

4:36

there such profound concern over this particular

4:38

aspect of the Gaza conflict?

4:42

There are several reasons why there

4:44

is immense concern over, really, I

4:46

think any degree of significant military

4:48

operations in Rafa, but particularly the

4:51

kind of full-scale ground invasion that

4:53

the Biden administration has most strongly

4:56

warned against. The first is

4:58

that this is where most

5:01

of the population of Gaza has now

5:04

been forced to shelter. They

5:06

are doing so in extremely

5:08

difficult and austere conditions, really

5:11

sort of informal tent camp-style

5:13

conditions throughout much of Rafa

5:15

and the surrounding area. The

5:18

population there really has very

5:21

little protection and is extraordinarily vulnerable,

5:24

and there's really nowhere else safe that they can

5:26

go. The reason that they

5:28

are in Rafa in the first place

5:31

is because the IDF military campaign has

5:34

destroyed much of the territory north

5:36

of Rafa. The pictures of

5:38

what's happened in Gaza City

5:40

and President Kanyunas and other major

5:42

population centers north of Rafa are

5:45

reminiscent of what

5:47

Assad did in Aleppo or what

5:49

Putin did to Groszny. It's just

5:51

total block-by-block destruction

5:54

of residential areas. People

5:57

have fled that. and

6:00

Rafa are pretty terrible, but would

6:02

be even worse in areas

6:05

further north. The Israeli

6:07

government has proposed that people should

6:09

relocate to an area called

6:11

a Mwasi, which they are

6:13

calling a safe zone. It's not particularly

6:15

safe, but it's a very, very small

6:17

area about the size of Heathrow Airport

6:19

along the coast, kind of

6:21

northwest of Rafa. It's

6:24

a smaller area. It's not

6:26

developed. There are no services there.

6:28

It's really not a viable place

6:30

for people to relocate. So

6:33

there's nowhere safe for people to go. And

6:35

the rhetoric from the U.S. government has been

6:37

that the Rafa operation should not go forward

6:39

until there is a safe way to evacuate

6:41

people. I and a

6:43

lot of other humanitarian leaders are deep concerned

6:46

with that framing because it presumes that

6:48

there would be a safe way to

6:50

evacuate people, and I don't think any

6:53

humanitarian groups believe that to be the case. The

6:56

second big concern is that

6:59

most of the humanitarian operation in Gaza

7:02

at this point runs through

7:04

and out of Rafa. And

7:06

the area is also where there

7:09

are two key crossings, the Karim

7:11

Shalom crossing and also the Rafa

7:13

crossing. My understanding is the Rafa

7:15

crossing is now controlled by Israel

7:17

on the Gaza side of the

7:20

border, which adds further complications. Yeah,

7:23

and this is another reason why there is so

7:25

much concern about a full-scale Rafa

7:27

offensive. Virtually

7:30

all of the international humanitarian aid

7:32

that has entered Gaza since

7:34

the start of the war has gone

7:36

through the Rafa or Karim Shalom crossing.

7:40

And as of about

7:42

10 days ago when a new

7:44

wave of Israeli military activity started

7:47

in and around Rafa, the

7:49

Rafa crossing was shut down. Karim

7:51

Shalom was shut down completely for several

7:53

days and now there is a dispute

7:55

between the UN and

7:58

Israel about whether it is in fact open. The

8:00

Israeli government claims it is. The UN has been saying

8:02

that they're still not able to move things through there.

8:05

And it's been hugely disruptive. So fuel

8:08

stopped entering for several days and

8:10

began grinding the entire humanitarian operation

8:13

to a halt. There

8:15

was at least one day where fuel

8:17

entered in the past few days, but still

8:19

not nearly the level that's needed to sustain

8:21

even the kind of minimal humanitarian operations that

8:23

were going on before. And I was talking

8:25

to several NGO colleagues yesterday, one

8:28

of whom said one of the larger

8:30

international NGOs operating in Gaza said that

8:32

their operations were now basically at a

8:35

standstill because they did not have

8:37

the fuel to operate. And

8:39

I think that is just

8:41

a small preview of

8:43

what the disruption of

8:46

a full-scale military operation would look

8:48

like. And

8:50

that is hugely worrying because a

8:53

major reason why the South

8:56

has not reached the degree of

8:58

famine conditions that we're seeing

9:00

in northern Gaza is that humanitarian operation.

