Pipeline 50 Years - WFP Remote Access Secure Services

WFP/Mercedes SayaguesWFP/Tom HaskellWFP/Paul MitchellWFP/Chris Sattleberger1990 Bangladesh 1992 China 1992 Cambodia 1994 AngolaStaff Memories:Passage to Sarajevo 1996The year was 1996, when I was regional logisticscoordinator in Sarajevo. The Dayton peace agreementfor Bosnia and Herzegovina had just been signed, andwe could start delivering humanitarian aid to what hadbeen an all-out war zone.But bringing food into the former Yugoslavia wasn’teasy. As WFP, we had to negotiate our right of passageinto Sarajevo, building relations with the Serbianmilitary. Moving north into the small enclave ofGoražde, a Bosnian stronghold, was even morechallenging, as we had to cross into the RepublicaSzerbska, the self-declared independent territory of theBosnian Serbs.Together with Peter Scott-Bowden, we organizedsmall convoys of eight trucks every week into the Serbheldarea. Everything had to be timed perfectly: thetrucks had to arrive in Goražde in the early morning,and be back in Sarajevo by dusk – otherwise we couldnot guarantee the safety of our Bosnian drivers.Those were the days when I began to swagger likeJohn Wayne at high noon. We made deals at Serbianmilitary checkpoints to secure the passage of ourcargo. I would get out of the Land Cruiser pretending Iwas relaxed and unconcerned about these illegalroadblocks. I was bearing gifts – coffee, cognac,newspapers – and we passed a bit of time, chatting,drinking coffee and cognac even before breakfast. Inthe end, they waved me and my trucks through with asmile. The same drill was followed the next week.The beauty of the operation was the impact that theseeight truckloads made on everyday life in Goražde. Byproviding food, the ordinary activities most of us takefor granted were possible: bakeries opened, schoolscould hold lessons and hospitals could take care of thesick. For me, this is what WFP is all about: whether itis Bosnia, Northern Iraq or North Kivu in DRC – wealways find a way to deliver help. That is why we lovethis job.– Martin Ohlsen, country director, DRCFloods, Droughts, StormsAlongside man-made disasters, nature also spread furtherdevastation during the 1990s. The numbers of poor andhungry people in need of help spiralled upward.Sometimes the appeals for assistance came fromunexpected sources.North Korea broke years of isolation in 1995 by calling forWFP aid to combat the effects of floods that had causedsevere food shortages. More flooding in 1996 and adrought and typhoon the following year crippled anagricultural sector already suffering severe structuralproblems. In the largest appeal in its history, WFP calledon donors in 1998 to provide $378 million to assist 7.5million North Koreans, one-third of the population.Staff Memories:A Phone Call out of the Blue…. Albania 1999“When you come to the office tomorrow, bring asuitcase and prepare to stay for a month in Albania.”This was the message I found on my answeringmachine when I arrived at my Rome apartment froma visit to Egypt. It was March 1999, I was a brandnew WFP press officer. It was the first time, buthardly the last, that a phone call out of the bluewould transform my life – if only temporarily.Pipeline 10WFP itself did not escape tragedy. In November, a WFPcharteredflight crashed into a steep mountainside outsideMitrovica in northern Kosovo. All 24 aid workers on board,including four WFP staff members, were killed.In the wake of the crash, WFP asked the InternationalCivil Aviation Organization to review the organization’s airoperations and make recommendations. Therecommendations were implemented, leading three yearslater to the establishment of the WFP-managed UNHumanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), an operation that nowferries some 400,000 people in and out of conflict anddisaster zones every year.Rwanda to DRCThe genocide and resulting upheaval that engulfedRwanda in the mid-1990s stretched WFP’s resources andtaxed the ingenuity of even its most seasonedlogisticians. Close to one million people died in thegenocide that was unleashed in April 1994. Two millionmore were displaced inside Rwanda and another twomillion fled into neighbouring Burundi, Tanzania, Ugandaand what was then Zaire, now Democratic Republic of theCongo (DRC).In one notable case, the exodus occurred with lightningspeed. After weeks of fighting, one million Rwandanssuddenly fled across the border into Zaire in just threedays – posing enormous logistical challenges for WFP, asdid the refugees’ re-location in one of the most remoteand inhospitable regions in central Africa. To avoid massstarvation, the refugees would need 60,000 tons of foodevery month.WFP rose to the challenge. Within 48 hours, an airlift waslaunched. Within a week, an overland route opened,transporting relief supplies from warehouses in Uganda tothe refugees in Zaire. To move the food and othercommodities, WFP borrowed trucks from other operationsin eastern Africa, including Ramiro’s Ethiopian fleet, whichwas still in business. “We even sent the Ethiopian drivers,”he said. “They were neutral and could move easily acrossthe enemy lines.”Tragically, the hostilities unleashed by Rwanda’s genocidespilled over into conflict in neighbouring DemocraticRepublic of the Congo, or DRC, that persists to this dayin spite of a formal end to the war in 2003. It ultimatelybecame the deadliest war in modern African history – atits height directly involving eight African nations as wellas some two-dozen armed groups. By 2008, the war andits aftermath had killed 5.4 million people, mostly fromdisease and starvation. Millions more were displaced fromtheir homes or sought asylum in neighbouring countries.Aya Shneerson, from Israel, has worked the war zonesincluding Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d'Ivoiresince joining WFP in 1998. In 2008, she headed the WFPoffice in eastern DRC, supervising the distribution of morethan 6.6 million pounds of relief food every month.Given the upheaval among populations and thecontinuing conflict, it sometimes seemed a miracle whena food distribution went smoothly. “There is no law andorder in Eastern Congo, and that creates a lot of panicamongst the whole population. It’s harder and harder towatch, seeing misery and trauma all the time,” she said.“Even after a decade on the job, I am not numb to thesesituations. In fact, I care more.”Albania, at that time, was an obscure, poor andhermetic country in the Balkans that had dramaticallymishandled its transition to the post-Soviet era. Butthat spring, a Bosnian offensive on Kosovo drovehundreds of thousands of Kosovars to their next-doorneighbour. A country that had, until then, admittedonly a handful of backpackers every year, Albania washit first by an overnight influx of refugees – swiftlyfollowed by a wave of military personnel, UN staff, aidworkers of every stripe, politicians, governmentofficials, charity workers, major and minor celebrities.The decaying capital, Tirana, with a single mainsquare and main street, suddenly was center of theuniverse.Everybody, it seemed, wanted a piece of WFP.Journalists wanted to get on our helicopters, donorswanted to give the refugees food, celebrities wantedto be photographed in the camps hugging a child.Days began at dawn when my cell phone rang andended close to midnight with take-away pizza. Whenit came time to leave, I was exhilarated, exhaustedand, yes, sad because I knew that I was ending aonce-in-a-lifetime experience, a plunge into a surreal,non-stop world that would never be repeated. Untilthe next telephonecall, that is.Heather Hill, as deputy countrydirector, visits school children inTajikistan.– Heather Hill