Bücher von Francis M. Deng

"An estimated 25 million people worldwide are internally displaced-a significantly larger population than the 18 million refugees. Victims of civil wars, forced relocation, communal violence, natural and ecological disasters, and gross violations of human rights, they lack such human necessities as food, shelter, clothing, safety, basic health, and education. But because they remain inside their countries, they don't receive the same protection and assistance from the international community as those who cross borders and become refugees. Their plight, however, is drawing increasing international attention.In March 1992, Francis Deng was appointed Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General to study this harrowing situation. In this book, a substantially revised version of his report to the UN, Deng examines the causes and consequences of internal displacement, the legal standards for protection and assistance, enforcement mechanisms, the prevailing conditions in the affected countries, and the urgent need for an international response.In a compelling first-person narrative, Protecting the Dispossessed follows Deng's investigation and is based on interviews and information from governments, international organizations, individuals, and visits to several countries in Europe, Africa, and Latin America.Deng argues that sovereignty entails a responsibility to ensure the safety and welfare of the citizens and to protect fundamental human rights; the international community must uphold this standard and make violators accountable. While he acknowledges that steps are being taken in the right direction, he maintains that there is still much to be done. He presents a bold proposal, one that requires substantial changes in the international system, in the politics of major governments, and in the relations between states. He proposes a three-phase strategy aimed at monitoring conditions worldwide: to detect impending crises, alert the international community to make a timely intervention, and where preventive measures fail, to mobilize collective international action to remedy or at least alleviate the situation."

"For nearly a decade, international efforts to combat famine and food shortages around the globe have concentrated on the critical situations in sub-Saharan Africa. In the Sudan, the largest country in Africa, prolonged drought, complicated by civil strife and debilitating economic problems, has caused widespread human suffering. The Sudan illustrates the proverbial worst-case scenario in which urgent food needs have been denied, food has been used as a weapon, and outside assistance has been obstructed.The Challenges of Famine Relief focuses on the two famine emergencies in the Sudan in the 1980s-the great African drought-related famine of 1984-86 and the conflict-related famine that afflicted the southern Sudan in 1988-91. Francis Deng and Larry Minear analyze the historical and political setting and the response by Sudan authorities and the international community.The book outlines four problem areas exemplified in the response to each crisis: the external nature of famine relief, the relationship between relief activities and endemic problems, the coordination of such activities, and the ambivalence of the results.The authors identify the many difficulties inherent in providing emergency relief to populations caught in circumstances of life-threatening famine. They show how such famine emergencies reflect the most extreme breakdown of social order and present the most compelling imperatives for international action. Deng and Minear also discuss how the international community, alerted by the media and mobilized by the Ethiopian famine, moved to fill the moral void left by the government and how outside organizations worked together to pressure Sudan's political authorities to be more responsive to these tragedies.Looking ahead, the authors highlight the implications for future involvement in humanitarian initiatives in a new world order. As recent developments in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union demonstrate, s"

In internal conflicts in Africa, sovereign states have often failed to take responsibility for their own citizens' welfare and for the humanitarian consequences of conflict, leaving the victims with no assistance. This book shows how that responsibility can be exercised by states over their own population, and by other states in assistance to their fellow sovereigns.

Increasingly marginalized since the end of the Cold War, the continent of Africa is struggling to identify both the root causes and possible solutions to the maladies that continue to plague it.