9:03

There's been very little and very inconsistent

9:06

humanitarian access to northern Gaza because it

9:08

is being blocked by the Israeli

9:10

military. But in the South, and

9:12

particularly in and around Rafa where the bulk of

9:14

the population now are, the access

9:17

has been, I'd say, still poor but

9:20

better than the access in the north. And

9:22

so if there is a

9:24

full-scale military operation, and given what we've seen over

9:26

the last week and a half by the extreme

9:28

disruption, even by these more so-called

9:30

modest military operations by the IDF,

9:32

if there were a larger scale

9:35

military operation in Rafa, it would

9:37

basically collapse the humanitarian presence

9:39

in Rafa and by extension collapse

9:41

the humanitarian effort across most of, if

9:43

not all, of the territory. That

9:46

would likely mean the famine would not just be in the

9:48

north. It would spread to the south as well. I'm

9:51

glad you brought up the situation in

9:53

the north because we're recording this on

9:55

Thursday, May 16. Earlier

9:57

today, the United States finalized this floating

9:59

human- humanitarian peer it had

10:01

constructed off the coast of Gaza.

10:04

If all goes according to plan,

10:06

aid will soon be distributed from

10:08

this maritime route connecting supplies and

10:10

Cyprus to Gaza via this peer.

10:13

I have my own thoughts on the wisdom

10:15

and propriety of this in my newsletter. I

10:17

describe this as a solution to a problem

10:20

that does not exist. The challenge of getting

10:22

aid to Gaza is not a logistical one,

10:24

it is a political one. And I'm curious

10:26

to learn your thoughts on this project

10:29

and its intended impact, particularly

10:32

in the context of a

10:34

shuttering of aid through those crossings

10:36

in Rafa. I thought

10:39

your characterization of this as a solution to

10:41

the wrong problem was absolutely

10:43

right. Another great way of

10:45

putting it, which I'll credit to my colleague,

10:47

Jayda McKenna, the CEO of Mercy Corps, is

10:50

that it's humanitarian theater. I

10:53

call it performative humanitarianism. It's

10:55

all of those things. It is

10:57

creating the appearance of addressing a

11:00

problem, but the problem is not in fact the

11:02

salient problem. So

11:05

in theory, what the peer achieves is

11:07

it enables a way to get more

11:10

volume of aid over the

11:13

border and onto the territory of Gaza.

11:16

What it does not fix is the

11:18

last mile distribution situation. And

11:20

it is the last mile distribution within Gaza

11:22

that is by far the biggest problem today.

11:25

The problem has not been just a

11:27

small volume coming across the border. The

11:29

problem has been what happens when something

11:31

gets over the line and is in

11:33

Gaza. And once a

11:35

truckload of aid gets into Gaza, and that's quite

11:37

a saga in and of itself, but once it

11:39

gets over the line into Gaza, for

11:42

organizations to move it, they need

11:44

security and the ability to operate safely in

11:46

Gaza. They don't have that. They

11:48

need access to trucks. There are not nearly

11:51

enough trucks inside Gaza. They

11:53

need permissions from the IDF to

11:56

move. That is very, very difficult

11:58

to obtain. to move,

12:00

they also need to have some assurance of deconfliction

12:02

so they can actually do that movement safely. And

12:05

deconfliction is the idea in humanitarianism that

12:07

groups that want to distribute aid need

12:09

to speak to armed groups in order

12:12

to ensure that they are not attacked

12:14

in the process of distributing this aid.

12:16

And one of the key challenges thus

12:18

far is there is no credible deconfliction

12:20

mechanism in Gaza right now. That's right.

12:23

Deconfliction is basically aid groups saying,

12:25

hey, we're humanitarians, we're going to

12:27

be here, please don't bomb us.

12:29

And it was the breakdown or

12:31

the non-existence of this deconfliction mechanism

12:33

that led to the World Central

12:35

Kitchen tragedy in April. I

12:37

wouldn't say a breakdown. I

12:39

would say the complete absence of any real meaningful

12:42

deconfliction process. It wasn't like

12:45

there was a working system that just failed that

12:47

one time. It is a system

12:49

that's been absent. And humanitarians

12:51

have been screaming since last fall

12:54

about this concern. Before the

12:56

World Central Kitchen strike, almost

12:59

200 Palestinians had

13:01

been killed. Palestinian employees of humanitarian

13:03

agencies had been killed by

13:05

Israeli military action, many of them in

13:08

facilities that had been nominally

13:11

deconflicted or on routes, moving

13:13

along routes that had nominally been deconflicted.

13:15

I think one example that

13:17

has really stuck with me, there was

13:19

this young girl, Hind, who was evacuating

13:22

in northern Gaza, I think outside

13:24

Gaza City, evacuating with her family

13:26

after her family received an

13:29

IDF evacuation order. So they were trying

13:31

to comply with an IDF evacuation order

13:33

in the process of complying with that

13:35

order and moving to the designated area.

13:37

They were then targeted by other

13:39

forces of the IDF. Their car

13:41

was blown up. She survived. She

13:43

had a phone. She tried to

13:45

call the equivalent of 911. The

13:48

Palestinian Red Crescent received the call and the

13:50

audio has been widely shared. They

13:53

then dispatched a team from the

13:55

Palestinian Red Crescent, a team of

13:57

paramedics. They were given a route to

13:59

move along by the the IDF, they

14:01

too were targeted. Their car was blown up.

14:03

They all died. So, you

14:06

know, here you have two carloads of civilians

14:08

trying to comply with IDF

14:11

orders that are nominally for their own

14:13

safety. And in both cases, that led

14:15

directly to their deaths. That's

14:17

not a situation where something like the

14:20

world central kitchen strike is an aberration

14:22

in an otherwise functional system. I think

14:25

the world central kitchen strike is the

14:27

inevitable culmination of practices we'd seen by

14:29

the idea since the beginning of the

14:31

war. So you know, when I

14:33

first reached out to you for an interview a couple weeks

14:35

ago, it seemed that we

14:37

were as close as we have been

14:40

to some sort of

14:42

ceasefire agreement. Those talks broke

14:44

down. It really does not look

14:46

like there is a ceasefire agreement

14:48

to be reached anytime in the

14:51

near future. So in

14:53

the absence of a ceasefire

14:55

or some sort of cessation

14:57

of hostilities, is there

15:00

anything that can be done

15:02

to increase humanitarian access and

15:04

mitigate the consequences to

15:06

civilians from this conflict?

15:09

Or really, are all

15:11

the eggs in like the ceasefire basket? I'd

15:14

answer that two ways. Is there a hypothetical world

15:16

in which that would be possible while the war

15:18

continues? Yeah, there is a hypothetical world where that

15:20

could be possible. And it's a world in which

15:23

the IDF takes seriously

15:25

its obligations under international humanitarian law.

15:28

Sadly, that is not the world that we're in. And

15:30

I think this is why from early on, humanitarian

15:33

groups have been calling for a ceasefire, because what

15:36

we've seen in the actual conduct

15:39

of the IDF and how they fought this war

15:41

is that they're not adhering to IHL. That

15:44

they are committing violations of that and

15:47

violations amounting to war crimes and, in

15:49

my view, crimes against humanity routinely.

15:53

And that is the reality. So

15:55

there's an alternative timeline here. There's

15:57

an alternative somewhere in like... parallel

16:00

part of the multiverse, there

16:02

is a version of this war

16:04

where the IDF is being scrupulous

16:07

about civilian protection, is being scrupulous

16:09

about protecting humanitarians, and

16:12

rather than picking fights with the UN

16:14

system, is trying to work with the

16:16

UN system to truly preserve and protect

16:18

the well-being of two million civilians

16:20

in Gaza. That is not clearly

16:23

the world we're in. And

16:25

it's not impossible. It's something that could

16:27

be done, and it's something that could

16:29

be done in an urban environment if there were

16:31

a sincere will to do it. But there's not.

16:35

So we have to deal with the world that we're in.

16:37

We have to deal with the conduct of the IDF

16:39

that we actually see. And this is something that I ...

16:42

It's a disconnect that I see actually in a lot

16:44

of the defense of the war and

16:46

defense of continued support for the war by the

16:49

US government and by some of the

16:51

pundits and commentators who speak out on

16:53

the war. They're defending a

16:55

version of the war that does not exist on the ground.

16:58

They're defending a version of the war in

17:01

which Israel is complying, in which Israeli assurances

17:04

of adherence to IHL

17:06

are credible. That's not

17:08

the world we're in. And I think the

17:10

reason that the World Central Kitchen strike was

17:13

so jarring and got so much attention was

17:16

because it punctured that imaginary

17:19

world in a way that was

17:21

harder to ignore. It was easier to ignore the reality

17:24

of that conduct when it was only ... This is

17:27

not my view, but in reflecting the view that

17:29

I think prevails. When it was only Palestinian aid

17:32

workers who were being killed, it was

17:34

easier to ignore. When it is

17:36

Western aid workers being killed by a

17:38

very prominent, very politically connected humanitarian organization,

17:41

that's harder to disregard. And

17:43

that's why that became such a political moment.

17:46

But it's part and parcel of conduct

17:48

that we've seen from the IDF throughout.

17:50

So I think going forward, if

17:52

there were a world where the IDF could

17:55

totally overhaul the conduct

17:57

of its soldiers, overhaul

18:00

its rules of engagement, totally

18:02

overhaul its systems and

18:04

mechanisms for deconfliction and coordination

18:07

with humanitarian actors, is

18:10

there a version of the war where

18:12

that could reconcile both the full-scale humanitarian

18:14

operation with the continuation of hostilities? Maybe.

18:18

That's not the world that we see

18:20

in front of us in Gaza, and

18:22

that's why we have to deal with the reality

18:24

we see, and just purely as a matter of

18:27

operational reality, leaving aside the politics

18:29

of it. As a matter of operational reality,

18:31

it will not be possible to

18:33

meaningfully contain and reverse

18:35

famine in Gaza without an

18:38

enduring ceasefire. So one of

18:40

the reasons I wanted to speak to

18:42

you specifically is that in addition to

18:44

having a long career in the NGO

18:46

sector, you are also the senior official

18:48

at USAID in charge of implementing foreign

18:50

disaster assistance. You are the guy in

18:52

the U.S. government in charge of getting

18:54

humanitarian aid to disaster zones. I'm

18:56

curious to learn from you. How different,

18:59

if at all, is the U.S. approach

19:01

to getting aid to Gaza from any

19:03

other crisis that you had worked on

19:05

during your time in government around the

19:07

world? It's very different, and there

19:09

are a couple of analogues that I would point to.

19:11

And I think one of the larger concerns that I

19:13

have here is that U.S.

19:17

tolerance for some of

19:19

the misconduct by the Israeli government and the

19:21

Israeli military here is setting a precedent

19:25

that is going to come back to bite us

19:27

in a lot of other crisis zones well

19:29

into the future. A couple examples

19:31

of that. One of the

19:33

big fights on Gaza has been

19:35

over Israeli inspection, that

19:38

the Israeli government has insisted

19:40

that they inspect every

19:42

inch of every truckload of humanitarian aid that

19:44

goes into Gaza. And

19:47

they then do that in a way

19:49

that is very arbitrary. They routinely will

19:51

reject entire truckloads over a single

19:54

item. There's no consistency

19:56

to how they do that, so the

19:58

individual soldier who happens to be manning

20:00

the inspection. that day has immense discretion

20:03

over what they reject and

20:05

very little accountability for how they exercise that.

20:08

And it's created this Kafkaesque world

20:10

for NGOs where they don't

20:12

have any explicit list of things they can't bring in.

20:15

And they have been trying to get this from the Israeli

20:17

government for months. What is the

20:19

list of things we cannot bring in? There

20:21

is no definitive list. It's up to

20:24

the judgment of the soldiers who are

20:26

manning the inspection checkpoints. And of course, Israel is

20:28

a belligerent in this war. And

20:31

so the objection from humanitarians has been there

20:33

is nowhere else on earth where

20:35

we would accept that one belligerent

20:37

party in a conflict gets veto

20:39

power over what constitutes

20:41

humanitarian aid for that population. And

20:44

just to give one example of how capricious and

20:46

wrongheaded this is, there are

20:48

huge problems with clean water availability in

20:50

Gaza. The water system has shattered. The

20:53

Israeli government, as part of their

20:55

collective punishment tactics, shut off much

20:57

of the water inflow that went

20:59

to Gaza because much of that

21:01

was controlled through Israeli territory. They've

21:03

turned that off. And so what we would

21:05

normally do as humanitarians in that kind of situation

21:07

where the system water is broken

21:11

is provide means for people to purify water at a

21:13

household level. And we would do that in a very

21:15

simple way with a bucket and with

21:17

chlorine tabs to purify the water so that it

21:20

is safe to consume. Corning

21:22

tabs are not allowed to go in

21:24

because chlorine is considered a dual use

21:26

substance by the IDF. And so this

21:29

very standard humanitarian tool cannot go in.

21:32

Now zoom over to Syria. One

21:34

of the big fights in Syria with the Syrian

21:37

regime for years has been their view that they

21:39

should have the same right. They should have

21:41

the right to inspect any aid that humanitarian

21:43

groups bring into northern Syria. And the U.S.,

21:45

to its credit, has held the line on

21:47

that and has really fought hard with Russia

21:49

and the Security Council over the years to hold the line

21:51

on that. Because there's

21:54

no just world in which the

21:56

Syrian regime should be allowed to inspect

21:58

the aid. that is going

22:00

into areas outside of its control. And

22:03

I don't know how going forward,

22:06

in that kind of a setting, the

22:09

US can credibly maintain in a way that

22:11

Russia and China will buy, that

22:13

the Syrian government should

22:15

not have the same right to inspect and reject

22:18

that the Israeli government has. When

22:20

you have a principle that rests on something

22:23

universal, which is that belligerent parties to a conflict

22:25

should not have veto power over what goes to

22:27

their enemies, that's the principle you

22:29

can apply. That's now gone, because

22:31

now the principle is, well, we like Israel and

22:33

we don't like Syria. But

22:35

that only holds if, in fact, you like Israel and

22:37

you don't like Syria. And of course, that's not the

22:40

case for Russia and China. So that

22:42

explodes that precedent. Another example

22:44

of this is in Yemen with the Saudis

22:46

in 2015. One of the things that

22:48

I worked on when I was at USAID, we

22:51

had a similar problem with the Saudis, where

22:53

they were imposing a naval blockade on

22:55

the parts of Yemen that were under

22:58

Houthi control. And it

23:00

was a collective punishment tactic. They were

23:02

frankly pretty open about that. But their

23:04

stated rationale was, well, we just need

23:06

to make sure that Iran is not

23:08

shipping weapons in. So therefore we have

23:11

to hold and inspect every

23:13

individual ship that goes into Houthi territory

23:15

to make sure it is not a

23:17

front for Iranian weapons. And

23:19

of course, then they were using that as

23:21

a way to greatly restrict anything from going

23:23

into those areas, including in particular fuel. So

23:26

what we orchestrated, and the US government really

23:28

drove this in partnership with the UN to

23:30

kind of call the Saudis bluff on this,

23:33

what we orchestrated was something called the UN

23:35

verification and inspection mechanism, which

23:37

took the inspection responsibility away from the

23:39

Saudis as a belligerent party to the

23:41

conflict again, took that away and

23:43

handed it over to the UN as an impartial actor. And

23:46

then if the Saudis had a specific intelligence concerned

23:48

about a particular vessel, they could relay that to

23:50

the UN. The UN would carry out the inspection

23:52

of those vessels in a way that was recognized

23:55

as good faith by all sides, and

23:57

the aid could flow. And so

23:59

these precedents that the U.S. has

24:01

not just supported but actively created

24:03

for Yemen and for Syria are

24:05

being shredded by U.S. conduct towards the

24:07

Israeli government right now. And that might

24:10

have really detrimental consequences down the road.

24:13

So I also wanted to ask you

24:16

about the humanitarian crisis in Sudan and

24:18

specifically in Darfur in Western Sudan. You

24:20

know, the situation there and in Gaza

24:22

bears some similarity because in both cases

24:25

key external players are important U.S.

24:28

security partners Israel and Gaza and

24:30

the UAE in Sudan. The UAE

24:32

is the main backer of the

24:34

genocidal rapid support forces. We've done

24:36

lots of episodes on that. Why

24:40

has it been so difficult for the

24:42

U.S. to work with the UAE or

24:44

impress upon the UAE the

24:47

need to put the brakes on its

24:49

support for the R.S.F. and increase humanitarian

24:51

access to Darfur? Obviously,

24:54

I don't have full visibility on everything that might

24:56

be said to them behind the scenes. But

24:58

what has been really striking is

25:00

how reticent the U.S. government has

25:03

been to even publicly acknowledge the

25:05

role that UAE is playing in

25:08

violating the arms embargo on Darfur and

25:11

directly arming the R.S.F. forces, which

25:13

is, you rightly say, are genocidal

25:15

both in the sense that they

25:17

are the descendants of the

25:19

Janjaweed that carried out the genocide 20 years

25:21

ago and in the sense that much of

25:23

their conduct today appears to amount

25:25

to extra genocide. And

25:28

that's all being directly equipped. It's a little bit like, you

25:30

know, if you've been handing out machetes

25:32

to the Interahamwe in the

25:34

midst of the Rwandan genocide. I mean, like, they

25:37

are being actively armed and equipped by

25:39

the UAE. And

25:41

apart from a comment

25:44

by Ambassador Thomas Greenfield in the

25:46

Security Council last week, which

25:49

I was glad to see if it belatedly,

25:52

the U.S. really has not

25:54

publicly acknowledged what UAE is

25:56

doing. Yeah, they've been biting their tongue. They've been

25:58

biting their tongue. And

26:00

this is not a factual

26:02

controversy. The UAE has denied it, but

26:05

it has been reported very credibly and

26:07

documented very extensively by multiple media outlets

26:09

and by the UN panel of experts

26:12

on Sudan. That is a threshold

26:14

of evidence that normally, you know, if we were talking

26:16

about Russia, the US would not be

26:18

holding back. And

26:20

I think there is a degree of deference that

26:22

the UAE is getting from the US government over

26:24

this because they want to work with UAE on

26:27

other things they want, you know, they're working with

26:29

UAE on countering Iran, they're working with

26:31

UAE and trying to partner with UAE diplomatically

26:33

on the Abraham Accords and they want UAE

26:35

to recognize Israel in that

26:38

process. And so almost

26:40

giving them a pass publicly on what

26:42

UAE is doing in Darfur. And I, you

26:44

know, in my view, it's just really, really

26:47

indefensible. What makes it even

26:50

more grotesque is that the way that

26:52

UAE is doing this is undercover of

26:54

what they're characterizing as a humanitarian operation.

26:57

So when they have been challenged about why

26:59

are you flying plane load after plane load

27:01

after plane load after plane load after plane

27:03

load after plane load after plane load into

27:06

Amjarras in northern Chad, their

27:08

argument is, well, we've set up a humanitarian

27:10

field hospital there for refugees from Darfur and

27:13

we're doing aid projects there. Now

27:15

Amjarras is nowhere near

27:18

the main refugee centers in eastern

27:20

Chad, which are much further south.

27:23

There's been no significant refugee population there

27:25

and certainly with no significant refugee population

27:27

there when they establish the field hospital.

27:30

And when you actually go in and look at what

27:32

they claim to be doing, which we've done, we've

27:35

done some open source reviewing on this, it

27:38

looks a lot like kind of

27:40

astroturf strategic communications operation intended to

27:42

create the impression that they are

27:44

doing a lot of humanitarian activity.

27:46

So there are many, many

27:49

press releases by UAE media outlets talking

27:51

about the work of the Emirates Red

27:53

Crescent in and around Amjarras, but

27:56

describing very, very small ball

27:58

sort of humanitarian distribution like

28:00

we went to this village and gave a few

28:02

food parcels, nowhere near the kind

28:04

of volume of what they're bringing in. And

28:07

so, you know, what they are doing is using

28:09

this humanitarian operation as cover

28:12

for arming a genocidal

28:15

militia in direct violation of an

28:17

arms embargo. And doing so with,

28:19

it has to be said, the complicity of

28:21

the emerith red crescent. And it's

28:23

hard to imagine that the emerith red crescent does

28:25

not understand or know what's going

28:27

on with this. You know, we have

28:29

raised this with the Red Cross Red Crescent

28:31

Federation in Geneva. I've discussed it with them

28:34

several times. My understanding is they have triggered

28:36

an investigation of the emerith red crescent over

28:38

this. I don't know what the outcome of

28:40

that was. You know, but in our

28:42

view, this is a direct

28:44

violation of the principles of

28:46

the Red Cross red crescent movement and should lead

28:48

to the suspension of the emerith red crescent. I'll

28:50

leave it there. Oh, that's a

28:53

bombshell. You're leaving it there. That's

28:55

fascinating. And will

28:57

we know if and when this

28:59

review has been completed? I

29:02

don't know. I hope so. But

29:05

yeah, anybody can do the research we did. It's

29:08

scrubbing a lot of UAE communications

29:10

releases that are available online. And

29:13

just for yourselves, if the level

29:15

of activity that is depicted in

29:18

those releases seems at all commensurate

29:20

to the volume of air

29:22

cargo that UAE has been

29:24

shipping in, and if the idea

29:26

of setting up a field hospital for refugees that

29:28

is a huge distance in a

29:30

huge country away from where the refugees are

29:32

actually living seems like a plausible place to

29:34

set up such an operation. Thank

29:37

you so much for your time. My pleasure. Thanks. Thanks

29:47

for listening to Global Dispatches. The show

29:50

is produced by me, Mark Leon Goldberg.

29:53

It is edited and mixed by Levi

29:55

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